The Mongoliad: Book Two

She smiled like sun breaking through a cloud, showing healthy ivory teeth. Just hearing his tone, she understood that he understood. She laughed and squeezed his wrists again.

I know you.

16

Exterge Lutum Oculorum Meorum, Ut Videam

The cardinals were like the squirrels in the parks in Paris: they pretended indifference, but as soon as there was a hint they might be fed, they grew animated and friendly. The cardinals milled about in the odd, shadowy courtyard of the Septizodium, attempting to warm themselves in the morning air-and not succeeding. The sun, while risen, had not yet climbed to such a height that its face could look down on the trampled grass of the Septizodium’s interior.

It was, as Colonna had said, a four-walled chamber, open to the sky, but with no visible means of entrance or exit. Other than the rectangular door cut into one of the walls near the base. Rodrigo understood the nature of their confinement now. The Septizodium was their prison and yet was still nothing more than a facade. The cardinals were seemingly imprisoned in this box, but from their vantage point, the Septizodium was simply the way they communicated with the outside world. Their real prison was the confused mass of tunnels and fractured corridors that honeycombed the ruins surrounding the historic facade.

Rinaldo Conti de Segni had sought to lead Rodrigo out to the center of the Septizodium, but Rodrigo had hung back, preferring to remain in the gloom still clinging to the walls. The others were gathered in the open space, and Rodrigo was not quite ready to meet all of them. For the moment, he wanted to assess them without undue influence, without the sort of manhandling that he had suffered at Capocci’s hands.

He was uncomfortably aware that the group was aware of his presence and they were also assessing him. Your vote may well decide the election.

He did not understand why God had sent him here-on a fool’s errand-and the only explanation that made any sense to him was that God was not yet done with him. Perhaps God was giving him direction, even now, through the words of these men. What better way to discover a worthy recipient of God’s message than to be instrumental in his elevation?

In the courtyard, the buffoons, as de Segni referred to them-Capocci and Colonna-had met Robert of Somercotes, the man whom Rodrigo had seen first after awakening last night. Somercotes nodded to Rodrigo; Rodrigo, uncomfortably aware of how much he did not know about everything going on around him, thought it must mean something that Somercotes and those two were friendly with each other-but what? He had no idea.

The three of them were sitting on a makeshift stone bench, a slab of granite that had been laid across the ragged caps of several columns, and Rodrigo wondered if Capocci had been responsible for the ad hoc furniture. Once Somercotes sat, it was easy to mistake him for a graying statue, if it weren’t for the subtle movement of his head as he tracked the others wandering through the dust-laden sunlight. Capocci, in comparison, was a frenzy of movement. He sat, even though he didn’t seem to want to, and even sitting, he couldn’t keep his hands still. Beside his end of the bench was a pile of debris. Anxious for activity, Capocci scooped up a handful of stones from the pile. Without looking at them, his fingers sorted and cataloged them. He arranged them, large to small, between the fingers of one hand, like a juggler.

Nearby, a curly haired man, not much older than Rodrigo himself, plucked random notes on a highly ornamented lute. The courtyard was too big-and the man too indifferent-for the sound to carry far, and his song was like scattered rain on a thatched roof. The man’s eyes were closed, and his lips curled around a private prayer. Or a ribald stanza. It was hard to tell, though Rodrigo might have guessed the latter from the way the minstrel’s lips curved up, as if to punctuate a line of verse.

De Segni followed Rodrigo’s eyes to the lutenist. “That is Tommaso da Capua,” he said in a disapproving voice.

Da Capua, like the musical term da capo, Rodrigo made the mental note. Another easy one to remember.

“As his expression may suggest,” de Segni continued, “he is not the holiest of men.” He lowered his gravelly voice almost to a whisper. “His vote reflects that, of course.” More vulpine than ever, he looked shrewdly at Rodrigo.

Rodrigo tried to make sense of these words. His vote reflects that, of course. Disapproval. De Segni and Tommaso were on opposing sides. But who was the candidate, and why was there dissension? How could men of the cloth, leaders of Christendom, adopt an air of near enmity toward others of their kind?

Rodrigo knew what an enemy was. He had learned on the death fields of Mohi. It was impossible for anyone in Rome to truly be an enemy to anyone else in Rome. If any good Christian behaved otherwise-especially men of the Church-there was only one reason for such behavior.

The end times, Rodrigo realized. The Day of Judgment. The inevitable approach of his vision-his persistent and perpetual nightmare.

His burden.

He kept staring around at the assembly, as they kept staring at him. On the other side of the courtyard sat a small cluster of cardinal, their heads bent together in quiet conference. Two were advanced in age, faces lined and worn like the stones of the Septizodium. De Segni, still watching Rodrigo without appearing to be doing so, noted where his attention had wandered. “You are interested in our more venerable brethren?” he asked approvingly. It was the first time, Rodrigo realized with a start, that de Segni had expressed approval-of anyone.

One of the pair of elders had a drooping face, as if his skeleton were shrinking inside his skin; the other had a mane of white hair and eyebrows to match. The combination lent his face an antique, leonine aspect. “Romano Bonaventura and Gil Torres,” de Segni said, still surreptitiously measuring Rodrigo’s response (and he had none, for he did not know these men). “The two with them, the younger ones, are Goffredo Castiglione and my kinsman Stefano de Normandis dei Conti.”

These two stood literally in the shadows of their elders, subservient in manner and attention. Rodrigo shook his head, chastising himself for failing to think of mnemonics for this cluster. Collectively, he supposed he could think of them as the group fox-faced Rinaldo approved of, but that did not, in itself, tell him anything about them-or about the undercurrent of tension that permeated the gloomy cloister.

A fifth man was listening intently to the elders’ debate, a pleasant smile on his face. Of all the cardinals in the room, with the exception of the so-called buffoons, this fellow was the most at ease. His smile was neither beatific nor idiotic, but just the natural expression of a relaxed and comfortable man. “The smiling one is Riccardo Annibaldi,” de Segni said, not sharing the relaxed cardinal’s expression. “He is a…free thinker.”

Unreliable, Rodrigo translated, trying to wed the cardinal’s name to the word in a way that made sense. Anni-B, Unreli-B… It almost worked.

He realized, with a start, there was one more cardinal, haunting the courtyard’s doorway. He was watching them all-especially de Segni and Rodrigo-like a predatory beast who, having recently fed, was in no rush to take another victim but was nonetheless examining the herd for signs of weakness. He met Father Rodrigo’s gaze and smiled slightly, but the expression made the priest shiver and look away.

Without meaning to, he locked eyes with de Segni and held them, like a drowning man holds on to a piece of driftwood. De Segni allowed himself a small, private smile. “Someone you recognize?” he asked.

Rodrigo shook his head, returning his attention to the trio of Capocci, Colonna, and Somercotes. “No,” he said and stopped himself from saying any more. Just the face of evil, he thought, chiding himself for such a foolish reaction. He was just a singular presence, that was all-the sort of man who commanded a room simply by the very indifference he projected upon deigning to enter.

“Sinibaldo Fieschi,” de Segni said after looking over his shoulder. “Our late Pontiff’s right-hand man. The man who best embodies the spirit of Gregory IX’s wishes and desires. Would you like me to introduce you?” Rinaldo’s gaze-focused on Rodrigo-was so piercing, so searching, that it made the young priest dizzy.