The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3

by Neal Stephenson

  He stared at the flame. “Alalazu,” he muttered. He didn’t know the history of the Shield-Brethren battle cry, but it seemed an appropriate blessing for his impromptu solution.

  He stood up and hurled the bag, aiming for the center of the cluster of guards.

  The alchemical incendiary exploded with a delightfully noisy boom, and the concussive sound echoed back and forth between the hills. It was an unmistakable signal, in case the others were wondering when the fun was going to begin. Yasper peered out of his hiding place, trying to see anything through the gray haze that floated over the valley floor. He saw shapes that were, most likely, mounted riders, the men trying to calm their terrified horses. Other shapes materialized-men crawling and staggering. As the haze thinned, Yasper got a better glimpse of the carnage wrought by his device. His gorge rose, and he clamped his hands over his mouth and sat down heavily on his rump, breathing rapidly through his nose.

  Several Mongols had been shredded by the explosion. He had seen what bears could do to a human body, and the lacerations and dismemberment wreaked by beast paled in comparison to the bodily destruction scattered about the field below. The only means by which he could tally the dead was to count those still living; the dead were in too many pieces.

  His gaze fell upon the other alchemical incendiary, and he kicked it away, horrified to be near such a hellish construct. It slid across the ground, and his horror mounted as he watched it tumble across the remnants of the tiny fire he had built earlier. It rolled to a stop, the prickly tongue of its fuse resting against the ground. Yasper held his breath, praying that the capricious imps who did the Devil’s mischief would not be watching.

  They were. The fuse sparked and sputtered, and a thin blue finger of flame began to dance at the end of the fuse, flinging sparks with reckless abandon.

  Yasper scrambled forward, burning his hand as he put it down in the not-yet-cold coals of his fire, and he grabbed up the lit incendiary, throwing it down the hill.

  He threw himself to the ground and put his hands over his ears, in a futile effort to block out the horrific sound he knew was coming.

  They burst out of the forest in a line, riding abreast, their maille glittering in the sun. Feronantus: the Shield-Brethren battle cry on his lips, leaning forward in his saddle as if he were a young man again. Percival: his armor gleaming brighter than the rest, sword in one hand, mace in the other, his horse responding to the lightest touch of his knees-the results of months of continuous training. Vera: sword and shield ready, her face hidden behind the blank mask of her helm; the woman he had kissed in the forest was gone, and all that remained was the indomitable spirit of the skjalddis.

  And he, Raphael: veteran of the Fifth Crusade, survivor of the siege of Cordoba, oath breaker, man of God though cast out from the Church. A knight initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, at first for expediency and then because the order was the only family that would accept him. He carried sword and shield, for now was not the time to hang back with spear and arrow.

  Now was the time to look your enemy in the eye when you slew him.

  They came at a hard gallop, their horses’ hooves pounding at the dusty ground. The Shield-Brethren rode to war, expecting to face insurmountable odds-one hundred, two hundred of the finest fighting men the Mongol Empire could field. They rode, anticipating a bristling barricade of spears and lances, and found…

  … an empty plain.

  Raphael sat up in his saddle, scanning for some sign of the Khagan’s host. When he and Yasper and Istvan had stumbled across its passage in the forest, they had been somewhat mystified by the size the track suggested, and they had assumed it was the advance party, the scouts who were ranging ahead of the main host.

  He didn’t bring that many men with him, Raphael realized.

  Nearly simultaneously, he spotted horses coming from either direction. The ones on the left wore matching colors and were riding hard; on the right, the horses were scattered far apart, and a few had no riders. This is it? he thought, and he recalled Roger’s boastful comment at the Kinyen in the chapter house near Legnica. Ten thousand of them means ten thousand opportunities for confusion.

  He missed Roger fiercely. How I wish you were here for this moment, my friend, he thought. You would have laughed, and all our hearts would have been lightened by the sound of your voice. He gripped his sword more tightly. I am sorry, Roger, he offered as a silent prayer to the Virgin and the host of the dead whom she had gathered to her bosom.

  And for a moment, he recalled Andreas-the young man he had met once on a German road. Had the Virgin claimed him too?

  He might know the answer to his question soon enough.

  And then the Mongol riders were upon them, and the time for memory and prayer was done.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  On the Road to Rome

  Cardinal Fieschi stared morosely at the scenery as his carriage trundled back to Rome. He had already sent ahead several riders to alert Orsini. By the time his carriage reached the Vatican, the countryside surrounding Rome would be crawling with horsemen wearing the Bear’s colors. Given his recent spate of foul luck, the Bear’s men would stumble upon an overzealous squad of the Emperor’s men and the resulting fracas would be the start of all-out war between Rome, the Church, and the Holy Roman Empire.

  Was that Frederick’s goal? he wondered. For as little as Fieschi missed Gregory IX-the man had been a tyrant to his staff, and Fieschi had tolerated it longer than anyone else-he briefly wished the man were still alive. He had an incredibly deft mind when it came to understanding the myriad layers of the conflict for Christendom. Orsini’s effort to hide the Cardinals in the Septizodium might have won the election for the Church, but what did that matter if Rome was immediately overrun by a mangy bunch of Germans and Sicilians?

  He had been Gregory’s right-hand man. He had run the College of Cardinals. He had bent the Senator of Rome to his will. He had dirtied his hands for the Church. But what had any of that gained him?

  Gregory had been grooming him; Fieschi had no doubt that the previous Pope had been preparing the way for Sinibaldo Fieschi to become his successor. Perhaps he might even have taken the name of Gregory X. But the Pope had unexpectedly fallen ill during one of the heat waves that perpetually suffocated Rome in late summer. The man had caught a chill-seemingly impossible in the heat-and had died nearly overnight, leaving the Church headless. Between the Mongol threat in the north and the Holy Roman Emperor coming up from the south, it had been nearly impossible to call the Cardinals back to Rome in order to vote.

  He had worked so very hard, trying to keep the Church alive. But no matter how hard he tried, matters kept slipping away from him. First, the country priest who had stumbled into the election and wound up being elected Pope. Then, the matter of the girl and the witch network in Rome-he had warned Orsini the trouble they could cause and he had placed too much faith in the Bear’s ability to contain the witches. They had missed one-one tiny girl! — and she had caused so much grief.

  He pounded his fist against his wooden seat. He knew he was feeling sorry for himself, wallowing in the doubt that had nipped at him earlier in the day when the question of the second election had come up. He was letting these tiny reversals get the better of him. He was letting Frederick get under his skin-the Emperor’s words continuing to echo in his ear, nursing the doubt in his heart. Like a tiny breath that keeps a weak fire alive.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the Grail.

  Had the spirit of God come back? And what were the chances that the Cup of Christ was the only artifact of God’s Grace that had been awakened?

  He suddenly recalled the prophecy the mad priest had been carrying. The scrap of parchment he had taken from Father Rodrigo’s satchel was in his chambers and he recoiled at the thought of someone finding it there. He was going to burn it as soon as he got back to Rome. How he wished he could burn those words out of his mind.

  A new order rises; if it falls, woe to
the Church! Battle will be joined, many times over, and faith will be broken.

  Lena found Cardinal Castiglione walking in one of the tiny gardens near the basilica. He was in the company of two other Cardinals: Colonna, the tall missionary who had survived more than one imprisonment; and Capocci, the builder whose shrewd mind was equally at home planning cathedrals as it was putting down insurrections. “Your Eminences,” she said, bowing, as they caught sight of her. “Such a pleasant afternoon for a stroll.”

  “Indeed,” Castiglione said, eyeing her with a modicum of caution. “You are the woman who accompanied Cardinal Monferrato from Frederick’s camp, are you not?”

  “I am, Your Eminence. I am Lena, a-”

  “Binder?” Capocci said.

  She inclined her head. “More often I am simply an ambassador.”

  “For whom?” Capocci pressed her.

  “Does it matter?” she said sweetly.

  Colonna chuckled at her verve, while her words only seemed to cause Castiglione more distress.

  “Do you have a message for me?” the Cardinal asked.

  “No,” Lena said after a moment’s hesitation. “I bear no message for you today.” She cocked her head to one side, studying the three men for a moment. “Do you have one you wish me to carry?”

  “Why would I?” Castiglione asked.

  Lena shrugged. “I have recently seen Cardinal Fieschi. He was in quite a hurry to visit the Holy Roman Emperor.” She noted their reaction, reading the entire power structure of the Church in their faces. Castiglione’s reaction was the one she found the most interesting. The sort of outrage brought about by a lack of control, she thought. When someone you think is under your command makes their own decisions, forgetting to inform you. Which lead to an interesting question: why did Castiglione think Fieschi reported to him?

  “Have you seen the Pope?” she asked innocently, and her question was rewarded with a nervous glance between Colonna and Capocci and further distress from Castiglione.

  Now I see the heart of it, she thought, suppressing a smile. It all comes together now.

  There was still much to do, and many pieces to still move about, but she felt her heart start to thrill at the idea of seeing a gambit come to fruition.

  “I see,” she said in the wake of their awkward silence. She dropped to one knee. “My apologies, Your Holiness.”

  “Get up,” Castiglione said gruffly. “Stop this public abasement.”

  But you didn’t deny it, Lena thought as she stood.

  “I am so sorry,” she said. “I thought I had heard that the priest-Father Rodrigo-had been elected, but I must have been mistaken.”

  “You were,” Capocci said quickly.

  “It is a clever ruse,” she added, “letting everyone think this simple man is Pope-long enough to distract the Holy Roman Emperor-and then announcing yourself as the true Pontiff. If Frederick seizes the priest and attempts to ransom him, it is a simple matter to embarrass the Holy Roman Emperor for inventing a Pope and then trying to ransom him back to the Church. He will lose a great deal of face with the leaders of other nations. Why bother excommunicating him-which we both know has had little effect on his efforts to dominate Christendom-when it is easier to publically shame him?”

  “Why indeed?” Capocci noted.

  “Well, Your Eminences, Your Holiness,” she bowed to each of them, “I do not wish to trouble you. You appear to have much to discuss. I am simply on my way to see Senator Orsini. There is a little matter he and I need to clear up. A small matter of unjust imprisonment.”

  She almost laughed at how readily Castiglione took the bait.

  “Unjust imprisonment?” he echoed. A fire sparked in his eye and he stood up a bit straighter. When he spoke to her again, there was a righteous indignation in his words. “Yes, in fact, I do wish you to carry a message for me.”

  Lena smiled. “Give me the message,” she said, invoking the sacred trust of the Binders.

  “I, Goffredo da Castiglione, send a message to-no, let us do this correctly.” He glanced at the other two Cardinals who gave small nods of encouragement. “I”-he cast about for the proper words-“Pope Celestine IV of the Holy Roman Church, send a message to Matteo Rosso Orsini, Senator of Rome…”

  Lena listened the new Pope’s first proclamation, repeating his words back to him at the appropriate intervals. Yes, she thought, this will suffice nicely.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Arrow’s Flight

  Gansukh and Alchiq were spotted before they were able to get high enough on the hill to have a clear shot at the pair of archers behind the boulders. But they were high enough-and close enough-that the two Westerners had to deal with them before they could go back to killing Mongols in the valley. In that sense, they had done all they could to save the Khagan, but as the tall Westerner turned his fearsome bow on them, Gansukh realized his own life was now in mortal danger.

  The long arrows of the Westerner were not deterred by brush or tree trunks less than a hand’s breadth in width. One of the broadhead arrows punched completely through the twisted roots he had been lying behind, the tip scratching his shoulder, and he stared at the razor-sharp arrowhead for a moment. So much power, he thought with a shudder. He scrambled over the roots, diving for the security of a jumble of rock. His shoulders remained clenched during his frantic dash, and even after he was nestled securely behind the rocks, he couldn’t relax. Would the rocks be protection enough?

  The other archer, a gaunt man with black hair and bristling whiskers, had a bow like his and Alchiq’s. Deadly enough, and Gansukh couldn’t ignore him entirely, but the real target was the tall man.

  Gansukh laid another arrow across his bow as he slowly peered around the edge of his shelter. Alchiq’s bow sang behind him, and he risked a glance as Alchiq’s arrow flew toward its target. He could see the edge of a man’s cloak, fluttering behind the rocks. He stood, held his breath for a second-waiting-and then released his arrow. He snatched another arrow for his quiver, laid it across the notch, pulled the string and released. The fluttering cloth was still there, and his second arrow pinned it to the ground.

  He ducked down, duck-walked to his left as far as he could without exposing himself, readied another arrow, and rose to his feet again. He exhaled, staring at the wild eyes of the black-haired man for a second as he looked up from tugging at his pinned cloak, and then Gansukh released his arrow.

  Even as the arrow flew from his bow, he knew it was going to miss. The man was leaning to his left, straining against his pinned cloak. Gansukh reached for another arrow, got it nocked, and was starting to pull the string back when the tall man stood up. Gansukh released early-much too early-and his arrow flipped out of his bow like a feather flying off a duck’s back. The man convulsed his body, a strange motion that made sense to Gansukh as soon as he saw what it accomplished, and then Gansukh was throwing himself to the ground to avoid the tall man’s long arrow.

  Hands and chest pressed against the ground, breath stirring up dust, Gansukh stared up at the arrow quivering in the rock upslope of him. The head wasn’t buried deep in the stone, but enough that the arrow stood out straight. It quivered, as if were an angry wasp trying to sting the rock to death.

  “Again,” Alchiq hissed at him from a spot above and to his left.

  “You first,” Gansukh whispered back, still transfixed by the rock-piercing arrow.

  The horses were scattering, and by his count, R?dwulf had killed six. Istvan had killed the horse of the one they thought was the Khagan, and he had almost put an arrow into that man’s purple jacket. Almost.

  R?dwulf knew that if he didn’t manage to kill the Khagan in the first few seconds, he probably wouldn’t get the opportunity. Their location was far enough from the bear’s cave that hitting a moving target-one that was doing its best to evade his arrows-was going to be very difficult. As soon as the hunting party dissolved into a confused mass of horses and men, he gave up trying for the Khagan. He focused on the sl
ow-moving ones. And the horses. If they had to walk or run, it meant they stayed in range longer. He would have more time to kill them.

  Except for the pair of archers who had climbed up to the bear’s cave. He had glimpsed white hair on one, and he knew, without a doubt, that it was Alchiq. He knew what they were going to do, and he told Istvan to keep an eye on them. Let them think they are getting close, he had said. And then we’ll deal with them.

  They had gone upslope though, which presented a bit of a problem, but it wasn’t an insurmountable issue. He would have to break off shooting at the men and horses to deal with them.

  He tracked one last target, a tall man with a flowing beard astride a beautiful black horse, and with a twinge of guilt, he put an arrow in the horse’s flank. He grinned as both horse and rider went down, the man’s leg pinned to the horse’s flank by his arrow.

  Istvan cursed, and R?dwulf glanced over his shoulder. The Hungarian was pulling at his cloak, which appeared to be caught on something. Istvan stopped suddenly, raising his head and looking behind upslope. R?dwulf threw himself toward the rocks as another arrow whistled down from above. Istvan grunted as the arrow sliced through the meat of his arm.

  R?dwulf turned, his hands positioning an arrow on his bow with unconscious alacrity. He drew the string of his longbow back, sighted, and when the Mongol he was aiming at fumbled his arrow, he loosed his own shaft with a sigh.

  He was impressed at the speed with which the Mongol dropped out of sight.

  Setting another arrow across his bow, he stepped to his right and kicked at the arrow pinning Istvan’s cloak to the ground. The arrow snapped off, and he stepped forward into a wide stance with his left foot. He was out from behind the rock, but he had a clear view of the hillside. If either of the two Mongols moved, he would put an arrow right through them.

  He hoped it would be Alchiq.