The Relic Master

by Christopher Buckley

  Crafty Schenk. He clapped Dismas on the back and smiled. A splendid idea. He left Dismas to rebuke himself for letting himself be trapped. A speech—on standards—to this bunch? As well preach chastity in a bawdy house. Too late now. Dismas made his way to the town hall in gloom.

  “Dismas?”

  “Markus? Is it—you?”

  They embraced with the intensity of two men who’ve stood side by side in battle. Their last battle together had been the disaster at Cerignola, when they’d fought on the French side. The Spaniards had inferior numbers but had brought to the field something new, terrible, and loud called gunpowder.

  When it was over, Dismas and Markus were among sixteen of their unit of ninety still alive on a field sponge-soft with blood and air rank with smoke, staring at the bodies of their comrades. Their armor was strangely pocked with holes that seeped. Dismas saw it as a portent of the End of Days, gave up his career as a mercenary, and put on a monk’s habit at the nearest monastery.

  “What on Earth are you doing here?” Dismas said. “Not bone dealing, sure?”

  Markus made a face. “God help me. I haven’t sunk that low. Helping some fat-assed banker guard his gold. After this I’m finished. Going home. To the cantons. I’ve got money saved. I’ll find myself a girl with red cheeks, big tits, and a creamy-white bottom.”

  Dismas laughed. “You’re too old for that.”

  “Old? I’ve got a cock of iron. So what are you doing here?” Markus looked his old friend up and down. He said suspiciously, “You look prosperous. What crimes have you committed? God in Heaven, don’t tell me you’re”—he gestured over his shoulder at the mass of relic dealers—“one of these lowlifes?”

  “I am. And I’ll thank you not to call me a lowlife. I’m an honest man.”

  “Honest? Hawking pieces of the True Cross? Breast milk of the Virgin? How much did you get for your soul, then?”

  “Listen to you. A gold sentry. I’m a respectable man.”

  “I thought you were going to be a monk.”

  “Did. Couldn’t get used to the hours.”

  “All right,” Markus said, “I’ll listen to your lies, but you’re buying the drinks.”

  “I have to give a speech. Let’s meet later. And yes, I’ll buy the drinks. As usual. If I’m going to listen to your lies, I’ll need to be good and proper sloshed.”

  “Giving a speech? To this scum? What are you speeching about? How to rob tombs?”

  “As it happens, about reform. Which they won’t want to hear. Maybe you should come along. I might need guarding.”

  “I’ve got better things to do than listen to you give the Sermon on the Mount. I’ll see you later. The Red Boar. Near the Saint Alban tower.”

  • • •

  Dismas’s mood was much brightened, but the cheer dissipated when he entered the great hall, noisy and sweaty and loud with hundreds of relicmongers. The event was open only to the trade. The wine and lager were flowing.

  Schenk saw him and came over. His face was apple-florid from wine. He was in an excellent frame. Sales had been brisk, topping even last year’s record. He banged his gavel to quiet the crowd. Told them how wonderful they were, what a success it had all been, how good it was to be among so many old friends and among new friends.

  Dismas thought, It’s these new friends who are the problem.

  Schenk went on about the great responsibility of their business. Then with a snort said, “And here to tell us a bit about that is a person—no, more than a person. He is a personage!” Schenk chortled at his cleverness. “A personage known to us all, esteemed everywhere. Especially”—he crooked a thumb over his shoulder to the north—“up there!”

  Dismas stepped forward in an effort to cut him off, but Schenk’s bonhomie, fueled by the wine, was implacable. He went on about Dismas, the Personage. Dismas, the Legend. Relic Master by Appointment to His Grace Albrecht, Archbishop of Brandenburg and Mainz. Relic Master by Appointment to the Elector Frederick of Saxony, Frederick the Wise. And before that, he’d been Dismas the Soldier, the Reiselaufer. “So don’t make him angry or he’ll cut off your balls!”

  Dismas said to laughter, “I’ll do that to you if you don’t sit down and shut up.”

  But Schenk went on, regaling them about Dismas’s early years in the trade—in the Holy Land, how he’d been the first relic hunter to procure an entire skeleton of one of the holy innocents slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers. The audience murmured and nodded. Schenk said, “It’s in the collection of Frederick, in Wittenberg.”

  Then he was on to Dismas’s years in the catacombs outside Rome.

  “That cough of his? You’ve heard his cough?” Schenk imitated Dismas’s cough. “That’s from the catacombs!” Murmurs, applause.

  Dismas couldn’t take any more. He put his arm on Schenk’s shoulder and declared, “I think our dear Schenk is the truest relic here!” Laughter.

  Schenk said, “I warn you—he’s going to give us a lecture, so, quick, fill your glasses—and cover your ears with your hands!”

  Dismas knew there was no point in talking ethics to a boozed-up crowd with purses bulging with guldens. Better just to tell them, Well, fellows, it’s been a good year, and here’s to us. But let’s at least try as we go forward to keep in mind that ours is a special calling, a sacred calling, really, and as a . . .

  He looked out over the sea of glassy eyes.

  He had to force the phrase from his lips . . . a confraternity of professionals, we . . . we . . .

  They stared back, blearily.

  “Well,” Dismas said, “we have to hold ourselves to standards. That’s all.”

  Silence. Stares. What in God’s name is he talking about?

  Dismas sucked in his breath and said, “I’ve seen some items this week that frankly do not represent the highest standard.”

  Someone in the crowd shouted, “If it’s standards you give a shit about, what about your Tetzel?”

  A roar of approval.

  “He is not my Tetzel,” Dismas said. He loathed Tetzel, but he had to be somewhat careful here. “You can have him.”

  Scattered laughter. But now indulgence hawking was on the table.

  “He works for your Archbishop Albrecht!”

  Dismas held up his hands in surrender.

  “My Tetzel? My Albrecht? Friend, if the Archbishop of Mainz hires Friar Tetzel to sell indulgences for him, what would you have me do? I’m just a bone dealer, like yourself. Bones bring pilgrims. Pilgrims bring money. This is the business we have chosen.”

  “That’s well and fine,” someone shouted. “But if you’re going to preach about standards, preach to Tetzel.”

  “Preach? To a Dominican?”

  Laughter.

  “Didn’t he claim that his indulgences could free a man from Purgatory even if he had ravished the Virgin?”

  Into the silence that fell—the topic of carnal relations with the Mother of God had a sobering effect—Dismas said, “If Tetzel said such a thing, then he should buy an indulgence for himself. As for me, I need a drink, before you bastards finish it all off yourselves.”

  Dismas’s inquisitor sought him out. He was a Milanese named Vitranelli. His field was lapidary relics. Pieces of the Via Dolorosa, on which Jesus walked to his death; the stone he stepped on when he ascended to Heaven; rocks used to stone saints to death. His manner was courtly. He said he hadn’t meant to sound flippant. But surely Master Dismas agreed that indulgence sales, especially in Brandenburg and other parts of the Empire, were a scandal.

  The Milanese seemed a good fellow. Dismas said to him, as one professional to another, “Look, Tetzel makes me want to puke. But what would you have me do? He works for Albrecht. Albrecht is a client. A big client. Do you lecture your clients about their employees?”

  Vitranelli shrugged in a distinctly Milanese way. “I am concerned because Tetzel will destroy it for all of us. Sooner or later, someone will say, Enough! It is time again to drive the money changers from
the temple. To clean the stables. And if it should come to that, what will become of us?”

  Dismas nodded. He understood all this very well. His other principal client, Frederick of Saxony, was repelled by the outrageous indulgence hawking by Albrecht and Tetzel. Frederick did not permit Tetzel to ply his trade inside the borders of Saxony. So Tetzel set up shop just over the border, infuriating Frederick. But what could he do about it? So long as Tetzel remained on Brandenburg soil, he was under the protection of Albrecht.

  Vitranelli insinuated that Frederick’s “outrage” was really only jealousy, putting on airs. Pope Leo had issued a bull licensing Albrecht to sell indulgences (splitting the proceeds fifty-fifty with Rome). The bull had also nullified all other indulgence sales sold within the Holy Roman Empire, including Frederick’s. Albrecht had the monopoly. If you wanted to buy yourself, or a loved one, out of Purgatory, you had to get the indulgence from Albrecht. To be sure, others continued to sell them—including Frederick—but they lacked the sanction of Rome. And could thus be considered worthless. A dizzying business, indulgences.

  Dismas conceded Signore Vitranelli’s point about Frederick’s indulgence selling. Galling, to concede a point of ethics to a Milanese! He said to him in a just-between-us way, “Here’s the situation, as you yourself know. Albrecht’s family, the Brandenburgs, want power, as much as they can get. They wanted the archbishopric for their little Albrecht. But he was only twenty-three at the time, too young by canon law to be archbishop. So what did they do? Arranged for a papal dispensation.”

  He continued. “But a dispensation like that costs a fortune. So they went to Jacob Fugger, the banker of Augsburg. Fugger provided the money. They bought the dispensation.

  “Then the Electorate of Mainz came available for purchase. And that’s real power, to be one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. They who decide who’s going to be emperor. Now the Brandenburgs want that for their young Albrecht as well. So it was back to Fugger for more gold—this time, twenty-one thousand ducats.

  “Now Albrecht had to sell indulgences, a lot of indulgences, in order to pay back his loans. And so,” Dismas said, “we have his Friar Tetzel and his circus. Meanwhile, Pope Leo is supposed to be using his fifty percent share of Albrecht’s indulgence sales to rebuild Saint Peter’s in Rome. In marble, with a great dome.”

  Dismas smiled. “But as you in Milan, and as we here know very well, Leo has other expenses. His pet albino elephant, Hanno. His hunting lodges. His banquets and revels and associated carnalities, which make the Satyricon of Petronius look like a lenten retreat. And in the end, everyone is working for Fugger.”

  “Who is German,” Vitranelli said, with a note of triumph.

  “Yes, German,” Dismas said. “I don’t suggest that venality is a uniquely Italian characteristic. But whether all this is what Our Lord had in mind when he said, ‘Go forth and multiply,’ is”—he shrugged—“well, it’s a question for theologians. Not for a grubby bone dealer like myself.”

  Signor Vitranelli smiled and conceded that indeed, the workings of divine grace were beyond the comprehension of man.

  This settled, they refilled their cups and drank.

  Dismas said, “As to the venality of the Germans, sure, there’s Fugger. And yes, Frederick displays his relics, and yes, people pay for the privilege of venerating them. And purchase indulgences. And convince themselves that this will lessen their time in Purgatory. But what money Frederick makes selling indulgences, he spends on building his university and Castle Church. Not on pet elephants and banquets. It’s something to see, his university. And I’ll tell you this, signore. He and the other German princes are less and less happy to be sending guldens and ducats over the Alps to Pope Leo in Rome. To help him to pay for all that marble.”

  “How many relics does Frederick have?”

  “Fifteen thousand. Perhaps more.”

  Vitranelli made a face. “That’s a good client. And you have two.”

  “I don’t complain. They’re very different people. For Albrecht, the relics are business. Frederick loves his relics for themselves. When I’m hunting for him, it’s . . . well”—he grinned—“I don’t like to say ‘quest.’ Three years in the Holy Land will cure you of that word, sure. But I feel good when I am searching for him. With Albrecht it feels more like . . . well, I can’t explain. I’m drunk, you see.”

  Vitranelli held up his cup. “Holy bones.”

  “Holy bones,” Dismas said to the clunk of pewter. He left to find Markus at the Red Boar.

  2

  Rhine

  From Basel Dismas traveled north to Mainz. He would have preferred to be going to Wittenberg, via Nuremberg, for then in Nuremberg he could visit with his friend Dürer, pass a pleasant night or two at the Edengarten, his favorite bordel, sleep in his own bed, then proceed on to Wittenberg and Frederick’s court. But Albrecht was impatient and had sent word that he wanted his purchases without delay. So Mainz first it must be.

  It was not an especially arduous journey by boat down the Rhine, except for the incessant self-appointed toll takers demanding money. He hired a skiff with good cargo space and four stout Swabian oarsmen. This time of year the water was low and the current less swift. Markus agreed to keep him company. Always good to have someone with his skills. If the wind held fair, and the Swabians did not malinger, as Swabians were prone to, they would make Mainz in less than a week.

  Late afternoon on the first day Dismas and Markus sat on the afterdeck watching the sun bronze the trees along the eastern bank. Beyond loomed the darker evergreens of the Black Forest.

  “You should have bought that Saint Peter’s fishing boat for your archbishop,” Markus said, oiling his crossbow with a cloth. “Then you wouldn’t have had to hire this tub.”

  Dismas grunted. “I don’t think the Archbishop would have cared about the sea worms.”

  Markus wound the cranequin on his crossbow, winching back the string.

  “In the old days,” Dismas said, “you could do that without sounding like an old man straining at a crap.”

  “Shut up and steer your boat. If you can manage it.”

  Markus cranked. The string angled until it caught in the nut. Dismas knew the crossbow well. Markus had held on to it all these years. He remembered how at Cerignola, before the Spaniard arquebusiers opened fire and everything went to hell, Markus had made a miraculous shot across the field of battle, sending a bolt through the visor of a Spaniard captain of cavalry, as he charged.

  He was fast, too, Markus. He could get off three bolts in the time it took to count fifty. He wasn’t bad with pike and halberd either. Or mace, or ax, or sword. Any weapon, really. Dismas had seen him use them all.

  “I hope your eyesight’s better than your failing strength,” Dismas said. They had always been this way with each other, fraternally abusive.

  Markus shouldered the crossbow, aiming at the eastern bank, a half furlong distant. Whatever he was aiming at was beyond range of Dismas’s eyesight.

  Markus squeezed the trigger lever. The string released with a snap. The bolt whistled forward, arcing toward the shore. A moment later came the smack of metal on wood. Voices. Markus lowered the crossbow and smirked. Dismas turned the rudder toward the shore, toward the shouting.

  It was a small fishing village with a chapel. The voices grew louder as the boat neared. A clutch of villagers stood along the shore shaking their fists and tools. A stone’s throw from the bank, Dismas turned the rudder parallel to it. No sense landing in the middle of a clutch of furious peasantry. He ordered the Swabians to stop rowing but to be ready to put their backs into it.

  Now they could make out the shouts. They were being called names: devils, fiends, blasphemers, Jews.

  “Markus. Look what you’ve done.”

  Markus pointed at the church. Dismas couldn’t make it out at first. Then he saw.

  “Markus.”

  The bolt protruded from the center of the wooden cross atop the church. The prec
ise center, where the upright post and crossbeam met.

  “Row,” Dismas ordered the Swabians. “Quickly.”

  The villagers were hurling rocks, running along the shore. A priest had joined them.

  Dismas steered toward the middle of the river. The shouting faded; the crepuscule descended.

  “What was it you were saying about my eyesight?”

  “You’re a sinful man. Target practice—on a church.”

  “And from a moving vessel.”

  “They burn people for blasphemy. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Why do you care, you’re such a big man in these parts.”

  “I’m relic master—by appointment—to the Archbishop of Mainz and Brandenburg. Do you suppose he would be pleased to hear that while transporting holy relics to him I stopped along the way to fire crossbow bolts into his churches?”

  Dismas kept the Swabians at the oars until well after dark, which made them grumble and demand more money.

  They anchored for the night off the western bank and ate a cold supper of cheese and sausage and bread. Dismas and Marcus lay on the deck under bearskins, passing a bottle of brandy as they looked up at the night sky.

  “I’m not so religious,” Markus said.

  “I noticed.”

  “And you. You’ve turned into a pious old woman. You should wear a black shawl. And a rosary around your neck.”

  “You used to be devout. Always you crossed yourself before battle. You kept a flask with holy water. You even drank from it once.”

  “I was thirsty.”

  “Still, a sacrilege. Little wonder you’ve progressed to shooting at churches.”

  “I keep brandy in my flask now.”

  They watched the stars in silence.

  Markus said, “Cerignola was the end of religion for me.”

  “Why should you give up God because of gunpowder? Since the world began, God in his wisdom has given us tools with which to slaughter each other. Jawbones of asses. Slings. Swords. Crossbows. Why shouldn’t he give us gunpowder?”