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 excitement 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 phanto
m 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.
He had lost all sense of time and place, nor did he recognize any of those who raged across his vision. He did not know who belonged to what side, who was good or who was bad, who was in power and who was not, who was a Christian and who was not, who had done evil and who had done good. There were men fighting each other, nameless, faceless, faithless, one human being determined to kill another, with whatever means they had, each set on hearing the death-throes of their fellow human beings. No other living thing was of value to them—and no doubt they would turn and kill their allies when they had finished killing their enemies.
To be alive and to be human meant to want to kill, maim, hurt, destroy. It did not matter what a man believed, or how he conducted his affairs, or where he lived. His merely being human meant he was the target of another’s wrath, another’s fury.
The most base animals do not turn on their own kind so, Rodrigo thought miserably as he watched men slaughter men, and women, and children. It hardly mattered who fought, who defended, who died—no one was to be spared the wrath of the others, and the world tumbled on with terrifying disinterest.
This was the past and the future, and Rodrigo was seeing all of it now.
All of the Cardinals had voted except Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi. No doubt they assumed he was waiting until the end to make some kind of dramatic flourish, since it went without saying that he would vote for Bonaventura.
But he could count as well as Castiglione, and read men’s faces better than anyone else in the room. If Somercotes were still alive, the Englishman would have translated Castiglione’s grandstanding into a guaranteed victory. But Somercotes, thank Heaven, had gone to his reward, and Fieschi had no illusions about the impact of Castiglione’s brief flare of leadership.
He thought about the demented priest, wandering around somewhere inside the basilica. Somercotes had taken the man by the collar so easily. If I had gotten to him first, he thought, he would have been my puppet. I would have hidden the ring, passed him off for a Cardinal, told him who to vote for... and then that fortuitous accident with the scorpions would have made everything so much easier. Idiots like da Capua—so easily swayed by the most puerile of mummery—would have taken the priest’s word as gold, and voted as he told them—the candidate I would have already suggested to him! It would have been an easy victory for Bonaventura.
Of course, Bonaventura had never been his favorite. He was a necessary tool, that was all. A mediocre instrument with which to accomplish a task of tremendous significance: to keep the Church away from the influence of Frederick, who was at best agnostic and quite possibly an atheist. Bonaventura was not especially smart, but he was doggedly good at keeping his eye on the prize: total emancipation from secular power. Beyond that, when it came to all the details of shepherding the masses, Bonaventura was not somebody Fieschi would have chosen to work with, in large part because he was too obstinate. Fieschi would have preferred somebody weak-willed, even feeble-minded, whom he could manipulate with the skill of a puppet master.
That is why he wrote Father Rodrigo Bendrito on the piece of paper. He could read men’s faces, and he knew—he knew—that he was casting the seventh vote for the crazed priest; and he further knew that it had not occurred to any one of them that Rodrigo might actually be chosen.
Fieschi finished writing the name, underlined it for emphasis, and rose. He walked to the altar, placed the piece of paper on the paten, tilted it so that it slid into the chalice, and returned to his seat.
As Gil Torres and Colonna rose to count the votes, Fieschi relaxed in his seat. He reached for his satchel and took out the piece of paper he’d found in Rodrigo’s satchel. His eyes skimmed over the words, not for the first time, and he took pleasure in the inanity of Rodrigo’s prophecy.
The high Cedar of Lebanon will be felled. The stars will tumble from the heaven, and within eleven years, there will be but one god and one king. The second son will vanish, and the children of God will be freed. Wanderers with come, bearing a head. Woe to the priests! A new order rises; if it falls, woe to the Church! Battle will be joined, many times over, and faith will be broken. Law will be lost, and kingdoms will fail. The land of the infidels will be destroyed.
Yes, Fieschi thought, repressing a smile. Yes, this man will serve us very nicely.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Under the Night Sky
After reuniting with Istvan, Feronantus called for a kinyen. “For all of our company,” he said, “both present and fallen.” Cnán felt both honored and troubled by the elder knight’s words. Nor was she alone in her feelings, judging by the expressions on the faces of some of the others. But they all fell to preparations nonetheless, building the illusion of a communal feast hall on the open plain.
She found a shallow depression, deep enough to provide some shelter from the wind. From its center, she could almost pretend the horizon was hidden beyond a gentle ridge. It must have held water once, as there was more wormwood clustered within the bowl than the surrounding area. The brush would burn after a fashion, sticky and smoldering until it dried out, and then it would flash with heat and light. Eleázar set to cutting down a supply of fuel for the fire.
Two hunting parties ranged north and south from the depression, engaged in an unspoken contest to see who could provide the best meat for the evening meal. Cnán privately thought neither team would find much, and her stomach grumbled noisily when Vera and Percival returned a few hours later with a pair of scrawny rabbits. However, when she spotted Rædwulf and Yasper a while later, her excited shouts brought the rest of the company running.
Rædwulf was walking beside his horse, who had been conscripted into pulling a makeshift travois that had been assembled from cloaks, rope, and one of Finn’s hunting spears. Sprawled on the makeshift frame was a deer with a spread of velvet-covered antlers. Cnán’s mouth watered at the sight.
“There are more out there,” Yasper announced with a grin, “but figuring out how to carry one back to camp was hard enough.”
“One is more than sufficient to best our paltry rabbits,” Percival said.
“I like rabbit,” Istvan pointed out.
Everyone ignored the Hungarian. Very little of what he had said since he returned had made much sense, and they could all see that he was lost in the throes of a freebutton mushroom madness. Though, how he had found them on the plain was a mystery no one had been able to explain.
“There’s a herd about an hour north of here,” Yasper explained, “And water too, I think. We could smell it, but didn’t have a chance to find it. These deer spooked at the sight of us, but didn’t run far.”
Feronantus grunted slightly at the unspoken details of Yasper’s report. A wild herd that knew enough of mounted riders to be wary, but not so much that they would abandon the sanctuary offered by running water.
Yasper slapped the side of the dead animal. “Tarandos,” he pronounced, winking at Raphael. “Aristotle’s stag. We must be at the edge of the world when we start finding the beasts of legend.”
Cnán guffawed at the lunacy of this statement, but the alchemist’s mood was too infectious to be deterred.
Fresh vegetables were in short supply. Most of what the company carried was dried or salted—the meager rations a soldier ate without noticing taste or texture—but Yasper, once he had convinced Feronantus that he wasn’t going to make the deer burn with witchfire, managed to blend
together a paste that he threw on the fire at regular intervals as the deer cooked. It should have been slow-roasted, cut steaks buried in a bed of white coals, but their stomachs all growled so loudly—and so constantly—as Rædwulf was skinning the deer, that they decided to erect a makeshift spit and cook the meat as quickly as possible.
The fire was going to be visible for many miles, and the smell of cooking meat would spread for a similar distance. They couldn’t hide on the steppes, and given everyone’s exhaustion, Raphael didn’t think such obscurity was high on anyone’s mind. Better to fight with a full belly than to be denied one final, solid meal.
They gathered around the fire as Feronantus cut heavy chunks of steaming meat from the cooked deer. Squatting, lying, standing, kneeling—none of them went far—they fell upon the meat with the appetites of doomed men. Even Cnán, who typically ate very sparingly, like a tiny bird pecking at seeds, attacked a piece of meat with both hands, eagerly licking at the juices as they ran down her arms.
We needed this, Raphael thought, his belly groaning as it stretched around the weight of deer meat. Yasper had produced a pair of skins filled with the Mongolian liquor—arkhi—and Raphael intercepted one as it came past him. He had not gotten any more used to the pale liquid, but he drank it readily enough. He coughed, his nose and eyes watering, and he passed the skin on to a laughing Rædwulf.