Religion: A Novel

by Tim Willocks

  Ludovico considered the ubiquitous hatred of Jews to be vulgar and without logic. Unlike the Lutheran scum, they presented no threat to the Church. He said, “That’s their affair.”

  “Their goods shall, of course, be confiscate to the Congregation,” said Gonzaga. “We’re entitled to our share.”

  “Have I not made myself clear?”

  Gonzaga paled. His mouth writhed with an apology he dared not utter.

  “It is my wish,” said Ludovico, “that the Holy Office leave no trace of their hand in this affair. It must be—and must be seen to be—an entirely civil matter. If the Holy Office should be implicated in these proceedings, in any way, you will be found most direly wanting.”

  Gonzaga glanced at Anacleto and found himself the object of the gaze that a cobra bestows upon a toad. “All will be as Your Excellency commands,” said Gonzaga. “No papers, no third witness, no trace. A civil matter only. I shall not take a penny for my Congregation.”

  Gonzaga waited, as if for some kind of praise or reassurance. Ludovico stared at him until the man’s squirms disgusted him.

  “You’ve much to do, Father Gonzaga. See that it’s done.”

  As Gonzaga scurried out, Ludovico felt a whisper of anxiety. He’d never entrusted such matters to Gonzaga before. Desperate as the man was to please, he reeked of that excess of zeal and petty ambition so common among provincial functionaries. Yet Gonzaga was the local eminence. It was a shame Tannhauser should fall to so base a creature. As to Carla, he’d reconsider her fate in due course.

  Ludovico went to the window and looked down into the courtyard below. Saddled horses waited to carry them to Palermo. There he’d take the measure of the Spanish viceroy, Garcia de Toledo, before embarking on the journey to Rome. After the Viceroy of Naples and the Pope, Toledo was the most powerful man in Italy, and in the matter of the invasion of Malta, more important than either. La Valette had asked Ludovico to pressure Toledo into sending a relief force; but that part of his plan would await his return from Rome. In Rome he would muster the means that he needed to secure Toledo’s obedience.

  That and more. In Rome he would also prepare for his return to Malta and his infiltration of the Religion. In the right hands, the Religion could live up to their name and become true champions of the Church. The Order was sworn not to fight against fellow Christians; but like all matters of policy, that could be made to change. The European war against Lutheranism would prove more bloody than anyone could imagine. The Religion’s arms and prestige would be invaluable—if they survived the Turkish invasion. But that was in God’s hands.

  In God, Ludovico’s trust was absolute.

  They took their leave of the abbey. The sun was high and hot. The Palermo road was clear. They rode north with the wind of History at their backs.

  Tuesday, May 15, 1565

  Guesthouse of the Villa Saliba

  Tannhauser rose from the bench like a wolf aroused from some primal dream, lithe and at once alert, yet still caught in the toils of another world. As he towered above her, whatever expectations she’d had were swept away in the moment that turned his lucent blue gaze upon her own. His face was battered yet still youthful. A black powder burn disfigured his neck by the left hinge of his jaw. A thin white scar bisected his brow on the same side. His hair swung over his face as he stood up and the eye gleaming through it evoked an untamed creature regarding a world too civilized and cramped to call home. When he swept the hair aside the impression faded, and she was sorry. His lips parted when he smiled to reveal chipped and uneven teeth and a hint of cruelty. His burgundy-red doublet was striped with diagonals of gold and was of fine quality. His high boots shone. The ensemble was completed, yet compromised, by leather breeches of somewhat tawdry complexion.

  Carla was alarmed by her reaction. Simply by standing up he’d pierced the sexual twilight to which she’d long condemned herself. He stirred her blood in a way she hadn’t thought possible. She invited him into the parlor to take some refreshment and he paused to study her viola da gamba on its stand.

  “The viola da gamba, yes? This is your instrument.”

  He said this as if he knew it could be no one else’s, and this pleased her.

  “It was the passion of my childhood and youth.”

  “I commend you on your choice,” he said. “I’ve admired the music of the gamba in the salons of Venice, where fine practitioners abound, but I never before heard such sinew and fire in the playing.” He smiled. “I might even say such fury.”

  Carla’s stomach fluttered.

  “And the composition?” he asked.

  “An improvisation of our own.”

  “Improvisation?”

  “An invention—an embellishment—on a dance suite in the French style.”

  “Ah, the dance,” he said. “If all dance were so spirited I might have studied the art myself, but I am ignorant of it.”

  “It can be learned.”

  “Not on the Messina waterfront. Or at least not in any style that you would recognize.” He held his hand to the neck of the viol, but stopped short of touching it. “May I?” he asked. “I’ve never studied such a marvel before.”

  She nodded and he whisked it from the stand and examined it with a close eye for the carvings and inlays and for the grains of the maplewood back.

  “Astounding geometry,” he murmured. He looked at her. “I understand that the shape is conceived around an arrangement of concentric circles, of overlapping diameters. The harmony of the geometry produces the harmony of sound. But of course you know this better than I.”

  In fact, she did not, and was stunned by his recondite learning, but while she couldn’t bring herself to nod, she didn’t deny it. He peered through the f-holes for a signature.

  “Who made this masterpiece?”

  “Andreas Amati of Cremona.”

  “Superb.” He plucked a string and watched its vibration. “The transmutation of movement into sound—now there’s a mystery for you. But the transmutation of sound into music is more mysterious still, wouldn’t you say?”

  Carla blinked, too taken by his observations to venture an answer. Tannhauser appeared not to expect one. He held the viol at arm’s length and spun it back and about, looking it up and down with genuine enchantment.

  “My old friend, Petrus Grubenius, said that when beauty and purpose are married in perfection, there one may find magic in its truest form.” With the viol still suspended he looked at her and smiled again. “If I were bold enough, I’d venture that such a notion would encompass that dress, too.”

  Carla felt her cheeks burn. She felt inadequate to the compliment and to acknowledge it seemed improper. A sense of sin clenched inside her. Such fears and doubts had hedged her life for as long as she could remember. Yet in these few moments he’d blown through all that dust like a wind through a long-unopened room.

  She said, “Do you believe in magic?”

  He took no offense at her shunning his tribute and replaced the viol on its stand. He did so with the precision of a man whose intimacy with the physical was natural and deep.

  “I have no truck with incantations, sorcery, and the like, if that’s your meaning,” he said. “Such false arts stand on fancy and superstition—and as Plato said to Dionysus, ‘Philosophy should never be prostitute to profane and illiterate men.’ No. Magick takes her name from Ancient Persia, where a ‘magician’ was a wise man who expounded the divine mechanics inherent in Nature. Men such as Zarathustra—or Hermes Trismegistus. The Egyptians considered Nature herself a magician. In that sense—the sense of wonder at the mystery in all Things—there’s nothing I believe in more heartily.”

  Carla’s hopes of bending this man to her will began to fade.

  He pointed to the second instrument. “And this one?”

  “A theorbo.”

  He picked up the double-stringed lute and examined its construction with equal curiosity.

  “The girl also plays like one possessed,” he sa
id. “But by angels rather than demons.”

  He looked at her and again she felt lost for an answer.

  “I’m confounded by her mastery—there are more strings here than I can count.”

  “Amparo has a gift. I have merely the benefit of long practice.”

  “You give your powers short weight.”

  She was relieved when Bertholdo, the steward, entered with a silver tray filled with two crystal beakers and a pitcher of mint cordial. Bertholdo wrinkled his nose and cast a disapproving look at the brawny intruder. Tannhauser appeared unperturbed by this discourtesy. Bertholdo set the tray down, filled the beakers, and turned to Carla.

  “That will be all,” she said.

  With a barely perceptible flick of his head, Bertholdo turned to leave. He stopped as if stabbed between the shoulders by Tannhauser’s voice.

  “Hold there, boy.”

  Bertholdo turned, his lips white.

  “Is it not the custom for a servant to bow before his mistress when taking her leave?”

  She saw Bertholdo consider a riposte, which was not beyond his impudence, but he saw in Tannhauser’s expression that the risk of a sound thrashing was far too high. He bowed to Carla with exaggerated subservience. “Forgive me, my lady.”

  Carla suppressed an unkind smile. Bertholdo beat a swift retreat and they sat by the table. Tannhauser glanced at the pitcher and his thirst was evident. She took up her beaker so that he might take his. The coldness of the glass provoked another of his wolfish grins.

  “Snow from Mount Etna?” he said. “You’re well provided for.” He raised the beaker. “To your health.”

  She sipped and watched as he drained the cordial and set it down with a sigh.

  “An exceptional beverage. You must let me acquire the recipe from your boy.”

  “He would probably add some hemlock.”

  Tannhauser laughed, the sound easy and rich, and she realized how little of men’s laughter she’d heard in her life, and what an impoverishment that was.

  “He regards me as his inferior, yet is obliged to serve me. It’s a lash he applies to his own back, but I hope you’ll forgive me for rubbing some brine into his wounds.”

  Carla refilled his glass, disarmed by his directness. As she did so she was aware of his eyes taking in the way she moved, and she wondered if she did so with adequate grace. As she set the pitcher down it clinked against the beaker and the beaker toppled and panic flooded her belly. But his hand swooped—that was the word—and took the falling glass and raised it to his lips without a drop spilled.

  “You’re too kind,” he said, and drank again. “And so, my lady, I ask again, how may I serve you?”

  Carla hesitated. His frank blue gaze robbed her of her tongue.

  “In my experience,” he said, “there’s much to be said for boldness in such matters.”

  She swallowed. “I arrived here some six weeks ago. Since then I’ve found that all doors are closed against me. I’m given to believe that you represent my last and only hope.”

  “I’m honored,” he said. “But you must tell me which door you’d have me open.”

  “I seek a passage to the island of Malta.”

  She might have said more but the shock he conveyed by the sudden stillness of his features struck her silent. Once again she was reminded of a wolf. This time one who’d heard the footfall of the hunter.

  He said, “You’re aware of the recklessness—the folly—of such a venture.”

  “I’ve been schooled in the many hazards in more detail than I cared to hear a hundred times. I’m now expert in the cruelties of the Turk and the grisly prospects that face the Maltese people. Despite the many flocking to the battlements to die, I’m deemed unfit to decide on such a course for myself.”

  “Surely it’s not the battlements, or death, that you seek.”

  “No. I seek only to increase the burdens upon the Religion with the danger to my welfare, to waste their food and water, and to generally conduct myself as they see me—a conceited and useless woman of less than sound mind.”

  The buried anger that escaped in her voice startled her. Tannhauser said nothing and she flushed. She stood and clasped her hands and turned away from him.

  “Forgive me, sir, but as you see, I am desperate.”

  “They’ve been evacuating useless mouths for weeks, thousands of them,” he said, “and their reasoning can’t be faulted. At the siege of Saint Quentin the defenders shoved them outside the gates at spear point, where they perished in the most unhappy manner.”

  “I won’t dispute your assessment. I am a useless mouth.”

  “Why do you want to go to Malta?”

  Carla didn’t turn. “I am a Maltese.” She’d never claimed such an identity before, for her family was Sicilian by blood. But the instinct seemed true. She said, “It’s my home.”

  “One doesn’t run into a burning house because it’s home,” he said. “Unless there’s something precious left inside. Something one is willing to die for.”

  “My father lives on the island, in Mdina.” She was long dead to her father. He would have been as dead to her if not for the pain in her heart that kept his memory alive. Tannhauser didn’t reply. She knew her explanation was weak and she wondered what was in his face, but didn’t turn. She added, “What daughter wouldn’t wish to be at her father’s side in such dark times?”

  Tannhauser said, “You ask me to risk my life. If you intend to do so on the basis of a lie, you could at least speak that lie to my face.”

  She looked down at her hands. The fingers were white. Still she didn’t turn. She managed to say, “Sir, you’ve been generous with your time. Thank you. Perhaps you should now leave.”

  She took a step toward the door and it was all she could do not to run. She didn’t hear him move, yet he appeared before her in a trice, blocking her way with his eyes as much as his bulk. His face was once again half veiled by his hair.

  “I heard you play on your viol,” he said. “After hearing truth in its purest form, any falsehood is painful on the ear.”

  She dropped her eyes and tried not to compound her humiliation by breaking into tears. She was not accustomed to tears. Nor to making such a fool of herself.

  She said, “You must find me contemptible.”

  He took her arm without answering. His touch steadied her. When she dared look at him she found a strange compassion, a need to comfort her, which sprang from some private anguish of his own. He flicked his head at the ceiling and its splendid decor.

  “Rooms like this were built for telling lies in,” he said. “Let’s return to the garden. It’s hard to play false among roses. And if what you have to say is bitter, their fragrance will sweeten its taste.”

  Her heart suddenly felt that it would burst if she didn’t open it now.

  “I have a child.” She stopped. She took a breath. “I have a son, a son I haven’t seen since the hour in which he was born.”

  The sympathy in his eyes turned a deeper color.

  She said, “This is my secret and my prison. This is the door I hoped you’d be able to open.”

  “Come,” Tannhauser said. “Tell me everything.”

  They sat in the shade of the palms and a breeze from the sea excited the scent of the myrtles and the flowers. She found herself looking into his eyes. He was right. Lies had no place here. And secrets seemed senseless. Yet at the last, she balked.

  “I am a coward,” she said. This, she felt, was no lie. “This you are entitled to know.”

  “A coward could not have come so far.”

  “If I tell you everything, you’ll despise me.”

  “Is this a game you play to win my pity?”

  She stumbled on. “I mean only that your sufferings, whatever they may be, are surely greater than mine, which are of my own making.”

  “My sufferings are not the subject of this meeting,” said Tannhauser. “But to assuage your conscience, which seems to me oversensitive, suffice
to say that I’m enjoying life to the full and am in fine fettle. As to wickedness, shame, or disgrace—for some such phantom seems to stand between you and speaking your mind—be assured that I’ve committed crimes beyond your reckoning. I’m not here to sit in judgment, but to decide if I’ll do as you ask, and take you to Malta.”

  “Then it’s possible? Despite the Turkish blockade?”

  “The Turkish fleet has not yet arrived. And not even Suleiman Shah has the ships to encircle forty miles of coast. A small boat, a good pilot, a moonless night. Reaching the island is the least of the challenges we’d face.”

  She realized he’d already mapped the entire endeavor in his mind and her stomach lurched with curiosity tinged with fear. For the first time the reality of what she’d set herself to do rose up before her. Her emotions suddenly calmed, for in practical matters she was proud of her noted hardheadedness. “What other hazards lie ahead?” she asked.

  “Steady now,” said Tannhauser. “I would know more about this boy. How old is he?”

  “Twelve years old.”

  Tannhauser pursed his lips, as if this detail was significant. “And his name?”

  “I don’t know. The privilege of naming him wasn’t mine.”

  “Can you tell me anything else? His family? His trade? His appearance?”

  Carla shook her head.

  “This world is hard on babes,” he said. “How do you know he’s still alive?”

  “He’s alive,” she said, with vehemence. “Amparo saw him in her vision stone.” She regretted this outburst, guaranteed as it was to confirm her evident foolishness.

  Rather, he was intrigued. “The girl is a scryer?”

  The word was unknown to her. “A scryer?”

  “A medium to the supernal world, one who may commune with spirits, or receive occult intelligence or foreknowledge of things yet to come.”

  “Yes, Amparo claims such powers. Angels speak to her in tongues. She has visions. She saw you—a man on a golden horse.”

  “I would not mount so firm a conclusion on the back of a horse,” he said. “I’m not willing to be bound by prophecy. At least not yet.”