“The priest truly does think he is in possession of the Holy Grail,” Frederick said without further preamble. “What do you think of such nonsense?”
“I know very little of such things, Your Majesty,” Ocyrhoe said, her hand darting out for a grape.
Frederick grunted and stared off into space for a few moments. “He is a curious fellow, your priest. One moment, he seems quite harmless; the next, sadly broken from his experience at Mohi; and the next...” He shook his head slightly. “I have met my share of zealots, little Binder, and most of them cannot hide their insanity. They are like moths that have been blinded by a candle. Father Rodrigo, on the other hand, concerns me. If he were a moth, he would be blind, burned, and still insistent on leaping into the flame again.” He picked up his cup and sipped from it. “And he doesn’t want to go alone.”
Ocyrhoe didn’t know what to say. The Emperor’s assessment of Father Rodrigo made her stomach knot. She reached for the cup of water and drank from it slowly.
“We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation this morning,” Frederick continued, “albeit one that was marred by the occasional outlandish remark concerning apocalyptic prophecies and divine inspiration, and then the priest produced a cup from his satchel and announced it was the Holy Grail.” Frederick smiled. “I laughed at him, I must admit, which was probably not the most circumspect reaction, but I was taken aback by his claim. He was, after all, trying to convince me that one of my own cups was the holy chalice.” He tapped a fingernail against the rim of his cup. “Just like this one. I offered him wine, and when my back was turned, he slipped the cup into his satchel so that he could produce it again.” He shook his head. “I knew it was my own cup. I had had a boy bring three into the tent. I had one, there was a second sitting on this table, and the third—well, the third was in Father Rodrigo’s hand and he was telling me that it was the Holy Grail and, with it, he was going to call a crusade against the infidels and nonbelievers. And by God, I believed him.”
Ocyrhoe nodded slowly. “I saw him preaching to a crowd at the marketplace,” she said. “They weren’t shouting at him or throwing vegetables. They were listening, and he had a cup there too. I could feel the mood of the crowd change when he showed it to them. They became more...” She searched for the right word.
“Entranced?” Frederick provided.
“Yes, entranced. They would have followed him if the Vatican’s guards hadn’t intervened.” She wrinkled her nose. “But, I saw the cup fall,” she said. “He dropped it, and I don’t remember where it rolled. I don’t know that anyone retrieved it.” She looked at Frederick’s cup. “And it was gold. Not silver.”
“Yes,” said Frederick absently. “And the one he produced this morning was silver at first, but it appeared to change color...”
Taking advantage of Frederick’s inattention, Ocyrhoe snatched a piece of the meat from the trencher and shoved it into her mouth. She was not used to pork—the unpleasant smell of it hung over the whole camp—and her mouth cringed from the heavy salting, but she chewed it nonetheless. She groped for her cup, gulping water to help wash down the dry meat. None of this stopped her from reaching for another piece.
Frederick watched her eat, the corner of his mouth turning up in mild amusement. “We used to be friends,” he said, “Cardinal Fieschi and I. I used to have a much less... antagonistic relationship with Rome. I went on a crusade for the Church, in fact. It was the only crusade since our initial conquest of Jerusalem that could be considered a victory for the Church, and I did it with very little bloodshed. Does the Pope reward me for such a victory? No. He excommunicates me. Twice.” He shook his head. “And now this disaster in Rome: the sede vacante, this strange Pope who may not be Pope, the disappearance of the Binders in Rome—oh, yes, I know about your missing kin-sisters—and, finally, the question of the Cup of Christ. What am I to make of this... oddity that Father Rodrigo placed on my table? That entranced members of my camp?”
He drummed his fingers on the table, idly chewing on his lip as he thought. Ocyrhoe kept eating, emboldened now by the Emperor’s mental distance.
“I fear Fieschi will be Pope someday, and at which time I will lose the friendship of a Cardinal and gain the enmity of a Pope,” Frederick said with a sigh. “Though I admit to some culpability in straining that friendship. I do admire Cardinal Fieschi’s self-control in not forcing himself upon the Church at this time, though I guess I can’t blame him. This election was a fucking disaster from the beginning.”