Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, Book 3)

‘Where’d you go?’ Orscar rushed me from the dark. If I’d had a knife he’d have got himself stuck on it.

‘The bishop’s coming!’ His news proved too important to wait on my answer.

‘What bishop? Where?’ It didn’t seem a very likely story.

‘Bishop Murillo! His servant just arrived ahead of the procession to warn us. He’s on the north road. We’ll see their lights coming up over Jedmire Hill soon enough.’ Orscar kept hopping from one foot to the other, as if he needed to piss. Probably did.

‘Brother Miles said the Vatican sent the Pope’s own carriage to collect him.’ Arthur stood behind us now. ‘Murillo’s on his way to Roma.’

‘They’ll make him a cardinal! For sure!’ Orscar sounded far more excited about church politics than any eight-year-old should be.

‘Where are all the others?’ I asked. Apart from Orscar and Arthur none of the orphans had come for the show.

Orscar blinked. ‘They must’ve seen him before. He ministers at St Chelle. He’s visited before. Brother Winter said so.’

I didn’t let it bother me. I’d seen bishops before. Well two. Bishop Simon who ministered at Our Lady in Crath City, and Bishop Ferr who replaced Simon when the angels dragged him off one cold night. Even so I’d wait and have a look-see at this third one. He might have treasures in his carriage that would keep my road-brothers happy. If the other boys had found something better to occupy them, good luck.

‘He’s the grandson of the Duke of Belpan, you know?’ Arthur said.

‘The bishop?’

He nodded. I shrugged. Abbots in an order bound to simple living and hard labour might work their way up from an orphan’s box abandoned on the doorstep. Bishops in their velvets and palatial residences tended to have been placed there for safe-keeping by powerful relatives, having been plucked from the outer branches of some illustrious family.

It took a while. The torches had started to gutter and the compline bell threatened when at last we saw the procession, armed riders at the front, priests walking, the papal carriage creaking along behind two plough-horses, more clerics trudging behind and finally two more mailed riders with the holy cross in red atop white tabards.

The carriage jolted along the road, halting with its door between the double line of torches that formed a corridor to the chapterhouse’s grand entrance. The driver of the carriage, a goblin of a man with grey and bushy brows, sat motionless, his pair with their heads down, snorting occasionally like oxen. The grandest of the three priests preceding the carriage came to open the door and to lend Bishop Murillo his arm, although the man seemed unlikely to need it. He squeezed from the gloomy confines, his bulk strained against the purple of his cassock. Once out he reached back in and took the mitre offered from the shadows. I hadn’t thought there room for a second passenger. Murillo jammed the hat onto his head, the sweat on his tight black curls immediately soaking into the red band around its base. He stood straight, hands in the small of his back, thrusting that belly. I half expected an enormous belch from his fleshy mouth, but instead he growled and stamped toward the monastery. The head priest and two men-at-arms followed close behind. Although fat, the bishop had a restless energy about him. He reminded me of a boar hunting a scent. A little of Burlow too. His eyes found Orscar, then me, as he reached the door. He smiled at us, a convulsion of the lips, and muttered something to the closer guard before vanishing within.

The bishop’s mass kept us from our beds, a droning affair of Latin prayers in the crowded church hall. We orphans stood scattered amongst the monks and saw little but the backs of tonsured heads. Holy or not, monks are an unwashed lot. The old brother ahead of me made frequent releases of evil smells that the rope around his habit could not restrain. He had two fat ticks behind his ear – the image stays with me, two bloated purple pearls.

At last, communion, and the long queue to be dismissed. At the head of the line I saw Abbot Castel take offered cup and drink from its gilt bowl.

‘The blood of Christ,’ the serving priest intoned under the bishop’s watchful eye.

Wine. At least it wasn’t to be a dry wafer.

We shuffled forward slower than a candle burns its length. In the queue I noted again that most of the orphans were missing, only Orscar stood before me, and somewhere back along the line, Arthur.