The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3

by Neal Stephenson

  He was close enough now for the knives.

  The knight reacted quickly, folding his arm back to make his elbow a blunt object. His momentum carried him forward, and his elbow hit Lakshaman hard at the base of his rib cage. With a concussive whuff, the less-armored man felt half his breath abandon his body. It was only an instinctive tightening of his abdomen that prevented him from being left gasping for breath.

  He felt the hammer coming. If he stood still and looked for it, his upraised face would be a natural target the knight could not miss. He could not step back quickly enough to avoid the strike either. He had to stay in close.

  Lakshaman had a choice to move right or left, behind or in front of the knight’s body. Moving in front meant that he was exposed to the man’s weapons, but it also meant his own could come into play. Moving behind the knight would put his own back to the man. As the hammer came hurtling down, Lakshaman darted to his left.

  As he moved, his left hand came up, and his blade slashed across the gap between the base of the man’s helm and his neck, on the off chance that the armor was weaker there. Metal rang off metal with no sign of blood, and Lakshaman had no other opportunity to investigate his blow as the knight’s hatchet blade came whirling past his nose.

  The only reason the hatchet missed was because the move was one that Lakshaman himself knew-the whirling arm-over-arm assault that seemed, to an untrained eye, to be an impossible tangle of limbs. That the Westerner knew it was a surprise to Lakshaman-even more so that he would attempt it with disparate weapons like the hammer and hatchet-and it was only pure instinct that had warned him to pull back. As it was, the blade of the hatchet passed less than a finger’s width in front of his face.

  Lakshaman did not wait around to see if the knight was capable of continuing the whirlwind. The angle was bad, and his knives were not meant for stabbing, but he jabbed the one in his right hand up into the knight’s left armpit anyway. He put as much strength as he could in the attack, and the knight collapsed around his weapon, a muffled grunt of pain coming from inside his helmet.

  The knight jerked backward, and the knife was torn out of Lakshaman’s grip. Instead of trying to retrieve it, Lakshaman grabbed for the shoulder of the man’s coat, getting a fistful of cloth and maille. The knight was off- balance. It would be easy to throw him now. Once the man was on the ground, the superiority of his weapons would be negated and it would be much easier to cut him.

  Fire exploded across his back. The knight had managed to twist the hatchet and plant it into Lakshaman’s back. His legs and arms still worked, so the hatchet had missed his spine, but the strike had split his leathers. Snarling like a wounded beast, Lakshaman drove his right knee into his enemy’s groin, sending the man reeling. His back muscles shrieked in agony as the knight tried to hang on to the hatchet; finally, Lakshaman managed to twist away and pull the handle from his opponent’s fingers.

  The crowd roared with delight as they separated, each now missing one of their weapons. Lakshaman’s knife lay in the dirt somewhere, and he tried to reach around and grasp the haft of the hatchet caught in his back. More pain lanced up his back and into the base of his skull as he twisted his body. His fingers slipped on the bloody handle.

  The knight wobbled, his legs struggling to hold him upright. He grasped the lower edge of his helmet with one hand, adjusting it, and Lakshaman caught sight of a shadow at the base of his neck. His knife had cut the man after all. Not fatally, but he had drawn blood.

  The crowd was on its feet, shouting and screaming a war cry of its own, as the knight gripped his hammer with both hands and charged. A bold attack. The man hadn’t learned caution from their first exchange.

  His teeth bared in a feral grin, Lakshaman’s hand found the haft of the hatchet and pulled it free. Now he had a more suitable weapon.

  The hammer swept down, and Lakshaman darted to his left, sweeping the bloody hatchet up to slam its handle against the shaft of the knight’s hammer. Even before the shock of the contact rippled all the way up to his shoulder, he was already turning his wrist, letting the momentum of the hammer carry it past him. He was inside the knight’s guard again.

  The knight snapped his right hand out, and his metal-shod fist drove into Lakshaman’s throat. He’d taken worse, but the blow made his throat close. Gagging, he felt his grip on the hatchet loosen. The knight hit him again, and he barely managed to tuck his chin down. The knight’s fist scrapped across his jaw-once, twice.

  Lakshaman stumbled back. The knight pressed his advantage, pounding Lakshaman with short jabs. They weren’t terribly powerful hits, but the flurry of punches kept him off balance, forcing him to retreat.

  He saw his opening: his opponent was covered from head to foot with the tightly linked maille, but it did not cover the entirety of the palms. At the base of the hand there was a patch of exposed skin. As long as the knight held a weapon, it wasn’t vulnerable, but without one…

  As the knight punched him again, Lakshaman jabbed upward with the knife in his left hand. He shoved the point into the base of the man’s hand with all of his strength, and the knight’s fist cocked at a strange angle. He felt the knife grind against bone, and he shoved and twisted the blade.

  The knight screamed, and Lakshaman caught a flash of the whites of the man’s eyes through the narrow slit of the helmet.

  Letting go of both his knife and the nearly forgotten hatchet, Lakshaman grappled with his enemy. He looped his left arm around the knight’s right, pinning the man’s elbow against his side. The knight, moaning and spitting, threw his weight against Lakshaman in a desperate attempt to overwhelm the lesser-armored man and regain control of the grapple. Lakshaman dropped his hips-the one whose hips are lower is the one who wins-and twisted his body around as he swept his right leg back.

  The knight tried to stop the throw, but he was too off balance, and his armor gave him too much mass. He flew off his feet, and Lakshaman, still holding onto his arm, came tumbling with him. They crashed to the ground, and there was a bone-snapping crunch as his elbow twisted too far in the wrong direction.

  Lakshaman rolled off his opponent, the roar of the crowd filling his head. Crouching, he warily regarded his downed opponent while his right hand tried to explore the painful gash in his back. His hand came away red with blood, but he could still move. He could still fight.

  Unlike his opponent.

  The knight was struggling to turn over, but his brain hadn’t quite realized how useless his right arm was. The hand had been punctured by Lakshaman’s knife, and the elbow was bent at a hideous angle. The maille sleeve was already dark with blood. If he was spared the ignominy of death in the arena, he would be maimed for the rest of his life.

  Lakshaman was reminded of something he had seen as a boy, an odd memory of a time before he had become a fighter. One spring morning, he had stumbled upon a butterfly as it struggled to emerge from its chrysalis. He had watched it wriggle out of its sheath and tumble to the ground. Its wings never opened properly, and the fall had caused its crumpled wings to harden stiff in a wrinkled mass that would never carry it aloft. He remembered crouching over it, staring intently at this tiny creature whose life was over a scant minute after it had been born.

  The knight flopped onto his back, clawing at his helmet with his good hand. He was screaming and crying inside the metal cap; he couldn’t get a good look at what was wrong with his arm. He knew something was wrong, but the pain had to be so intense that his martial resolve had been swept away. He was like the butterfly, lying on the ground, struggling to fly but unable to understand why it couldn’t.

  Lakshaman retrieved his other knife from the sand and knelt beside the downed knight. With a grunt, he shoved his blade through the eye slit of the man’s helmet. The man thrashed for a moment and then his limbs stilled.

  Just like the butterfly when he had crushed it with his thumb.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sequestered

  There had been so much confusion when th
ey had arrived at the Basilica of St. Peter. The second wagon, the one carrying the mad priest, had disgorged its passengers in a frenzied rush. Bonaventura had been screaming something about the Devil’s handiwork and da Capua had climbed down as if transfixed by a heavenly vision. By the time Fieschi had joined the others, the wagon was empty of all its passengers but Father Rodrigo.

  The priest sat in the back of the wagon, arms splayed loosely at his sides. His attention was on the shapes crawling on him, and shouldering his way past de Segni, Fieschi had seen that they were scorpions. Rodrigo was covered with them, and appeared to be unharmed.

  “It is a miracle,” da Capua offered, and Fieschi whirled to the incessantly romantic Cardinal to quiet him, but paused as he caught sight of the expressions on the faces of the two mischief-makers, Colonna and Capocci.

  “Yes,” Colonna said, putting his large hands together in front of his quirking lips. Capocci had the benefit of his bandages, making it much easier to hide his own smile.

  The Master Constable, unmoved by the sudden presence of divine intervention, hollered at the guards to rescue the bescorpioned priest. “The rest of them,” the Master Constable said, pointing at the chapel behind them, “will be sequestered in the Chapel of the Crucifixion until morning.”

  “No.” Castiglione placed himself in front of the Master Constable. He swayed slightly, and his face was flushed. All of this excitement is taking its toll, Fieschi mused.

  In the cart, several guards were trying to figure out if they could use the tips of their swords to pick the scorpions off without accidentally cutting the dazed priest. One guard leaned forward, flicking a scorpion off the priest’s robe, and the flung arachnid nearly struck one of the other guards, who yelped in fear and nearly stumbled off the back of the cart.

  “The Senator has decreed that we will cast our vote by morning,” Castiglione continued, oblivious to what was happening in the cart. “And while I do not condone his authority or this egregious manner in which he forces the Church, I will acquiesce to the point that God has not chosen to show His displeasure at the Senator’s demands.”

  “I beg your pardon, Your Eminence?” The Master Constable asked, his attention distracted by the guards in the cart.

  “We have been treated like rough animals. If the Senator wishes our obedience-however temporary-he would do well to seek it from us as men.” Castiglione pointed to the tall building-the Castel Sant’Angelo-behind the Master Constable. “Food and shelter,” he said, “that is what we require now more than prayer and incarceration. If the Senator wants us to vote, then we will only do so after a meal that we do not have to eat out of a trough, and a night of slumber on a bed that is softer than the old bones of Rome herself.”

  Colonna and Capocci applauded Castiglione’s mettle immediately, with an eagerness-Fieschi noted-that masked the delight with which they had been watching the cart. The other Cardinals joined in, and the Master Constable-swiftly assessing the shift in the Cardinals’ mood-acquiesced.

  After the guards managed to extricate Father Rodrigo from the cart and the Cardinals were led toward Castel Sant’Angelo and a night of more humane conditions, Fieschi tarried by the now-empty cart. A pale shape squirmed along the boards and he inspected it carefully.

  The scorpion lacked a stinger.

  The priest had never been in any danger. However, Fieschi mused, as he strolled after the others, that did not make the incident any less a miracle.

  It was a matter of convincing the right individuals.

  In the morning-an hour or so before dawn-it took two dozen of Orsini’s men to roust the Cardinals from the rooms the Master Constable had found for them. Like herding sheep back to their pen, the guards drove the Cardinals into the Chapel of the Crucifixion. Colonna and Capocci cheerfully stepped into the round chamber and took their seats; Fieschi, stiff from a night of sleep on a real bed, strode in after them and sat on the opposite side of the chamber. Rinaldo and Stefano, the two de Segni Cardinals, stumbled in next, Rinaldo still whispering to his younger cousin; while Bonaventura and Castiglione, the two candidates for the Pontiff’s chair, both appeared unsettled and vaguely disturbed by what might come to pass in the vote. Torres and Annibaldi were unruffled, especially in comparison to the younger da Capua, who had all the appearance of a spooked child.

  Fieschi had spoken to him briefly in the hallway outside their rooms. A few earnest words, a bit of quoted Scripture, and a conspiratorial air was all it took to lay the seed of an idea in the younger Cardinal’s mind. What had happened the day before in the cart was a demonstration of God’s Grace-an incident that could, given a proper poetic treatment, turn into the basis of…

  Of a miracle, da Capua had breathed.

  In the voting chamber, there were ten chairs set up, backs against the walls, equidistant and too far apart for any prelate to communicate with any other during the voting process.

  A priest followed the Cardinals in while some of them were still deciding where to sit; he carried a tray on which sat a chalice, paten, several quills, a horn of ink, and strips of paper. He set these on the altar, bowed deeply to the Cardinals, then left the room.

  There was a thudding sound as a bolt slid home outside the door.

  “This is much more comfortable than the Septizodium,” said Colonna, into the sudden silence. “We really must thank the Bear for this… indulgence.” His friend Capocci smiled at the ecclesiastical pun, but the other Cardinals looked uncomfortable. Some glanced around the room, staring at one another, as if seeking some kind of omniscient paternal reassurance.

  “Where is our friend?” asked Capocci. “Did he survive his trial with the scorpions only to be lost to us in the night?”

  “He is not a Cardinal,” said Fieschi dismissively. “He has no right to vote. I asked the Master Constable to take him to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He is to wait for us there.”

  “But is it safe for him to be wandering about the basilica on his own?” asked Annibaldi reasonably.

  “It is the holiest spot outside of Jerusalem,” Fieschi said impatiently. “And there are priests, clerics, and guards everywhere. He made quite a spectacle of himself yesterday; people will keep an eye on him.” He paused, casting a glance toward da Capua. “I thought it best to keep one of God’s chosen ones close to Him.”

  “Amen,” da Capua said eagerly.

  Colonna glanced at Capocci, who was staring at Fieschi quietly, chewing on a strand of his long beard. “Amen,” the bearded Cardinal echoed, his voice muffled by the thick strand of beard in his mouth.

  Was that not your plan? Fieschi wondered, staring back at the Cardinal. Why else would you have kept those maimed scorpions?

  “Let us take a moment to pray,” said Torres, rising and walking to the altar. He held up the papers, and then with ceremonial dourness, he began to walk around the circle, and offered a wide slip of the paper to each of his fellow Cardinals. “And once we have reached our fill of prayer, let us begin.”

  The church was calm and cool and everything was made of marble. The marble was beautiful, and echoed the sounds of things happening nearby, and this was comforting, for it kept the other sounds, the sounds inside his head, at bay. Rodrigo had slept poorly the previous night, the memory of the men screaming in the wagon with him haunting his nocturnal thoughts. The screaming reminded him of the horrible battle, the horrible war, the horrible soldiers, both foreign and familiar, and he did not want to be reminded of any of that. He was a poor simple priest and he wanted to be left alone to worship. He could not keep track of where he was, or in what company. But they were all gone now, locked in the smaller chapel, leaving him alone. At last.

  He still had not delivered the message and he found it sulking in the back of his head, waiting for attention. He did not want to give it attention. But he could feel the message he was to deliver to the Pope, he could feel it dancing in his skull, around his brain, stamping its feet and now demanding, no longer waiting for, his attention. Distract
ed and almost distressed, he dragged his eyes from the vein of marble and looked around him. He was in the transept of a church, a huge and magnificent cathedral that seemed familiar but distant, as if from another lifetime.

  A young priest, even younger than he himself, and so innocent looking, was walking down the center aisle.

  “Where am I?” Rodrigo asked plaintively.

  The priest approached him, hand held up in smiling assurance. “You are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” the priest said. “Saint Peter’s Basilica. I have been asked to assist you… if you need anything.”

  “Saint Peter?” Rodrigo cried out. “May I see him?”

  The young man hesitated, then smiled again. “Certainly, Father. His tomb is directly below the altar. Follow me, please.”

  “I want to go alone,” said Rodrigo. The young man looked innocent enough, but there were spies everywhere, and he needed to speak to the Pontiff in absolutely secrecy.

  “I will show you where to descend,” the young man said and held out his hand toward the altar.

  Ferenc was relieved and grateful that they had found somebody to speak Magyar with him. The soldier-Helmuth-was not a native speaker, and his accent was very thick, but to have any kind of conversation at all nourished Ferenc’s heart-even Father Rodrigo had been nearly silent through most of their harrowing journey from Mohi to Rome.

  They were breaking their fast together, the soldier speaking and Ferenc listening. Perhaps it was an accident of birth, but Helmuth had a permanent sneer on his face; he radiated disdain toward the young hunter. It was clear to Ferenc that the man was judging him critically, and finding him unworthy-but of what he had no idea. He was so grateful to hear his native language spoken that he would have smiled to have abuses hurled at him.