The Mongoliad: Book Two (The Foreworld Saga) (40 page)

When he reached Somercotes’s chamber, it was empty, and it took him several minutes of wandering through the narrow, dimly lit halls before he found his quarry. Somercotes was in one of the rooms that had natural light, and when he entered the chamber without announcing himself, the room was too bright for his dark-accustomed eyes, and he stood in the doorway, blinking.

When his eyes had adjusted, he saw Somercotes watching him with a bland expression. His Bible lay open, in his lap, as if he were sharing a passage with his companion. On the bench beside him sat the new arrival—the
madman
—still filthy and disheveled.

“Cardinal Somercotes,” said Fieschi without preamble, “a word in private, if you please.”

“Certainly, Cardinal Fieschi,” said Somercotes pleasantly, completely unruffled by Fieschi’s tone. He closed his Bible and turned to the priest. “Father, if you have need, do not hesitate to seek me in my chamber.” The priest looked up vacantly, his sweaty face shining with reflected sunlight.

Fieschi was surprised to find himself contemplating a desire to smash that beatific expression with a rock. Like one of the many shards of stone, lying within easy reach—

Somercotes now laid his hand on Fieschi’s arm, fingers digging into flesh, drawing his attention from the smiling priest. “Let us go to my chamber, Cardinal,” Somercotes said. His gaze was steady and his grip strong, but Fieschi tore himself loose, refusing to let the other man lead him, and stalked from the room.

Fieschi’s own hands shook slightly, and he clenched his fingers before him as he walked so that Somercotes would not see how close to the surface his rage was.

When they reached his chamber, Somercotes closed the door behind them, a polite smile stuck on his face. As he braced the door with a loose timber—affording them some privacy—the smile vanished.

“I have little to say to you, Sinibaldo,” he said tightly, “and even less tolerance for your company. So speak concisely, and then remove yourself from my presence.”

“You have been entertaining unauthorized guests,” Fieschi said. “You have been engaging in covert activities with the aim of destabilizing our work here.”

Somercotes stared at him for a second and then let loose a snort of laughter. “Who are you to lodge such a complaint, Sinibaldo? I know where you go at night, and why, and I am not the only one who smells meat on your breath when you return. Your dining habits alone
destabilize our work
, if you can even call the hellish farce we are subjected to here
work
.”

“You have engaged a messenger to seek aid from the Holy Roman Emperor,” Fieschi said. “A man whom you know to be no friend of the Church.”

“
Your
Church,” Somercotes said. “I count Frederick to be one of the most learned and enlightened men of our age. I would
celebrate any effort on his part to aid us in our trying time. But that should be no mystery to you. I have never hidden my admiration and respect for the man. Why would I not seek his assistance?”

“So you do not deny sending a messenger?”

Somercotes shrugged. “I have sent many messages to the Holy Roman Emperor and would have continued to do so had we not been sequestered in this hellish dungeon.”

Fieschi gaped, his words caught in his throat. “No,” he started, suddenly flustered, “earlier today. You sent a message earlier today.”

Somercotes said nothing, and there was nothing in his expression that gave Fieschi any clue as to what the man was thinking. Eventually, the Englishman shrugged. “Today?” he drawled, seeming to give the matter great thought. He shifted the book in his hands as if he were about to open it and start reflecting on a passage from the Bible. “I’m not sure what you are talking about, Sinibaldo. You are the only one who wanders in and out of this place. How could I have sent a message?”

Fieschi snapped his mouth shut with an audible click. Mentally staggered, he held himself as rigid as possible, trying to ascertain how to extricate himself from the error he had just made.
He knows that I know. I have just given myself away, and he pretends otherwise.
He needed to shift his attention away from the messenger, as well as the implication of what Fieschi might have done in response to such knowledge.

“This new man is not who he appears to be,” he said.

“No?” Somercotes raised an eyebrow. “Who is he?” Daring him to open his mouth, to reveal some secret knowledge that he could not—should not—know.

Fieschi ground his teeth. Somercotes was toying with him, this upstart from that damp and tiny island so far from Rome. Somercotes had been the confessor to the English king. His name didn’t matter; he was nothing more than a barbarian who had converted to
Christianity to save his own head. Did Somercotes actually think hearing the confessions of an uneducated savage and offering absolution made him a peer?
He
had studied canonical law at Bologna, under Accursio, and been awarded
maestro
for his studies. He was Vice Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church; he had been the Pope’s voice during the last few months of His Eminence’s life.

“He’s a charlatan,” he heard himself say. “A spy for the Emperor.”

“And you aren’t a lapdog for Orsini?” Somercotes snorted.

“Orsini is the Senator of Rome and, as such, has a vested interest in the next Bishop of Rome,” Fieschi retorted, still struggling to find his tongue.

“And Frederick doesn’t?” Somercotes inquired. “I think your logic is overly convoluted, dear Sinibaldo. The man who rules over most of Christendom has more of a stake in who is elevated to become the next Pope than a self-appointed upstart who acts like he has read too much Tacitus.”

Somercotes stepped away from Fieschi, slowing the rise in tension between them. “It is too late for your ill-conceived and unfounded accusations, Sinibaldo. This new man cannot be swayed or bullied by you, nor even by the Bear himself. He has a genuine religious zeal to him that I find refreshing, if a trifle alarming. The only thing that can move him will be the spirit of the candidate, and you know as well as I do that Bonaventura is as charming as cold porridge. Rodrigo’s vote will go to Castiglione. He will be the only man here who casts a vote based on whom he thinks the better man, not for any political factions. Well, perhaps he and Annibaldi...but Rodrigo comes from a place of genuine innocence.”

“Ignorance, you mean,” Fieschi spat back, regaining some of his composure. His blood pounded in his temples, and the edges of his vision wavered and shook. He had to be careful. Somercotes had a way of getting under his skin, making him irrational and prone
to responding too quickly, too emotionally.
Gregory warned you...
He shoved the thought aside. “He will fall for whoever has the most charisma.”

“And we both know that is Castiglione,” Somercotes said calmly. “Really, Sinibaldo, I do not see what it is that you needed to talk so urgently about. It is time for me to pray now; please let me do so.”

“Do not assume,” Fieschi said through clenched teeth, “that I cannot persuade him of the wonders of Bonaventura’s character.”

“If he casts his vote for Bonaventura, I will reveal him as the
spy
you think he is, and you will lose the vote,” Somercotes said with a sigh, sounding indulgently sympathetic.

“Well then, if he casts his vote for Castiglione, I shall do likewise,” Fieschi retorted.

“Will you? And how will you prove it?” Somercotes asked, as if catechizing a young child.

“How will you prove he isn’t?” Fieschi replied, his ears burning like he was a young child, and loathing Somercotes all the more for it.

“Well,” Somercotes said, drawing the word out, “I do have his ring. His
cardinal
’s ring. And you do not.” He smiled at Fieschi then, the smile of a man who thought he had been granted a decisive victory.

“Which I do not have
yet
,” Fieschi argued and made a lunge for Somercotes.

Somercotes was caught off guard by the sudden escalation from argument to action but only needed to take a half step back to avoid Fieschi’s somewhat spastic lunge. As he did so, he dropped his heavy book. Likewise, Fieschi—unprepared to have missed—stumbled forward and had to brace himself against the chamber’s wall to avoid falling on his face entirely.

But then Somercotes was behind him and, now alert, wasted no time in leaping on Fieschi’s back. Reaching forward with his left arm, Somercotes began to choke him.

The weight of the other man on his back made Fieschi lurch to one side, but his hands found the wall again and he pushed back, then reached up to grab the arm around his neck, before finishing the fall. The motion pulled Somercotes forward, off balance, and tumbled him over Fieschi and onto his back on the chamber’s cold stone floor.

Not a trained brawler, Somercotes hadn’t braced himself against the throw, and even before his head hit the ground, he was confused about what was happening. He had lost his chokehold on Fieschi, and his arms hung limp. Fieschi cast about and, spotting Somercotes’s book, grabbed it up and struck the English cardinal in the head. The spine of the book gave under the impact, and Fieschi shifted his grip, using the stiff and stone-encrusted cover instead. He struck Somercotes several more times, until the boards shattered.

“Frederick’s help will mean nothing to you now,” Fieschi said as he threw aside the ruined book. He was calm, for the first time since they’d entered the room, for the first time since he had been accosted by that churlish guard outside Orsini’s palazzo. He had no more doubt about what he had to do, about what must be done.
There must be a vote; a Pope must be elected. The Church must prevail.

Somercotes, his face bloodied from Fieschi’s blows, was still conscious. His eyes fluttered, and a sluggish moan slipped from his slack lips.

Fieschi scrabbled at Somercotes’s robe, reaching for the braided rope the other man wore around his waist. A symbol of his austerity and piety, it was the sort of rope a sheepherder would use. Stout and strong. Fieschi gathered up the long strand that hung unencumbered and wrapped it once about Somercotes’s neck. Bracing his knee against the struggling cardinal’s shoulder, he leaned back, pulling
the rope taut. The heavy weave burned in his hands as Somercotes thrashed.

Somercotes got his hands on Fieschi’s robes and tried to pull himself closer, but Fieschi’s knee kept him at bay. The Englishman’s hands became more frantic—at first like talons and then like the wings of a frightened bird. He gurgled and spat, each breath shorter and more desperate than the last.

Fieschi held on. He breathed evenly—in, out, again and again—and kept the rope tight.

The Church must prevail.
I must prevail.

“I
T IS
a
jaghun
,” Cnán said, “which is to say a unit of one hundred, made up of ten
arbans
of ten men each. The man you call Graymane is named Alchiq. He is new to them. About a week ago, he rode in out of nowhere to a Mongol garrison west of the Volga, where this
jaghun
and two others were encamped, and simply commandeered it.”

“So he is a man of high rank,” Feronantus said.

Cnán shrugged. “They know little about him, other than what I have just told you.”

As soon as Vera had been able to ride, they had moved beyond the eastern limit of the Khazars’ territory. A few hours before, Cnán had arrived at their camp—proving once again her extraordinary tracking skills.

She had been absent for four days.

Following a wash, a nap, and a bowl of antelope stew, she had gathered the others to convey all she had learned.

She went on now to say a few words about where Alchiq’s
jaghun
had crossed the Volga and where they had subsequently gone, though as everyone understood, this information was no longer of much use; she had broken contact two days ago, and the Mongols could have covered much distance since then. “Alchiq dispatched an
arban
up into those hills where the Khazars live,” she said, nodding toward the dark crests rising from the steppe to the west.

“Too small to perpetrate a massacre,” Raphael remarked. “This Alchiq has a light touch, when it suits his purposes.”

Some around the council looked as if they were about to raise objections, but they were silenced by a look from Cnán.
She has her own commanding presence, doesn’t she?
Raphael thought.

“The
arban
in question is made up of Turkoman recruits from Kiwa, not all that far from here as distances on the steppe go, and they speak a similar language. They were sent to parley, not to kill. They took no casualties during the action against the Shield-Maidens and do not hunger for revenge, as some of the others do.”

“You have information about casualties?” Vera said. Unlike the others, she had not grown accustomed to Cnán’s ability to move about Mongol-held countryside and gather intelligence.

If Cnán was offended by the skepticism in Vera’s voice, she hid it well. “The brunt of your charge was taken by an
arban
of men from Barchkenda, which was all but destroyed. Six were killed outright, two died later of wounds, one is permanently disabled, the last has been absorbed into another
arban
that also took casualties during the fight on the riverbank. The total strength of the
jaghun
has been reduced to a little more than eighty, now organized in eight
arbans
. Some of these are unchanged; others are thrown together from survivors.”

“How does that work, in an army where
arbans
are recruited from specific clans and villages?” Percival asked. Perhaps not so much out of practical curiosity as because he enjoyed watching Cnán’s mind work.

“It depends on everything—language, clan rivalries, customs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; in other cases, the
arban
is thrown into disarray or even outright conflict.”

“Then, since we are outnumbered, let us make
conflict
our ally,” Feronantus said.

This was one of these gnomic utterances that threw the group into silence as all waited for Feronantus to make himself clear. Raphael studied their leader during that silence, looking for clues as to the old warrior’s state of mind.