To be alive and to be human meant to want to kill, maim, hurt, destroy. It did not matter what a man believed, or how he conducted his affairs, or where he lived. His merely being human meant he was the target of another’s wrath, another’s fury.
The most base animals do not turn on their own kind so, Rodrigo thought miserably as he watched men slaughter men, and women, and children. It hardly mattered who fought, who defended, who died—no one was to be spared the wrath of the others, and the world tumbled on with terrifying disinterest.
This was the past and the future, and Rodrigo was seeing all of it now.
All of the Cardinals had voted except Cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi. No doubt they assumed he was waiting until the end to make some kind of dramatic flourish, since it went without saying that he would vote for Bonaventura.
But he could count as well as Castiglione, and read men’s faces better than anyone else in the room. If Somercotes were still alive, the Englishman would have translated Castiglione’s grandstanding into a guaranteed victory. But Somercotes, thank Heaven, had gone to his reward, and Fieschi had no illusions about the impact of Castiglione’s brief flare of leadership.
He thought about the demented priest, wandering around somewhere inside the basilica. Somercotes had taken the man by the collar so easily. If I had gotten to him first, he thought, he would have been my puppet. I would have hidden the ring, passed him off for a Cardinal, told him who to vote for... and then that fortuitous accident with the scorpions would have made everything so much easier. Idiots like da Capua—so easily swayed by the most puerile of mummery—would have taken the priest’s word as gold, and voted as he told them—the candidate I would have already suggested to him! It would have been an easy victory for Bonaventura.
Of course, Bonaventura had never been his favorite. He was a necessary tool, that was all. A mediocre instrument with which to accomplish a task of tremendous significance: to keep the Church away from the influence of Frederick, who was at best agnostic and quite possibly an atheist. Bonaventura was not especially smart, but he was doggedly good at keeping his eye on the prize: total emancipation from secular power. Beyond that, when it came to all the details of shepherding the masses, Bonaventura was not somebody Fieschi would have chosen to work with, in large part because he was too obstinate. Fieschi would have preferred somebody weak-willed, even feeble-minded, whom he could manipulate with the skill of a puppet master.
That is why he wrote Father Rodrigo Bendrito on the piece of paper. He could read men’s faces, and he knew—he knew—that he was casting the seventh vote for the crazed priest; and he further knew that it had not occurred to any one of them that Rodrigo might actually be chosen.
Fieschi finished writing the name, underlined it for emphasis, and rose. He walked to the altar, placed the piece of paper on the paten, tilted it so that it slid into the chalice, and returned to his seat.
As Gil Torres and Colonna rose to count the votes, Fieschi relaxed in his seat. He reached for his satchel and took out the piece of paper he’d found in Rodrigo’s satchel. His eyes skimmed over the words, not for the first time, and he took pleasure in the inanity of Rodrigo’s prophecy.
The high Cedar of Lebanon will be felled. The stars will tumble from the heaven, and within eleven years, there will be but one god and one king. The second son will vanish, and the children of God will be freed. Wanderers with come, bearing a head. Woe to the priests! A new order rises; if it falls, woe to the Church! Battle will be joined, many times over, and faith will be broken. Law will be lost, and kingdoms will fail. The land of the infidels will be destroyed.
Yes, Fieschi thought, repressing a smile. Yes, this man will serve us very nicely.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Under the Night Sky
After reuniting with Istvan, Feronantus called for a kinyen. “For all of our company,” he said, “both present and fallen.” Cnán felt both honored and troubled by the elder knight’s words. Nor was she alone in her feelings, judging by the expressions on the faces of some of the others. But they all fell to preparations nonetheless, building the illusion of a communal feast hall on the open plain.