The Mongoliad: Book Three

The remaining trees were wailing, branches flailing, trunks swaying, as if they would all bend over, reach down and touch the fallen cedar. Then the heavens shattered, split open by many streaks of lightning. Each tree was snatched and twisted by its topmost branches, as a hand might grab a woman’s hair, and each began to tremble as if possessed. Shaking and screaming with one voice, all at once they were sucked out of the ground. They rose a few dozen feet into the air, bare roots shivering off the damp dirt that had sustained them, and then immediately, and in total silence-

They leaned over and collapsed on top of Rodrigo. Trunks crushed him, branches thrust out to pin his arms, and twigs descended to poke out his eyes.

Screaming in horror, Rodrigo lay across the tomb, feeling the cold stone beneath his fingers-but also the press of the dying trees, and he could not break free of either the dream-the vision-or the pain.

Cardinal Giovanni Colonna’s family had feuded with the Orisinis for so many years that the genesis of the hatred had been forgotten. But that did not prevent each successive generation from clinging to the long-standing rivalry. Colonna, not a man to hate easily, hated Orsini, and Orsini wanted Bonaventura on St. Peter’s throne; therefore Bonaventura would never receive Colonna’s vote. In all the previous elections, he had voted for Castiglione… but it seemed to him now that all the Cardinals would be so enraged at Orsini that Castiglione would certainly get all their votes, especially after the magnificent way he had stood up to the Senator. So there was no danger that Bonaventura would win the election.

In which case, Colonna decided, he wanted to cast a vote that would remind everyone of the Church’s humble and mystical beginnings. For the Supreme Pontiff, I elect-he wrote on his slip of paper-Father Rodrigo Bendrito. He grinned, stood up, and walked toward the altar.

Ocyrhoe could hardly believe what she was watching. Nothing in her training had prepared her for the petty, irrational tension between secular and holy powers. Raised as she was to be fairly indifferent to the sanctity of either, the intensity with which both Emperor and Cardinal took themselves so very seriously seemed maddeningly bizarre. Surely men of such importance had greater concerns than this affected posturing to one another?

In response to the news of his excommunication, Frederick had simply sighed like a long-suffering parent. Then he smiled tightly at the Cardinal. “Excuse me, Your Eminence, I believe I have made a mistake. You are not the Cardinal I intended to liberate. Sorry for the long overnight journey, but I’m sure you’ll find the trip back to my castle in Tivoli quite a pleasant one on this lovely autumn day.” The Cardinal’s eyes blazed, but he said nothing.

“Cardinal Monferrato,” the Emperor continued, in an indulgent, conversational tone. “Seeing that you had the audacity to accompany your friend here without my permission, please step forward, ahead of your unsporting brother there.”

Monferrato’s eyes, already quite wide, showed full rims of white. He delicately took a step forward and stood beside Pecorara. “Yes, Your Majesty?” he said.

Frederick smiled briefly at the title, and again when he caught sight of Pecorara scowling at the other Cardinal. “I asked you to step ahead of your brother. You are merely alongside him. Get the hell in front of him, man, you are the one I am talking to now.”

Looking like a rabbit wondering which way to flee from two dogs, Monferrato took another careful step forward. Ocyrhoe could see Pecorara bristle. What silly games, she thought. Ferenc was still tugging Helmuth’s sleeve, hoping for a translation of what was happening. Ocyrhoe reached over and started to spell out the Latin word for what had just happened, but changed her mind at the last moment. Cast out, she signed. Surely he would understand that much, she thought. The youth glanced uncertainly at Frederick and then at Ocyrhoe. Ferenc shrugged, letting her know that he understood what she was telling him-this was something very bad that churchmen could do to other people-but he was not sure what it meant, exactly.

Frederick didn’t seem at all perturbed.

“Your Eminence,” said Frederick to Monferrato. “If you will give me your solemn oath that you will not perform this same heathenish ritual against me, I will liberate you, instead, and my young scouts here will take you to the Papal enclave. Do not look behind you at Pecorara; this is your decision, and you must make it on your own.”

There followed an eternal period of perhaps five heartbeats, as the Cardinal struggled internally with all sorts of demons whose power over him Ocyrhoe could not comprehend. It was transparently obvious that he would agree, so when at last he did so, with a single mute nod, Frederick’s smile of relief seemed exaggerated to her.

“Very well,” the Emperor said, his smile vanishing. “Let us not let this moment of enthusiasm escape. Horses are waiting for you. Get yourself to Rome and end this wearying sede vacante.”

Rodrigo struggled to rise, but the weight of the vision-of the dying trees, fallen all around him-held him fast. He tried to draw breath, tried to call out to God to ease his suffering-surely he had carried this weight long enough? — but his plea was cut short by a fresh, blinding flash. The ground was hard as stone, yet it shattered and gave way beneath him, and he fell a thousand freezing years through blackness, until suddenly he landed.

Was this Hell? It was hot enough-but no, the air was bright, and sunny, dusty even. This was some place on earth, perhaps in the Levant.

He felt and then heard a low, melodic rhythm and looked around to see he was surrounded by a thousand men, wearing only loincloths and sandals, sweat glinting from the ribs clearly visible beneath their sun-baked skins, groaning in pained protest against their burden: lined up in long rows pulling at a heavy rope, whipped by cruel slave-drivers wearing hardly more than they were, toiling away at the something that loomed over them.

Rodrigo looked up to see what he had already guessed would be there: a half-built pyramid. These driven men were tugging the next huge block into place, and he knew them, he knew them all: these were the sons of Israel, enslaved in Egypt.

The clouds rolled on overhead, tempering the heat of the day, and several men looked up in hopeful anticipation of a drizzle. But with a cough of thunder, the clouds darkened, opened great rents in the heavens-and the rain plummeted in sheets, but this rain was red and warm and sticky-slick: with shrieks of horror and disgust, the men held their hands over their heads and began to run around aimlessly, dragging their fetters and their overseers after them-all desperate for a shelter that was not there.

Rodrigo watched once more as if he stood before a stage spectacle; no blood fell on him, but he could hear it spatter on the ground and on men’s skin; the air reeked of it, a foulness that made him choke and gag. As the screams grew louder and the panicked raced about more frantically still, the rain of blood gave way to a slimy cascade of frogs-live frogs, landing in heaps below the angry green sky, their croaking glugs of fear and confusion almost as loud as the cacophony of the men on whom they fell. Many that did not split open and spill their innards were instantly trampled on and smashed flat; others hopped about and added to the bedlam, as Rodrigo watched, knowing with a sick feeling, exactly what had to come next.

For as the frogs ceased to fall, the entire dark cloud above descended upon the panicked men and proved to be an enormous swarm of flies, their buzzing louder than everything below combined-a ripping, whirring, cutting sound, as if their wings and jaws were made of metal and they had come to saw through every living thing they touched. They bit the men wherever they found flesh, and sharp cries from this stinging pain were added to the overwhelming din, like water dripping on cymbals above an avalanche of grinding boulders.

As Rodrigo watched, there followed in quick, awful succession the plague of lice, the plague of boils, the murrain of cattle, the plague of locusts-a new, striped yellow and black cloud, fascinating to watch-and then, all- consuming darkness. And finally, of course, death everywhere, every first-born son throughout the land falling at the whim of the steel-winged, pock-faced angel of death.

And again the scene shifted dramatically. Rodrigo felt the earth disappear beneath his feet, and he was airborne, high above the catastrophe, the crisis, sailing in the darkness, until he saw below him water that stretched out as if forever… and he knew what this was too: the Red Sea, parting for Moses and the Jews, and behind them, in chariots and armed on foot, came the teeming armies of Egypt… but the sea closed over them, and