The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3 Page 13

  Which made writing Bonaventura on a slip of paper very easy.

  He folded the paper, rose, and walked to the altar. The paten was lying atop the chalice. According to ritual tradition, he set his piece of paper on the paten and then lifted one side of it, drawing it aside so that the paper tumbled down into the chalice. He replaced the paten on top of the chalice. The first of ten votes had been cast.

  With an explosion of bright light and trumpets, Rodrigo left the crypt of St. Peter far behind. A wind caught him, spun him about, pushed his head back on his neck, as if it might break him in two. He struggled, fighting the grip of the vision but he was held fast in an ecstasy of cracking bone and sacred paralysis. As he feared his flesh would tear, the wind subsided. It puffed lightly against his cheek-a gentle, almost friendly slap-and he found himself on a mountain slope.

  His dirty robes were gone, replaced by a thin white gown, and he stood barefoot on the verge of a grove of towering cedars, the aroma of them so thick and strong he could almost swallow it like nectar. He could not see the horizon beyond the trees, but the cedars were swaying wildly, erratically, as if they were trying to warn him of an approaching storm.

  As a furious darkness spread like ink across the sky, a whip of lightning snapped the roots of a nearby cedar. The tree let out a groan as the sizzling bolt-like none he had ever seen-solidified into hot, bright silver where it struck the earth, then burrowed into the soil like an auger. The soil blackened and glistened and retreated, then fled from around the cedar’s roots. The tree screamed, it was human, surely it was human-it sounded human-and looking up he could make out in the shadows of the branches a human face, neither male nor female but simply human, very human, and wise, a being who had ancestors and descendants and was being severed from both by the roots. The molten silver bolt, zinging and slicing, grabbed hold of the great tree’s roots like a hand around a baby’s throat, and shook it, shook it right out of the earth until the tree, screeching, horrified and uncomprehending, toppled, and fell with a groan and an earth-shaking thud. Its leaves and branches thrashed just inches from Rodrigo’s head.

  He wanted to comfort the tree but he was afraid to touch it lest the lightning sense his presence and likewise fell him.

  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 t
hat 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 with a final scream of defiance, Egypt gave up its possession of the Jewish race.

  And the people of Israel, free from captivity, turned their faces toward a barren desert, and set out on a journey that Rodrigo knew would last for forty years.

  Gils Torres, the aging Spanish Cardinal, stared balefully at the slip of paper in his hand. He had hated Gregory for keeping him in Rome when both he and the Emperor Frederick had wished his presence as imperial legate.

  “But you are so useful to me,” Gregory had crooned, “I must keep you here beside me; I cannot imagine how the daily life of the Papacy would function without you.”

  The flattery had disgusted Cardinal Torres. He knew it wasn’t true, but he could not gainsay the Pontiff’s wishes. And so his vote had been, throughout this process, for Castiglione-not because he cared so much for Castiglione, but because he knew that Bonaventura would have been Gregory’s choice, and he had been determined to vote against Gregory’s choice, period. However, after Castiglione’s defiance of Orsini, it was obvious that all the Cardinals would vote for Castiglione-possibly even Sinibaldo Fieschi, who had been Gregory’s most devoted sycophant. Castiglione had even won Torres’s own regard. Castiglione, clearly, would be Pope. Even if Gils Torres did not vote for him.

  Which was a relief, because it freed Torres to think about what kind of man he’d actually want as Bishop of Rome. Somebody as different from Gregory as possible. Somebody without any political ties or machinations. Somebody with the hardiness to survive the stress of the throne of St. Peter. He thought of the befuddled but earnest priest who had somehow-he did not know or care how-survived the scorpion attack. That man had also survived a brutal battlefield, although Torres did not know the details. He had been shaken by his experience, but his faith had not been shaken, and faith-despite the reality of necessary politics-faith was, after all, important in a Pope.

  Nobody else would think to do something as radical as vote for the distraught priest, but Torres thought it would be a good slap in the face to all the cynics and politicians in the room, if they heard his name called out once as a potential candidate.

  Cardinal Torres wrote Father Rodrigo Bendrito on the form, and rose to cast his ballot.

  In the heat and dust and the burning sun, the children of Israel wandered without rest, and Rodrigo wandered with them, a wisp, a spirit, unseen and unsensed by them, but suffering with them.

  Moses was long dead. This was some other exodus, some other journey, he did not know whither.

  He watched them under the blazing, punishing brilliance of the sun, and realized they had been traveling forever, were eternally traveling, in tents, with livestock, raising children as they went, and they would never, ever have a home. They were an endless caravan, this lost tribe of Israel, destined to wander forever. The king of this tribe was far distant, and they were moving away from the kingdom, not toward it. This tribe did not ride donkeys, nor did they ride camels. Instead they rode stocky, short-legged ponies. And they were no longer wandering around the deserts to the east, but coming directly toward Rodrigo and his flock and his home, determined to overtake everything he held dear.

  At the same moment he knew that, he was terrified to realize he was becoming visible to them, they were aware of his existence, some could already see him, even seemed to hear him, and these wary few approached on their short horses and raised broad brown faces and sniffed the air around him. Sniffed, then smiled like wolves, and nodded to each other.

  Rodrigo writhed on the tomb, consumed in a sweating, knotting horror beyond anything induced by the other visions, for he knew that this vision was real.

  “Clergy!” one of the soldiers spat in derision, and reached out to grab his collar. Rodrigo was no longer a ghost among them, a silent observer; he had become all too solid, and even as he pulled away, the man pulled him down, so that he sat kneeling upright by the man’s hip. “Beg for your life,” the soldier said in a nasty, mocking voice. Other soldiers nearby in the throng turned their attention to him and laughed with him.

  “I will not,” Rodrigo retorted in a shaky voice. “I entrust my life to the Lord and His angels, and surely they will come to save me.”

  As he said the words, the bright blue sky above them cracked wide open and brilliant celestial light shone through, impossible to look at directly, it was so glorious and proud. Rodrigo, with a cry of relief, held up his arms toward the light, averted his eyes, and thanked the Lord for his salvation.

  A large, beautiful angel, wings the size of tomb covers, came beating down upon these dangerous, swarthy enemies. Rodrigo’s outstretched fingers reached for the angel’s powerful hands, and he took in a breath in anticipation of being lifted bodily above these dangerous enemies.

  But a sound like hissing filled the air, and the angel, rattled with arrows, shuddered and fell like a beautiful statue to the ground right before Rodrigo’s feet. His body cracked and fell into pieces as if he were made of glass. The enemy screamed in delight and triumph, and Rodrigo, beyond all help mortal or holy, felt alien hands grabbing him, tugging, intent on tearing him apart.

  Cardinal Goffredo da Castiglione wrote the C of his name, hesitated, then stopped. He glanced at the other Cardinals who had not yet voted. They were either writing or deep in prayer, or meditating, or pretending to do any combination of the three. While the buzzing excite
ment of standing up to Orsini had passed, he could still remember what the moment felt like: his heartbeat loud in his ears; his cheeks warm with the rich flush of blood; the dampness of his palms. It had been so invigorating in the moment, but this morning, he was exhausted. He knew he had impressed every man in that room-several had glanced knowingly at him as they returned to their seats after casting their votes-but he also knew he could not possibly behave like that on a regular basis without having some kind of breakdown.

  He did not want the job. It was that simple. Here it was, in his hand, the time was right and he had earned it, but given the choice between the throne of St Peter or a comfortable bedroll, at this moment he would choose the bedroll.

  We need somebody younger, he thought. To save and serve Christendom in this dark hour, we need somebody full of piss and vinegar, somebody for whom such staggering feats of righteousness are as natural as breathing. It would take a kind of fanaticism to wrest the Church away from the dangerous extremes Gregory had brought it to, to return it to a path of service and spirituality, from a path of power and control.

  Happily, he realized, he had just recently met a fanatic, and a Rome-born one to boot.

  He raised the stylus and began to write a name.

  Rodrigo writhed on the tomb of St. Peter, both senseless and fully-hideously-aware of the world around him. The phantom hands still grappled with him-pulling his limbs, yanking his hair, fingers digging into his mouth. He saw other lands being burned and ravaged by strange warriors, other people driven from their homes by savage invaders. The world was full of bloodshed and cries of annihilation. The tomb vanished beneath him, and he lay on the ground in some place he could not recognize, it was so ravaged by war-perhaps a plain that had once been fertile, or a desert that had once been pristine, or a mountain valley, perhaps even a city in which all the buildings had been razed. He could not tell. He did not know if he writhed in calcined dirt or the dust of human bones.