The Mongoliad: Book Three

Tiber. From where he stood, a broad bridge, hundreds of strides long, led to the northwest corner of the city proper. This was the only part of the city that relied on water rather than walls to protect it.

He crossed the bridge and strode along the broad avenues. There was a vague memory of passing through here while he was feverish and wounded-how disturbingly loud and confusing everything seemed then… just a few days ago, was it? He knew where he was now, and he did not mind the bustle. He followed one road that led him almost due southeast, as Timoteo silently followed at his heels, lugging a water skin and saying nothing.

Rodrigo recognized certain buildings-merchants’ shops, this intersection, that ruined shrine… a pleasing familiarity washed over him with the soft autumn warmth of the sun.

After walking the distance of several bowshots-he was still thinking in terms of battle! — Rodrigo paused in the crowded avenue and turned to the boy. “Do you see that wall?” he asked, pointing to an entire city block hidden behind an unbroken stone barricade. Distinctive rooftops rose up beyond the wall, interspersed with thick tree tops, carefully trimmed. Timoteo nodded. “Do you know who lives there?” Rodrigo asked. The boy shook his head.

“That,” said Rodrigo, as if sharing the secret to a magic trick, “That is the home of the Orsini family. When I was a child, they were like powerful kings… in my imagination. But now I have actually met Orsini, in the flesh, and he is just a regular man like me.” Rodrigo smiled. “Perhaps even more regular. And should we move another thousand paces, along this street, on the left, we will come to an even larger and more magnificent palace. That is the home of the Colonna family. When I was your age, they too were great as kings in my estimation, and I feared them. But now I have met Cardinal Colonna, and he too is just a mortal man. In fact, he is friendlier than most men.”

Timoteo stared at Rodrigo without speaking, probably baffled as to a proper response.

“And when I was a child, everyone in Rome knew that those two families absolutely despised each other.”

“They still do, Father,” said the boy. “Everyone knows that.”

“Well then, my wise one, I will tell you something both enlightening and entertaining,” Rodrigo said, smiling beneficently. “Yesterday, I saw Cardinal Colonna and Senator Orsini in the same room, forced by circumstance to be civil. It was like watching actors in a play. I felt as if I was in the audience of a very subtle, special comedy. I thought, all those stories I heard when I was a child-and here are these two characters, acting them out, for our amusement!”

The boy smiled sheepishly. “What did they do?” he asked.

“Cardinal Colonna kept making jests at Orsini’s expense,” said Rodrigo. “It was not very Christian of him, but he was rather witty. And Orsini kept growling at him like this.” Here Rodrigo attempted to imitate the throaty rumble of a bear. The page boy grinned. “They were in front of lots of people they thought were important, and so they could do no more than that.”

Timoteo frowned. “You mean the Cardinals? Those are people who are important, aren’t they, Father?”

Rodrigo gave the boy a knowing smile. “My son, in the eyes of Heaven, we are all as little children. No one of us is more important than another. In fact, the more important we think we are, the less we stand out in the eyes of the Lord. Remember that, if you yourself someday become a man of God.” He looked around the avenue. “We have a ways to go yet before we reach our destination.”

“What is our destination, Father?”

“I fondly remember the area around the Colosseum,” Rodrigo said. “I recall there is always a nice bustle of people. I would like to be surrounded by a bustle of people. That way, if I have something important I need to say, I have only to say it once.”

He gestured for the boy to walk along beside him. Timoteo happily followed. Rodrigo knew that the boy found him both gentle and amusing, and likely regarded him as no more eccentric than the other priests.

Rodrigo wandered on, humming old melodies, following pleasant memories, turning, turning, taking this lane, then that, looking up between the leaning, lowering buildings. An hour later he saw that the young boy was no longer with him-had somehow lagged behind and was now out of sight and earshot.

Rodrigo smiled some more. All would be well; nothing was amiss. The boy would find him again, if God willed it to be so. Father Rodrigo Bendrito was blessed in such things, for Providence was with him.

Providence, and what he carried concealed in his robes.

“What do you mean he isn’t here?” Colonna demanded of the sheepish young priest. “You were assigned to keep an eye on him. He was half dead. Where could he have gone?”

The young man lowered his eyes, looking as if he wouldn’t mind a nice straightforward crucifixion instead of a grilling from the entire College of Cardinals. “He went into the crypt, and I allowed him time alone down there. He seemed greatly recovered when he came out, and I turned him over to the care of Brother Lucio, as I was scheduled to take confessions in the chapel. I cannot account for Brother Lucio’s care of him, nor do I know where Brother Lucio himself is now.”

Fieschi turned his attention away from this useless young cleric and seared the half dozen guards around them with his eyes. “Find Brother Lucio,” he ordered. “Bring him here at once.”

The ten Cardinals stood in the antechamber to the bishop’s conference hall. Despite the relief of being free from months of deprivation and now surrounded by arguably the most sumptuous decorations in all of Christendom, the ten Cardinals were so beside themselves they took no notice of their surroundings at all. Sunlight streamed in at an angle from one set of open doors. It was magnificent, almost literally golden, and it cast their shadows artfully across a marble floor. Not even da Capua, the most artistic one among them, noticed the beauty.

“This is a calamity,” Fieschi said angrily to the others. “The leader of the Church has gone missing.” He tried to remain calm, but a worm of doubt was gnawing in his belly. He glanced at Colonna and Capocci, wondering if they were responsible for this mishap.

“Perhaps we need to get another leader, then,” de Segni said in a sharp, bitter tone. “One who is voted into power because people want him in the position.”

“You are both overreacting,” said Annibaldi blandly. “The man is surely somewhere in the immediate area, and as soon as he is retrieved, we will explain the unusual circumstances. He is, after all, a man of God. He will surely do the right thing.”

Fieschi chewed his lower lip, glaring at Capocci. He was trying to account for the movements of the two clowns since all the Cardinals had left the voting chamber. Had they spoken to anyone since? Had either of them wandered off for a little while?

Rodrigo moved slowly through the crowded city, toward the main gateway to the Colosseum. It was perhaps a mile away, but his stroll took longer than it usually takes to walk such a distance-in part because of the crowds, but also because Father Rodrigo was in no particular hurry. He ambled more than strode, and with a small smile or even a sigh of nostalgia he imagined pointing out to young Ferenc places of historical or personal significance. He pretended for now that Ferenc was still with him. He wanted to thank Ferenc for bringing him home, and he wanted the boy to feel welcome in this city, welcome enough to call it home as well. He wondered where Ferenc was. He would have to find him, and make sure he was safe.

Somehow, the boys always strayed…

But there was something else he had to do first.

“But he was absolutely unremarkable,” Brother Lucio insisted, from his knees. He had been impelled to this level by the collective glowering of Cardinals-glowering so intense it seemed to add to his earthly weight. “I had been told I’d be put in charge of a demented invalid, but the man who was handed off to me was as healthy and rational as any man in this room.” He dared to look up at them, cringing. “I am always obedient, but this was an imposition on my day, which was already a very full one. It is the beginning of the entry of the grape harvest into the compound, and it is my responsibility to oversee it. So when a perfectly lucid priest assured me that he did not want to be a source of trouble, I did not see the need to doubt him.”

“Where did he go?” Fieschi said coldly.

Brother Lucio shook his head. “He said he wanted to go into the city, because he was a native and had not been here for a long time. I managed to spare Timoteo, one of the lay boys who help us with organizing the harvest influx. The two of them left over the Ponte Sant’Angelo.”

“When?”