The Fallen (20 page)

“The Sodalitium Pianum?” asked Adansoni, raising a bushy eyebrow in surprise. “I thought their work was rooting out rumour and suspicion of modernity rather than getting involved with inquisitional work?”

“It is,” said Casado, his reply measured, “but Monsignor Benigni has been working with the Inquisition closely in recent months.”

“We've been forced to combine forces,” said Düül dryly, his expression showing he was less than enamoured at the prospect. “Resources are … stretched.” He clicked his tongue.

“So I heard,” said Basquez guardedly. “I heard that Monsignor Benigni was seen reviewing the scene of Inquisitor Cincenzo's death?”

“It's no secret that the Sodalitium Pianum and the Inquisition have been trying to see if there is any truth behind these recent rumours,” said Düül.

“And what rumours would those be?” Adansoni asked.

Casado coughed and straightened the front of his gown. “That End Times might upon us.”

The air seemed at once heavy with unease. “Why say such a thing, Cardinal Bishop Casado?” asked Adansoni, aghast.

But Cardinal Berberino was less easily perturbed. “Inquisitors running amok through the streets of Rome? Gun battles within the city? Prisoners escaping Toulouse Prison? We were warned,” he said, and Adansoni saw that his hands were shaking. “I know I am not alone in having witnessed countless exorcisms throughout the city of late, and the births of hideous things.”

“It seems you are not alone, Cardinal Berberino,” muttered another. “Every day brings new signs, new horrors. We were warned long ago. That dark times would return. That one would come out of the East and that a trail of destruction would be left in his wake. Which brings us back to the one we have long been concerned about. The one who has escaped. The one who is back in Rome. Tacit. He is dangerous.”

“I agree,” said Korek. “Tacit is a concern, if the prophecies are true.”

Adansoni scowled and placed the tips of his fingers together. “I was never one for the prophecies,” he riposted.

“If memory serves, it was you who suggested such a prophecy involving Tacit in the first place, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni?” retorted Korek.

“I was younger then. Hasty and more free to embrace the implausible. Perhaps arrogant too.”

“You are saying you lied to the Holy See about Tacit then, Cardinal Bishop Adansoni?” asked Casado, sweat under his skull-cap drawing his thinning white hair into clumps. “When you first brought him to us as a young man?”

“We were all younger men,” added Korek, grimacing. Adansoni smiled in acknowledgement before continuing to speak.

“I merely want to make it clear that when I first found Tacit and brought him to the Vatican, the excitement of the moment overtook me. I remembered the Pope's words, his suggestion that someone great would soon return, recalling the prophecies of the sages of old. I was full of excitement and youthful overenthusiasm, as you point out. I accept now that Tacit is just a man. Nothing more.”

“I also heard that members of the Chaste were gunned down in cold blood at the Ponte Sisto?” said Berberino. “Along with Inquisitor Cincenzo?”

“Father Pellegrini was killed also, an innocent,” muttered a Bishop from the far side of the circle of tables. Casado's and Korek's eyes met briefly before they swept the congregation.

“I heard too that Sister Isabella was somehow involved,” continued Berberino, “that she was caught up in proceedings.”

“Sister Isabella?” questioned Korek, amazed. “Weren't she and Tacit on assignment together? Peculiar if you ask me.” He looked around the gathering before continuing. “Sister Isabella chased though the streets, while Tacit
escapes from prison and returns to Rome? Sounds like the two might in some way be connected.”

“I agree,” said Berberino. “For isn't it true that they formed some sort of … fondness for one another during their last assignment?” He cast a sideways glance at Adansoni, but Adansoni shook his head once again.

“Sister Isabella is apparently dead,” he said. “I have it on good authority.”

“Whose authority?” asked Berberino.

“Members of the Inquisition. They appear to have heard a rumour that Father Strettavario apprehended the Sister and killed her himself as she tried to escape the city.”

“Which is why Tacit returned to Strettavario's residence? To exact revenge?”

But Korek was unconvinced. “If that is true, where is her body?”

“Apparently she has already been buried.”

“How convenient,” said the ancient Cardinal.

Adansoni turned on him. “Why would the Inquisition lie?” he asked, glancing towards Düül for support.

“And why would Father Strettavario kill Sister Isabella?” Someone else called from the auditorium. “He is one our most trusted of Priests.”

“Why would he, indeed?” croaked Bishop Basquez, playing with the frayed edge of his sleeve. “And where is Strettavario now?”

“Apparently he has left the city.”

“So would I, if I knew Poldek Tacit was after me,” said the Bishop.

“Do we know where he's gone? What's his next assignment?”

“We have no record of forthcoming assignments,” replied a dark-skinned Cardinal with a voice deep as a pipe organ.

“So either Strettavario has fled, or Tacit has caught up with him?” Berberino persevered, tilting his head to one side like a snake considering a strike. “I suggest preparations for his funeral might be in order.”

“What I find more mysterious,” said a hooded-eyed Cardinal, “are these Inquisitors, the ones running amok in Rome.”

“Often it is what Inquisitors do best,” said Korek, looking across at the Grand Inquisitor in an attempt to show the man that he had his support.

“They need bringing under control,” the Cardinal continued.

“Cardinal Bishop Gunderson,” Düül replied. “I assure you, I do not like an Inquisition which is not under control. Anyone stepping out of line will be dealt with most efficiently.”

“Well, someone seems to be trying to control them most efficiently in Bulgaria,” said Basquez, his voice shrewd and languid.

“Oh?”

Basquez appeared to relish his role as bearer of news; his face brightened for the first time in the session. “A whole unit of Inquisitors, tracking Slavs through the mountains, wiped out.”

“Good God!” cried Berberino, “By whom?”

“Hombre Lobo, led by Cardinal Poré.”

A joint intake of breath seemed to draw the air from the room.

“Cardinal Poré?!” exclaimed Berberino. “I thought he died after the Mass for Peace?”

“No,” repied Casado, shaking his head. “He was never found. We knew he fled from the city, but assumed he died during last year's harsh winter.”

“Clearly not,” croaked Korek. “What was Poré doing in Bulgaria? And how has he fallen in with werewolves? To my knowledge he was never excommunicated?”

“He must have found the pelt after the ceremony,” said Adansoni.

“Wasn't it destroyed?” asked Korek, aghast.

“It would seem not,” said the recorder at the session, checking his file. “It too was lost after the event, perhaps discarded by someone who didn't realise what it was. There was a lot of confusion after the event.”

“Those Inquisitors,” asked Casado. “Were they not prepared with silver?”

“It was not believed that werewolves dwelt in that part of the mountain range,” growled Düül, disliking the growing accusatory feelings in the room towards him and his organisation.

“Send a squad to the area to deal with them,” Casado shot back, emphasising his words with a flick of his fingers. “Deal with Poré.”

“His head on a spit?” asked Basquez, a malevolent light in his eyes.

“If necessary, yes,” said the Secretary of State, looking at the Grand Inquisitor.

“Despite our stretched numbers?” Düül asked. “Despite Tacit being back in the city?”

“It is important that Poré be done away with. He is a problem we can easily eliminate. Send a small but appropriately armed group to find him and silence him for good.”

“Why do we seem always to be at war?” mused Berberino.

“And for the coming of war to our borders,” Adansoni said, “it seems to me that this conflict, this suicide of Europe as our Pope describes it, is worthy of urgent discussion within the Holy See. We talk of End Times. Perhaps when our Pope spoke of them thirty years ago, when the vision came to him that time, he was right?”

“Austria-Hungary is many hundreds of miles away,” Korek said, with a sideways glance. “We do not need to act, nor should we act, with the speed you seem to suggest is required, Cardinal Adansoni.” The aged Cardinal's words were accompanied by a sudden gust of wind which blew in from the open window and caught the papers of the scribe close to him, showering them to the floor. “We should remain objective and neutral. It is not the Holy See's role to take sides within world conflict.”

“But they are our neighbour,” countered Adansoni, “and close enough to cause us concern.”

“To act with too much haste, without a chance to consider what we might find ourselves involved in, would be unwise, Cardinal Adansoni. And we should be careful whose mast we nail our colours to.”

Adansoni grimaced and forced a cold laugh from his lips. “Whose mast we nail our colours to?” He shook his head. “With all due respect, have you quite taken leave of your senses, Cardinal Korek? We are Italians. The Italians fighting on the border, they are our people.”

“Speak for yourself,” the aged Cardinal replied.

Adansoni looked away, now directing his comments to Casado. “I have heard that the Austro-Hungarians have tens of thousands of men on their borders. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. That they are well armed and trained. That the Italian army has nothing. A poorly dressed, poorly provisioned force, made up of conscripts, boys and old soldiers. How are they to take the Carso, so few in number, and so poorly prepared? If the war draws out into winter then they will be defeated by the cold, let alone the enemy.”

“More reason to choose our sides carefully,” replied Korek. “Adansoni,” he croaked, his bright eyes defying his age, “I knew you were a tactician, but it seems you've missed your vocation in life? It seems you should have been a military man?” There was a lightness to the Cardinal's thin lips, something which resembled a smile.

“Cardinal Korek, as you know well within the Holy See,” replied Adansoni, “it is wise to be prepared. After all, we fight our battles on many fronts.”

THIRTY FOUR

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By nightfall of the third day the Italian Third Army had reached the steepest part of the climb and fallen out into a makeshift camp. The chill night air stank with the reek of a thousand camp fires and the caustic bite of strong coffee boiling in pots. The rumble of voices, punctured by the melodic chirp of a mouth harp, crept like a prayer up the mountainside towards the Austro-Hungarians waiting for them, silently, in their defences above.

The Italian soldiers, seeking solace from the cruel cold night, slept under their capes on the hard rock, or dug into unyielding earth with mattocks and picks to fashion a trench. Blood and iodine hung in the air, bandaged hands cradled tin coffee mugs.

“What do you think of the Carso then?” asked the Corporal, smirking.

“It is a cruel master,” replied Pablo, drawing his cape tighter about him.

“But what is the matter with you? You seem to gain some kind of pleasure from seeing the rest of us suffer in our labours.”

“Did I not say you would labour?”

“Heads up!” someone cried suddenly from the sea of seated grey figures, as the darkening horizon of rock away to the south bristled with shell-fire and burst into flame. A sound like thunder came and with it the splintering of falling rocks all around the encamped army, as if the sky was raining stones. The sound of thundering rocks was accompanied by the muffled cries of injured men hit by jagged scorching stones.

“I warned you,” said the Corporal, moving to stand in front of Pablo, and the young Private thought for a moment that he might be trying to shield him. The falling stones ceased to rain down and all around them soldiers tended the injured or threw themselves down on the hard rock in an attempt to find rest. He corrected the woollen hat on his head and drew on his pipe so that the dull embers lit in his green eyes. “This mountain is the Devil's flesh. Hard like iron. Shells cannot penetrate it. They just shatter and splinter.”

“You're great fun to have around,” replied Pablo, putting his plate to one side and trudging away, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.