The Mongoliad: Book Three

Privately, Ocyrhoe thought Father Rodrigo looked much healthier than she had ever seen him. And he spoke with a great deal of verve. His words were clear and direct. He spoke without hesitation or confusion, as if the message he was delivering to his rapt audience was one that he knew quite well.

It was a strange message, one she did not understand fully. He spoke of trees-cedars-being cut down and the darkening of stars. He spoke both of the need for faith and the end of the Church, and when she glanced over her shoulder at Lena, she noted that the Binder woman was mouthing words almost in concert with Father Rodrigo.

A disturbance rippled through the crowd and further discussion as to the sanity of Father Rodrigo was cut short by the arrival of other figures on the makeshift pulpit. From around the side of the mound of rubble came a young boy and half a dozen men dressed in white uniforms, each with an image of crossed keys emblazoned on their chests. Three of the men carried pikes, and were already pointing their tips down toward the crowd. The other three men rushed Father Rodrigo and brandished swords close to his face. He gave them a curious glance, then returned his attention to the crowd, calling upon them again to take up arms, to drive the darkness back to the East, whence it had come.

The guards looked disgusted and reluctantly sheathed their swords. One of them circled from behind and grabbed Father Rodrigo around the neck, while the other two lifted his legs and tied his ankles. They then tossed him like a pig carcass, pulled back his arms, and used a length of rope to bind his wrists behind him. The cup he had been holding fell clanging to the stones. The guards, still manhandling the unresisting priest, did not notice. Ocyrhoe did, and when she glanced at Ferenc, he nodded, indicating he had seen the cup fall too.

Behind her, she heard Lena draw in a sharp breath.

The crowd, released from the spell of the priest’s prophetic ranting, turned ugly. Swiftly, a chain of possession from the vendors’ carts materialized, and the angry citizens began to pelt the soldiers with vegetables.

The soldiers ignored the fusillade of vegetables. One even reached out and intercepted a flying cabbage, giving the crowd a brief bow and a crooked grin. Within a few heartbeats, they had efficiently draped Father Rodrigo over the largest man’s shoulder and departed in the direction from which they had come.

The crowd growled and surged to the left, as if it would move, in one unit, around the ruins and follow the soldiers and the trussed up priest. But as quickly as it moved forward, it fell back again like a wave on a beach meeting a sea wall. A phalanx of uniformed, helmeted men equipped with yet more pikes erupted into view. The crowd’s shouts of protest twisted into cries of alarm, then pain, and the mass swayed sideways and back to get away from the prodding, jabbing weapons.

Without another word, the five travelers grabbed each others’ hands and shoulders and fled down a small street that led south, away from the market. After a score of paces, they stopped and stood in a circle, staring at each other, husking out frightened breaths.

“What just happened?” Cardinal Monferrato demanded.

“Guards… from the Vatican,” Ocyrhoe said. “They wore different uniforms from the men who serve the Bear- Senator Orsini. They will likely take this priest to Saint Peter’s or the Castel Sant’Angelo. We should go there, not to the Septizodium.”

“Why? Isn’t the Septizodium where the Cardinals are being held?” Helmuth shook his head. “The Emperor does not care about this priest friend of yours, and neither do I. He wants us to go to the Septizodium.”

“Those soldiers take their orders from the College of Cardinals,” Ocyrhoe argued. “How could the Cardinals be commanding them if they were still imprisoned in the Septizodium? How would they even know-”

“Child,” Lena said sternly, and Ocyrhoe silenced herself at once. “What was the message you were given to deliver, by the English Cardinal?”

Ocyrhoe already understood the point of this lesson. “It was to bring the Emperor’s men back to the Septizodium,” she said in a resigned tone.

“You are under oath,” Lena said simply. “Does a Binder interpret the message that has been given to her or does she simply deliver it?”

Ocyrhoe lowered her eyes. “She delivers it,” she said. “But I think it is a waste of time to go there.”

“What you think matters less than what you are sworn to do,” Lena said, not unkindly. “It is a characteristic that many rely on with the Binders.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice, which caused Ocyrhoe to raise her head, but Lena, seeming to anticipate Ocyrhoe’s gaze, was already looking away. “Let us continue with what we came here to do,” she said softly.

Ferenc had been watching them all with increasing impatience, and at this lull in the conversation he grabbed Ocyrhoe’s arm and urgently pointed back in the direction Father Rodrigo had been taken. It took no translator for her to understand what he wanted. She gave Helmuth a plaintive look, and the German soldier brusquely translated to Ferenc what had just passed between the two Binders.

Ferenc squirmed and flung up his arms in frustration, then grabbed her forearm. She wanted to pull away-he could not possibly understand-but he did not. Lie to them about where we are going, he signed.

At that, she snatched her arm from his fingers as if she’d been burned. “No!” she said angrily, and shook her head. “Never. Never!”

“You obviously have no control over anything that is happening,” said Senator Orsini furiously. “How are you of the slightest value to me? I should demand payment for all the choice viands you have supped upon at this table. I might as well have thrown them to my dogs. At least I know their loyalty is solid.”

Cardinal Fieschi seethed and twitched with frustration. “Total control is impossible, and not even useful. There has been a hiccup in our plan, but don’t you see it has allowed things to unfold in a way that can be even more fruitful?”

“No,” said Orsini. “I don’t see that at all, nor do I care for your inference that I am too stupid to understand your clever plan. In fact, I am so unmoved by your cleverness-”

“Orsini, what is it we want?” Fieschi demanded. “We want a Pope we can control, do we not? One who will repel the advances of the Emperor.”

“We would have had that in Bonaventura. And it is your fault Bonaventura is not now the Pope.”

“If anything, it is to my credit he is not,” Fieschi shot back. “But even if I’d voted for him this last round, he would not have won. Do you understand that? It would have been another deadlock. Unless Frederick were to release one of the Cardinals he holds hostage, and allow that man to come back to Rome, it would always be a deadlock. Even after removing one of Castiglione’s supporters from the equation entirely, there was no way to avoid deadlock.”

“Deadlock is better than chaos,” Orsini huffed. “Currently we have chaos. I should never have trusted you to steer anything. I will remember that when we really do have a Pope in power. The Bishop of Rome and the Senator of Rome will have plenty to talk about, but you have lost your place at that table.”

Fieschi could feel the heat rise in his face so intensely he wondered if even his eyeballs had turned red. You imbecile, he wanted to shout at Orsini. Are you really so blind you do not see how much more is at stake? Rome means nothing compared to the world that the Church commands. You are nothing but a convenient tool, and you are rapidly becoming inconvenient.

Instead, he forced a tight smile and said, with tempered condescension, “If you will listen to me for but a moment, you will realize that I have actually helped to set that table. We have the Pope in a room a half mile from here. The citizens of Rome have already heard him speak and they were mesmerized by his rhetoric. We will be able to steer him in any direction we desire, and the masses will eagerly follow. He offers us power that would be unimaginable if Bonaventura had been elected.” He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, looking up at the Bear smugly.

Orsini made a dismissive face. “What do we care what the masses do?” he snorted. “They have no power.”

Fieschi altered his tight smile into a sympathetic one. “Come with me to the Vatican compound and you may change your mind. It took me two hours to get here because the mob was so thick. There is something hypnotic about that priest. Come with me and see for yourself, and then dismiss the masses-if you dare.”

Orsini shook his head stubbornly. “If he has that kind of power and he’s a madman, then he is extremely dangerous and must be killed immediately.”