Ocyrhoe immediately looked up and stared at him, with the frank rudeness that usually only small children can get away with.
“No? Then why don’t you do it yourself?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer immediately, she continued. “If retrieving this cup is such a simple duty, then why do both the Holy Roman Emperor and one of the most powerful Cardinals in Rome want me to do it? Do you think I am too simple to notice the contradiction? Do you think because I am female, or common, or young, that I don’t recognize hypocrisy and manipulation when I see it?” Amazed at her own brazenness, she quickly amended, “Your Majesty.” But she kept his gaze.
Frederick was the one who looked away, blinking rapidly. “Christ Almighty,” he said to himself. “No wonder she arranged this.” He looked back at her, and grinned. “I apologize, young lady. Very well. I intended no offense, and I will prove it now by including you in my thoughts about these matters. Tell me, what do you think of this nonsense with the cup?”
Ocyrhoe’s thin lips pressed together briefly to control a flaring of anger. “You are mocking me, Your Majesty,” she stated.
He shook his head. “I’m not. Truly. I think the world of Léna”—he chuckled and shook his head—“and I would never mock one of her kin-sisters. Alas, I have been boorish enough to insult one, though, by implying she is simple, so please grant me the opportunity to make amends.”
Ocyrhoe took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, willing her fearful indignation to subside enough so she might think straight. He really wanted to know her opinion and it was abundantly clear to her now that he wasn’t going to stop asking until she replied. “In the marketplace, I saw the priest hold up a cup as if it were a relic. But I was not very close to him, and from what I did see, it seemed to be shiny but it was otherwise unremarkable.” She tried to recall more details of the event in the marketplace: the way the crowd reacted to Father Rodrigo, the play of light on the object in his hand, the odd hollowness of his voice, the crawling sensation she felt in the back of her head. “But it did affect those who looked on it. The crowd thrilled at the sight of it,” she said slowly, swallowing a strange thickness at the back of her throat.
“But you found it unremarkable?” Frederick asked.
Ocyrhoe shook her head. “It had no power over me, if that is what you mean.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” Frederick said. “While I was not as smitten by it as some in my camp, I must confess to being lulled by its presence. I knew it was a cup from my table, but such awareness did not make itself felt upon my mind until well after the priest had removed it from my sight. So, the question that continues to intrigue me is this: does the influence derive from the man or the cup?” He levered a finger at her. “What do you think of the man Rodrigo?” he asked.
She grimaced, caught off guard by his brusque question. She squirmed under his gaze, not wanting to give him an answer, but knowing she couldn’t avoid doing so. “He is a good man,” she said carefully. “I think he has suffered a terrible injury. Not physically, but in his mind. I do not think he is a mystic or a prophet or anything like that. Something has not healed right in his head.”
Frederick nodded. “How does this attraction work? If it stems not from the cup nor from his person, then how can you account for his power over the people?”
Ocyrhoe shrugged. “How different is it from the influence any powerful ruler has over his subjects? Does it worry you because you feel it too? That you might be like the rest of us?” She was somewhat shocked by these words. She would not have spoken so bluntly to her own foster mother, and yet, here she was, speaking thusly to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
He gave her an avuncular laugh. “You have an unexpected feistiness I rather like.” He sobered. “However, as much as I know you would find delight in me admitting that I am, like yourself, nothing more than a rat from the streets, albeit in finer clothing, put aside this ferocity. It’s getting in the way of our discourse. Where does this power come from?”
She did not entirely trust his motives but, in the back of her mind—in much the same way she sensed the presence of Léna or her sisters—she knew her answers were providing a way. To what and how she had no idea, but she only knew her path was not yet set. “My only thoughts are... far-fetched, Your Majesty,” she said.
“To hell with orthodoxy. Tell me what you think.”