Siege Perilous Page 10

  “What angel?” Peire-Roger said scornfully.

  “A beautiful young woman appeared suddenly in a farmhouse where I was trying to compel the locals to give away your secret paths,” said Vidal.

  Ocyrhoe grinned despite herself. She very nearly giggled.

  “She held in her hand a chalice of pure gold,” continued Vidal emotionally. “It shone like the sun glinting on diamonds. She held it out to me, and a ray of light careened off the chalice and pierced me through the heart and awakened me to the light, and I repented the wickedness of my ways.”

  Ocyrhoe turned away and ran back into the smithy, shoving her knuckles into her mouth to keep from squealing. This was both hilarious and terrifying.

  “And then she vanished!” she heard Vidal continue. “We all saw it, all of us! Once we had calmed ourselves from our amazement, we compared stories and indeed we all saw exactly the same thing. One moment she was there and suddenly she was not. It was a miracle. She was an angel. And she did me the great honor of appearing to prevent my evil. At her request, I am devoting my life to the fierce defense of Montségur.”

  From the smithy, she could see Percival, a look of rapt astonishment on his face. He peered around the courtyard, and Ocyrhoe was irrationally certain that he was seeking her. She ducked back into the smithy. “Damn all visions,” she muttered to herself.

  CHAPTER 13:

  THE BIRTH OF A RUMOR

  An hour later, Ocyrhoe was sitting on her bedroll, shivering, staring in distress at the dull silver cup on her lap.

  Rixenda entered the tiny hut. She took a single step and was beside Ocyrhoe. She knelt. Gently she placed one hand on Ocyrhoe’s shoulder, and the other she rested on the bowl of the cup.

  “It was you,” she said.

  Ocyrhoe nodded, still shaken. “But it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t how he described it. I jumped in the window and I jumped back out the window. The sunlight caught the rim of the cup, that’s all.”

  “Imagination is a very powerful tool,” said Rixenda. “It is usually used for nefarious purposes—like the invention of heaven and hell, the hoax of holy rituals, the farce of marriage vows. But sometimes, happily, accidentally, it can be useful.”

  “I’m glad he’s here,” said Ocyrhoe. “And I’m very glad the others did not reveal the paths or the tunnels. But I don’t want that kind of power. I don’t understand it.”

  “And you think it is in the cup?” Rixenda’s tone made it clear she herself did not believe this.

  “The cup is a part of it,” Ocyrhoe said. “But I did not create the power in the cup. Somebody else did. I don’t think I should destroy it. I just don’t want it anymore.”

  Rixenda chuckled. “There are greedy fools enough in this world ready to take whatever you would cast away.”

  Ocyrhoe looked at her. “But something so powerful?”

  “Things are powerful only if you believe in their power.”

  Ocyrhoe laughed bitterly. “Sometimes things are powerful whether you want them so or not.”

  “Mmm,” Rixenda said. “Thunderstorms, for instance. I am glad the season for them is over.”

  A pause.

  “I will not tell anyone about it,” said Rixenda. “I am sure Peire-Roger and the others do not even recall what you had with you when you first came. I’d forgotten myself until I saw you just now. I believe the cup has no power. Whenever you would like to start believing that with me, you will be very welcome. In the meantime, let it sit idly in here.”

  The rumors became so rampant and exaggerated that Archbishop Pierre Amelii put on all of his ecclesial finery and appeared in the pavilion that was used for morning mass among the locals. There was no danger the French would be moved by the outrageous stories, although the Gascony men might fall prey, and certainly the overimaginative and romantic Provencals.

  Dietrich, who had been the first knight to hear the story directly, had marveled at its rapid growth, and was heartily interested to hear how the uninspiring, upright archbishop would tamp down the sense of the marvelous.

  “There has been a story circulating among the local population, especially among those of you who are here serving your feudal duties,” the archbishop intoned, without any greeting. “A story that is clearly a product of the heretics’ wiles. Do you know what story I speak of?”

  A pause while about a third of the congregants sheepishly muttered among themselves.

  In a louder voice, the tall, stern figure lectured, “I speak of the heretical lie that an angel came down among you and spoke to a weak-willed local soldier, who abandoned his vows to his feudal lord and turned himself over to the heretical cause. I am not saying the soldier did not commit such an objectionable act. But only the devil in disguise would exhort a good Catholic to violate his holy obligations to his feudal lord, which are as sacrosanct in the eyes of God as those of the clergy to the church. Any angel, any true angel, coming down from heaven to mix among us, would, by definition, speak only angelic words, and such words would intrinsically lead the hearer toward the kingdom of heaven. And the kingdom of heaven can only be achieved by uprightness and steadfastness and loyalty. I challenge any good Christian in this room to explain how a soldier can abjure his responsibility to his lord and yet remain upright and steadfast and loyal? How can such a thing be? Can you give me an example?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Then I thank you all for acknowledging the obvious truth of what I am saying. One of your comrades has been deceived by an agent of Satan. Do you understand what that means?” He took a luxuriant pause. “It means this cause is so important to Lucifer that he himself is showing up to defend his believers! This is the most lackluster army I have ever heard of. You act as if this cause were a farce, as if your presence here was nothing but a tiresome obligation you cannot wait to be done with. Do not deny it. I know your thoughts as I know the thoughts of all sinners. But this, this event, surely proves to you what an immensely significant danger we are up against! We are fighting the agents of Lucifer! This may be the most important holy war in the history of mankind!” His eyes were wide and the wrinkles in the back of his neck compressed as his chin and neck jutted out with tension.

  Dietrich looked away; the histrionics embarrassed him. He believed in the Devil, but he did not believe the story that was circulating through this part of the camp had any connection to the Devil at all.

  However, it intrigued him that such an upset would happen immediately after the arrival of a member of the Shield-Brethren—who were, inarguably, heathen. It was coincidence, perhaps; but perhaps not.

  And the story in itself, dripping with religious significance, might be of interest to His Holiness. So when His Eminence Pierre Amelii had finished his exhortation, Dietrich went back to his tent, back to his desk, and wrote a new dispatch for Pope Innocent.

  CHAPTER 14:

  MARE NOSTRUM

  Ferenc sat wrapped in his sleeping blanket in the middle of the boat, starting straight up at the cold blue of heaven. Reverentially, he fingered the slender, braided bracelet around his left wrist. He had almost come to consider it a talisman, the only thing that eased his physical wretchedness.

  He had survived the battle of Mohi, one of the worst atrocities committed by the Mongols upon their conquered. He had been nearly crushed beneath the gruesome corpse of an enemy who’d almost killed him. Being stuck on a boat for a week was nowhere near as horrific, but it was easily worse than anything else in living memory.

  His stomach was constantly moving in the wrong direction, and so was everything else. His innards were tied into knots, and he had almost no control over his own limbs when he tried to walk. For nearly a week he’d felt possessed by a malevolent spirit who used him as a toy. He knew that Vera suffered from the same symptoms he did, but she was astonishingly stoic about it—standing silent and grim, until suddenly she would turn and ret
ch over the side of the boat, then turn back expressionless, as if nothing had happened. He could not follow her example; he felt misery oozing out of his pores. Raphael made a brew for them both, of mint and pennyroyal and other herbs. It helped a little, but only immediately after they had eaten.

  At night they slept in cramped quarters below, sailors and passengers together. This created some heat, which was helpful, but the whole placed reeked of disinfectant vinegar. In contrast, dawn till dusk was freezing raw, the wind unrelenting and sticky, every surface damp, and the sailors the most sour-faced, superstitious lot Ferenc had ever encountered. Even though the ship was in Frederick’s pay, it cost them extra coin because the sailors did not want to sail with a woman on board. When Ferenc first walked onto the boat, he had unthinkingly stepped with his left foot. This had distressed the crew so much that the pilot had ordered him to go back to the dock. His gear was brought up from below and given back to him, and he was instructed to pray forgiveness to Our Lady, Star of the Sea, as well as Saint Nicholas, before carrying his baggage on board, right foot first.

  “Is that human hair?” asked Vera. Ferenc startled, returned his gaze to the deck, and clumsily covered his wrist with his other hand; he forgot she had been sitting next to him. For a moment, he had forgotten he was even in the boat.

  “It is human hair,” he said carefully, without moving his hand.

  Vera calmly but forcefully moved his hand out of the way and brought his wrist closer to her face so she could examine the bracelet in the sunlight. “Those are knots,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, feeling strangely defensive.

  “A gift? Or a prize?”

  He bit his lip. “Definitely not a prize.”

  “From Léna?” she asked in a meaningful tone of voice. “Or some other Binder?”

  “Not from Léna,” he said. He snatched his arm back as his stomach lurched in the opposite direction of the ocean—which should have been impossible, since the ocean was lurching in all directions at once.

  Raphael moved about the ship as comfortably as the sailors did, lightly grasping lines and bulwarks; he seemed, perversely, to enjoy the bounding of the ship into the waves. The two of them watched him approach from the stern, contentment on his wind-slapped face.

  “There is an unnatural elasticity to the umbilical cord between Raphael and Mother Earth,” said Ferenc. To his surprise, Vera chortled beside him.

  “You’re more eloquent than me,” she said. “I tell him he looks like somebody waiting to get pitched over the side.”

  He had reached them. Rubbing his salt-sticky, cold-chafed hands together as if he were about to announce a festival, Raphael settled himself onto the boards beside Vera. “You two look bored beyond tears,” he said.

  “Not at all,” said Vera. “At least dry heaves give us some exercise. You have nothing to distract you at all.”

  Raphael smiled slightly. “I’m glad you can keep this in perspective, Vera. I’m glad for your sake it isn’t raining. What do you two talk about to pass the time as you stare up into the heavens here amidships?”

  “We have been discussing the Apollonian versus Dionysian qualities of certain individuals,” said Ferenc, on impulse.

  Vera gave him a strange look, but Raphael’s reaction was the one that interested him.

  Raphael smiled and nodded. “You are Frederick’s creature, indeed,” he said. “How do I rate? Apollo or Dionysus?”

  “Apollo. Almost everyone Frederick surrounds himself with is Apollonian, so that he can indulge in being Dionysian,” said Ferenc.

  “What is that?” Vera demanded. In a rare show of emotion, she looked irked at being excluded from the conversation.

  “The Emperor is enamored of a dead culture,” said Ferenc. “The Greeks. He likes their thinkers, their gods, their stories. In some of those stories there are two gods, Apollo and Dionysus.”

  “They are not dead,” said Raphael. “They’ve just been lying quietly for a while. They embody two elements of man’s behavior. Apollo represents righteousness, justice, and abiding by the law. He is self-awareness and containment. Dionysus is just the opposite. He is about emotion, impulse, humor, and irrational impulses.”

  Vera frowned. “The Emperor has to be Apollo or his rule is faulty.”

  Raphael and Ferenc both shook their heads. “Frederick grew up in the streets of Palermo,” Raphael said. “He was virtually an orphan. He belonged to a street gang. Many of his qualities are born of impulse and intuition as much as strategy and reason.”

  “Also,” Ferenc volunteered, “Dionysus is tricky, and so is Frederick.”

  “Ah,” said Vera.

  “Apollo isn’t tricky,” Ferenc went on. “It’s not in his nature. And he isn’t always kind. He’s too strong to understand the need to be kind. All of us have a little of both—that’s what the Greeks say, and Frederick likes to categorize people by how Apollonian or Dionysian they are. The useful ones, his favorites, lean toward Apollo.”

  “Including Léna?” asked Raphael.

  Ferenc nodded, stroking the bracelet at his wrist. “Léna is very much Apollo. I know she is a good person. And so I trust her. I know she will always do the right thing, but often that does not mean the best thing.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense,” said Vera.

  “I think he means in comparison to the Emperor,” Raphael said. “Frederick will not always do the right thing.”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Ferenc. “But at least I understand why Frederick does what he does. Léna is mysterious. She sees more than Frederick, but she does not always tell him everything she sees.”

  “And how would you know that?” Raphael asked slyly. “Who are you to be in a position to judge these things?”

  Ferenc pursed his lips. His mother was a Binder, but he did not want to tell them that; it was personal and they had not earned the right to know. Certainly there were times he knew in his gut that he understood Léna more clearly than even His Majesty did, although His Majesty was surely a hundred times more intelligent than Ferenc himself.

  “I am nobody,” he said. “But I will tell you what I think, if you’re interested. If Léna says your friend is in Montségur, then he is probably in Montségur. Whether she knows that from her Binder sisters, or from second sight, or some other source, I can’t say, but if she says it with confidence it is probably true. And if she says you should go there and take him away, that is also probably true. However, that doesn’t mean she isn’t using you as pawns for something else.”

  Raphael took this in without surprise. “You are saying she doesn’t lie by commission but she might lie by omission.”

  “Yes,” said Ferenc. “She does that not uncommonly. She always does it for a good reason—certainly what she believes to be a good reason—but I still don’t like it. To me it feels as if she is breaking rules of human conduct I never thought of as rules until I realized I did not like to watch her break them.”

  Then he felt sick and empty from speaking too much. He clapped his hand protectively over the bracelet, and rested his forehead on his arm, wishing he could sleep until they reached Narbonne.

  CHAPTER 15:

  THE WEARY SHEPHERD

  “You may tell the Wonder of the World,” said His Holiness Innocent IV, “that if he would only start building churches instead of governmental buildings, I might consider his plea for pardon.” He pretended to examine his nails a moment, then glanced up coldly at Pero della Vigna and Taddeo da Suessa, Imperial legates. They stood before him, well-dressed, exhausted, dusty noblemen, in the smallest receiving chamber in the Lateran Palace. The room was cold and not well lit; no libations had been offered them, and they had been kept waiting several hours since their arrival.

  Innocent, in the full regalia of his office, had eaten a leisurely meal, relieved himself, warmed his hands by the fire, and then en
tered unannounced, settling on the room’s only chair. He was well rested and resplendent in white, gold, and red silk, the papal tiara glinting over his mitre, the papal ring on one ring finger, Gregory IX’s more personal ring on the other. “Frederick was not excommunicated without reason,” he continued. “He already knows exactly the terms for the censure to be lifted. He must build a few churches, to at least create the appearance of devoutness.”

  “I assure you His Majesty is very devout,” said della Vigna fervently, from his knees. “Else why would he have sworn to call a new crusade?”

  “It is not enough for him to call it; he must actually enact it,” said Innocent impatiently. “If you are scribing the next draft of a proposed treaty between his court and mine, let it reflect that. I will not negotiate on that end. He has treasure enough. He might put his resources to glorifying Our Lord, rather than to caretaking the unorthodox collection of wild beasts he insists on lugging around with him for sport.”

  “What else may we report?” asked da Suessa, the dispassionate one. He held a stub of lead and vellum scroll. “Your Holiness requires churches built, and a crusade. Other demands? I am sure His Majesty will want to know your position on the Lombard lands.”

  Innocent hissed slightly. “We will address that when we meet face to face next year. For now let it rest that he must show in earnest that he would build a church and summon pilgrims to the holy land. Do not bother me again until there is evidence of these achievements. Remind him that his subjects in the east blame him for the Mongolian invasion, or at least, for their not being protected from it. You are dismissed. You may stay in the guest dormitories for the night. My steward is just outside the door. He will see to the arrangements.”

  He held out his right hand for them to kiss the ring, but already his attention was distracted. He did not even notice them leave; his eyes were boring into the dark corner of the receiving room. From the hidden door, his spymaster Rufus was waiting quietly for a private audience. Innocent shook his head once—there were other messengers to be received openly. The man sank deeper into the shadows made behind a hanging silk tapestry depicting Our Lord in His Passion.