“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Fieschi raged. “The Holy Grail doesn’t exist.”
Ocyrhoe heard a ragged breathlessness in the Cardinal’s voice as if he were struggling to hide a different emotion entirely. Panic.
“Oh, I beg to differ, my dear friend,” Frederick countered heartily. “A dozen or so members of my entourage, after setting eyes on the cup, wished to traipse after the priest on his idiotic crusade; my guards had to physically restrain them. I thank God I have some atheistic sentinels who were immune to the goddamned allure of the thing.”
Fieschi was still changing color, paling now. “What do you mean, follow after him? Where is he?”
Frederick shrugged. “No idea. I released him into the wild, a few hours back. I thought it was only sporting to give him a head start if Cardinal Fieschi was on his trail.”
“Goddamn your—” Fieschi started. The sentinels around the pavilion instantly stepped inside; soldiers passing by on the avenue beside them stopped and turned toward them, as if the entire camp was prepared to assault Fieschi should he shout again. He took a very large breath and let it out forcefully, holding his hands up in a ceding gesture.
Frederick regarded him calmly. “I have already been excommunicated this week—in a much more official manner—so I will look upon your outburst as nothing more than—”
“Where is the priest?” Fieschi demanded, his voice quiet but firm. “Why did you let him go?”
“Well, he was very intent on his mission,” Frederick said, in an approving tone. “And his mission did nothing to challenge my authority. His resolve was very admirable. I admire that in a religious authority, especially in one who thinks he is the Pope. Very useful. And appropriate. So I chose to assist him. He and his undomesticated little hunter friend. Gave them clean clothes, and a good meal, and plenty of supplies for the road ahead.” Then as an afterthought, “Oh yes, and a couple of horses. Some of my fastest, as they are both excellent riders.” He grinned at the expression on Fieschi’s face. “You are bursting with the impulse to call me a shithead. It’s all over your face, Sinibaldo. Unfortunately, there are witnesses who would be stricken to hear such language coming from the mouth of a Cardinal, especially after that previous outburst.”
“Frederick!” Fieschi snapped in a constricted voice. “What are you talking about? What have you done?”
“Did I not just fucking itemize it for you?” Frederick said with mock exasperation. “Would you like me to write it out for you? I can do it in crude pictures if that will make it easier for you to grasp.”
Ocyrhoe ducked her head and pursed her lips together as hard as she could bear. Hearing Fieschi spoken to this way was a reviving antidote to the events of the past days.
Fieschi huffed with frustration, turned away, and began to stalk around the tent like a caged animal. The sentinels followed him with their eyes, adjusting their positions to discourage him from leaving. Ocyrhoe watched his face change mood over and again, as a dozen different strategies and tactics were dismissed. Finally, he returned to his position in front of the Emperor.
“I am here as a representative of the Holy Roman Church to seek your assistance in the retrieval of Church property.”
“Go ahead,” Frederick said agreeably, gesturing toward the avenue outside. “I’m not stopping you. Though if you are referring to the Grail—and I find it curious how quickly you’ve gone from complete denial of its existence to calling it Church property—I should point out that I’m not entirely sure it is Church property. At least, not the physical manifestation of it. Oh, I’d be happy to have a long and interesting discussion with you about the metaphysics of the Cup of Christ, given what I’ve seen with my own eyes, but—”
“I am speaking of the man,” Fieschi ground out.
“The Pope is Church property?” Frederick asked.
“And all artifacts that he might carry,” Fieschi amended hastily.
“Oh yes, of course, my mistake,” Frederick snorted, waving his hand toward the door of his tent. “Be my guest, though I am out of fresh horses. Perhaps you could untether one of the nags from the carriage that carried your august personage here and ride it, though I suspect that would be a most uncomfortable ride.”
Fieschi again resorted to a groaning sigh to release his frustration. He paced about the tent, his mouth working around words that never came out, and then he stopped and whirled toward them again.
“You, Binder,” he said, directing his ire at Ocyrhoe. “You are the cause of all this. You have meddled beyond your reach. I will—”
“Has she?” Frederick interrupted.
Fieschi whirled on the Emperor. “Stay out of this,” he snapped, shaking a finger at Frederick.
“I’d like to, but if you’re going to blaming all of this nonsense on a small girl—who, I would like to remind you is not a true Binder, inasmuch as I understand any of their strange rituals and observances—I think that reflects poorly on your own judgment. Which, frankly, is already suspect. I would hate to see that reflected in, say, the next papal election.”
Fieschi slowly curled his finger back into his hand. “She helped the priest escape.”
“From a prison you put him in in the first place.” Frederick shook his head. “Sinibaldo, this is beneath you. It gives me great joy to watch you sputter and foam like an old toothless woman, but after awhile, the joy passes and watching you”—he raised his shoulders and sighed—“it fills me with an unremitting sadness.”
Fieschi curled his hand into a fist, and then realizing what he was doing, he lowered his hand. Regaining his composure, he attempted to affix a smile on his face. “This jest has been ill-timed, Frederick. I am under enormous pressure to facilitate the resolution of this sede vacante. Perhaps, you might rise above your own childish predilections once in a while.”
“I might,” Frederick offered.
Fieschi nodded curtly. “We are going to return to Rome. This meeting has been a farce. Given your blasphemous words concerning one of the Church’s greatest symbols and your carefree attitude concerning the disposition of Rome’s missing priest—”
“Pontiff,” Frederick corrected.
“Priest,” Fieschi snarled. “It is a tragedy that the Holy Roman Emperor, in a time of great religious strife, could not be bothered to respond appropriately to a call for assistance from a beleaguered and otherwise devoted Church.”
“Very nicely spoken,” Frederick said, clapping lightly when Fieschi finished. “I almost feel bad for indulging in my—what did you call them?—my childish predilections.” He winked at Ocyrhoe. “Almost.”
“Perhaps you will respond more appropriately the next time the Church seeks your assistance,” Fieschi said slowly, his face darkening again.
“Perhaps,” Frederick said. He waved his hand. “Thank you for stopping by, Cardinal Fieschi. You may go now. Oh, and when you say we, I assume that is limited to yourself and your immediate attendants, yes?”
Fieschi’s eyes darted toward Ocyrhoe.
“While I may not be leaping to your aid, Cardinal Fieschi, I cannot—in good conscience—let this girl return to Rome with you. Not after you tried to blame all of your current troubles on her. Letting you keep her would be akin to throwing her to the lions, don’t you think?”
Fieschi’s lip started to curl, and Ocyrhoe was worried that he might press his argument with the Emperor, but he came to a decision. “Keep her,” he snapped. “If she ever enters Rome again...” He left the threat unfinished, stalking out of the tent before any more could be said.
Ocyrhoe watched him go, both stunned and awed by what had just transpired. It had been delightful to watch the Emperor castigate the Cardinal, and in the end it had turned out as Léna had wished. She was safe, and out of Rome.
“Well,” the Emperor said in the silence that filled the tent in the wake of Fieschi’s departure. “That was an interesting conversation.” He looked at Ocyrhoe. “And here you are,” he noted.
Ocyrhoe had presence of mind to bow before the Emperor. “Here I am,” she said quietly, her mind still awhirl.
Frederick leaned forward, peering at Ocyrhoe. “Why did the Cardinal bring you along?” he asked. “Is it because he thought you might be useful to him?”
“They... they are my friends,” she said.
“And because they are your friends, Fieschi thought you might influence them, yes? Perhaps turn them against me?”
“I don’t know what the Cardinal was thinking,” Ocyrhoe admitted.
“I’m not sure he did either,” Frederick murmured. “It is true that I gave your friend and the priest horses,” he continued. “The Cardinal will send riders out to find them, and given the priest’s condition, I doubt they will be lost very long, and that concerns me because, unlike the Cardinal who prefers strut about and squawk denial like an outraged peacock, I am concerned that the priest is carrying something he shouldn’t. Something dangerous.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The Fight for Hünern
Kim took a deep breath as he stepped out of his cage. He’d dreamed of the possibility of freedom, or at least dying in the act of attempting to secure his freedom, and now, he could not quite believe this might come true. The rage he had expected to be coursing through him was strangely absent. As he stood free of the cage, he felt only an all-encompassing certainty of purpose.
It was time to repay what had been done to him, to all of them. He met Lakshaman’s gaze and saw the same unmistakable sense of clarity in the other man’s eyes. He turned to Zug, expecting to see the same expression, but his gaze was arrested by the appearance of several Mongol guards at the entrance to the ger.
The guards, summoned by the Lakshaman’s noisy attempts to break the locks, were not entirely caught off guard by the escaped prisoners, but they were startled by the pair of Rose Knights. They paused a second too long, uncertain who to attack first.
Zug closed with the foremost of the three, intercepting a wild slash of the man’s curved sword by stepping under the cut. Zug seized the Mongol by the wrist, and levered a powerful palm strike to the guard’s elbow joint. The Mongol screamed as his elbow shattered. Zug, seizing the curved sword as the man released his hold on it, delivered a spine-snapping kick to the man’s hip that sent him careening into his companion to the left. The third Mongol’s attack was met with steel, and Zug used the momentum of the bind to wind his sword around and into the side of his enemy’s terrified face.
The uninjured Mongol extricated himself from his screaming friend in time to receive a death blow to the head from the sword of one of the Rose Knights, and Lakshaman pushed past the Rose Knight to shove the remaining Mongol down. He placed a foot on his chest to hold him in place, and then broke his neck with a savage heel kick to the side of his head.
Zug walked out of the tent with a supple insouciance that Kim found both intoxicating and infuriating. The Rose Knights trailed behind him, babbling in their tongue. Zug ignored them, walking with a purpose that seemed to agitate the young knights further with each step. Kim jogged after them, Lakshaman trailing behind him. Finally Zug stopped, looked at the young men, and then quietly shook his head. “Khan,” he said, enunciating the word clearly so that the Rose Knights would understand.
One of the knights nodded, and pointed off toward a line of flags that indicated the location of Onghwe’s massive tent. Zug nodded in a different direction, and the knights started jabbering at him again.
Zug looked at Kim. “Make them understand,” he said.
“Why me?” Kim retorted. “I agree with them. The Khan’s tent is that way.”
“I know where it is,” Zug growled. “But my naginata is stored over there.” He pointed. “I want my skullmaker.”
Tegusgal’s leg was slick with blood, and some of it dripped off the heel of his boot, spattering Hans’s hair. Hans hooked one hand around Tegusgal’s boot, and flailed with his feet, trying to get purchase on the stakes in the wall. Tegusgal shouted, jerking his leg, and as Hans felt the dagger slip, he swung he swung himself to the right, throwing his hand out to grab at Tegusgal’s other foot.
He hung there for a moment, suspended between both of Tegusgal’s legs. The dagger tumbled past his face, falling out of Tegusgal’s leg, and he watched it bounce off the dusty ground. His hands were sweaty, slowly slipping off Tegusgal’s boots, and the blood from the dagger wound was making his grip even more tenuous. He wiggled his legs, trying to reach the spikes in the wall, and Tegusgal made a different sound—a scream of panic rather than rage—as he let go of the wall.
They both landed hard on the packed dirt at the base of the wall, and the breath was knocked out of Hans. His hip hurt from where Tegusgal had landed on him, and he tried to extricate himself from beneath the Mongol captain. His right shoulder ached, and when he tried to use his arm, his wrist complained.
Tegusgal groaned, responding sluggishly. He sensed Hans moving beneath him, and he tried to stop the young boy from escaping, but his grip was weak.
Hans spotted Maks’s dagger and twisted his body in order to reach it. His fingers could almost touch the bloody blade when Tegusgal grabbed his leg with much more conviction this time and held him tight.
“You—” Tegusgal snarled, but his words were cut off when Hans kicked him in the face. He fought back, managing to get a grip on Hans’s pant leg and, from there, gain control of the boy’s flailing leg. He grinned, blood running from his nose.
Hans grinned back. All of this struggling had allowed him to grab Maks’s dagger. He sat up and thrust the dagger with all his strength at Tegusgal’s face.
The Mongol tried to cover his head with his arms, twisting out of the way, and Hans missed Tegusgal’s head. The dagger slid into the gap at the top of Tegusgal’s armor, hitting the soft flesh beneath. Tegusgal shrieked and let go of Hans’s legs. This time, Hans scooted back on his rump as quickly as he could, putting some distance between him and the wounded Mongol captain.
Shivering with pain, Tegusgal yanked the dagger out of his neck, and a squirt of blood spattered across the dirt. Gritting his teeth, the Mongol captain started to push himself upright. “I am going to kill you slowly,” he coughed. On his knees, he fumbled for his sword, his fingers slipping off the hilt. He tried again, getting it half drawn, when a rock bounced off his chest.
He stared at it stupidly, wondering where it had come from. Hans glanced over his shoulder and saw a flash of movement in the rubble behind him. The Rats, he realized giddily.
Tegusgal shook off his confusion and finished drawing his sword. A second rock struck him in the face, and he shouted in pain, his attention finally going to the wreckage behind Hans. More missiles followed, most of them not much bigger than a bird’s egg, but many of them were thrown with precision, battering Tegusgal.
Hans’s Rats—the cadre of boys who had carried messages time and again into the Mongol compound—were shouting now as they threw rocks at the Mongol captain. Jeering and taunting. Fighting back.
Tegusgal raised his sword, trying to protect his face with the blade, and several stones rang off the blade. He was still trying to get to his feet, though Hans could sense that his intent was now to flee.
Hans scrambled for the dagger.
A particularly well-thrown rock caught Tegusgal in the center of the forehead, and the Mongol captain swayed, momentarily stunned.
The fusillade of rocks subsided as the Rats paused to check their handiwork. Tegusgal shook his head, spattering blood, and then he grinned at the urchins watching him from the wreckage. His face was dark with cuts and bruises, and his teeth were stained red. He wasn’t beaten. Not yet.
Hans found himself thinking about Andreas, and he didn’t hesitate. He jumped at the Mongol commander, stabbing with the dagger.
Tegusgal’s mouth changed shape, and his eyes got big.
Styg and Eilif had not been able to follow the conversation between the three escaped prisoners, but after a moment of firm hand gestures,
the stern-looking one simply shrugged and started walking. Away from the fluttering flags they could see over the tops of the tents.
“He’s not going toward the Khan’s tent,” Styg said.
“Does it matter?” Eilif asked, clapping him on the arm.
The camp was in an uproar, not because the prisoners had been freed but because Rutger and the other Shield-Brethren had commenced their assault on the gate. As Styg hesitated, listening to the sound of battle, he heard horses as well. The reinforcements had arrived.
“Come on,” Eilif said. “We’re going to lose them.”
Styg jogged after Eilif and the escaped prisoners. He didn’t know where they were going, but he trusted they were going to end up at the Khan’s tent.
Don’t stop, Rutger had instructed all of the Shield-Brethren shortly before Styg and Eilif had split off on their special mission. Kill every Mongol you meet. That is the only order you must remember. Kill them all.
It really didn’t matter how he got there, did it?
A group of panicked slave girls came running around the corner of a tent, and Styg darted to his right to avoid them. For a moment, he lost sight of the others, and when he was trying to spot them again, he caught of a quartet of Mongols trying to control a towering figure with dark skin and thick black hair.
The man was the largest human Styg had ever seen in his life, and the Mongols were trying to tie him to a post, but the man’s massive arms were like tree trunks and he was not cooperating readily. One of the Mongols was trying to lash his hands together while the others jabbed him with their spears. Each time he resisted the spears would prick him, though none so deeply as to do more than make him hesitate.
Styg glanced around for the others one last time, and then changed course.