Timoteo frowned. “You mean the Cardinals? Those are people who are important, aren’t they, Father?”
Rodrigo gave the boy a knowing smile. “My son, in the eyes of Heaven, we are all as little children. No one of us is more important than another. In fact, the more important we think we are, the less we stand out in the eyes of the Lord. Remember that, if you yourself someday become a man of God.” He looked around the avenue. “We have a ways to go yet before we reach our destination.”
“What is our destination, Father?”
“I fondly remember the area around the Colosseum,” Rodrigo said. “I recall there is always a nice bustle of people. I would like to be surrounded by a bustle of people. That way, if I have something important I need to say, I have only to say it once.”
He gestured for the boy to walk along beside him. Timoteo happily followed. Rodrigo knew that the boy found him both gentle and amusing, and likely regarded him as no more eccentric than the other priests.
Rodrigo wandered on, humming old melodies, following pleasant memories, turning, turning, taking this lane, then that, looking up between the leaning, lowering buildings. An hour later he saw that the young boy was no longer with him-had somehow lagged behind and was now out of sight and earshot.
Rodrigo smiled some more. All would be well; nothing was amiss. The boy would find him again, if God willed it to be so. Father Rodrigo Bendrito was blessed in such things, for Providence was with him.
Providence, and what he carried concealed in his robes.
“What do you mean he isn’t here?” Colonna demanded of the sheepish young priest. “You were assigned to keep an eye on him. He was half dead. Where could he have gone?”
The young man lowered his eyes, looking as if he wouldn’t mind a nice straightforward crucifixion instead of a grilling from the entire College of Cardinals. “He went into the crypt, and I allowed him time alone down there. He seemed greatly recovered when he came out, and I turned him over to the care of Brother Lucio, as I was scheduled to take confessions in the chapel. I cannot account for Brother Lucio’s care of him, nor do I know where Brother Lucio himself is now.”
Fieschi turned his attention away from this useless young cleric and seared the half dozen guards around them with his eyes. “Find Brother Lucio,” he ordered. “Bring him here at once.”
The ten Cardinals stood in the antechamber to the bishop’s conference hall. Despite the relief of being free from months of deprivation and now surrounded by arguably the most sumptuous decorations in all of Christendom, the ten Cardinals were so beside themselves they took no notice of their surroundings at all. Sunlight streamed in at an angle from one set of open doors. It was magnificent, almost literally golden, and it cast their shadows artfully across a marble floor. Not even da Capua, the most artistic one among them, noticed the beauty.
“This is a calamity,” Fieschi said angrily to the others. “The leader of the Church has gone missing.” He tried to remain calm, but a worm of doubt was gnawing in his belly. He glanced at Colonna and Capocci, wondering if they were responsible for this mishap.
“Perhaps we need to get another leader, then,” de Segni said in a sharp, bitter tone. “One who is voted into power because people want him in the position.”
“You are both overreacting,” said Annibaldi blandly. “The man is surely somewhere in the immediate area, and as soon as he is retrieved, we will explain the unusual circumstances. He is, after all, a man of God. He will surely do the right thing.”
Fieschi chewed his lower lip, glaring at Capocci. He was trying to account for the movements of the two clowns since all the Cardinals had left the voting chamber. Had they spoken to anyone since? Had either of them wandered off for a little while?
Rodrigo moved slowly through the crowded city, toward the main gateway to the Colosseum. It was perhaps a mile away, but his stroll took longer than it usually takes to walk such a distance-in part because of the crowds, but also because Father Rodrigo was in no particular hurry. He ambled more than strode, and with a small smile or even a sigh of nostalgia he imagined pointing out to young Ferenc places of historical or personal significance. He pretended for now that Ferenc was still with him. He wanted to thank Ferenc for bringing him home, and he wanted the boy to feel welcome in this city, welcome enough to call it home as well. He wondered where Ferenc was. He would have to find him, and make sure he was safe.
Somehow, the boys always strayed…
But there was something else he had to do first.
“But he was absolutely unremarkable,” Brother Lucio insisted, from his knees. He had been impelled to this level by the collective glowering of Cardinals-glowering so intense it seemed to add to his earthly weight. “I had been told I’d be put in charge of a demented invalid, but the man who was handed off to me was as healthy and rational as any man in this room.” He dared to look up at them, cringing. “I am always obedient, but this was an imposition on my day, which was already a very full one. It is the beginning of the entry of the grape harvest into the compound, and it is my responsibility to oversee it. So when a perfectly lucid priest assured me that he did not want to be a source of trouble, I did not see the need to doubt him.”
“Where did he go?” Fieschi said coldly.
Brother Lucio shook his head. “He said he wanted to go into the city, because he was a native and had not been here for a long time. I managed to spare Timoteo, one of the lay boys who help us with organizing the harvest influx. The two of them left over the Ponte Sant’Angelo.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago, perhaps two.” Lucio looked extremely ill at ease, which Fieschi felt was entirely deserved.
“And nobody knows where they went?” Fieschi demanded. “They are at large in Rome?”
“They could not have gone far,” Lucio began in an apologetic voice, but was cut off by Fieschi’s hand slapping him hard across the face.
“You negligent fool!” he snarled. “You’ve misplaced the Pope!”
Despite themselves, Colonna and Capocci snickered at the sound of this. Fieschi whirled around, his scarlet cloak swirling like wine in a cup, and glared at them. They immediately repressed their grins, but this only made them look like naughty school boys. Muttering, Fieschi turned away from them and looked at the other Cardinals.
“Perhaps he is headed for the Septizodium,” he suggested. “We should send guards there at once.”
“Yes,” said Capocci in a meaningful voice, rubbing his bandaged hand gingerly. “I’ll wager he is looking for his friend Cardinal Somercotes.”
“Perhaps he is seeking his childhood haunts,” Castiglione suggested. “Are there any records of his background? Do we know where he was ordained or who he studied under?”
As much as Fieschi did not want to admit it, this was a sound idea. He looked around the room irritably for someone else to order around. There were now a dozen priests and two bishops standing with them, all equally unable to do anything about the situation.
“You,” Fieschi said, randomly pointing to one of the older priests. “Discover where this Father Rodrigo studied, and where he served before he went to Hungary. There must be some particular church he has affiliations with in the city, and he may be headed in that direction.”
The man bowed hurriedly and left. The other priests looked torn between relief at not being given the assignment, and forlornness at being stuck with the glowering Cardinals until further notice.