“Which is why Tacit returned to Strettavario’s residence? To exact revenge?”
But Korek was unconvinced. “If that is true, where is her body?”
“Apparently she has already been buried.”
“How convenient,” said the ancient Cardinal.
Adansoni turned on him. “Why would the Inquisition lie?” he asked, glancing towards Düül for support.
“And why would Father Strettavario kill Sister Isabella?” Someone else called from the auditorium. “He is one our most trusted of Priests.”
“Why would he, indeed?” croaked Bishop Basquez, playing with the frayed edge of his sleeve. “And where is Strettavario now?”
“Apparently he has left the city.”
“So would I, if I knew Poldek Tacit was after me,” said the Bishop.
“Do we know where he’s gone? What’s his next assignment?”
“We have no record of forthcoming assignments,” replied a dark-skinned Cardinal with a voice deep as a pipe organ.
“So either Strettavario has fled, or Tacit has caught up with him?” Berberino persevered, tilting his head to one side like a snake considering a strike. “I suggest preparations for his funeral might be in order.”
“What I find more mysterious,” said a hooded-eyed Cardinal, “are these Inquisitors, the ones running amok in Rome.”
“Often it is what Inquisitors do best,” said Korek, looking across at the Grand Inquisitor in an attempt to show the man that he had his support.
“They need bringing under control,” the Cardinal continued.
“Cardinal Bishop Gunderson,” Düül replied. “I assure you, I do not like an Inquisition which is not under control. Anyone stepping out of line will be dealt with most efficiently.”
“Well, someone seems to be trying to control them most efficiently in Bulgaria,” said Basquez, his voice shrewd and languid.
“Oh?”
Basquez appeared to relish his role as bearer of news; his face brightened for the first time in the session. “A whole unit of Inquisitors, tracking Slavs through the mountains, wiped out.”
“Good God!” cried Berberino, “By whom?”
“Hombre Lobo, led by Cardinal Poré.”
A joint intake of breath seemed to draw the air from the room.
“Cardinal Poré?!” exclaimed Berberino. “I thought he died after the Mass for Peace?”
“No,” repied Casado, shaking his head. “He was never found. We knew he fled from the city, but assumed he died during last year’s harsh winter.”
“Clearly not,” croaked Korek. “What was Poré doing in Bulgaria? And how has he fallen in with werewolves? To my knowledge he was never excommunicated?”
“He must have found the pelt after the ceremony,” said Adansoni.
“Wasn’t it destroyed?” asked Korek, aghast.
“It would seem not,” said the recorder at the session, checking his file. “It too was lost after the event, perhaps discarded by someone who didn’t realise what it was. There was a lot of confusion after the event.”
“Those Inquisitors,” asked Casado. “Were they not prepared with silver?”
“It was not believed that werewolves dwelt in that part of the mountain range,” growled Düül, disliking the growing accusatory feelings in the room towards him and his organisation.
“Send a squad to the area to deal with them,” Casado shot back, emphasising his words with a flick of his fingers. “Deal with Poré.”
“His head on a spit?” asked Basquez, a malevolent light in his eyes.
“If necessary, yes,” said the Secretary of State, looking at the Grand Inquisitor.
“Despite our stretched numbers?” Düül asked. “Despite Tacit being back in the city?”
“It is important that Poré be done away with. He is a problem we can easily eliminate. Send a small but appropriately armed group to find him and silence him for good.”
“Why do we seem always to be at war?” mused Berberino.
“And for the coming of war to our borders,” Adansoni said, “it seems to me that this conflict, this suicide of Europe as our Pope describes it, is worthy of urgent discussion within the Holy See. We talk of End Times. Perhaps when our Pope spoke of them thirty years ago, when the vision came to him that time, he was right?”
“Austria-Hungary is many hundreds of miles away,” Korek said, with a sideways glance. “We do not need to act, nor should we act, with the speed you seem to suggest is required, Cardinal Adansoni.” The aged Cardinal’s words were accompanied by a sudden gust of wind which blew in from the open window and caught the papers of the scribe close to him, showering them to the floor. “We should remain objective and neutral. It is not the Holy See’s role to take sides within world conflict.”
“But they are our neighbour,” countered Adansoni, “and close enough to cause us concern.”
“To act with too much haste, without a chance to consider what we might find ourselves involved in, would be unwise, Cardinal Adansoni. And we should be careful whose mast we nail our colours to.”
Adansoni grimaced and forced a cold laugh from his lips. “Whose mast we nail our colours to?” He shook his head. “With all due respect, have you quite taken leave of your senses, Cardinal Korek? We are Italians. The Italians fighting on the border, they are our people.”
“Speak for yourself,” the aged Cardinal replied.
Adansoni looked away, now directing his comments to Casado. “I have heard that the Austro-Hungarians have tens of thousands of men on their borders. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. That they are well armed and trained. That the Italian army has nothing. A poorly dressed, poorly provisioned force, made up of conscripts, boys and old soldiers. How are they to take the Carso, so few in number, and so poorly prepared? If the war draws out into winter then they will be defeated by the cold, let alone the enemy.”
“More reason to choose our sides carefully,” replied Korek. “Adansoni,” he croaked, his bright eyes defying his age, “I knew you were a tactician, but it seems you’ve missed your vocation in life? It seems you should have been a military man?” There was a lightness to the Cardinal’s thin lips, something which resembled a smile.
“Cardinal Korek, as you know well within the Holy See,” replied Adansoni, “it is wise to be prepared. After all, we fight our battles on many fronts.”
THIRTY FOUR
THE ITALIAN FRONT. THE SOČA RIVER. NORTHWEST SLOVENIA.
By nightfall of the third day the Italian Third Army had reached the steepest part of the climb and fallen out into a makeshift camp. The chill night air stank with the reek of a thousand camp fires and the caustic bite of strong coffee boiling in pots. The rumble of voices, punctured by the melodic chirp of a mouth harp, crept like a prayer up the mountainside towards the Austro-Hungarians waiting for them, silently, in their defences above.
The Italian soldiers, seeking solace from the cruel cold night, slept under their capes on the hard rock, or dug into unyielding earth with mattocks and picks to fashion a trench. Blood and iodine hung in the air, bandaged hands cradled tin coffee mugs.
“What do you think of the Carso then?” asked the Corporal, smirking.
“It is a cruel master,” replied Pablo, drawing his cape tighter about him.
“But what is the matter with you? You seem to gain some kind of pleasure from seeing the rest of us suffer in our labours.”
“Did I not say you would labour?”
“Heads up!” someone cried suddenly from the sea of seated grey figures, as the darkening horizon of rock away to the south bristled with shell-fire and burst into flame. A sound like thunder came and with it the splintering of falling rocks all around the encamped army, as if the sky was raining stones. The sound of thundering rocks was accompanied by the muffled cries of injured men hit by jagged scorching stones.
“I warned you,” said the Corporal, moving to stand in front of Pablo, and the young Private thought for a moment that he might
be trying to shield him. The falling stones ceased to rain down and all around them soldiers tended the injured or threw themselves down on the hard rock in an attempt to find rest. He corrected the woollen hat on his head and drew on his pipe so that the dull embers lit in his green eyes. “This mountain is the Devil’s flesh. Hard like iron. Shells cannot penetrate it. They just shatter and splinter.”
“You’re great fun to have around,” replied Pablo, putting his plate to one side and trudging away, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
“Where are you going?” asked Abelli.
“Anywhere but here,” said Pablo, hating the sound of his whining voice. But he felt the urge to get out of the camp and walk a little way down the mountainside, away from the panicked cries and the moans of the injured.
“Go with him,” said Abelli, waving to Lazzari.
Pablo found a vague path, worn he supposed by mountain goats, and followed it for several minutes, going nowhere in particular. He was aware that Private Lazzari was following and felt a desire to turn and tell him that he wanted to be left alone. He stopped and Lazzari did too, a little way off. Pablo looked up into the cold night sky.
“What are you doing away from the camp?” came a voice Pablo recognised. He still jumped to hear it, before turning to look at one of the Priests.
“I just felt I needed some fresh air. Away from the camp.”
“You have taken it,” replied the Priest impassively. “Now go back to your fellow soldiers, Pablo Gilda. Private Lazzari will accompany you.” Pablo started to object, but the Priest raised a hand to his shoulder and instantly he fell mute. It had always been the way things were done while he was growing up in the Church, any defiance beaten out of him, always subservient to their wishes. The touch of the Priest was cold, as it always was, and with it Pablo could detect the faint smell of sulphur that always hung about the Priests, wherever they went.
THIRTY FIVE
PLEZEN. BULGARIA.
“What is this terrible place you’ve brought us to, Poré?” growled the outlaw beside the gaunt figure of the Cardinal as they looked up at the desolate ridge. “The sun is high above the horizon and yet it feels cold as winter, as if something happened here, something dreadful.”
“Something dreadful did happen here,” replied Poré, his cool eyes surveying the lands to the south. He drew his hands into the sleeves of his robe for warmth. “Many decades ago, a battle took place here. The siege of Pleven. Between the Russians and the Turks. Twenty-five thousand killed on this very ridge. They say the land ran with rivers of blood.”
“Sounds like too many?” grunted the man, scratching at his hairy face.
“Or too few.”
“What are we supposed to be looking for?” another of Poré’s clan called across the gap between hillocks.
“I don’t know,” Poré called back, doubt consuming his thoughts. Over the raised summit figures paced the grassy plain, their heads studying the ground. “I am hoping I will know when I see it.” Limping heavily on his wounded leg, he walked awkwardly up the embankment for a better vantage point, climbing to where a line of stunted trees grew alongside another shallow ridge.
“You are not giving us much to go on, Poré!” the haggard man said, following after him, scouring the ground for he knew not what. He stopped and kicked over a rotting branch before walking on.
“I will know it when I see it!” Poré repeated, tired of the questions. It was all he had heard from them since they left Paris. Questions. Many times he had wondered if they were a fair exchange for the brutality and the lust for violence they brought with them.
French soldiers of the Boxer Rebellion in China, they had been sent to fight and die for the defence of the Catholic faith in Beijing. They had done what had been expected of them by their masters in that campaign, only to return to France and be ignored by those they had gone to defend. Homeless and destitute when Poré had found them on a Paris street close to Notre Dame, cast out by those they had served, the six of them had flocked to Poré’s banner and the promise of striking back at the faith which had disowned them.
Attracted by his grim charisma and the promise of retribution and riches, they had followed the man across much of Europe, able to take whatever they wanted courtesy of pelts worn on their heads, divided into seven from a single large pelt Poré had produced, the largest of which Poré had kept for himself. Whatever witchcraft was bound up within the stinking pieces of fur, it gave the old soldiers powers unrivalled by any they came up against and bestowed on them a savagery and bloodlust that tantalised and entrapped them like a powerful narcotic.
Wearing the pelts, nothing could stand in their way, no prize was beyond their reach. And they fought for Poré, for when they donned the pelts they were filled with an unquenchable rage and wished only to kill and gorge themselves on their victims.
“You say you will know when you see it,” muttered the man walking behind Poré in tired reply, “but what about the rest of us?” He put his filthy hands on his hips and turned a circle on the spot where he stood. “I see no rich pickings here. I see no Catholic churches to tear down, no Catholics to kill!”
Poré walked on, his eyes sweeping the ground like someone who had lost a treasured keepsake among the grass and stones. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes riveted to a spot just ahead of him. His heart beat faster in his chest as he slipped forward and sank, with some difficulty, to his knees. The earth here was burnt but the ground was quite cold and the ashes hard, as if many years had passed since they had been alight. The sharp musk of sulphur hung in the air.
“What is it?” asked the haggard soldier, walking up. “What have you found?”
Another had joined them, attracted by Poré’s close scouring of the ground.
“What is it? A fire?”
“Yes, but not a recent one. And no fire with which you will be familiar.” Excitedly Poré placed his hand into the centre of the scorched ground and closed his eyes, as if feeling for a presence.
“What is that smell?” asked a third man, stepping up and wrinkling his nose, his long arms hanging beside his heavy thighs.
“Sulphur,” replied Poré. And he knew then that he had found what he had been looking for. He dug hard into the baked burnt earth and lifted some of the solid ashes from the ground. They seemed like metal, as if the heat had been so intense that it had melted the rocks. He weighed the tarnished metal in his hand as if trying to divine arcane secrets from its mottled shape.
“This is it?” asked the haggard man, disappointed. “This is what we’ve been looking for? A cold fire?”
But Poré ignored him, staring out across the vista, trying to imagine the scene thirty-eight years ago, the carnage and ruin of the battlefield, the energy and violence of the ceremony.
“Poré!” another man called. “You’re a fool! You’ve brought us all this way to look at an old camp?”
“I had to come,” replied Poré, more to himself than to the brigands gathering around him, lost within his own maelstrom of thoughts.
He looked up, studying the greying heavens. Their shadows were growing long over the field, and Poré could feel that a remnant of the past still lay heavy over the hillside on which they perched, a cold and bitter blight no number of years of summer sun could erase. They had tried to raise something here, to bring something through from the Abyss.
All but one of the men in Poré’s band began to turn and walk away.
“You owe it to the men to explain to them why you’ve brought us here, Poré,” he said, and at once Poré leapt to his feet and stood a hair’s breadth from the man, smelling his wretched breath.
“I need to explain nothing to you! Nor to anyone!” he hissed, rage bristling through him. He turned back to the cold fire and dug the toe of his boot through the ashes. “This is not the end. This is only the beginning. If the men are not willing to follow me, then let them go. I need strong men at my back, not those who lack conviction.”
“They don’
t lack conviction, they just need to know where we are going.”
“That I don’t know,” replied the old Priest, and he hung his head as if suddenly defeated. “I don’t know.” He dropped the ashes to the earth and brushed his hands clean. “But I must find out. I must do as I was bid. As I was commanded. Everything depends on it. Everything.”
THIRTY SIX
THE VATICAN. VATICAN CITY.
The three small figures were almost hidden in the shadows of the church of St Stephen of the Abyssinians. The Cardinals stood in utter silence, their hands clutched firm about them, their faces drawn, trying to comprehend the desecration of the ancient fresco before them.
“The prophecy,” croaked Cardinal Korek, his eyes never once leaving the bloodstained wall. “Are we to now accept that this sign proves that it is coming to pass?”
Cardinal Secretary of State Casado shook his head urgently. “This is just one event,” he said, trying to sound more assured than his private thoughts suggested. “We cannot declare that he is returned because of this one incident.”
“But with all the other signs?” countered Cardinal Bishop Adansoni. “The possessions? The birth deformities? The failed crops? The Eagle Fountain running red with blood? They come together to suggest this cannot be just a chance occurrence.”
“There have been other such occurrences in the past, of statues which have bled, of frescos which have been defaced. None of them have suggested that –”
“Speak not his name,” muttered Adansoni quickly. “Not in this holy place.”
“I would not dare to defile this chapel of God by doing so, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni,” said Casado. “Nor would I say this vandalism proves anything. Look,” he exclaimed, going forward and raising his hand to the wall. He hesitated for a moment, as if summoning the will to continue, before placing his hand against the stonework and smearing the blood. “Look how the so called ‘blood’ wipes clean. If this were an act of his, then surely …” But his words faltered as the blood began to flow once more from the gouged holes in the stonework, as if oozing from deep within the fabric of the building. “Sweet mother of God,” Casado cried, quickly retracting his hand and clenching it into a fist. He stepped backwards, uncurling his hand and looking at the blood smeared on his palm and fingers. “Sweet mother of God,” he said again, his face ashen.
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