The Mongoliad: Book Three

by Neal Stephenson

  Kim couldn’t help but smile, and to quell the boy’s confusion at their words, he rested a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Lakshaman—the man with the knives—will not fight again so soon,” he said. “Therefore it will be one of us who goes to the arena. To fight the Rose Knight.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently and leaned forward. “There are no more flowers to be picked here,” he said quietly. “This is the message I want you to carry. We are done picking flowers, but two will bloom in the bloody sand. Can you remember that? The two will bloom together.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Paten and the Chalice

  Rodrigo was grateful the young priest had allowed him to descend into the crypt alone. He had approached the high altar in the middle of the church, its towering canopy dwarfed by the almost incomprehensible height of the cathedral’s ceiling. A balustrade descended into the sacred pit below the altar, the walls lit by oil lamps. Those lamps have burned unceasingly since I was last in Rome, he thought, not sure how many days or hours or lifetimes that had been.

  He followed the steps into a cavelike chamber, feeling as if Mother Earth herself was preparing to take him into her bosom and relieve him of his burden. At the far end of the lamplit space stood a wall of red and white marble with a low, arching doorway in the middle. On the other side, he knew, lay St. Peter, Christ’s greatest disciple, in a repose more peaceful by far than anything Rodrigo himself had ever, would ever, know. The silence was absolute, as if the world had stopped, paused to breathe in the holy air of such a holy man. Even the lamps burned in ghostly silence—with none of that serpentlike hissing they made in the upper world.

  Carefully, worshipfully, Rodrigo walked in callused bare feet toward the archway. He was only half convinced the father of Catholicism would awaken to hear his prophecy... but if he didn’t, if Peter were too close to God to care now what became of the minions left on earth, it would still be restful to spend a moment by the crypt and pray to the saint for guidance.

  Rodrigo lowered his head and entered the crypt. This too was lit by an eternal flame, an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling just above the coffin. For a long moment, too long, he tracked a tendril of soot rising from the flame, studied it as he had studied the marble.

  That is the reward and the way of sacred repose, the blessed freedom to think such thoughts, make such observations undisturbed, alone, forever and ever.

  Resting on top of the coffin was a chalice and paten, as if the tomb itself were an altar and somebody had been in the middle of preparing for mass but was suddenly called away. He walked to the coffin, touched the cool stone and felt reassured by its simplicity amid the glamour that entombed it. He reached toward the paten and chalice, then paused, hand wavering slowly in the still, cool air, and picked up the paten. There were no communion wafers on it, and it was burnished gold, unsmudged by any fingers but his own. The chalice likewise looked freshly polished, pristine. He set the paten down on top of the tomb, and reached with both hands now toward the chalice. He cupped it between his palms, lifted it high, then brought it closer to his body. He looked inside.

  It was not empty.

  The Cardinals had arrived; Ocyrhoe and Ferenc had been washed and dressed in cleaner clothes that did not quite fit them—especially Ocyrhoe, who was wearing a spare shift and stockings given to her by Léna; both had been shortened and the shift belted like a tunic, but she still seemed to float in it.

  They stood now with Léna and Helmuth to the left of the Emperor. Frederick was dressed exactly as he had been the day before, except now he also wore a crown. As lofty as his clothing appeared, he himself did not look regal, nor did he speak at all the way Ocyrhoe thought an Emperor should. The wonder of the world indeed, she thought. It is a wonder he is king of anywhere. Then she chastised herself; Binders must be above such prejudices.

  The tent flap opened, and all of them stood at attention, even the Emperor.

  “Cardinal Bishop Giacomo da Pecorara,” said a young servant standing by the tent flap. A tall, elegant, obviously irritated older man strode into the tent. He was dressed in a much finer red robe than any of the Cardinals Ocyrhoe had seen in the Septizodium; in all ways he was better kempt than they were too. Head held high, he walked with long, slow strides toward His Majesty. Behind him followed another man, shorter and wide-eyed and a few years younger, dressed just like him. The second Cardinal had tucked a bulky object under each arm and walked with both arms out in front of him: one hand held a burning candle, the other hand cupped protectively in front to keep the flame from spluttering as he walked. Why on earth would anyone waste the wax of a lit candle in broad daylight? Ocyrhoe wondered.

  “And Cardinal Oddone de Monferrato,” added the page boy hurriedly, abashedly, as if he had not expected the second Cardinal.

  “Why have you summoned me hither, my son?” asked Pecorara in a voice as cold as winter stone. The tall man named Helmuth began to murmur quietly to Ferenc, who nodded, his eyes glued to the Cardinals. Ocyrhoe was glad her friend was finally able to understand what was going on around him, in full, while it was actually happening. She had never met anyone with so much patience.

  Frederick’s eyes glanced toward Monferrato and the candle. He let out a disgusted sigh, rolled his eyes, and cursed. “I’m setting you free, Your Eminence,” he said tartly to Pecorara. Pecorara must have already known this was the cause of the summons; his face showed no surprise or even pleasure. “You are no longer required to remain a guest of the empire. You are at liberty to go into Rome immediately and take part in the election. In fact, I would be most obliged if you would do just that, so we can get the fucking charade over with and I can return home. If, God forbid, the goddamned Mongols get as far as my empire, and I cannot protect my people because the Church insists on squabbling with me, then the Church is sin made manifest. So thank you for not trying to escape—well, not trying too hard, at least—and you are now free to go. These folk to my left”—and here he gestured to Ocyrhoe, Ferenc, and Léna—“will take you straight to the palace.”

  The Cardinal looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he pursed his lips. “I appreciate my liberty, but I am not the only one of God’s chosen whom you have imprisoned. You have interfered with the smooth functioning of the Church at a time when it is needed most. For such a sacrilege, there is but one response.” He looked over his right shoulder toward Monferrato. “Cardinal, if you please?” He held his hand out toward the junior Cardinal.

  “Oh for the love of Christ,” Frederick said, annoyed. “Not this again.”

  Imperturbable and solemn, Pecorara received from Monferrato a small handbell. He took the handle, turned back toward the Emperor, and with a flick of his wrist, rang the bell twice, sharply. “You have spread division and confusion among the faithful,” said the Cardinal severely. “By your own willful acts, you have separated yourself from the Church and may no longer receive the sacraments. You are not a person to be followed.”

  Helmuth blanched. Ferenc tugged his sleeve politely for a translation but the German soldier seemed too spooked to even notice.

  Pecorara handed the bell back to Monferrato, who clumsily attempted to receive the bell, hand Pecorara the other object under his arm, and still hold the candle upright. The transfer accomplished, Pecorara returned his attention to the Emperor, and Ocyrhoe saw he held an enormous book. She guessed it was a Bible, since she could imagine no other modern book requiring so many words. The Cardinal opened the book, held it out in the direction of the scowling Emperor, and then portentously slapped the left-hand side closed over the right-hand side, as if he had just captured an insect with it. Helmuth looked very uncomfortable, but Frederick himself only shook his head as if in derisive amusement.

  Pecorara now returned the book to Monferrato, and received the candle. Again turning toward the Emperor, he very gravely raised the candle level with his face, and blew out the flame. Helmuth shifted nervously; Ferenc was frowning in confusion; Léna’s face was unreadable; King Fr
ederick looked, more than anything, peeved.

  “Frederick Hohenstaufen, you are hereby excommunicated,” Pecorara declared. “It has been signified by bell, book, and candle.”

  For Cardinal Rinaldo de Segni, the world was an uncomplicated place. That is not to say that God’s creation was not incredibly complex; he knew his role, which was to devote his life to the message offered by God. Other men, like the Holy Roman Emperor, sought physical rewards: power, money, prestige. The Emperor, for all his learnedness, was nothing more than a greedy man who wanted to exert his dominion over the entire Italian peninsula. De Segni loved his Church and he would not suffer a Pontiff who was willing to submit the Church to the Emperor’s power; clearly, it should be the other way around.

  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 that 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.