The Mongoliad: Book Three

by Neal Stephenson

  Without another word, the five travelers grabbed each others’ hands and shoulders and fled down a small street that led south, away from the market. After a score of paces, they stopped and stood in a circle, staring at each other, husking out frightened breaths.

  “What just happened?” Cardinal Monferrato demanded.

  “Guards... from the Vatican,” Ocyrhoe said. “They wore different uniforms from the men who serve the Bear—Senator Orsini. They will likely take this priest to Saint Peter’s or the Castel Sant’Angelo. We should go there, not to the Septizodium.”

  “Why? Isn’t the Septizodium where the Cardinals are being held?” Helmuth shook his head. “The Emperor does not care about this priest friend of yours, and neither do I. He wants us to go to the Septizodium.”

  “Those soldiers take their orders from the College of Cardinals,” Ocyrhoe argued. “How could the Cardinals be commanding them if they were still imprisoned in the Septizodium? How would they even know—”

  “Child,” Léna said sternly, and Ocyrhoe silenced herself at once. “What was the message you were given to deliver, by the English Cardinal?”

  Ocyrhoe already understood the point of this lesson. “It was to bring the Emperor’s men back to the Septizodium,” she said in a resigned tone.

  “You are under oath,” Léna said simply. “Does a Binder interpret the message that has been given to her or does she simply deliver it?”

  Ocyrhoe lowered her eyes. “She delivers it,” she said. “But I think it is a waste of time to go there.”

  “What you think matters less than what you are sworn to do,” Léna said, not unkindly. “It is a characteristic that many rely on with the Binders.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice, which caused Ocyrhoe to raise her head, but Léna, seeming to anticipate Ocyrhoe’s gaze, was already looking away. “Let us continue with what we came here to do,” she said softly.

  Ferenc had been watching them all with increasing impatience, and at this lull in the conversation he grabbed Ocyrhoe’s arm and urgently pointed back in the direction Father Rodrigo had been taken. It took no translator for her to understand what he wanted. She gave Helmuth a plaintive look, and the German soldier brusquely translated to Ferenc what had just passed between the two Binders.

  Ferenc squirmed and flung up his arms in frustration, then grabbed her forearm. She wanted to pull away—he could not possibly understand—but he did not. Lie to them about where we are going, he signed.

  At that, she snatched her arm from his fingers as if she’d been burned. “No!” she said angrily, and shook her head. “Never. Never!”

  “You obviously have no control over anything that is happening,” said Senator Orsini furiously. “How are you of the slightest value to me? I should demand payment for all the choice viands you have supped upon at this table. I might as well have thrown them to my dogs. At least I know their loyalty is solid.”

  Cardinal Fieschi seethed and twitched with frustration. “Total control is impossible, and not even useful. There has been a hiccup in our plan, but don’t you see it has allowed things to unfold in a way that can be even more fruitful?”

  “No,” said Orsini. “I don’t see that at all, nor do I care for your inference that I am too stupid to understand your clever plan. In fact, I am so unmoved by your cleverness—”

  “Orsini, what is it we want?” Fieschi demanded. “We want a Pope we can control, do we not? One who will repel the advances of the Emperor.”

  “We would have had that in Bonaventura. And it is your fault Bonaventura is not now the Pope.”

  “If anything, it is to my credit he is not,” Fieschi shot back. “But even if I’d voted for him this last round, he would not have won. Do you understand that? It would have been another deadlock. Unless Frederick were to release one of the Cardinals he holds hostage, and allow that man to come back to Rome, it would always be a deadlock. Even after removing one of Castiglione’s supporters from the equation entirely, there was no way to avoid deadlock.”

  “Deadlock is better than chaos,” Orsini huffed. “Currently we have chaos. I should never have trusted you to steer anything. I will remember that when we really do have a Pope in power. The Bishop of Rome and the Senator of Rome will have plenty to talk about, but you have lost your place at that table.”

  Fieschi could feel the heat rise in his face so intensely he wondered if even his eyeballs had turned red. You imbecile, he wanted to shout at Orsini. Are you really so blind you do not see how much more is at stake? Rome means nothing compared to the world that the Church commands. You are nothing but a convenient tool, and you are rapidly becoming inconvenient.

  Instead, he forced a tight smile and said, with tempered condescension, “If you will listen to me for but a moment, you will realize that I have actually helped to set that table. We have the Pope in a room a half mile from here. The citizens of Rome have already heard him speak and they were mesmerized by his rhetoric. We will be able to steer him in any direction we desire, and the masses will eagerly follow. He offers us power that would be unimaginable if Bonaventura had been elected.” He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, looking up at the Bear smugly.

  Orsini made a dismissive face. “What do we care what the masses do?” he snorted. “They have no power.”

  Fieschi altered his tight smile into a sympathetic one. “Come with me to the Vatican compound and you may change your mind. It took me two hours to get here because the mob was so thick. There is something hypnotic about that priest. Come with me and see for yourself, and then dismiss the masses—if you dare.”

  Orsini shook his head stubbornly. “If he has that kind of power and he’s a madman, then he is extremely dangerous and must be killed immediately.”

  “But he is pliable,” Fieschi insisted calmly. “I saw Somercotes win him over easily. If we stage the next few days carefully, I am confident that I can make him my creature. And then all that power is ours to use as we want.”

  “And if you fail?” Orsini said. “I do not share your confidence in your abilities.”

  “If I fail, then get rid of him, and we’re back to where we were before,” Fieschi said. “A deadlocked College of Cardinals and no Pope.”

  Orsini thought about this for a few moments. Fieschi watched him, and was careful not to make a sound or indulge in even the slightest movement lest he trigger Orsini into some truculent response.

  Finally Orsini asked, grimly, “What are the other Cardinals doing about all this?”

  Fieschi made a dismissive gesture. “Some of them are poring over old codices of canonical law trying to establish if we may...” He lifted his hands. “Annul the election? Force a resignation? I doubt they will find any definitive answer or procedure, but the longer we stay here, the more time they have to create an argument against keeping him.”

  “Are you the only Cardinal who wants to see him remain the Pope?”

  Fieschi shrugged. “The only one who counts,” he said firmly. “I have two unlikely colleagues, but they are mostly interested in entertaining themselves. They’re not taking any action, they are just sitting back to watch what unfolds.”

  “Is one of them Colonna?” Orsini asked in a disgusted voice.

  Fieschi sat upright and said sharply, “Do not refuse this course simply because you don’t want to agree with Colonna. That is childish. The entire Colonna-Orsini feud is childish. Do you even remember what your ancestors first argued about?”

  Orsini made a dismissive gesture. “If you genuinely believe that you can bring this man under your sway, so that he will be my tool, then I will consider—but only consider—ensuring that all civic authority in the city is dedicated to carrying out his enthronement.”

  “That is the only sane way to persevere in this,” Fieschi said, feeling a wave of relief that he was careful not to show. Let Orsini think Father Rodrigo was to be Orsini’s tool.

  He knew better.

  A dried, charred smell wafted toward the fiv
e as they approached the alley that ran behind the Septizodium. “We turn left here,” Ocyrhoe announced. “There is a hidden entrance that only Ferenc can find.” Ferenc glanced at her and smiled with sheepish pride, knowing what she was telling them. “Then there is a series of dark passages. We will need at least a candle. Do you still have the candle from this morning?” she asked Monferrato. “The one you used to irritate the Emperor?”

  Every time she spoke to him, he seemed startled and slightly annoyed. She wondered how many girls other than servants ever spoke to him, Cardinal as he was. “That was part of the excommunication ritual,” he said. “I gave it to my colleague.”

  “Well, we’ll need to get a candle from somewhere else, then, or a lantern,” she said. “But first we’ll show you the doorway. It’s just... Oh!”

  They had turned the corner as she spoke. The charred smell hit their faces, wafting on languid curls of smoke that emanated from a large, ragged opening in the rock face, a few dozen paces away.

  This was the secret entrance to the Septizodium, but it stood wide open—in fact, the hinged rock that served as the actual door had been lifted away, as if by the hand of God, and lay in the street. Amazed, she turned to Ferenc, who was already staring at her.

  “That’s the entrance. Something has happened,” she said, as calmly as she could.

  “I think there has been a fire,” the Cardinal said in a concerned voice. Ocyrhoe rolled her eyes. She was not prone to sarcasm, but this man was just too easy a target.

  “Let’s take a closer look,” Léna calmly intervened.

  “Yes, absolutely,” Helmuth said, so quickly that Ocyrhoe suspected he was embarrassed he was not the first to suggest it.

  They walked toward the entrance. Ocyrhoe glanced up at the surrounding rooftops but saw no guards—no one at all. The alley was deserted. As they approached the entrance, preparing to enter with Ocyrhoe in the lead, an echoing, percussive sound issued from the darkness. And then, softer, the sounds of footfall, coming closer to them.

  A low, blocky form emerged from obscurity: a small, hunched man, a shovel slung back over his shoulder, wearing the ill-fitting livery of a low-ranking servant. His face was wrinkled, furtive, sad. He stepped through the doorway and paused with disinterest, lowering his jaw slightly when he saw them all gathered. “No entry allowed,” he said, sounding bored. “There are guards back there, they’ll just chase you out.” He took another step to move past them.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” the Cardinal asked.

  The old man shrugged. “Fire. Someone died.”

  “Who died?” Ocyrhoe demanded.

  Again the old man shrugged. “Cardinal.”

  “Which one?” Monferrato demanded shrilly.

  “Foreigner. English, I think.”

  Ocyrhoe gasped before she could catch herself. Ferenc tapped her arm. She ignored him and turned to Léna. “The man who sent the message is dead.” She tried to push aside the strange upwelling of emotion—she’d only met Somercotes once, yet she found herself disoriented by the news. “How do I fulfill my obligation now?” she asked, almost childlike. “I was to bring the Emperor’s men to Cardinal Somercotes, but he... no longer lives.”

  Léna gave her an understanding look. She reached for Ocyrhoe’s right hand, lifted it, gently pressed the hand into a fist, and rested the fist against Ocyrhoe’s breastbone. “You are like the fox, unbound here and unencumbered,” she prompted.

  Ocyrhoe began to echo the phrase before Léna had even finished. Then she heaved a huge sigh, both saddened and relieved that her mission was over. She saw Ferenc watching the two Binders with a wary, envious look.

  During their exchange, Helmuth had continued to question the worker, who met the soldier’s demands with a series of shrugs and other signs of stolid disregard—and only a few mumbled words. After releasing the old man with a disgusted kick at his backside, Helmuth informed the rest of the group, “The other Cardinals were escorted to the Vatican compound yesterday.”

  “I knew that,” Ocyrhoe said matter-of-factly. Helmuth glared at her. Ocyrhoe had never encountered so many fragile men in her life. They must feel very insecure indeed if a girl talking back caused such unrest.

  “Let us go there,” said the Cardinal.

  Helmuth grimaced. “The way will be congested,” he said.

  “It would have been much less congested earlier,” Ocyrhoe said, unable to still her tongue.

  “Silence, brat,” Helmuth said.

  Léna smiled, silencing both of them with a look. “A path will present itself,” she said calmly. “I am sure of it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Boy and the Tree

  The reflection in the horse trough was a hollow-eyed phantom. Ripples in the water added lines, distorting his mouth into a quivering frown that split his face in half. Dietrich slapped the water, disturbing the image even further, and turned away from the wrecked face staring up at him. He dried his face with a rag that was probably dirtier than he was. As much as he tried to push the matter out of his mind, he could not avoid the truth. It kept creeping up on him—staring back from the water in the horse trough, leering from behind the eyes of his men. Doubt. Fear. Panic.

  He had lost his way, and he was leading the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae to ruin. Had Heermeister Volquin suffered this same realization shortly before the battle at Schaulen? Dietrich recalled the fury in Kristaps’s eyes when the knight had revealed the ugly scars of his failed Shield-Brethren initiation. That same fervor had driven Volquin, and he had been blind to the trap at the river. The Heermeister’s obsession had nearly destroyed the order; the Teutonic Knights had taken pity on the survivors of Schaulen, welcoming the lost Livonians into their ranks. Many of the Sword Brothers wore the black cross rather than the red, and were content to leave the past buried along the muddy banks of the Schaulen River.

  But some had strained under the Teutonic yoke. These men—veterans of the Northern campaigns, survivors of Schaulen—secretly spoke of taking the red cross again, of taking their own lands, of regaining their old glory. They chose him to lead them, and all they had needed was a sign that their purpose was just and right.

  And they had been given that sign by the Pope himself. The Sword Brothers found an unexpected patron in Rome, and once Dietrich had sworn himself—and the order—to serve not just the Church, but the men who secretly ruled the Church, they could wear the red cross again.

  But the memory of Schaulen proved difficult to shake.

  Dietrich sat on the bench beside the trough and stared at the tumbledown wall of the barn that was the extent of their holdings in Hünern. Was this all that he, Dietrich von Grüningen, the fourth master of the order, had accomplished? Would history even remember him?

  He shuddered, shaking himself free from the grip of this tenacious melancholy. Such weak-mindedness! This would not be the legacy of his command. He would right himself; he would find honor and glory for his men. The rest—the ones who still wore the black cross—would come back. He knew they would.

  The Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae will survive, he vowed. Whatever storm threatened, he could not shrink from his duty: his order must survive. No matter the cost, no matter the danger, he must not shirk his responsibility.

  Having dispersed the phantom of failure, Dietrich whistled for his squire and began the slow, deliberate ritual of donning his armor. As his squire ensured that maille was fitted properly over gambeson, that surcoat hung properly, and that sword rested at the proper angle on his hips, Dietrich von Grüningen, fourth master of the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae considered his meager options.

  He had been given one order by his master in Rome, and after securing the safety of his men, that was his only other responsibility. Destroy the Shield-Brethren.

  His squire offered him his helmet, and Dietrich shook his head. He would not need it. Not where he was going. His dressing complete, Dietrich strode out into the main compound, hand resting on
the hilt of his sword.

  Burchard and Sigeberht were waiting for him. Constant companions, their devotion was absolute. With a hundred like them, we would be strong, he reflected as he looked at their stoic faces.

  “Is my horse prepared?” he asked.

  “As you asked, Heermeister,” Burchard murmured. “Where do we ride?”

  “The Mongol compound,” Dietrich answered. “I must speak with Tegusgal.”

  The tree had never had any leaves, as far as Hans could recall; to an outsider, the tree was a scraggly ash, grown from a wind-tossed achene that had sprouted in the unkempt wilderness of a neglected alley. It would never get enough sun. It would never get enough water. But it refused to die, and Hans and the other boys—the Rats of Hünern—adopted it as their own. It was their standard, and beneath its twisted arms, they felt safe. Protected. Sheltered from the cruelty of a world gone mad.

  Axis mundi, Andreas had said of the tree when he had last visited the tiny shelter. It is the pillar of your world, he had explained. He had reached up and touched the highest branch of the stunted tree. Though it has some growing to do before it can hold up Heaven, don’t you think?

  Andreas was dead. But the tree still lived. He still lived. Hans wrapped his arms around the tree and pressed his cheek against the rough bark. Only then would he let himself cry.

  But he had no tears. He was as dry as the tree.

  “Hans.”

  He jerked upright at the sound of his name, and instead of fleeing he only hugged the tree more tightly. When his name was spoken a second time—the tone of voice filled with compassion and tenderness—he dared to look around for the speaker.

  His uncle, Ernust, peered under the dirty tarp that hung over the narrow entrance to the tree’s tiny enclave. Ernust’s face was streaked with dirt and soot and a stain of something darker—blood? Hans’s brain offered an idea—and then refused to speculate further—about the source of the smear.