It was a strange message, one she did not understand fully. He spoke of trees—cedars—being cut down and the darkening of stars. He spoke both of the need for faith and the end of the Church, and when she glanced over her shoulder at Léna, she noted that the Binder woman was mouthing words almost in concert with Father Rodrigo.
A disturbance rippled through the crowd and further discussion as to the sanity of Father Rodrigo was cut short by the arrival of other figures on the makeshift pulpit. From around the side of the mound of rubble came a young boy and half a dozen men dressed in white uniforms, each with an image of crossed keys emblazoned on their chests. Three of the men carried pikes, and were already pointing their tips down toward the crowd. The other three men rushed Father Rodrigo and brandished swords close to his face. He gave them a curious glance, then returned his attention to the crowd, calling upon them again to take up arms, to drive the darkness back to the East, whence it had come.
The guards looked disgusted and reluctantly sheathed their swords. One of them circled from behind and grabbed Father Rodrigo around the neck, while the other two lifted his legs and tied his ankles. They then tossed him like a pig carcass, pulled back his arms, and used a length of rope to bind his wrists behind him. The cup he had been holding fell clanging to the stones. The guards, still manhandling the unresisting priest, did not notice. Ocyrhoe did, and when she glanced at Ferenc, he nodded, indicating he had seen the cup fall too.
Behind her, she heard Léna draw in a sharp breath.
The crowd, released from the spell of the priest’s prophetic ranting, turned ugly. Swiftly, a chain of possession from the vendors’ carts materialized, and the angry citizens began to pelt the soldiers with vegetables.
The soldiers ignored the fusillade of vegetables. One even reached out and intercepted a flying cabbage, giving the crowd a brief bow and a crooked grin. Within a few heartbeats, they had efficiently draped Father Rodrigo over the largest man’s shoulder and departed in the direction from which they had come.
The crowd growled and surged to the left, as if it would move, in one unit, around the ruins and follow the soldiers and the trussed up priest. But as quickly as it moved forward, it fell back again like a wave on a beach meeting a sea wall. A phalanx of uniformed, helmeted men equipped with yet more pikes erupted into view. The crowd’s shouts of protest twisted into cries of alarm, then pain, and the mass swayed sideways and back to get away from the prodding, jabbing weapons.
Without another word, the five travelers grabbed each others’ hands and shoulders and fled down a small street that led south, away from the market. After a score of paces, they stopped and stood in a circle, staring at each other, husking out frightened breaths.
“What just happened?” Cardinal Monferrato demanded.
“Guards... from the Vatican,” Ocyrhoe said. “They wore different uniforms from the men who serve the Bear—Senator Orsini. They will likely take this priest to Saint Peter’s or the Castel Sant’Angelo. We should go there, not to the Septizodium.”
“Why? Isn’t the Septizodium where the Cardinals are being held?” Helmuth shook his head. “The Emperor does not care about this priest friend of yours, and neither do I. He wants us to go to the Septizodium.”
“Those soldiers take their orders from the College of Cardinals,” Ocyrhoe argued. “How could the Cardinals be commanding them if they were still imprisoned in the Septizodium? How would they even know—”
“Child,” Léna said sternly, and Ocyrhoe silenced herself at once. “What was the message you were given to deliver, by the English Cardinal?”
Ocyrhoe already understood the point of this lesson. “It was to bring the Emperor’s men back to the Septizodium,” she said in a resigned tone.
“You are under oath,” Léna said simply. “Does a Binder interpret the message that has been given to her or does she simply deliver it?”
Ocyrhoe lowered her eyes. “She delivers it,” she said. “But I think it is a waste of time to go there.”
“What you think matters less than what you are sworn to do,” Léna said, not unkindly. “It is a characteristic that many rely on with the Binders.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice, which caused Ocyrhoe to raise her head, but Léna, seeming to anticipate Ocyrhoe’s gaze, was already looking away. “Let us continue with what we came here to do,” she said softly.
Ferenc had been watching them all with increasing impatience, and at this lull in the conversation he grabbed Ocyrhoe’s arm and urgently pointed back in the direction Father Rodrigo had been taken. It took no translator for her to understand what he wanted. She gave Helmuth a plaintive look, and the German soldier brusquely translated to Ferenc what had just passed between the two Binders.
Ferenc squirmed and flung up his arms in frustration, then grabbed her forearm. She wanted to pull away—he could not possibly understand—but he did not. Lie to them about where we are going, he signed.
At that, she snatched her arm from his fingers as if she’d been burned. “No!” she said angrily, and shook her head. “Never. Never!”