The Religion (91 page)

Gullu added, "And the Inquisitor's Sicilian hag decamped to the Courts of Law."

"Is Starkey aware of this?"

Gullu shook his head. "He believes you gone, with the women."

Tannhauser felt vaguely wounded. "Starkey believes me a deserter?"

Gullu shrugged, too gnarled to point out that Tannhauser was just that.

Tannhauser said, "I need you to deliver him a message."

Gullu Cakie was one of very few outside the Order with immediate access to the high command. He pleated his bald brow. "To Starkey?"

"I need to speak with Starkey at once, on a matter of the greatest urgency."

"He'll be in San Lorenzo, at lauds. They're all there. Why not go yourself?"

"I can't reveal my hand. He and I must meet in secrecy. Tell him so. Do you know Ludovico's familiars?"

Gullu gave him a look, as if offended by the suggestion he might not.

"He has a man on La Valette's staff," said Tannhauser. "Who might that be?"

"The Sienese, Pandolfo, is a snake in the grass."

"Pandolfo it is. Neither he nor La Valette must suspect anything is amiss."

Gullu Cakie said, "Only a fool tangles with the Inquisition."

"A fool stands before you, sure enough, but you'll earn the Grand Master's gratitude."

"I've earned myself an abundance of his gratitude," Gullu scowled. "And it won't put a single loaf of bread on my kitchen table."

"La Valette's life is at stake."

Gullu pursed his lips, both unmoved and unimpressed. "Grand Masters? They come, they go, we shovel up their shit. And now that the war is over?" He shrugged again.

"You'll earn my gratitude too. I'll be in your debt as deep as you want to call it."

"But both of us will have to live if I'm to collect."

Tannhauser couldn't help a grin. "You're a man after my own heart." His grin faded. "Amparo's life is in danger, too. Ludovico has her in his lair."

Gullu's expression changed. "Amparo is one of us."

"I'd say so."

Gullu looked at his shiny, callused palm. "Amparo told me I'd live to see my great-grandson born." He looked up at Tannhauser. There was no hesitation in the beady eyes. "That's a prophecy I will not see cursed."

Torchlight made the crypt of San Lorenzo seem eerie. The vaults set into the floor stretched back with geometric ingenuity until lost in the haunted darkness. Some of the burial chambers lay open, their stone lids stacked aside, and the white folds of recently shrouded corpses could be seen within. Flies snarled in the gloom. A lingering tang of incense was swamped by the stench of putrefaction, for embalmment was a luxury long abandoned. The chancel of San Lorenzo lay directly above and Tannhauser heard the faint sound of singing. The monks' celebration of the dawn was under way. And time was running out. He heard a set of footsteps and returned to the crypt's entrance. Starkey stepped into the torchlight. His expression was guarded, yet not unfriendly.

"Tannhauser. You've been missed."

"I've been taking my ease," said Tannhauser. "In the Guva."

"The Guva?" Starkey was shocked. A rare sight. "On whose authority?"

Tannhauser waved this aside. "There's a plot afoot against the Grand Master's life. I am his appointed assassin."

Starkey was unarmed. His eyes reaffirmed the fact that Tannhauser was festooned with weapons, but whatever alarm he felt didn't show on his face. "Appointed by whom?" he asked.

"Brother Ludovico."

Starkey didn't seem surprised, but was ever difficult to read. "Fra Ludovico," he mused. "Ghisleri's man to the knife."

Tannhauser summarized his arrest and confinement-relocating their capture to the Auberge of England. He outlined Ludovico's proposition and plan.

"You have proof of this intrigue?" Starkey asked.

"Give me a free hand with young Pandolfo and you'll hear it for yourself."

"Pandolfo too?" Starkey's mouth twisted. "Ludovico's scheming to promote Del Monte was brazen enough, but I did not imagine he'd be so bold as this."

"Time presses," said Tannhauser.

"Is Del Monte party to this conspiracy?"

"No."

"Thank God."

"Amparo and Bors are in the Inquisitor's jail," said Tannhauser. "They'll be murdered at sunrise-sooner if Pandolfo gets wind of this parley."

Starkey tented his fingers against his lips. He pondered the lawful scenario.

"Serjeants at arms invading the Courts of Law. Arrests. Trials. Executions. The Italian langue disgraced, with much bad blood. Our victory sullied. Open conflict with the Roman Inquisition-perhaps the Vatican too."

He shook his head in distaste. He looked at Tannhauser.

"This ugly matter would be best buried deep."

Tannhauser said, "Give me your warrant and I'll bury them all."

"Warrant?" said Starkey. "If Ludovico survives-and you're taken alive-this conversation never took place. You'll almost certainly be hanged."

Tannhauser felt a flicker of surprise, then amazement that he should have expected loyalty. He knew these creatures. He was, after all, the man who'd been sent to murder the Sultan's grandchild. By the Sultan. Sultan, Vatican, Religion. Islam or Rome. All these cults sought only power and the submission of peoples. The people themselves, the little people, like him, like Gullu Cakie, like Amparo, were no more than grist to their mill. La Valette, Ludovico, the Pope, Mustafa, Suleiman-what scum they were, one and all. Swathed in pomp and orchestrating carnage to coddle their unreckonable vanity. In his heart he'd have killed them all without a qualm, and counted it a service to mankind. Yet there'd never be a shortage of candidates to fill their shoes and to deplore this fact was an errand only fit for a fool.

Tannhauser nodded. He said, "Of course."

"Ludovico left for Mdina with a troop of cavalry," said Starkey. "They intend to join the attack on the Turkish withdrawal. If he should die on the battlefield, this scandal would die with him."

Tannhauser and his rifle had a new employer. "And Bruno Marra? Escobar de Corro?"

"Foul and rotten limbs to be severed from the Order's tree," said Starkey. "They accompanied their new master to Mdina."

"Was Lady Carla with them?"

"I believe she was."

Tannhauser handed him the torch. "Keep Pandolfo in your sights."

"He'll be escorted from the church doors directly to the Guva."

Tannhauser slid back the pan cover on his rifle to freshen the priming. He slung the wheel lock across his back. He pulled the pistol and rechecked it. He'd wiped the bores and loaded each gun himself with a double charge of powder.

"Why did Ludovico trust you?" asked Starkey.

"He had a need to make me his dog." The cold rage stirred. His limbs felt light; his head clear. He belted the pistol. He thought of Gullu Cakie and looked at Starkey. "And he failed to take the measure of my allegiances."

Starkey said, "Perhaps of your character too."

"No," said Tannhauser. "My character he weighed with precision. For if Gullu Cakie hadn't agreed to help me, your Grand Master would be dead."

To the west the sky was indigo. Cassiopeia sat her throne above Saint Elmo. To the south the Dog Star was bright. Above San Lorenzo the night had already faded to a lilac blue. Where the blunted ridge of San Salvatore distinguished the eastern horizon, a nimbus of palest gold crowned the dawn. Tannhauser walked down the street toward the Courts of Law.

The building was two stories of sandstone, with a stab at juridical grandeur in the portico. Turkish cannon had left their mark as elsewhere. Tannhauser reckoned up the likely opposition: the two familiars from Messina, Tasso and Ponti; the Spaniard Remigio. Seasoned fighters-there was no one left in the city who was not so-but they didn't expect him. He drew his Running Wolf sword and the Devil-bladed dagger, right and left. He ascended the stairs. The twin doors of the entrance stood wide open. Something like a ship's lantern hung on a chain from the roof of the lobby. By its light he saw no one. He'd expected some kind of sentry-someone
to signal Amparo's murder, should it be required-and this disturbed him. He walked inside.

Passageways led off to his either side. A flight of stairs led into darkness straight ahead. A search might take more minutes than he had left. He decided to stir the rats from their nest directly. He raised his voice by an octave to disguise it and shouted as if in alarm.

"The Grand Master is dead!"

He waited. Seconds later he heard rapid footsteps from the passageway to his left. He concealed himself by its mouth. He heard a muffled exchange. A laugh. Remigio emerged from the passage. Behind him, two abreast, came Tasso and Ponti. Only Ponti wore a cuirass. They carried sheathed swords in their hands. Remigio was chewing and Tasso wore a bib, as if they'd been interrupted eating breakfast.

Tannhauser shoved twelve inches of Passau steel through Remigio's belly and cranked the hilt. Remigio's hands flew to the blade but it was gone and Tannhauser slashed his throat backhand and opened his neck to the spine and sidestepped as he fell. He lunged at Tasso's face and the sword slid clean through Tasso's forearm as he threw it up as a guard and the point split the arm bones and stuck him through the lip below the nose. Tannhauser cleared his sword smartly and closed and stabbed Tasso in the privities with the dagger and took out his legs with a foot sweep. He landed a shallow slash to his chest as he hit the stones. Then he stepped back.

Ponti had retreated to jettison his scabbard but came back into the fray as Tasso fell. Tannhauser parried blows, the attack bold and fierce, head, thigh, arm, head, thigh, and he gave ground toward the center of the lobby to leave Tasso out of range, to give Ponti headlong momentum, then he opened Ponti's guard up high, quillions locked to blade, and lunged forward and braced him, their breastplates clashing, swords aloft, Tannhauser's weight gaining the vantage and Ponti winded, his left hand grappling for the throat as Tannhauser dropped a headbutt into his nose. The tip of his dagger sought the armhole in Ponti's cuirass, and Ponti clenched his elbow to his side and forced the dagger away and abandoned the throat grab, for Tannhauser's neck was too thick, and he grabbed instead for his balls and Tannhauser stuck the dagger through Ponti's hand and pricked his own thigh as Ponti jerked back. He threaded his leg between Ponti's knees and hooked his calf and shoved from the hip and
Ponti toppled backward, sword flailing-and here was Tasso charging back in-and as Ponti hit the flagstones Tannhauser stabbed him in the groin and Ponti rolled and Tannhauser sliced him again at the back of the knee, but could find no killing blow. He warded Tasso's charge with a slash and a turn and he retreated, hacking Ponti a good deep bite through the elbow of his sword arm as he clambered to his knees, then two, three steps across the lobby and Tannhauser turned again and stopped and sucked for breath.

Tannhauser stared at the Italians while they all three caught their wind. He sheathed the dagger, drew the pistol left-handed and heeled back the dog. He'd wanted to avoid a shot, as the sound might alert unknown others and endanger Amparo. Ponti swayed in the aftershock of his wounds, his right arm broken, his sword swapped over to his injured left hand. His eyes were hooded with rage. Tasso was more unhinged. He stared at the black stain spreading from his crotch. Blood tumbled from his beard from his half-severed lip.

"He's cut my bollocks off," he said, with disbelief.

"I want Bors and the girl," said Tannhauser.

"The English is down below," said Ponti. "The turnkey watches him. The girl is locked upstairs. We don't know where. The women were tended by the Sicilian hag."

Tannhauser said, "Then who was to kill Amparo?"

The Italians swapped a glance to confirm each other's ignorance.

"We know not of what you speak."

"You had no such orders?"

Their faces answered and Tannhauser felt sick. "Where's the crone?"

Ponti said, "We don't know."

"Is it true the Grand Master's dead?" blurted Tasso.

"No," said Tannhauser. "He prepares your gallows. Ludovico's too."

Their shoulders sagged with the resignation of those who've gambled all and lost.

"Yield," said Tannhauser, "and at least you'll see a priest before you die."

The thought of hellfire was enough for Tasso. He threw down his sword.

"I'll not go to the Devil," he said. "God will forgive us yet."

Ponti howled and lumbered at Tannhauser, his sword upraised. Tannhauser
parried and stepped aside and severed Ponti's hand through the root of the thumb. He clubbed him to his knees with a blow from the pommel. He stepped back and set his stance firm. Then he rotated his hips and swung and hacked Ponti's head from his shoulders with a single stroke.

Tannhauser waded through the spew of blood toward Tasso and Tasso darted for the outer doors. Tannhauser moved to cut him off. Both stopped as Gullu Cakie mounted the threshold. He held the Sicilian crone before him with her arm cranked up between her shoulders. The crone looked at the slain and at the great puddles of gore that befouled the lobby. She let out a terrible wail. As well she might. Tasso turned back to Tannhauser and spread his empty hands.