Castiglione, Fieschi thought coldly, acting the role of the pious priest, trying to pretend he doesn’t know they wouldn’t allow him such humility. The damned agents of the Holy Roman Emperor were immovable in their insistence to endorse him as their candidate for Pope. Of course, it was a complete coincidence that this faction—Colonna, Capocci, da Capua, Castiglione, and especially Robert of Somercotes—had all been given the worst rooms in the makeshift sanctuary they had discovered in the maze of broken passages. Rooms with holes in their ceilings, directly under the location Fieschi had instructed Orsini to encourage the soldiers to relieve themselves. The dankest, most stinking, fetid rooms. Anything to make the cardinals desperate to get out of here. If even one of them could be made miserable enough to throw the vote against Castiglione—breaking this interminable deadlock between the two factions—Orsini would release them all. The sede vacante would be over. There would be a new Bishop of Rome—one who had a proper understanding of the necessary relationship between Rome and the Holy Roman Emperor, a role that Romano Bonaventura was only too pleased to be considered for—and things could return to normal.
Fieschi himself had the best room, the coolest, snuggest, and most secure, with the most comfortable bed; to encourage their steadfastness, the cardinals who reliably voted against Castiglione—Bonaventura (naturally, given his nomination by the others), Torres, Stephano dei Conti, and Rinaldo—were given decent lodgings as well.
God looked out for those who had His interests at heart. That was part of Fieschi’s job in Rome. They all knew that, and they didn’t care to upset that dynamic—one that had worked well enough for them over the last decade.
Then there was Annibaldi, the damned, impudently independent Annibaldi, who had so far refused to vote for either candidate, even though he had been outspoken about the Emperor in the past. For weeks now, he had, pleasantly enough, wanted to engage in actual debate, demanding evidence of either candidate’s merit, indifferent to their political alliances. Fieschi respected such integrity when it served his own purposes. When it thwarted them, however, he found it infuriating. Increasingly so.
But he could discount Annibaldi’s need for debate now. The new man would be the vote that would change the dynamic; one more for Bonaventura would be enough to convince the others that their resistance was pointless. Even if Colonna and Capocci got to him first—even if Robert of Somercotes had already started to convince him of his righteous duty to bring peace through an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor—Fieschi was confident in his own abilities to bend the new priest to his will.
He watched the ailing priest fumble with an apple and a leg of some greasy meat. He will either serve my needs directly or I will use him to sway the others. Either way, he is the perfect tool.
It was almost as if God had sent him to Fieschi.
17
Rumors of My Demise
KIM GRUNTED AS the masseuse worked his shoulders, her fingers digging into the tense muscles. He lay facedown on a narrow platform, his eyes closed, and the scent of the oils she was using took his mind to other places. Guilt and anguish were not his way, nor dwelling on what was gone, but smells and sounds were powerful things, and in an effort to relax, he let himself fall into the embrace of his memory.
Books, he recalled—halls of learning where golden sunlight poured in through the windows, illuminating courtiers draped in silk. Sweat also, and blood, shared by brothers and friends in times of war and peace, and dark caves in the mountains where secrets of a long-hidden brotherhood were passed from generation to generation. The recollections were sweet, better than the reality had been, but that was the nature of memory: the past turned to silver and polish as time went by. A mercy for most, that the hardships faded in time, but when the memory lost its sting, it became something of a torment.
He grunted as she found a particularly hard knot below his left shoulder blade, the exhalation more agitated than the last. Her hands paused and then vanished, and he heard her sharp, shallow breaths. Fear, he thought, fear that her tiny yet muscular hands had injured him.
“Not your hands,” he apologized in the Mongol tongue. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “It is my history that pains me.” She was not Mongolian, and truth be told, he had no idea what languages the girl spoke, but she seemed to understand.
She was a pretty Chinese woman, brought west with the endless train of wagons that followed the great Mongol Horde. Her long black hair was twisted up and held in a bundle by a pair of lacquered sticks, and her face, though downcast, was soft and young. She wore fine clothes and smelled of the oils of her trade. She was part of the comforts he and his fellow fighters enjoyed, fanciful things that were meant to make it easy to forget where he was and why, but her beauty and her scent had the opposite effect, reminding him of what he had lost. She was just another bar in his cage.
He made no move to rise from the platform, and she shifted from side to side in her kneeling position, unsure of what he wanted of her. “Please,” he said, “you need not fear me.”
With a look halfway between relief and resignation, she gestured for him to put his head down again. As if taking permission from his statement, she set her fingers into the work harder, and he clenched his teeth. Some pain is good; some pain is necessary.
Most of the discoloration from his bruises was gone, but underneath, he was still stiff and sore. The beating he received from Tegusgal’s men could have been worse, and the fact that he was allowed the luxury of this massage was a sign of how his punishment had been a matter of formality rather than severity. None of his injuries were permanent or even truly debilitating. It was a warning—a reminder of whom it was that held the key to his cage. The Khan didn’t want his prized dogs made lame. Just disciplined.
Zug was faring better too. The man’s energy was returning, invigorated by recent events. He was not yet ready to fight, but Two Dogs’s strength had rebounded to a level whereby, with an earnest blow, he could send an unready man careening into the wall of their practice yard.