“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she said, and looked up again. “I am to return with your response to my message, and I am uncertain of...” She found herself struggling to find the right words. He isn’t a street rat; think of the ways Auntie and Melia taught you to speak. “I only wish to be certain of your reply.”
“Oh, I’ll reply,” Frederick said with a huff of bitter laughter. “You better damn well believe I’ll reply. But not the way he asked me to. If I send soldiers in there to storm the Septizodium, the Church will accuse me of all sorts of goddamned abominations, and as soon as they’ve gotten their new false idol on the throne of Saint Peter, he’ll only continue to blather at me the same way his predecessor did. Perhaps, instead of simply excommunicating me, they’ll put my entire empire under interdiction.” He started to pace about the tent, and his attendants shuffled closer to the canvas walls to give him space. “Not that I give a shit about that, of course, but my nobles tend to twist their hands like frantic ladies when the subject of eternal damnation comes up. They are like pustules on my ass, even when things are going well.”
Ocyrhoe bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself quiet; she was absolutely astounded at the man’s language and attitude. She herself had never felt any particular interest or attraction to the Church—the few times she had been inside any of the churches in Rome had been as part of her lessons with Varinia—but she knew enough to be respectful. She had been to several public events outside the Lateran Palace and St. Peter’s Basilica, and had watched in wonder at the reverence with which each person approached the Pope. Even from those whom she later learned did not like the Pope. And excommunication. It had to be a horrible thing, the way people in Rome spoke of it, but the Emperor seemed to think it was less troubling than a mild ailment of the stomach.
“No, my child,” Frederick continued in the same offhand tone, “I must take a different tack altogether. The Church rages against me because I am preventing some of its Cardinals from returning to Rome. They wish to elect a new pontiff, but their own rules have forced them into a deadlock. I knew Orsini had hidden them, so as to better prevent my spies from influencing their decision, but the decision to remain in that fucking nightmare hellhole of a ruin is theirs. Not mine.
“So, rather than leaping to take up this role they wish me to play—the part of the villain—and assaulting their precious conclave, I will opt to be the hero and salvage their byzantine procedure instead. I will not send troops into Rome; I will release one of the Cardinals instead. I will allow him to accompany you to the Septizodium, where he may join the others in damnable discomfort and imprisonment. May his vote end their tedious torture.”
He offered her a dazzling smile, clearly very pleased with his decision. “He will probably vote for the wrong man, but”—he threw up his hands and looked toward the roof of the tent—“there is no right man. Attempting to control the outcome has been a misguided waste of my goddamned time, frankly. It doesn’t matter who the hell they choose, he isn’t likely to approve of me. Let’s just get the damn thing settled; let the new puppet dance on his throne, let him waggle his finger at me and write his endless bulls and tracts, castigating me and telling me how to run the empire. I will ignore him much like the man before him; life will go on.”
Ocyrhoe did not know if she was supposed to respond to this diatribe (though she suspected a response was neither necessary nor required), and so she stood there mutely, a pleasant smile plastered to her face. How would she tell all of this to Ferenc? For all his patience, she knew he was eager to return to Rome with a complement of soldiers and stage a dashing rescue of his beloved Father Rodrigo. She glanced at Léna, wondering if the Binder had found someone who spoke Ferenc’s native Magyar.
Léna was staring at her, a thoughtful yet distracted expression on her face. She had seen similar expressions on the faces of artisans in the marketplace crafting something out of raw material. It was an expression of concentration; simultaneously assessing the half-crafted state of the object in front of them and comparing it to their mental image of what that thing was meant to become.