The Religion (75 page)

"What brought those days to an end?" asked Carla.

Mattias pleated his brow. "There were rumors of the Lutheran heresy taking root in that town, and of Waldensians moving down from the
high valleys-matters of which Petrus and I were contentedly ignorant. Michele Ghisleri, may his soul be cursed, sent the Roman Inquisition to investigate."

Carla suddenly felt ill.

"The worms crawled out from the wood, as they will, and Petrus was summoned to appear before the tribunal. They accused him of practicing witchcraft and necromantic arts, and other crimes too vile to merit repetition. He refused to abandon his home, for it was all he knew, but with the eloquence that he owned in great abundance, he persuaded me to flee. To my shame, I did. I made a league before disgust prevailed and I turned back."

Carla watched his features darken further.

"Night had fallen and I could see the glow of the flames from up the road. I thought the pyre was for Petrus and it was over, but his torment was to be more fiendish and prolonged. The fire was built from his library. Hundreds of books and manuscripts, a life's work in the assemblage alone, for to acquire a single volume he'd travel a thousand miles-to Frankfurt, to Amsterdam, to Prague. Texts by Theophrastus, Trithemius of Sponheim, Ramon Llull, Albertus Magnus, Agrippa, Paracelsus, many more. The knowledge of two millennia turned to smoke. Worse still, Petrus's own papers were tossed into the flames-a corpus without any peer, and of which no copy exists."

Mattias swallowed and his eyes gleamed liquid, though whether with fury or sadness she couldn't tell.

"A mob of those same
bravi
I have mentioned fed the fire, their faces shining with righteousness and evil. Petrus witnessed it all, seated backward on a donkey and stripped to the buff. And in that moment I believe he was already broken, for his mettle was delicate, like crystal, and despite all his wisdom, such swinish rage was quite beyond his ken."

He didn't speak for a moment. Carla said, "What did you do?"

"You've spoken to me of helplessness, and of the odium that attends it in one's gut."

It seemed almost a question, and was the last bond in the world she expected to share with him. She knew how hard a confession it was to make, especially for him. She nodded.

He said, "What did I do? Why, I stood and watched the bonfire among the crowd. And I did nothing."

His eyes were like slots, unreadable in the flicker of shadow and light. She felt chilled. She felt closer to him than ever.

"Of burning and swinish rage I'd indulged my own share and much more. In Iran we torched whole cities, one after another, and undid monuments older than the Temple in Jerusalem. And it came to me, as I stood there, that I was closer in feather to these jeering
bravi
than I was to Petrus, and that the dream was over, and that the world is as it is and not as men like Petrus Grubenius would make it."

He passed a hand over his face and she almost reached out her own to take it as it fell; but he wasn't finished.

"I took food and wine to the prison, for Petrus, and found him mute and bedazed, like the children who stand by the road while a town is sacked." She must have given some reaction, for he looked at her and nodded. "Yes. I have seen their faces too. In terrible number."

She said, "Go on."

He shrugged. "I may as well have been one of Petrus's jailers for all that he knew me. Each day thereafter was the same. He never spoke a word to me again. They burned him in the piazza a week later, and by then it was an act of mercy. I was able, at least, to buy the executioner's mercy. He strung a bag of gunpowder, which I gave him, around Petrus's neck."

There was a clank in the darkness nearby and Mattias looked up. There was a homicidal flash in his eyes, and Carla felt that had she not been there he would have drawn his sword and set to. She looked over her shoulder and her stomach quailed.

Ludovico stood on the rubble in full black armor, the latter pocked with divots and matte with filth. His casque hung by a strap from his left hand. Two bright pinpricks of light shone from the sockets of his eyes. His face was drawn with fatigue, but revealed little more.

Ludovico said, "Have you refreshment to spare a fellow Christian?"

His eyes were on Carla and she turned away. She was afraid. Afraid with a serpentine fear more unsettling than anything she'd met in the field. Mattias glanced at her. She felt him on the verge of explosive violence, and hoped he would contain it, though she didn't know why. He stood up and called to Ludovico.

"If the fellow has cheek enough to ask, then let him sit down, and welcome."

Ludovico walked over. He limped, but so did every man in the garrison short of Bors. He bowed to Carla and sat. He set down his casque and pulled off his gauntlets, which were gummed and sticky with gore. He crossed himself and murmured grace in Latin. Mattias gave him the wineskin and watched him drink, then took it back and drank himself. Ludovico ate in small bites, which he chewed at length with an ascetic's deliberation. He stared out at some vacant spot known only to himself.

Mattias stared at Ludovico.

Neither spoke.

Carla felt more and more disconcerted. It seemed like a contest, with rules of which she was ignorant and whose conditions of victory might include sudden death. She didn't know what to say and so said nothing. She didn't know whether to leave or to stay, and so she sat immobilized and tense. She cast furtive eyes from one man to the other but neither returned her glance. She clenched her hands in her lap and looked at her knees. A vague nausea coated her tongue. The silence that surrounded the fire became immense, until it was larger than the dark itself, until even the din of the battle seemed muffled and far. When at last she could take it no more, she started to rise to her feet.

Both men stood up at once.

"Thank you for the food and companionship," she said to Mattias. "Now I should return to my work."

"No," said Mattias. "Our conversation isn't done. Stay." He added, "That is, if it should please you."

Ludovico bowed to her again. "I did not mean to be boorish," he said. "If you wish, I will leave at once."

She saw Mattias contain a sneer. "Finish your supper, monk," he said. "When you've filled your belly you may crawl back into the night."

Ludovico regarded him without expression.

"Sit," said Mattias. "Our paths were bound to cross again and this is as good a place as any." As if not to be outdone in etiquette, he bowed to Carla and added, "That is, if the good monk's company is not too unpleasant a prospect. If it is, he will understand as well as I."

She wondered why Mattias wanted Ludovico to stay. She found herself nodding and they all three sat once again on their chunks of stone. She couldn't help be aware that both men were killers, for their harness was caked in gore. More disquieting still, both were in contention for her
affection, and she sensed the strings of their virility drawn taut. It was like sitting between rival hunting dogs. But at least she'd broken the silence. Whatever else followed, she hoped she wouldn't have to drag them from each other's throat.

Ludovico inclined his head toward the clamor. "You're deemed an expert in the manners of the infidel, Captain Tannhauser. How many more of these devils will we have to kill before they pack up for home?"

"Bold words for a priest, who's in the habit of sending vipers to do his killing."

Ludovico looked at him with a bland smile. "The question was put in earnest."

Mattias replied in kind, yet beneath the veil of cordiality lay a cold rage. "Suleiman's armies haven't turned their back on a siege since Vienna, in '29. And it was snow that thwarted him there, an ally we can hardly count on helping us here."

"We can count on the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ."

"Merely by passing through your lips His name is defiled," said Mattias. "You couldn't soil it more foully if you voiced it from your arse."

Carla was shocked but didn't speak. Why was he provoking him so?

But Ludovico was unperturbed. "I'm moved to hear you defend Our Savior's dignity."

"I'm more familiar with the words and deeds of Christ than most of your flock," Mattias replied. "For I've read the Gospels and the letters of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles for myself." He glanced at Carla. "Though to do so is a crime that carries a penalty of death. Ludovico's masters have banned their own Holy Book in the common tongues-a novel idea, we all may agree, but it helps to keep the Inquisition working to capacity."

"Without Mother Church's guidance," explained Ludovico, "the common man can't be expected to understand the sacred texts. Thus he may fall into error." He looked at Carla. "Surely no more proof is needed than the wrongs of the Protestants."

"Christ was a common man," countered Mattias. "And if He'd foreseen the wrongs that you've committed in His name, He'd never have laid down His tools and left His father's workshop."

"If you've turned your face against the One True Church," said Ludovico, "why make your stand here, with the soldiers of the Faith?"

"The true soldier's faith resides in the fight alone, not in the cause."

"It's said all men believe in God on the field of battle."

"Maybe so, for they're quick to shout His name. But if I were God I'd not be flattered, much less reassured. As Petrus Grubenius would say, their belated cries for His mercy hardly provide sound proof of His existence."

"Ah," said Ludovico. "Grubenius again."

"Carla asked to know how Petrus met his end."

"And you told her," said Ludovico, without expression.

Mattias nodded. "I told her all but the name of his torturer. But I had no need, for her heart supplied that intelligence without my prompting."

Ludovico looked at Carla and she felt sick.

"Grubenius was a brilliant man," said Ludovico. "His eternal soul was saved that day, for if he'd been set at liberty he'd have surely recanted and damned himself for all eternity. Mattias and I watched him go to the flames." He looked at Mattias. "The captain here stood a good head and shoulders over every other man in the piazza, though he made no conspicuous protest that I can remember."

Carla tensed in anticipation of the violence that now seemed a certainty.

Mattias moved not a muscle.

Ludovico turned back to her. "He cut a figure too splendid to miss, as I'm sure you can imagine." Ludovico's demeanor was as serene as ever, but his black eyes gleamed with jealousy. He took the last piece of bread from the basket, but didn't eat. "You seem distressed, Carla," he said. "And you must be exhausted. Surely you should take some rest."

He was right, and she wanted nothing more than to leave, but she sensed that if she did so it would mark a subtle shift in her loyalties. She sensed also that this was his intention. She shook her head. "Mattias and I have much to discuss," she said.

She deliberately used his forename, and Ludovico marked it.

"No doubt you have," he said. He turned to Mattias. "Carla told me that you and she are to wed."

Carla glanced at Mattias in alarm. She'd told him nothing of the visit Ludovico had paid her, for fear of what he might do. Mattias nodded as if their bargain was common knowledge.

"It's true, we are betrothed." He smiled at Carla and his warmth banished
her anxiety. "And a love match it is, too." He turned back to Ludovico. "I trust we enjoy your blessing and good wishes."

"As you told me when we first met, you're a fortunate man."

"A reputation I cherish," Mattias replied. "I hear that your own has received a much-needed polish, and that you're now a Knight of Justice."

Ludovico inclined his head in acknowledgment. As the insults and barbs accumulated Carla wondered when he would rise to the goad.

"I never expected to pity La Valette," said Mattias, "but at the news of your ordination I admit I did so."

"Why pity?"

"Because you will ruin him. And his beloved Order too."

Ludovico blinked. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Why else would you come back to Malta? Ruin is your profession, is it not?"

Ludovico toyed with the bread in his hands. "Even if I owned to so fantastic an ambition, what power would a lowly knight have to achieve it?"

"Ah, yes," said Mattias. "The lowly knight. The humble priest. As regards the art of war, La Valette may be touched by genius, but in the art of politics, he's as naïve as a choirboy invited to a bishop's bedroom."

"You underestimate the Grand Master."

"I hope so. But I don't underestimate you. La Valette hasn't left the island in years, and before that rarely set foot on dry land, let alone in the snake pit of Rome where the likes of you ply their slimy trade. Even Oliver Starkey is as straight as a string, and he's as skilled a diplomat as the Religion can boast. These are men who keep their word, who pay their debts, who are bound by their oaths." Mattias leaned forward. "Men who cleave to their holy vows. They don't bring shame on their Redeemer. They don't conceal their evil behind the smoke of burning flesh. They don't abandon young girls to pay the price of their incontinence."