The Mongoliad: Book Three

the crowd change when he showed it to them. They became more…” She searched for the right word.

“Entranced?” Frederick provided.

“Yes, entranced. They would have followed him if the Vatican’s guards hadn’t intervened.” She wrinkled her nose. “But, I saw the cup fall,” she said. “He dropped it, and I don’t remember where it rolled. I don’t know that anyone retrieved it.” She looked at Frederick’s cup. “And it was gold. Not silver.”

“Yes,” said Frederick absently. “And the one he produced this morning was silver at first, but it appeared to change color…”

Taking advantage of Frederick’s inattention, Ocyrhoe snatched a piece of the meat from the trencher and shoved it into her mouth. She was not used to pork-the unpleasant smell of it hung over the whole camp-and her mouth cringed from the heavy salting, but she chewed it nonetheless. She groped for her cup, gulping water to help wash down the dry meat. None of this stopped her from reaching for another piece.

Frederick watched her eat, the corner of his mouth turning up in mild amusement. “We used to be friends,” he said, “Cardinal Fieschi and I. I used to have a much less… antagonistic relationship with Rome. I went on a crusade for the Church, in fact. It was the only crusade since our initial conquest of Jerusalem that could be considered a victory for the Church, and I did it with very little bloodshed. Does the Pope reward me for such a victory? No. He excommunicates me. Twice.” He shook his head. “And now this disaster in Rome: the sede vacante, this strange Pope who may not be Pope, the disappearance of the Binders in Rome-oh, yes, I know about your missing kin-sisters-and, finally, the question of the Cup of Christ. What am I to make of this… oddity that Father Rodrigo placed on my table? That entranced members of my camp?”

He drummed his fingers on the table, idly chewing on his lip as he thought. Ocyrhoe kept eating, emboldened now by the Emperor’s mental distance.

“I fear Fieschi will be Pope someday, and at which time I will lose the friendship of a Cardinal and gain the enmity of a Pope,” Frederick said with a sigh. “Though I admit to some culpability in straining that friendship. I do admire Cardinal Fieschi’s self-control in not forcing himself upon the Church at this time, though I guess I can’t blame him. This election was a fucking disaster from the beginning.”

Ocyrhoe choked on her piece of meat, and it was only after gulping the rest of her water that she was able to breath easily again. “What do you know about my sisters?” she finally managed.

Frederick nodded. “I’m sure Senator Orsini was simply following orders, blindly being led by a hand that he thinks will continue to feed him, but he is, in the end, very provincial in his thinking. Which would be more ironic- given his status in Rome, that once great center of civilization-were it not for the larger game afoot.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What did Lena tell you when she sent you back to me?”

“She… she didn’t,” Ocyrhoe stuttered. “The Cardinal ordered me to come along.”

“He did, did he?” Frederick smiled. “And she said nothing to you before you left?”

Ocyrhoe tried to remember anything that Lena might have imparted to her that would be worthy of the Emperor’s notice, and she couldn’t recall anything specific. “She said I needed to leave the city, and when I said that I couldn’t because of the guards, she told me to be patient. Something would happen that would aid me.”

“And it did, in the person of the Cardinal. Not what you expected, was it?”

“Very little has been since… since my sisters vanished, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, well, I expect it will get stranger still yet,” Frederick said wryly. “Do you believe that the cup Father Rodrigo carries is actually the Grail?”

He seemed very focused on that question, and Ocyrhoe wished she knew what she was supposed to say. “I do not know, Your Majesty.”

“I suspect Fieschi was going to try to bind you to retrieving it for him,” Frederick said. “Though I am not quite certain why he thought that might be possible.”

“I don’t understand. Bind me how?”

“To a message. In the same way that you were bound by Cardinal Somercotes to bring me news of the Cardinals’ captivity.”

Ocyrhoe did not understand what he meant and she was uncertain if she could confess that or simply play along. She wished this situation were a dream from which she might will herself awake. Her very sinews felt as if they were about to leap out of her body and run back to Rome, leaving her a pile of enervated bones on the rug- covered ground of the pavilion.

Frederick, sensing her tension, laughed and slapped his leg. The joyous expression was strange on his unhandsome face, but she believed his jocularity was freely expressed. “Let us not talk of being forced into a course of action,” he said dryly. “Let us consider a choice freely made. Hmmm?” When she nodded, he continued. “Let us presume for a moment that you knew where Father Rodrigo and Ferenc had gone and that you were allowed to join them. Knowing what you know about the priest and his mission-which, I grant, is very little-would you be inclined to join him or stop him?

“How… how would I stop him?” she asked.

“You saw him in the marketplace. Do you think the guards would have been able to remove him from the crowd if he hadn’t dropped the cup?”

“It frightens you,” she said, sensing the truth of her words as they came out of her mouth.

Frederick sat back on his stool, his face becoming still and unreadable. “I am concerned, little one,” he said somewhat brusquely. “Do not conflate such into more than it is.”

“You want me to steal the Grail,” she said, the Emperor’s intentions as clear as if he had spoken them aloud.

“So does Cardinal Fieschi,” he said. His expression was complicated to read now: at once trying to remain friendly and confiding, but a sternness had settled on his brow. “Which of us would you obey?”

Ocyrhoe looked down, cowed but determined to maintain her position. “Why must I obey either of you?” she asked. “The Senator took my sisters and the Cardinal did little to stop him. You profess to knowing of their disappearance too, and what have you done to aid them? And yet you ask me to thieve for you? For the Church?” She shook her head.

Frederick remained still, studying her, and she focused on her hands to avoid his scrutiny.

“If I were to tell you-to insist, as a matter of fact-that the cup that Father Rodrigo has taken is, indeed, nothing more than a cup from my table, would that not make his action thievery? If you were to believe the Cardinal’s clumsy rhetoric, whatever Father Rodrigo is carrying is Church property, property that has been stolen as well. You would be returning something that does not belong to the priest. Doing so would be the right thing to do, in fact, and I don’t think it is such an onerous thing for me to ask of you.”

Ocyrhoe immediately looked up and stared at him, with the frank rudeness that usually only small children can get away with.

“No? Then why don’t you do it yourself?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer immediately, she continued. “If retrieving this cup is such a simple duty, then why do both the Holy Roman Emperor and one of the most powerful Cardinals in Rome want me to do it? Do you think I am too simple to notice the contradiction? Do you think because I am female, or common, or young, that I don’t recognize hypocrisy and manipulation when I see it?” Amazed at her own brazenness, she quickly amended, “Your Majesty.” But she kept his gaze.

Frederick was the one who looked away, blinking rapidly. “Christ Almighty,” he said to himself. “No wonder she arranged this.” He looked back at her, and grinned. “I apologize, young lady. Very well. I intended no offense, and I will prove it now by including you in my thoughts about these matters. Tell me, what do you think of this nonsense with the cup?”

Ocyrhoe’s thin lips pressed together briefly to control a flaring of anger. “You are mocking me, Your Majesty,” she stated.

He shook his head. “I’m not. Truly. I think the world of Lena”-he chuckled and shook his head-“and I would never mock one of her kin-sisters. Alas, I have been boorish enough to insult one, though, by implying she is simple, so please grant me the opportunity to make amends.”

Ocyrhoe took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, willing her fearful indignation to subside enough so she might think straight. He really wanted to know her opinion and it was abundantly clear to her now that he wasn’t going to stop asking until she replied. “In the marketplace, I saw the priest hold up a cup as if it were a relic. But I was not very close to him, and from what I did see, it seemed to be shiny but it was otherwise unremarkable.” She