The auguries were not good. No one wanted to become one of the involuntary guests of Ezzelino da Romano. As Frederick’s pet monster, all sorts of whispered rumours attended him, a recent one being that he donated his prisoners for the experiments of the emperor, who, everybody knew, liked to look inside living men to find out how their innards worked. I didn’t want to know how my innards worked. I’d seen enough of other people’s, spilled, reeking, rotting. I’d seen a lot of death. As the rain dripped from the window frame and the night came on in bruised gloom, I told myself that I wasn’t going to die, not in Padua, anyway. But I could have been in a cheerful room, eating goose and drinking wine, and instead I would have to piss in a bucket and sleep on damp straw.
The air was dead here in my dungeon. So much for escaping my responsibilities. Tired of watching the moth throb and flex its soft, crumpled wings, I closed my eyes and conjured Iselda’s face from the darkness. Her pale skin, which the sun turned nut brown, she kept shaded with the thick tresses of her black hair – except that it was not black, but in the light was shot with colours I never saw twice: garnets, old honey, the glimmerings of the peacock butterfly’s eye. Her lips were full and dark – wine-stained, I would tease her – and she had a strong chin, a little of her father showing there, and in her nose. But it was her eyes that I tried to find now. Green, they were, like moss seen through the golden water of a Dartmoor brook, and deep.
But to see their depths you had to be lucky – or loved. Iselda had spent her life wandering, and very early, so she had told me, she had learned to hide within herself, to make her face and body nothing more than an accessory to her voice, so that the men for whom she sang could forget she was a woman on her own, forget everything but her words. And if that failed? ‘I was clever, and it did not fail,’ she might have said. ‘And besides, I had a knife.’ She never had to use it, so far as I knew, for her audience had been noble, the tattered remains of Languedoc’s gilded days of peace and fortune, and because she sang the songs of a dying time in a way that brought it back, however briefly, into the light of a dangerous, suspicious age, the nobles treated her as one of their own.
I had fallen in love with Iselda’s voice before I had ever seen her face. Cold and yet beautiful, as lovely as notes from a golden harp yet drenched in its own sense of implacable loss, it had caught me one icy morning in the keep of Montségur. She had been singing for herself and for the dawn, an old song of mourning for love that cannot reveal itself to the light of day. But I had been a soldier then, and more than a year passed, of endless days filled with death and dragging, fearful misery, before we spoke again. And then I had lost her once more. Perhaps I had changed after that – nay, I know I had. The two people I had loved most in the world were dead, the men who could have been my father and my brother. The woman I had once thought I’d marry had wed another man. So I went looking for Iselda, because Captain de Montalhac, just before he died, had asked me to find his daughter; and because, out of all the ruin and horror of Montségur, of all the memories I had struggled to evict from my mind, I had preserved the memory of her voice. I found her in the autumn, and she had smiled at last, and let me glimpse what lay behind her eyes. And then she had sung for me, only for me.
I slipped uneasily into a shallow kind of sleep that I was shaken out of several times in the night by noises outside: a door slamming, a bell being rung, a dog barking so insistently that the noise wormed its way inside my head. Once I got up and went to the window. Still raining softly, and the moth had gone. I wrapped myself in the rough blanket and dozed unpleasantly until dawn.
The sun came in and warmed the miserable little cell, which in truth was not really so miserable. Men are thrown into far worse places. Dear God, I even had a stool of my very own. I told myself to act grateful as I sat down to wait. And wait I did, while more bells rang and other dogs pleaded or threatened at the tops of their lungs. Six bells, seven. Nine.
It was a little before the tenth hour of the day that muffled steps sounded outside my door and the key thrust into the lock so hard that a little cloud of rust drifted out into the cell. The door swung open to reveal the crop-haired fellow from yesterday. His ears looked a little more chewed, and perhaps invisible imps were nibbling them as he stood there, as he look pained, indignant and furious at the same time. So it was an unexpected surprise when he produced Thorn and held her out to me, hilt first. I rose cautiously from my ridiculous stool and took the knife.
‘If Messer Zennorius would like to accompany me,’ he rasped, and gave a painful little bow.
‘To where?’ I asked, tucking Thorn away in my belt and brushing the straw off my clothes.
‘I am to take you to the audience chamber,’ he said. Then he simpered, an unpleasant sight, but now was not the time to ignore convention and so I dug in my purse and gave him a good piece of silver. Then I followed him back down the stone stairs, across a small courtyard and into the palace itself.
As I followed the guard I was guessing what would happen next. An audience? They had given me back my weapon, so presumably I had not offended anyone too deeply, or unwittingly broken any Paduan laws. I supposed that I was about to meet Ezzelino’s chamberlain or some other high functionary, who I would have to bribe, most likely. Or perhaps there was some favour that the city needed doing, and the chance arrival of one of Venice’s richer businessmen – Padua and Venice were then at each other’s throats, at least in theory, but it did not ordinarily affect trade – had given Ezzelino the chance to annoy his rival.
We had passed under a pointed doorway and into a long hallway hung with richly sombre weavings – surprisingly tasteful, I noted professionally, for the furnishings of a famous monster – and then through another archway. There the guard halted and looked me up and down, eyes narrowed worryingly.
‘I should straighten your clothes if I was you, sir. You’re going to see the emperor.’
Chapter Six
My mouth lost every drop of moisture, as if I had just breathed in the burning air of the African desert. Frederick von Hohenstaufen. Since I was a child, his name had flickered through my life like fire through fields of stubble, strange and terrible images coming and going through the smoke of ignorance. Even in Devon the monks of my monastery had picked up threads and tatters, which they had woven into grotesque tapestries of fable. In the cloisters they would pronounce, ominously, on that great lord who ruled lands they would never see, nor even find on a map. Depending on what peddler or cleric brought the news, the emperor became a bold crusader, a godless tyrant or the Antichrist himself. Over the years he blossomed in my own mind until he resembled nothing less than the many-armed, many-headed idol from the spice kingdom of Tamilakam that Captain de Montalhac had bought from a spice trader in Jaffa and which now stood on my writing desk.
I was not ready to meet such a creature of fantasy, not without breakfast, not without a goodly swallow of wine. But no such thing was forthcoming as the guard swept me along in his lumbering, angry wake, through the halls of Ezzelino’s palace, past glowering courtiers and cringing guards, and into the podestà’s own chambers, a suite of rooms on the first floor lit by high, pointed windows in the style of Venice. There was a magnificent Cairo rug on the floor on which a huge dog lay, half-hidden in a pile of large Saracen cushions. And there, lounging in a chair, fondling the ears of a brindled wolfhound, I first saw the Wonder of the World, stupor mundi, Frederick II von Hohenstaufen. He looked up in mild surprise, and rose to his feet.
He was tall: that struck me first. Tall and elegant. He had straight fair hair fading to grey – cut to the very needlepoint of fashion in a way that disguised the fact that it was quite thin – that framed his beardless face. It was not a young face, but still handsome, and my first thought was that I had seen it before. Frederick looked like nothing less than an ancient statue of the Romans, of the kind one can see lying tumbled in the weeds of the Campo Vaccino. He had piercing blue eyes, a high, lined brow and red, somewhat bony cheeks. His no
se was straight and his chin jutted, and his mouth was thin but curved like a Saracen’s bow. I saw age there, and wisdom, and a lifetime spent in the burning sun of Italy. But not cruelty. The blue eyes alighted on me, unblinking, alarmingly birdlike for a moment, and I swallowed in sudden fear. Then he did blink, and I realised that I had been regarded, not with malign intent, but with a ferocious intelligence, an almost inhuman keenness. And yet the emperor had stepped across the room and was smiling, half approving, half amused, at the most extravagant and courtly bow I was making before him.
‘No need for that,’ he told me, and indicated that I should rise. His voice was that of an Italian, but there again was a keenness, a northern tension behind the southern warmth. ‘And no time. We understand we are keeping you from your beloved.’
‘I was on my way home, yes, Your Majesty,’ I replied. ‘But I have lost no time at all. A lame horse would have caused me more delay.’
Thankfully, the emperor laughed. ‘And your lodgings?’
‘I have spent perhaps the greater part of my life in less comfort than that which your podestà has so far shown me. A roof and a dry bed is the greatest blessing a traveller may wish for.’
‘Ha. Spoken like an Englishman. How do you like Venice, Master Petroc?’
I was startled, but hid it with an extravagantly airy, indeed Venetian, gesture. To the world I was Petrus Zennorius, for I had laid Petroc of Auneford to rest many years ago, along with the price on his head. In truth I wondered if anyone cared any longer about a murder done so many years ago, and I had fortune enough now to buy off judge, jury and hangman. But to hear my true name on the lips of the Wonder of the World gave me a shock. And the question itself …
‘The Serenissima is the whole world boiled down to a seething tar and poured onto a clutch of tiny islands,’ I said. ‘To a man of my profession such a place is a gift beyond words. And yet I grow tired of it very easily. I would say that I love the open road more than I love Venice.’
I had told the truth, and thankfully it seemed to please the emperor. Venice was less of a thorn than a viper’s fangs in the embattled flesh of the empire. She had aligned herself with Rome out of self-interest, and though Frederick had trounced the republic in battle, she never ceased to plot and connive against him.
‘A man such as yourself. What manner of man would that be?’ The emperor’s blue eyes narrowed. It was plain to see why his emblem was the falcon. I felt myself observed as if from a great height. The gaze that tirelessly swept the lands of Italy had momentarily alighted upon me, and I felt no more comfortable than a field mouse on a new-ploughed field.
‘I am a businessman,’ I told him. ‘No more, no less. Your Majesty knew my late mentor, Jean de Sol, I think?’ He nodded, sharp eyes hooded for now. ‘He taught me his trade and gave me his knowledge, though I fear I am too small a vessel to hold all that he tried to pour into me.’
‘I heard that Master Jean had left this earth,’ said the emperor. ‘It is a loss, a true loss. He died at Marseille – a sickness, I heard.’
‘It shocked us all,’ I agreed. ‘He was a strong man, and yet he was carried off—’
‘He had vanished, however, before that,’ Frederick continued, cutting me off. What did he know? I could read nothing in his face, nothing that showed he knew that Captain Michel de Montalhac had died from a wound he had taken at Montségur. Yet somehow I guessed that he did know. Frederick had made vague promises of help to the Cathars, but no help had ever come, and I had long supposed it had been the captain who had asked him for aid. Was this a challenge, now, or some strange, adamantine sympathy?
‘Jean de Sol only made a part, a very small part of himself visible to the world, Your Majesty. A man whose true self is invisible cannot vanish. I loved him as a son loves his father, and I can tell you that he left this life as one who leaves an old friend to seek for new companions.’
‘Did he pass on his secrets?’ said the emperor, and I saw something dart across his face, a tremor of something … greed, perhaps. Then I understood the man. Necromancers, alchemists, Baghdadi astrologers: his lust was for the hidden, for the secrets beyond secrecy. I had heard all the stories: how he fed men, had them killed and then rummaged through their guts to see what became of the food; how he placed infidels above good Christian men; how he had men like Michael Scotus in his employ. I had never doubted any of these slanders. Would it not be a good idea to know what process transmutes wholesome food to shit? It is our very own alchemy, but our insides are as mysterious to us as the centre of the earth. I knew many infidels who were the better of most Christians. And of course I liked Michael Scotus, who I supposed was his companion in these explorations. But I knew that look, and the lust it betrayed. Knowledge is where true power lies, and those who understand this can be the most dangerous creatures in all of creation. This was no ordinary prince of the kind I had come to know well, men fashioned from a coarse mix of greed, honour and piety. I would have to tread very lightly around Frederick von Hohenstaufen.
Meanwhile, I answered his question. ‘No,’ I said, blandly. ‘Save for one, and she is no secret any more – indeed, I believe I shall have to marry her.’ To my relief, Frederick gave a well-bred laugh. So he knew all about Iselda. Well, of course he did. Michael Scotus would have told him everything about us.
Frederick clapped his hands and called for food and wine. The servant who had been standing silent as a log in the corner of the room vanished through the door. Frederick stalked across the floor to his chair, and indicated with a graceful sweep of his arm that we should sit on the cushions that lay scattered on the carpet. He sat with practised ease, and I sank down gingerly, taking care not to plant myself too close to the snoring hound. But soon I found myself relaxing into the cushions and feeling calmer than I had since my supper had been denied me last night. The emperor did not question or probe. Instead he set about putting me at my ease with cultured expertise. We talked a little about Venice, not just politics and gossip, but things that apparently interested us both – the mosaics in the basilica of Saint Mark, new buildings along the Grand Canal. He had been there only once, fifteen years ago, but he remembered much. The Venetian blend of Italian and Greek reminded him, he told me, of his city of Palermo, and that led us to Constantinople and my memories of that wrecked giant. Frederick enquired after his impecunious cousin Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, and shook his head at my news of the tribulations and miseries of the Latin Empire. That brought us to Michael Scotus, and we discussed that strange creature with a certain shared affection, though of our recent meeting I said nothing. We talked of seafaring, of Moorish poets and of the foods of different lands – our own food arrived just in time, for the rumblings of my stomach had caused the hound to open a large, yellow eye – and then of my homeland, which he regretted he had never seen. I told him a little of Dartmoor, in which he showed polite interest, and more of London, which engaged him a good deal more. He told me some rather scurrilous gossip about King Henry, and I let slip something I had heard about a well-known cardinal, which made him chuckle delightedly. And so the conversation described a gentle, companionable arc through matters arcane and trivial until I realised we were discussing Louis Capet’s relationship with Pope Innocent.
‘Dear Louis puts us all to shame with the depth of his faith,’ the emperor was saying. I wondered if I was included in that ‘us’, or if he simply meant the cosy little family of those who ruled over Christendom. I agreed, though, and told him a couple of small anecdotes about the French king and his collection of relics. But Frederick steered us deftly back onto course.
‘I find it astounding – a marvel, really, in these times – that Louis has decided he will not bow to Innocent. Extraordinary. Do you know, His Holiness tried to suggest that Louis make his crusade, not against the Holy Places, but against me?’
I did know, and made a small diplomat’s contortion to show that I did, and that I was strictly neutral. Frederick was quick to put me at my ease again, a
nd we both shook our heads over the strangeness of the world.
‘Messer Zennorius, I understand you are a soldier of some renown. The field of Saintes did not cast a very flattering light on most, but one hears that you met the Sieur de Bourbon face to face and slew him. Have you been on crusade?’ I said that I had not. ‘Every Christian man should, you know,’ he went on.
‘Of course, but some of us are fated, alas, to reap the rewards of others’ bravery,’ I said modestly. ‘I’m a reluctant warrior, Your Majesty. Having said that, I have been in enough fights to last any sensible man more than one lifetime, but … if you’ll allow me, though, I must say I have always greatly admired your own crusading feats. To win back the Holy Places through diplomacy was, well, extremely Christian, I’ve always thought.’
‘How very nice of you. What a shame that your sentiments aren’t shared by those who consider themselves the arbiters of what passes for Christian zeal, however.’
He pursed his lips, as if something bitter had seeped into his mouth. He had every right to bitterness, I thought. The late Pope Gregory, the wizened spider who had manipulated the goings-on of Christendom for many years and had set himself against this man when he was young and full of promise, had hounded Frederick to fulfil his crusading vows, even excommunicated him, and when the emperor had gone off to Jerusalem at last, had waged war against his lands. And now the present arse warming the throne of Saint Peter had declared another crusade against him, claiming the emperor was a heathen while all the time it was as plain as day that the pope fancied himself an emperor in his own right and coveted the lands of the Hohenstaufens. Really, the more I thought about it, and the more time I spent with this mild, grave-faced man, the more I felt a rising indignation, a sense that I was, and had been all along, a Ghibbeline.
The Fools’ Crusade Page 8