A Mass for Peace.
The architect of the event passed the cane over into his right hand and shifted his weight onto his stronger right leg. He knew that he’d never dream of accepting credit for having brought the event so close to realisation with so much ambition and belief. To him he was just one piece in a giant puzzle, a puzzle which, when unlocked, he hoped would reveal a new way forward for mankind. He was just glad that he was here to see it. To witness its results.
In the grey dusk, which had cast much of the Cathedral into darkness, he looked smaller and more insignificant than usual. It was how he liked to appear. Just like Francis of Assisi, the Saint he most admired, Monteria always believed that the meek’s path towards achieving their goals was easier than the path for those who telegraphed their deeds at every opportunity. After all, didn’t the Lord himself say that the ‘meek shall inherit the earth’?
The venerable Cardinal rubbed his palms together, as if removing the last crumbs of a meal, and exhaled loudly, looking up into the heights of the Cathedral and then back down towards the nave. Inexplicably he was suddenly caught in an embrace of fear and trepidation at the enormity of what he was planning to do. He was relieved when a voice called out and rescued him from his anxiety.
“Tired, Cardinal Bishop Monteria?” a young black-cassocked Bishop asked, stepping out of the shadows of the north transept, where the candles had yet to be lit. A scarlet coloured fascia around his middle gave the stout figure a dash of style and verve, inconsistent with his portly appearance. The voluptuousness of his voice mixed beautifully with his French tongue. “You have every right to be. You must be very proud to see preparations moving at such a pace, so near completion.”
Cardinal Bishop Monteria straightened the front of his own cassock and looked across at the Bishop with heavy, drooping eyes. He smiled and proffered a hand. “Bishop Guillaume,” he said in greeting to the young Bishop he knew well from Notre Dame. He looked back to the rear of the Cathedral and the bustling figures. “No, not tired,” he said, tapping the foot of his cane on the tiles. “More worn, like a cord which has been tied too many times. But, there is no need to worry. Everything will work out fine.”
“It sounds like you’re planning something,” Bishop Guillaume Varsy replied, raising an eyebrow and a smile.
“I am,” said Monteria, looking about the glorious building. “Peace.”
A sharp yelp from somewhere in the blackness of an adjourning chamber broke the reverent silence for a fleeting moment. Monteria pretended not to hear it, but when Varsy asked what it was, the Cardinal was quick with an answer.
“A local man. Was caught speaking in tongues.”
Varsy pulled a face and shrugged, drawing himself alongside his colleague to look down the length of the Cathedral with him. “Is that so bad?” he asked. “Many of my congregation have claimed to have spoken in tongues at some point.”
“He was speaking in tongues backwards,” elaborated Monteria directly.
“Ahh.” Varsy puckered up his face and gave a knowing nod.
“They said he spoke words of the devil, something he chose not to deny.” The Bishop looked again, briefly in the direction of the chamber from where a second yelp came, and then back to the arrangements in front of them. “They’re excommunicating him at the moment,” Monteria revealed.
“Oh, he’s a ranking Catholic, is he?” Varsy asked, appearing captivated at the news.
“Cardinal Deacon.” Monteria anticipated the next question and spoke before he was asked. “Cardinal Deacon Travert.”
Varsy gasped. “Cardinal Deacon Travert?!” He stuttered the name out of his mouth in amazement. He’d known the Cardinal Deacon since they were children. Monteria knew Varsy would be shaken at the news.
“He is resisting,” he continued, “but that’s only to be expected. He’s come to this Cathedral for over twenty years.”
“Longer than most,” Varsy added, moistening his bulbous lips with his wine-coloured tongue.
“They’d tried exorcism,” Monteria revealed, aware that his colleague’s head was now fixed firmly in the direction from where the pained cries of the excommunication were coming, “but they quickly realised that Travert wasn’t possessed. He’d just … fallen from his faith.” Without warning, the elderly Cardinal leaned his body forward to trot down the main aisle towards the nave, his stiff torso rocking from side to side, as he waddled above his short, quick strides. “Some do fall, of course,” Monteria mused, almost to himself, the tip of his cane clacking on the hard stone slate. “It’s a narrow path we walk.”
The younger Bishop had now joined him at his side, surprised by the speed at which the old Cardinal could move when he so chose. “And to think of what we used to do to them,” Varsy muttered darkly, a last final look towards the chamber behind him where his friend was being held. He leaned a little closer to Monteria’s ear and lowered his voice, like someone passing on a secret. “Full excommunication, I mean.”
Monteria had known what he’d meant without the need for elaboration. The comment had surprised the old man and he flickered his eyes briefly over the Bishop before casting them back onto the Cathedral in front of him, slowly being brought into life with the lighting of candles.
“We toll a bell before we excommunicate them now,” Monteria replied, his tone more considered than his excitable colleague’s. “That’s quite enough.”
Monteria liked Bishop Varsy. He believed he showed promise and occasional wisdom, but he still had much to learn, particularly, at times, in how to behave, what and what not to say. He would blame it on the young man’s age, but he knew he would never have mentioned such dark things when he was Varsy’s age.
“I heard we used to cut their gall bladders from out of them with silver knives, or so I was told,” the young man continued, like a child revealing macabre secrets. “And only on full moon nights, as well.”
Cardinal Bishop Monteria felt a heat coming to his cheeks. He was neither in the mood, nor did he deem it the place to discuss such things. Indeed, such matters were no longer appropriate for discussion, full stop, nor had they been for many decades now.
“We live in a more civilised time now,” he retorted, a firmness suggesting the subject was closed.
“Really? If times are so civilised, why do we need to hold a Mass for Peace?”
It was a fair question and Monteria was unable to give it a suitably considered response. So he chose to say nothing and instead the old Cardinal quietly ruminated on the vulgarity of youth.
As they walked, the Cardinal admired the frescoes on the Cathedral’s walls. The scene which caught his attention depicted the opening of a door to hell, all the devil’s minions pouring forth in an army of death and retribution. Monteria swallowed and pulled his eyes away.
“Have you ever carried out a full excommunication?” Bishop Varsy asked suddenly, still unaware of Monteria’s reticence to discuss the topic.
Monteria tutted sharply and sucked on his tongue. “You know there hasn’t been such a thing for over forty years!” He hissed the words, both to keep others in the Cathedral from hearing what was being discussed and as a final veiled effort to show his disapproval of the subject. “We are paying a high enough price for the choices we made in the past as it is.”
“I heard that their limbs popped when they were the cast out in the old days, as a sign of how the transformations would affect them once they were bound up within them. That their screams followed them into the moonlit hours. I was told that they cast out blood from their orifices for three days and nights, after which they could taste only blood and desire only blood to satiate their hunger.”
“They say a lot of the old days. They are only stories.”
“Have you ever seen a werewolf?”
It was the frankness of the question, asked without the slightest deliberation or discretion, that appalled the Cardinal. He stopped and drew Varsy by his sleeve to face him. “Why are you asking such questions?” he dema
nded, his knuckles white clenched to the Bishop’s robe, his eyes flashing over the young Bishop’s face, looking for anything which might reveal more.
“I am just interested,” he replied.
“Well curtail your interest in such things!” Monteria warned. He studied the fine lines and folds on the young man’s face, his eyes slowly cooling. “They were from another time. When things were different. Things have changed. Let us focus on what we have now and the tasks of our age which we must tackle.”
He was aware he was still grasping the young Bishop’s sleeve and let go of it, almost apologetically. He drew a shaking hand across his forehead and then waved it over the Cathedral behind where Varsy was standing. “This is where the de Lecluse family will be sitting, yes?” he asked, control gradually returning to his voice and his movements.
“Yes,” replied Varsy nervously, never having seen the Cardinal so animated. He felt shameful that he’d angered the old man as he had. It had never been his intention. “I hear Henri de Lecluse has been recalled to the army?” he said, in an attempt to draw the conversation back to more shared and conservative interests. “He must be forty-five? At the very least?”
“France’s army is desperate for good men,” Monteria replied, bleakly. “This whole area is designed for the French aristocracy, yes?” he asked, continuing his review of the seating plans.
“Yes. And the block to the right,” Varsy said, waving with his hand.
“We should move them to the front,” the Cardinal announced suddenly. “They should have the best view. Hear every word that is spoken. See every action. It will do the cause good to have so many powerful families so close to where the service will be taking place. Do we have many from outside of France attending?”
“We have representatives from almost all Western countries. We even have members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany attending.”
Varsy dared to allow a smile to tease his face and was relieved when Monteria’s face lightened too. A warmth, like the afterglow left by a passing torch, grew within him, swelling his heart with pride and munificence, as if the spirit of God had burgeoned inside it. It was a sensation Varsy often felt, whenever he saw the comfort he brought to people during his sermons, God’s grace upon him. If ever asked of the proof of God’s existence, he would tell people to simply ‘feel it in their heart’. Emboldened, he continued with the other news he had gathered.
“Le Figaro, Le Matin, Le Siècle, La Justice, they and many other newspapers are covering the event, some even writing in advance of the day itself to provide a prelude and backdrop to the Mass, its intentions and hopes.”
Monteria nodded, a wry look on his face.
“We also have papers from other countries,” Bishop Varsy added quickly, keen to show that news of the Mass for Peace was not to be restricted to France alone. “The Times from Britain are attending. Coburger Zeitung from Bavaria. The corridors of the Hotel de Crillon fairly rattle with the babble of a thousand accents and voices from the different countries of the world.”
Varsy noticed that the old Cardinal’s lips glistened in the dim light of the Notre Dame. Monteria’s protruding adam’s apple worked its way up and down his ashen-skinned throat.
“And politicians?” he asked, furtively. “You mention representatives are attending. Do you have any names? Important persons?”
The young Bishop’s eyes flashed in the candlelight from above. “Britain is sending Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, 1st Viscount of Fallodon.”
The Cardinal seemed to shudder briefly, his breath snipped, as if snagged by a trap. “So Britain shares our view that this war must be stopped and stopped forthwith?”
“One would hope all nations share such a view? Count István Tisza, Prime Minister of Hungary, is also attending. Long he has been an advocate of peace to resolve Europe’s issues. Léon Descos, French Ambassador to Belgrade, he has returned home to show his allegiance to the pursuit of peace, and I have just heard that the German Ambassador to Vienna, Heinrich von Tschirschky, is also in attendance.”
“A global audience,” smiled Monteria. He closed his eyes for a moment in an attempt to comprehend what he had achieved, Bishop Varsy’s earlier indiscretion long forgotten in light of this latest news. “Let us hope our message is afterwards taken away by those who attend, to their own peoples around the globe. Shall we sit?” He indicated the line of chairs beside where they were standing.
“Yes, it’s sometimes good to sit and watch others work,” Varsy replied lightly, and the two of them chuckled.
“You do realise that we’ve been here before don’t you, Guillaume?”
“What, with a Mass for Peace?”
“The Catholic Church, in a direct parley for peace. Francis of Assisi. With his attempt to broker peace between the Crusaders and the Arabs. With the Sultan al-Kamil.”
“Yes!” the young man replied passionately, pleased to recount a topic he knew well and with much fondness. “I remember the teachings. Francis offered the Sultan a trial by fire to prove his and his faith’s worthiness. Putting his life in the hands of his Lord in order to achieve peace.” They nodded and then Varsy looked across at Monteria nervously. “If I remember rightly, he did not succeed though?”
“It depends how you define ‘succeed’, Guillaume? To broker peace no, he did not succeed, but perhaps that was never his, or God’s, intention?”
Varsy shook his head in doubt, making his double chin wobble. “I don’t understand. Why would God not want peace?”
The old Cardinal raised his hand gently from the top of his cane and lifted an index finger from it. “I never said that. When he reappeared from the flames of his trial unharmed, his clothes unblemished, Francis was immediately heralded as the true embodiment of God, by both Christians and the Sultan’s subjects. Francis was given free reign to wander unmolested amongst the Sultan’s lands, speaking directly to his people of the Lord’s wonder. He never stopped the wars but his humility and his grace won him many admirers and followers on his return to Italy.” Monteria looked across at Varsy. “Yes, the wars continued, but such was the adoration on his return, on the humble nature of his achievements, and his failure, that the Church made Francis of Assisi a Saint. And it was as a Saint that Assisi’s legacy achieved so much, for when people follow his path of humility and respect for all things, far more is achieved, has been achieved, than the ending of the Crusades could ever have done.” He looked back to the nave. “So you see, it’s not always the path that we think is destined for us by God that God in fact wants to us to take.” “Perhaps they’ll canonise you, Cardinal Bishop Monteria?” Bishop Varsy asked, with a wry smile, “once you achieve peace in Europe?” But the aged Cardinal said nothing, instead closing his eyes and hanging his head in silent prayer.
NINE
1889. THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
The dormitory into which Tacit had stepped looked anything but welcoming. After the opulence of the Vatican, lavished with gold and rich fabrics, the dormitory looked more like a prison rather than a home.
Grey. Monotonous. Correct.
Down its length were beds, grey covers masking white starched sheets beneath and small bedside tables alongside upon which were set bibles, black-bound and silver-edged. Each bed was spaced the same distance apart from its neighbour across the grey stone floor, grey walls behind, grey ceiling above, the only decoration being a large black stone cross, hanging on the far wall facing the door through which Tacit had been pushed. Two small windows in the roof of the room gave everything a thin and grainy appearance.
Stretched out on beds, or gathered in groups, some standing, others crouched on the floor playing jacks, were the twelve boys, laughing and chatting idly. At once they fell silent and looked up, gathering themselves slowly in front of Tacit, peering and murmuring between themselves. Tacit checked quickly over his shoulder and realised that Adansoni had not accompanied him inside the dormitory. He looked back and felt the cold burden of dread fall heavily upon
him. He felt pressure in his bladder, a tightness in his throat. He trembled and fought against the urge to run.
He hesitated beneath the enquiring glares and made to speak when suddenly, one of the tallest of the boys stepped forward, his face brightening in welcome. “Hello!” the boy said cautiously, reaching out and attempting to take Tacit’s case from him. Tacit resisted, his fingers locked tight to the handle.
Another of the boys spoke. “You’re Poldek?” he asked gently. “I’m Georgi.”
Now there were only smiles and inquisitive glances pressed in his direction. Tacit swallowed and felt the weight inside of him shift, just a little. His fingers uncurled from the case and he watched the boy take it and place it on a bed nearby, his immediate thought that it was some sort of trick.
“How’s your Italian?” a toothy boy enquired in the same language, pushing forward and proffering a hand. Tacit hesitated in taking it but the boy forced his hand into his. “You’re Polish? That’s right, isn’t it?”
“It’s alright,” another called and Tacit speared him with a suspicious glare. “They’ve told us. Well, told us a little of what happened.”
“A few of us here were abandoned, too” another revealed. “You’re not alone.”
The edges of Tacit’s mouth trembled and he nodded. “Yes, I am Polish,” he said eventually, careful not to reveal too much of himself to these strangers. Not yet.
“I’m Ivan,” the tall boy announced, putting an arm outlandishly across his shoulders and making Tacit flinch. Ivan ignored him, or didn’t notice. “You’re most welcome!” He pushed him forward gently through the crowd of boys to his bed. Tacit could feel hands on his shoulders and back, slapping and thumping, as he supposed children must do when they greet others of their kind.
The Darkest Hand Trilogy Box Set Page 4