The Mongoliad: Book Three

by Neal Stephenson

  He had a responsibility now, a calling; he understood that, just as he understood that until today, he could not have guessed why he was really summoned to Rome. To give a message to the Pope? Ha! What good would that do? One mortal sharing words with another mortal; a transfer of information, nothing more. The spirit of the Christ was far more dynamic than mere words and information.

  He looked around the tomb, stood up, tested his balance. He was fine. He felt light on his feet, in fact; his wound was entirely healed, he could not even remember which hip had been wounded. Somebody had changed his clothes since the previous day, and what he wore now was clean and softer than anything he could remember. He had even been accoutred with sandals, a rosary, and a new satchel. Sanity is such a blessing, when your setting is serene, he thought. No wonder he had taken leave of his senses outside Mohi; how else would he have survived?

  “Very well, then,” he said to the tomb, quietly. His hand was still clenched around the cool metal, the ever-cool metal, of the communion cup. He tucked that hand into his satchel and smiled benignly around the little tomb. “Thank you, Father,” he said to the coffin of St. Peter. “You are far wiser than the rest of us, and upon this rock, let the new Church, when the time shall come, be built again.”

  He turned his back on the tomb, crossed the candlelit room, and strode up the steps with a slow, comfortable assurance he had not known possible.

  At the top of the stairs he met a fresh-faced young priest whom he thought he recognized, but he could not figure out why.

  “You were down there quite a while, Father,” said the priest. “I was getting worried. I almost came down after you to see if you had hurt yourself.”

  “On the contrary, my son,” said Rodrigo with smiling beneficence, “I have never been so well.”

  The Cardinals sat around a highly polished wooden table, eating fruit and arguing. They grudgingly acknowledged that the vote was final, now that it had been announced, and that they had, in fact, elected a raving madman to be the next Bishop of Rome. What they could not agree upon was what to do about it.

  There were three schools of thought.

  First was Bonaventura and the de Segni cousins—Rinaldo and Stefano. They were bound and determined that the vote be somehow invalidated, and had sent junior clergy off to ferret out moldering codices of canon law in the bowels and attics of the church, seeking some justification to excuse them doing just that. They did most of the shouting, because—as far as Fieschi could make out—they wanted to make sure nobody else had a chance to even think straight until they had shaped events to their own liking.

  If nothing else, they would probably turn to Orsini for help and ask him to arrange for the Pontiff-elect to be assassinated. This group, in short, was in a dither.

  Then there was the group led by Castiglione, who were shocked but not panicked by what had happened. They believed that the vote should hold on legal principles, but that the madman should then be gently induced to decline the honor. This would send all the Cardinals back into seclusion for another vote, but now within the sanctity of the Vatican compound, and not as victims of Orsini’s oppression.

  And then there was the unlikely triumvirate of Colonna, Capocci, and Fieschi. For different reasons, these men felt that the vote should hold, and Rodrigo should be enthroned. It was uncommon (but not impossible) to raise as Pope a man who was not a bishop; this was an easy technicality to fix: he could be made bishop, and then anointed Pontiff.

  “I am curious. Why do you support the outcome of the election?” Fieschi asked the other two. Obviously the two clowns could not be trusted, but perhaps they would let slip some useful observation that could sway some of the other prelates.

  Colonna shrugged. “I’m an old man, and I’m tired of being here,” he said. “If this fellow is accepted, then I can finally go home and change my clothes and start acting like a Cardinal again.”

  “So sloth is a primary motivator,” Fieschi said, attempting dry humor but sounding instead as accusatory as he felt.

  “Absolutely,” said Colonna. He clapped his right hand down on his friend’s knee. “Capocci, my dear fellow, tell the nice villain why you are taking such a perverse position on this topic.”

  “My position is the most honorable one in this room!” protested Capocci, waving his bandaged hand dismissively at everyone else. “We’ve made our bed and now we must lie in it, simple as that. Those of us responsible for leading the masses of Christendom, we have fallen to such a state that we would allow such a man to be elected, and having done so, we have to live with the circumstances. We have only ourselves to blame.”

  “That’s a much better response than mine,” said Colonna. He turned to Fieschi. “I want to change my answer to make it more like his.”

  Fieschi rolled his eyes. When he returned his attention to the other two Cardinals, he found them staring at him with accusing malice. “And may we dare ask why the great and honorable Fieschi has betrayed his preferred candidate?” asked Colonna.

  “You may ask,” Fieschi said. “I am not bound to answer you.”

  The other two looked at each other. “Well, that proves it, then,” said Capocci.

  “Indeed,” said Colonna, and the two turned to face him together. “You’re definitely up to something nefarious,” he informed Fieschi pleasantly. “Which means we’re going to have to stop you.”

  “And hold you accountable,” Capocci added ominously.

  Fieschi turned his head away from them, refusing to be baited. Capocci could prove nothing. And Rodrigo would be his man, his puppet, he had no fear of that at all—but it was annoying that he would have to brush off these two gadflies along the way. I will make sure the new Pope excommunicates them, he decided. That will get rid of them nicely.

  Rodrigo had tried to excuse himself and break away from the young priest, but the young man was strangely reluctant to be dismissed. He begged Rodrigo’s pardon and followed him through the great church, toward the door, politely asking Rodrigo where he was planning to go, suggesting that perhaps he would be more comfortable resting in the deacon’s office.

  “Have you been assigned to keep an eye on me?” Rodrigo asked with a knowing smile. They had stopped at the grand western entrance to the basilica. Rodrigo was eager to be gone from these staid halls of ancient power. The days when such magnificence signified sanctified holiness had long since passed; he understood what must come next, and nobody else in the Vatican compound did.

  The young priest blushed. “Yes, Father,” he said, glancing down.

  “There is no shame in your task,” Rodrigo said. “When I first arrived in Rome, I was a raving madman. I was mistakenly placed in seclusion with the Cardinals. When we were all brought here, the Cardinals—very good men—were concerned that I might harm myself if left to my own devices. I understand. Previously, there was just cause for such concern. But my son,” he said, with a reassuring smile, “I am now a changed man.”

  The younger priest frowned in polite confusion. “Father...?” he murmured.

  “I cannot explain what happened in Saint Peter’s tomb, but it was a gift, a blessing—a blessed event,” Rodrigo said, and rested his hand paternally on the youth’s shoulder. “My madness was taken from me—and so were my physical wounds! I am well again, and in no need of chaperoning.”

  The young man looked at him, troubled, and blinked several times. “The Holy Sepulchre is known to have miraculous healing properties,” he said at last. “And I am very glad to hear of their effect on you. However, Father, I must stand by my oath, and that is to keep you in my sight at all times until I turn that responsibility over to one of my fellows.”

  Rodrigo sighed patiently. “So be it. I commend you for your dedication to your office. Will you, in that case, accompany me on a constitutional? I am a native of this city, and it has been a very long time since I have freely walked its streets. I have a yearning for that, and I hope your duty does not prevent me from it.”

  T
he younger priest considered this. “Father, perhaps we can make an arrangement that is to your liking, but allows me to fulfill my obligation.” He glanced down again, unwilling to gaze upon Rodrigo as he continued. “As it happens, I... have other duties to which I will be called. I would have to turn your care over to another anyhow. Let me see if I may do that now.”

  Rodrigo smiled benignly. “You are thinking that a new chaperone, meeting me as I am now, clearly rational and well recovered, would not feel the burden of sticking to me like a burr, as you perhaps do because you saw me before I was healed.”

  The young man reddened. “Really, Father, I simply have other duties. I am scheduled to receive confessions until dinner.”

  “Very well,” said Rodrigo, gesturing back into the church. “Lead me to my next keeper. Rome is not going anywhere.”

  The junior priest looked relieved. “Very well, Father. Just this way, if you please.” He turned and began to cross through the nave of the church, trusting Rodrigo to follow.

  Which Rodrigo did. The communion cup within his satchel bumped against his hip as he walked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Frog and the Stone

  The pale-haired warrior, Haakon, knew some of the Mongol tongue. His accent was very bad, but he could make himself understood, and Gansukh suspected his comprehension was much better than his pronunciation. No wonder he watches us so closely, Gansukh mused as he wandered through the sprawling camp. He’s listening and learning.

  A tiny smile flickered across his face. He would keep this tiny nugget of information to himself. Using the pale-haired youth to rile Munokhoi was a dangerous proposition, but an entertaining one. Given the pace at which the journey to Burqan-qaldun was progressing, he would need distractions. He couldn’t keep shadowing Munokhoi; sooner or later, the Torguud captain would catch sight of him and take umbrage at the attention.

  He didn’t need to start a fight with Munokhoi. He just needed to be sure the other man’s attention was directed somewhere other than at himself or Lian.

  Gansukh wandered toward the eastern edge of the caravan where the Imperial Guards had set up a makeshift archery range. He walked over to the line scratched in the bare ground where the archers stood.

  Behind him he heard the guards’ conversation fragment, and he waited patiently. Finally, one of the them heaved himself to his feet and approached.

  “Brother Gansukh.”

  Gansukh turned his head and regarded the one singled by the others. “Are you from the mountain clans?” he asked, noticing the colored threads braided into the man’s hair.

  The other man nodded.

  “The days are long out here on the plain, aren’t they, brother?”

  “Tarbagatai,” the man supplied. He wiped a hand across his face. “No longer than the nights, I suppose,” he said with a shrug.

  Gansukh offered a bark of laughter. “That is true.” He waved a hand at the targets. “It has been a long time since I hunted in the mountains. I found the light to be different there. Night came swiftly, and if you were tracking prey, you had to be quick about making your kill. Otherwise, the sun would vanish and so would your target. Out here, though, the day seems to last forever.”

  Tarbagatai squinted at the targets, his tongue working at the inside of his lower lip. He seemed to be wondering if Gansukh was making sport of him, and Gansukh made no effort to guide the younger man’s thinking. After his encounter with Namkhai and the Imperial Guard the other night, he had realized how few friends he had among the Khan’s elite guard. Lian’s schooling and his mission had kept him aloof from the men of the arban, a dangerous situation for a front-line warrior such as himself. If the caravan came under attack again, he needed some confidence that his fellow Mongols wouldn’t see him as an adversary.

  “Care to test your skill?” he asked, nodding at the nearby rack of bows.

  Tarbagatai laughed. “I have heard the stories about you,” he said. “In the Khagan’s garden. How you felled a deer with one arrow.”

  Gansukh shrugged as he wandered over to the rack. He let his hands roam across the bows—stroking the hardwood curves, fingering the sinew of the strings—and he finally selected a likely candidate. Smoothly, he strung the bow, and then offered it to Tarbagatai. “Maybe I was lucky that day,” he said.

  Tarbagatai snorted, and dismissed the offered weapon with a wave of his hand. His gaze darted toward his lazy companions. “I’ll use my own,” he said, and he called for one of them to fetch his bow.

  Gansukh wandered back to the line, and standing shoulder to shoulder with Tarbagatai—who was slightly taller—he looked out at the scattered targets, counting them, noting their distance. “In the mountains,” he said, “if you have a good position, you can see everything.”

  Tarbagatai nodded. “Anyone can shoot one arrow and hit one target.”

  Gansukh smiled at the mountain man’s tone. Respectful, and yet slightly challenging at the same time. Tarbagatai had known who he was when he had approached, and he was certain the story of the deer in the Khagan’s garden wasn’t the only story that had been passed around. The cup at the Khagan’s feast. The wrestling match with Namkhai. His ongoing feud with Munokhoi. All of these stories contributed to his reputation among the Imperial Guard, but every member of the Guard had been hand-picked for his own prowess and reputation. Stories meant little; actions counted for more.

  The consensus about his match with Namkhai was that it had been a draw, and only because the Khan had allowed them to withdraw from the field. Opinion was split on who would have truly won, but regardless, no one could recall anyone ever besting Namkhai before. And Namkhai, of course, hadn’t spoken one way or the other.

  There was some allure to challenging Chagatai’s envoy, then. There were few other opportunities for members of the Imperial Guard to distinguish themselves.

  “We could pretend these targets are Chinese raiders,” he offered. “A race to see who can kill more of them?”

  The other guards wandered over in the wake of the man who brought Tarbagatai his own bow, eager interest plain on their faces. The pair in the back began to speak in hushed tones, making wagers.

  Tarbagatai glared at the pair for a second, and then shook his head slightly, as if he was pushing their wager from his mind. The mountain man looked over the targets once more. “Ten,” he said. “A full arban. Shall we have ten arrows each?”

  “I would hope you would not miss that many,” Gansukh said with a laugh. “How about six? That should be enough to warrant a clear winner.”

  Tarbagatai agreed, and with a word, sent one of the men to fetch two quivers of arrows. Each archer selected six, and Tarbagatai stuck his in the ground before him—a neat line, waiting to be snatched up.

  Gansukh slowly pushed each of his arrows into the dry ground, making sure they were all firmly planted with their fletching pointed straight up. He opted for a tight cluster of shafts, a grouping that his hand fell upon naturally without requiring a look.

  Tarbagatai would have to chase his arrows. Each shaft was a little farther away, and eventually, he would have to take a tiny step to his left in order to reach the last few arrows. Such movement wouldn’t take much time, but in this contest, that tiny delay might make the difference.

  “Ready?” Gansukh asked, laying his first arrow across his bow.

  He heard the creak of a bowstring being drawn back, and Tarbagatai grunted.

  “One of you,” Gansukh called to the onlookers as he raised his own bow, “Give us a word and we shall start.” He peered along the straight shaft of his arrow at the first target. His right arm quivered for a moment before his muscles relaxed into a well-remembered position, and his breathing slowed. His belly tensed, and his vision shifted. The target—pale thatching stuffed into the ragged end of a log—sprang into greater focus, while everything else softened and dropped away.

  “Hai!”

  Gansukh loosed his first arrow before the man had finished shouting.
He had heard the sudden influx of breath from behind him, and had known the cry was coming. His arrow flew true, burying itself deep in the thatch of the first target, though he did not hear the sound of its impact. Tarbagatai released his first arrow in concert with a horrific battle cry, as if his shout would give the arrow more loft in its flight. The sound was startling, more so for being projected right into Gansukh’s ear, and he hesitated for a split second, caught off guard by the racket. Ruefully, he snatched up his second arrow, nocked it, drew back the bow string, and let it fly.

  His second arrow struck a target that already contained one of Tarbagatai’s arrows. His shaft was closer to the center, but the mistake was already made. As he reached for his third arrow, he silently commended Tarbagatai on his clever ruse.

  There was no time for further recriminations. The mountain man was quick, and Gansukh lost himself in the rhythm of archery: nock, pull, release. As soon as an arrow was clear of his bow, he would focus on the next target. He tried not to wonder if he was shooting at the same target as Tarbagatai; to worry would be to hesitate, and to hesitate would be to lose.

  As he released his last arrow, he heard an echoing twang from over his shoulder, and he released the breath he was not aware he had been holding.

  The archers and their audience stared out at the field of targets, watching as the two arrows buried themselves in the thick thatch of the farthest target. The rustling impact of the arrows in the dried stalks was like the fluttering noise of a bird’s wings—two beats so close together that they could be easily mistaken for one sound.

  “Every dog is dead,” Tarbagatai announced, clapping Gansukh on the shoulder. “You shot well.”

  “Indeed,” Gansukh replied, “As did you.” He looked around and saw no arrows in the ground, and then let his gaze roam across the targets once more. This time he checked every target more closely. “We seem to have shot all our arrows, Brother,” he pointed out.