“He’s a charlatan,” he heard himself say. “A spy for the Emperor.”
“And you aren’t a lapdog for Orsini?” Somercotes snorted.
“Orsini is the Senator of Rome and, as such, has a vested interest in the next Bishop of Rome,” Fieschi retorted, still struggling to find his tongue.
“And Frederick doesn’t?” Somercotes inquired. “I think your logic is overly convoluted, dear Sinibaldo. The man who rules over most of Christendom has more of a stake in who is elevated to become the next Pope than a self-appointed upstart who acts like he has read too much Tacitus.”
Somercotes stepped away from Fieschi, slowing the rise in tension between them. “It is too late for your ill-conceived and unfounded accusations, Sinibaldo. This new man cannot be swayed or bullied by you, nor even by the Bear himself. He has a genuine religious zeal to him that I find refreshing, if a trifle alarming. The only thing that can move him will be the spirit of the candidate, and you know as well as I do that Bonaventura is as charming as cold porridge. Rodrigo’s vote will go to Castiglione. He will be the only man here who casts a vote based on whom he thinks the better man, not for any political factions. Well, perhaps he and Annibaldi…but Rodrigo comes from a place of genuine innocence.”
“Ignorance, you mean,” Fieschi spat back, regaining some of his composure. His blood pounded in his temples, and the edges of his vision wavered and shook. He had to be careful. Somercotes had a way of getting under his skin, making him irrational and prone to responding too quickly, too emotionally. Gregory warned you… He shoved the thought aside. “He will fall for whoever has the most charisma.”
“And we both know that is Castiglione,” Somercotes said calmly. “Really, Sinibaldo, I do not see what it is that you needed to talk so urgently about. It is time for me to pray now; please let me do so.”
“Do not assume,” Fieschi said through clenched teeth, “that I cannot persuade him of the wonders of Bonaventura’s character.”
“If he casts his vote for Bonaventura, I will reveal him as the spy you think he is, and you will lose the vote,” Somercotes said with a sigh, sounding indulgently sympathetic.
“Well then, if he casts his vote for Castiglione, I shall do likewise,” Fieschi retorted.
“Will you? And how will you prove it?” Somercotes asked, as if catechizing a young child.
“How will you prove he isn’t?” Fieschi replied, his ears burning like he was a young child, and loathing Somercotes all the more for it.
“Well,” Somercotes said, drawing the word out, “I do have his ring. His cardinal’s ring. And you do not.” He smiled at Fieschi then, the smile of a man who thought he had been granted a decisive victory.
“Which I do not have yet,” Fieschi argued and made a lunge for Somercotes.
Somercotes was caught off guard by the sudden escalation from argument to action but only needed to take a half step back to avoid Fieschi’s somewhat spastic lunge. As he did so, he dropped his heavy book. Likewise, Fieschi-unprepared to have missed-stumbled forward and had to brace himself against the chamber’s wall to avoid falling on his face entirely.
But then Somercotes was behind him and, now alert, wasted no time in leaping on Fieschi’s back. Reaching forward with his left arm, Somercotes began to choke him.
The weight of the other man on his back made Fieschi lurch to one side, but his hands found the wall again and he pushed back, then reached up to grab the arm around his neck, before finishing the fall. The motion pulled Somercotes forward, off balance, and tumbled him over Fieschi and onto his back on the chamber’s cold stone floor.
Not a trained brawler, Somercotes hadn’t braced himself against the throw, and even before his head hit the ground, he was confused about what was happening. He had lost his chokehold on Fieschi, and his arms hung limp. Fieschi cast about and, spotting Somercotes’s book, grabbed it up and struck the English cardinal in the head. The spine of the book gave under the impact, and Fieschi shifted his grip, using the stiff and stone-encrusted cover instead. He struck Somercotes several more times, until the boards shattered.
“Frederick’s help will mean nothing to you now,” Fieschi said as he threw aside the ruined book. He was calm, for the first time since they’d entered the room, for the first time since he had been accosted by that churlish guard outside Orsini’s palazzo. He had no more doubt about what he had to do, about what must be done. There must be a vote; a Pope must be elected. The Church must prevail.
Somercotes, his face bloodied from Fieschi’s blows, was still conscious. His eyes fluttered, and a sluggish moan slipped from his slack lips.
Fieschi scrabbled at Somercotes’s robe, reaching for the braided rope the other man wore around his waist. A symbol of his austerity and piety, it was the sort of rope a sheepherder would use. Stout and strong. Fieschi gathered up the long strand that hung unencumbered and wrapped it once about Somercotes’s neck. Bracing his knee against the struggling cardinal’s shoulder, he leaned back, pulling the rope taut. The heavy weave burned in his hands as Somercotes thrashed.
Somercotes got his hands on Fieschi’s robes and tried to pull himself closer, but Fieschi’s knee kept him at bay. The Englishman’s hands became more frantic-at first like talons and then like the wings of a frightened bird. He gurgled and spat, each breath shorter and more desperate than the last.
Fieschi held on. He breathed evenly-in, out, again and again-and kept the rope tight.
The Church must prevail. I must prevail.
26
“It is a jaghun,” Cnan said, “which is to say a unit of one hundred, made up of ten arbans of ten men each. The man you call Graymane is named Alchiq. He is new to them. About a week ago, he rode in out of nowhere to a Mongol garrison west of the Volga, where this jaghun and two others were encamped, and simply commandeered it.”
“So he is a man of high rank,” Feronantus said.
Cnan shrugged. “They know little about him, other than what I have just told you.”
As soon as Vera had been able to ride, they had moved beyond the eastern limit of the Khazars’ territory. A few hours before, Cnan had arrived at their camp-proving once again her extraordinary tracking skills.
She had been absent for four days.
Following a wash, a nap, and a bowl of antelope stew, she had gathered the others to convey all she had learned.
She went on now to say a few words about where Alchiq’s jaghun had crossed the Volga and where they had subsequently gone, though as everyone understood, this information was no longer of much use; she had broken contact two days ago, and the Mongols could have covered much distance since then. “Alchiq dispatched an arban up into those hills where the Khazars live,” she said, nodding toward the dark crests rising from the steppe to the west.
“Too small to perpetrate a massacre,” Raphael remarked. “This Alchiq has a light touch, when it suits his purposes.”
Some around the council looked as if they were about to raise objections, but they were silenced by a look from Cnan. She has her own commanding presence, doesn’t she? Raphael thought.
“The arban in question is made up of Turkoman recruits from Kiwa, not all that far from here as distances on the steppe go, and they speak a similar language. They were sent to parley, not to kill. They took no casualties during the action against the Shield-Maidens and do not hunger for revenge, as some of the others do.”