“I do not know you,” he says when he gets close to the other man. He is both familiar and not, like a distant relative of a close friend.
The man smiles. He is young, though there are lines around his eyes and on his cheeks. His beard is neat and groomed, and his robes are unmarked by passage through the field. “Not like this,” he agrees. “No, you do not.”
“And how do you know my name?” Rodrigo asks. “Are you an angel?”
The man shakes his head. “No more than you.”
Rodrigo looks back over his shoulder. On the distant hill, the figure sprawling across the four horses seems larger, and the shadows flow off him now, coursing down the hill and onto the field like the tumultuous spring runoff of mountain streams. Rodrigo covers his face with his hands. “I am damned,” he says. “I cannot be saved.”
“Salus,” the young man says. He gestures for Rodrigo to come closer. “It is the secrets of your heart,” he whispers, ducking his head, when Rodrigo has taken three more steps, “that will save you, my friend. The burden asked of one man may seem impossible to bear, but God believes your heart is strong enough. He hears your pain; He hears all their pain. Is the burden He asks you to carry less than His?”
He looks past Rodrigo’s shoulder for an instant, his eyes losing their focus. “Remember, Rigo, we are all His children, and He welcomes all of us back into His embrace.” He returns his gaze to Rodrigo, and there is a deep sadness in his eyes now. “Regardless of how or when we might return to Him.”
A light flares behind Rodrigo, the sudden glow driving all the sorrow out of the young man’s face. His eyes vanish, and his smile transforms into a shining line. Rodrigo looks over his shoulder, squinting against the glare. A ramshackle hut appears behind him, and amber light floods from the open door and through the cracks and gaps in the walls.
“No,” Rodrigo says, shaking his head. The young man has turned into a phantom, a fading wisp of smoke that curls away from him as he tries to grab it. He doesn’t want to look at the hut again-he knows it too well-but he can’t help himself. Shoulders hunched, he peers around slowly.
There is someone standing in the doorway, blocking the light. The figure is small, a child, and it raises a hand to Rodrigo. Other figures appear behind the child. Taller figures, limned in red, and they drag the child inside. “No,” Rodrigo shouts, and when he tries to run toward the hut, his legs are bound. Hands have seized his feet and calves, hands of the dying. He struggles, loses his balance, and is pulled to his knees.
More of the dying grab him. “Save us,” they whimper and beg. “Save us all.”
“I can’t,” he sobs. He strains against the mob, trying to break free. The hut’s door is still open, but the light inside is flickering. Guttering. Going out. Hands tear his robe, and cold fingers scrabble against his skin.
When the light goes out, he’s fairly certain the scream that fills the void is his own.
The last thing Father Rodrigo could recall (other than this half-forgotten, fading dream) was sitting on his horse outside of Rome, looking down at the play of light across the rooftops of the city. Now everything was flush with shadows, lit only by the glitter of dust in the moonbeams. He lay on a ragged straw-filled pallet, though the straw was little more than chaff. The air was dry, choked with dust and the scent of something desiccated and moldering. He did not know where he was or how he’d gotten here…These were dangers, he knew, but he sensed there was some other danger, more sinister, that he could not consciously remember.
The knuckles of his outstretched hand brushed a stone wall, and he was reminded not of the safety that a stone wall can offer but of the dry darkness in the tombs beneath the churches in Paris, where the saints lay buried. A maze of narrow passages, with tiny niches carved out of the walls for the wrapped bodies. This place wasn’t cramped, and the ceiling was much higher than the close confines of the tomb-yet something about it was equally unsettling. Moonlight filtered through cracks and gaps in the ceiling. Rodrigo rolled onto his side to examine the rest of the room and realized he wasn’t alone.
A man sat slumped against the wall on the bench opposite, some ten paces away. At first, Rodrigo thought he was dead. His head was tilted back, and his mouth gaped open, as if he had died of a horrible thirst. A heavy book lay in his lap, open but forgotten. But then a breath hiccupped out of his chest, and his mouth snapped shut. He grimaced, tasting something foul on his tongue, and his eyes opened.
Rodrigo’s breath hissed noisily out of his mouth before he could clamp his lips shut. The figure heard him and leaned forward, peering into the cold gloom of Rodrigo’s corner. The motion moved his face into a streak of illuminating moonlight, and Rodrigo had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.
It was the man from his dream.
Older, most of the gold in his hair was rust now, and there were more lines on his face, but the intensity of his gaze hadn’t faltered. If anything, it had only gained strength as the body had aged.
“You are awake,” he said. In the dream, Rodrigo hadn’t noticed an accent, but now he heard a rough edge to the man’s Latin, as if someone had taken a hammer to the ornate scrollwork of a building and knocked all the grace out of the marble.
“Perhaps,” Rodrigo replied warily. Again, some part of his mind whispered an alarm to him.
“This is disconcerting, I know,” the man continued. He noticed the book in his lap, and quietly closed it, running his hand over the thick leather and inlaid stones of the cover. “Please do not be frightened. You are safe. Well, relatively. More than you were a few hours ago, but…” He glanced up at the ceiling, and his mouth worked around the edges of a smile. Then he glanced back down at Rodrigo with an expression of weary compassion. “You are in Rome, my friend. Near the old temple known as the Septizodium. I am Robert, of Somercotes. Once I was the chaplain to the English king, Henry III. Now”-he shrugged-“just one of God’s devoted servants, I suppose.”
Rodrigo sat silently, growing accustomed to the dim light. His companion was apparently very used to it, for he did not have even a candle with him. Rodrigo pulled his robe snugger, absently worried the extra fabric near his heart, and leaned his weight onto his right hip. “I am Rodrigo Bendrito,” he said eventually. “Lately of Buda, at Bela’s court.” It was his turn to shrug. “Which is no more.”
Somercotes made the sign of the cross and left his fingertips at his lips. “Salvum fac servum tuum, Deus meus, sperantem in te,” he murmured. “Were you there?”
“Where the armies of Bela and Prince Frederick met the Mongol Horde?” Rodrigo said.
Somercotes nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed.
He shifted his weight again and realized what had been bothering him. His satchel was gone. Hoping he was not being too obvious, he released one hand from his cloak and felt around in the straw for it.
“You’ve come a long way,” Somercotes said, and Rodrigo grunted vacantly. “Not quite what you expected, is it?”
Rodrigo found the wall near his pallet and put his back to it. Still no sign of his satchel, but not far from the head of the straw-filled bed was a tray and small bowl.
“Please, eat,” Somercotes said, noting Rodrigo’s interest. Investigating the two containers, Rodrigo found water in the bowl and, on the tray, three small pieces of bread, a handful of nuts, and some round objects. Olives, he realized as he tentatively ate one. It was enough to wake up his stomach, and he proceeded to devour the food. His fever was gone, replaced by a ravenous hunger. The sort of hunger he hadn’t felt in a long time. I’m going to live, he thought with genuine surprise as he tipped back the bowl and drank the water noisily. God does save those who believe in Him. He felt a little twinge of guilt for having doubted, but that emotion was quickly set aside as his fingers scrabbled for the food on the tray, shoveling it toward his eager mouth.