The Mongoliad: Book Three

who were streaming into the tent.

First two heavily armed young men entered, wearing livery that featured a black eagle with widespread wings on the chest. After them came Lena and the commander. They were followed by a striking-looking man who was pale-skinned, pale-eyed, and nearly bald. The hair he did have-which covered much of his face and his bare arms- was a vivid reddish color. His tunic was far more ornate than those of the other men, and the entire front of it was covered with an image of the same black eagle, which gleamed with iridescence. After him came several more well-dressed men, all ruddy and tall, and all with the eagle insignia somewhere on their person; these were followed by two more armed guards.

The group, a dozen in all, entered formally, and took a seemingly ceremonial stance just inside the tent flap. Lena stepped forward and gestured for them to come closer. Ocyrhoe stepped forward cautiously, Ferenc behind her, a protective and reassuring hand resting on her narrow shoulder.

Ocyrhoe wondered who the man with the red hair was. He was ugly, in part because he was squinting, as if he could not see well. He looked stern, but not cruel. She had already met the commander; perhaps he was a general? Would he be leading the soldiers back to the Septizodium when they went?

“Ocyrhoe,” Lena said, “I have the honor of presenting you to the Wonder of the World, Frederick Hohenstaufen, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and King of Germany, Burgundy, and Sicily.”

Ocyrhoe recovered from her surprise, and gazed upon the man with respect, which she was sure he could tell from her gaze. But Lena said sharply, “You are to bow to him.”

Ocyrhoe hurriedly did so, and felt Ferenc do likewise behind her. “Your Majesty,” Ocyrhoe said. Ferenc made an earnest attempt to imitate the sounds of her address, but ended up mumbling nonsense syllables.

Frederick chuckled. “You are the first goddamned Roman who has bowed to me in months,” he said to the top of Ocyrhoe’s head; he spoke with a heavy accent, but she could understand him clearly. There was a pause, during which nobody spoke or moved. “It’s all right, you may stand up now,” he said at last, still to the top of her head.

Ocyrhoe straightened. “It is an honor to meet Your Majesty,” she said, wondering if his cursing was intended to frighten or intimidate her. Ferenc, behind her, had straightened as well; she was grateful that he made no attempt to imitate her words again.

“I have heard Somercotes’s message,” Frederick said.

Wanting to demonstrate her professionalism, Ocyrhoe quickly put her hand to her heart and declared, “Thus delivered of my message, I am like the fox, here unbound and unencumbered.”

Lena’s lips tugged back in an almost motherly smile. Frederick, as if he had not heard her, continued on, “Lena has informed me of what has transpired in your city, and it saddens me that Senator Orsini-what did you call him? The Bear? Yes, it saddens me that the Bear has treated his innocent people so monstrously. Whatever grievance you have with the Senator, I too share.”

Binders bear no grudges, she heard Varinia’s voice recite in her mind. Binders bear nothing but messages and knowledge. She opened her mouth to say it aloud, but Frederick seemed to not require a response from her. “Jesus Christ. I am sure you’d take as much satisfaction as I would in my men destroying that goddamned Orsini and tearing down his whole goddamned palace, but I cannot indulge the impulse. Why are you gaping at me?”

Ocyrhoe blinked, and looked at the ground to recover her composure. He spoke like the other children who ran wild in the alleys and tumbledown hovels of Rome. She’d never heard anyone in good clothing use such foul language-and he did it so casually. She had never wasted much imagination anticipating how an Emperor might behave, but she assumed his demeanor should resemble the Pope’s, and Frederick’s most certainly did not.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she said, and looked up again. “I am to return with your response to my message, and I am uncertain of…” She found herself struggling to find the right words. He isn’t a street rat; think of the ways Auntie and Melia taught you to speak. “I only wish to be certain of your reply.”

“Oh, I’ll reply,” Frederick said with a huff of bitter laughter. “You better damn well believe I’ll reply. But not the way he asked me to. If I send soldiers in there to storm the Septizodium, the Church will accuse me of all sorts of goddamned abominations, and as soon as they’ve gotten their new false idol on the throne of Saint Peter, he’ll only continue to blather at me the same way his predecessor did. Perhaps, instead of simply excommunicating me, they’ll put my entire empire under interdiction.” He started to pace about the tent, and his attendants shuffled closer to the canvas walls to give him space. “Not that I give a shit about that, of course, but my nobles tend to twist their hands like frantic ladies when the subject of eternal damnation comes up. They are like pustules on my ass, even when things are going well.”

Ocyrhoe bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself quiet; she was absolutely astounded at the man’s language and attitude. She herself had never felt any particular interest or attraction to the Church-the few times she had been inside any of the churches in Rome had been as part of her lessons with Varinia-but she knew enough to be respectful. She had been to several public events outside the Lateran Palace and St. Peter’s Basilica, and had watched in wonder at the reverence with which each person approached the Pope. Even from those whom she later learned did not like the Pope. And excommunication. It had to be a horrible thing, the way people in Rome spoke of it, but the Emperor seemed to think it was less troubling than a mild ailment of the stomach.

“No, my child,” Frederick continued in the same offhand tone, “I must take a different tack altogether. The Church rages against me because I am preventing some of its Cardinals from returning to Rome. They wish to elect a new pontiff, but their own rules have forced them into a deadlock. I knew Orsini had hidden them, so as to better prevent my spies from influencing their decision, but the decision to remain in that fucking nightmare hellhole of a ruin is theirs. Not mine.

“So, rather than leaping to take up this role they wish me to play-the part of the villain-and assaulting their precious conclave, I will opt to be the hero and salvage their byzantine procedure instead. I will not send troops into Rome; I will release one of the Cardinals instead. I will allow him to accompany you to the Septizodium, where he may join the others in damnable discomfort and imprisonment. May his vote end their tedious torture.”

He offered her a dazzling smile, clearly very pleased with his decision. “He will probably vote for the wrong man, but”-he threw up his hands and looked toward the roof of the tent-“there is no right man. Attempting to control the outcome has been a misguided waste of my goddamned time, frankly. It doesn’t matter who the hell they choose, he isn’t likely to approve of me. Let’s just get the damn thing settled; let the new puppet dance on his throne, let him waggle his finger at me and write his endless bulls and tracts, castigating me and telling me how to run the empire. I will ignore him much like the man before him; life will go on.”

Ocyrhoe did not know if she was supposed to respond to this diatribe (though she suspected a response was neither necessary nor required), and so she stood there mutely, a pleasant smile plastered to her face. How would she tell all of this to Ferenc? For all his patience, she knew he was eager to return to Rome with a complement of soldiers and stage a dashing rescue of his beloved Father Rodrigo. She glanced at Lena, wondering if the Binder had found someone who spoke Ferenc’s native Magyar.

Lena was staring at her, a thoughtful yet distracted expression on her face. She had seen similar expressions on the faces of artisans in the marketplace crafting something out of raw material. It was an expression of concentration; simultaneously assessing the half-crafted state of the object in front of them and comparing it to their mental image of what that thing was meant to become.

Having finished his proclamation, Frederick turned and said something to one of his officials in a guttural tongue that she did not know. The man responded tentatively, and at a nod from Frederick, bowed and scurried out of the tent. Frederick said something to Lena-in the same tongue-and she stirred from her reverie, her reply precipitating a rapid conversation. Frederick’s face lost some of its ready humor, but he eventually agreed to whatever she was suggesting. Even though she did not understand what they were saying, Ocyrhoe was fascinated by the brief insight into the working relationship between them-they seemed to be conversing as equals. Then, very abruptly but cheerfully, the Emperor bid good afternoon to Ocyrhoe and Ferenc, and strode out of the tent while they were still bowing to him. The entire retinue, except for Lena, followed.

“If I ever used half as much gutter-speak, Auntie would have whipped me,” Ocyrhoe declared when the entourage was well outside the tent.

Lena-very briefly-smirked. “His Majesty is renowned for his colorful and often blasphemous language. He grew up in Sicily,” she said, as if that somehow either explained or excused his language. “I hope you understood