The Religion (41 page)

"We're surrounded by the Called," said Mattias. "They're hacking each other to pieces as we speak."

"I will be doing no hacking," she said. "I wish only to serve the people-those who suffer in the footsteps of Christ. I'll accept whatever Providence ordains."

He turned away and flicked the grounds from his cup and refilled it from the copper ewer. Then he stared into his brew and avoided her eyes. She knew he thought her a fool, but for once she knew that she was not.

"Mattias, please, hear me." He looked at her. She continued. "You've done everything that any man could and much more. You've brought me on a great journey, you've been my guardian and guide. I was searching for my son and I lost him, yet again, but I've been given something else-something infinitely precious-that I didn't expect to find." She remembered their first conversation in the rose garden. She said, "Let us call it the Grace of God."

Mattias nodded. He said nothing.

"If my quest to find Orlandu has led me to this knowledge-of my own soul, my own place in God's heart and creation-then I will not count it a failure. And neither should you."

"And Amparo?" he said. "Must she stay and die with the fanatics?"

"I am no fanatic."

"I speak of those who between them will reduce this city to dust."

"Amparo has always been free. I do not command her. She loves you, Mattias." She hesitated. "I love you. I love you both."

Mattias flinched, as if this information only added to his burdens. He retreated once again into his coffee.

"As to our bargain," she continued, "I will gladly keep it if you wish. We could marry before you leave and draw up the papers. You would have your title."

He waved his hand. "We're beyond such trifles now. And you deserve
a better mate than me. Your commitment is to something noble. More than noble. Do you want my blessing?"

"There's nothing I would cherish more deeply."

He smiled his smile of old. "Then it's yours, free and full," he said. He stood up. "But there are matters I must ponder for myself." He bowed, with the primitive gallantry that had touched her before. "Will you excuse me?"

Carla stood up too. "Of course. In any case I must go to the infirmary."

He offered her his arm. "Then I'll claim the honor of escorting you."

Carla put her hand on his arm and it felt good. She feared she'd never see him again. She still yearned for his love. And yet, she'd made her peace with herself. She could ask for no more.

When she got to the infirmary, Lazaro told her that Angelu was dead.

Tannhauser and Bors sat between the merlons on Sant'Angelo's battlements like two idling boys, their feet dangling over the clear blue water a hundred feet and more far below. They shared a goatskin of wine and a crock of olives and watched the set of the sun behind Monte Sciberras. The ocher smoke of the siege guns lent the sundown an infernal glow. From the cavalier behind their grandstand the cannon spouted a salvo of iron and woe. Across the bay, Fort Saint Elmo seemed not much more than a heap of disintegrating boundary stones, yet in breach of every statute of probability, its blasted precincts teemed with unhinged defiance.

"It's a paradox," said Tannhauser, "that men committed to dying should cling with such tenacity to life."

"Glory," said Bors.

He looked at Tannhauser and Tannhauser's heart lurched with an unexpected sadness at the wild gray eyes and the gnarled Northern face.

"All mortal chains broken, all moral debts waived," continued Bors. "Not praise or honors or grand renown-but rapture, and a foreshadowing of the Divine. That is Glory." He filled his throat with wine and swallowed and wiped his lips. "But you know that joy as well as I. Deny it if you will and I'll call you a liar."

"Glory is a moment that can only be known in Hell."

"That's as may be, yet what else in this world compares? Money? Fame? Power? The love of women?" He snorted. "A moment, yes, but having once seen its light, all else is gloom."

Tannhauser's gloom was rooted in other causes. "Getting my hands on this boy is like trying to catch lice in someone else's crotch. Unpleasant, frustrating, hazardous, and with no happy end in sight."

"The lice usually find you, though the boy came close." Bors emptied another prodigious draught down his gullet and offered the skin to Tannhauser, who shook his head. "Are we for Calabria, then?" asked Bors. "And will the fair and tender ladies come with us?"

"After praying to Our Lady of Philermo, Carla has decided that her place is here, in the Borgo. Divine Providence, the Grace of God, will guide her way henceforward. She will martyr herself to the sick, or some such nonsense." He waved his hand. "Such was the gist."

"Well there's no gainsaying Providence," said Bors. "Do I recall it was a pound of opium that oiled her way through Lazaro's door?"

Tannhauser did not need this reminder. His motives for arranging that favor now seemed wholly unfathomable. "I asked her if Amparo was obliged to stay in this splendid theocracy."

"And?"

"Amparo is free to do as she pleases."

"Surely these are glad tidings," said Bors. "All are content, so it seems, and you can leave with conscience clear and a gaudy girl on your arm."

Tannhauser scowled. "If ever I were to hear the Voice of God, this would be a welcome moment."

"So you're not content."

Tannhauser gazed across the bay. Saint Elmo had been scourged by marksmen and bludgeoned by cannonades since first light. Here and there, the rosy glint of the sunset reflected from helmets and pauldrons in the overclouding dust. Somewhere among the rubble, Orlandu di Borgo was getting his first taste of warfare; if he'd survived this long.

"It doesn't sit right with me to leave a thing unfinished," Tannhauser said. "And most especially to be thwarted at the last."

"You've taken beatings before. The bruises will fade."

"The boy's brain was stuffed with evil myths."

"We talked of weapons and such. Is that a crime?" Bors sniffed and raised the wineskin and lowered it again without drinking. "What else could we have discussed? The price of pepper?"

"He's a child. If he doesn't die they'll ship him back crippled. In either event he'll never be the things he might have been. He'll never do the things he might have done. He'll never know the things he might have known."

"Such is life." Bors raised the wineskin again and poured at length.

"He'll be robbed of his birthright before he's had the chance to collect it. As were you and I both."

"Us?" said Bors, almost choking. He wiped his lips. "Do we not walk tall?"

"Only among apes."

"Surely this war is righteous, even if I might allow that others are not. We can't have a crowd of greasy heathen forcing us to rub our faces in the dirt, while we spout their gibberish and bend our heads to Mecca. Look what they did to you."

Tannhauser said, "When you know that men can be trained like dogs to believe and do anything-anything at all-it makes you value your own counsel and be suspect of every other."

"Cheer up, man, and quit this dreary philosophizing. It will change nothing. Besides, you love killing. So do I. And a good thing too, for without killers there'd be no war and without war-" He stopped as his thought ran into the ground. "Well, there you are-without war we'd have nothing to talk about at all."

Tannhauser took the skin and rifled a drink. He stared at the sea between his feet. The thought of the drop made him dizzy. There were other falls just as sheer. Perhaps more sheer still. He looked up across the bay at Fort Saint Elmo.

"So," said Bors, who knew him all too well, "you've decided to go over to the cauldron and bring back the boy."

Tannhauser didn't answer.

Bors said, "If you want my opinion, that is the Voice of God."

"After dark, Mustafa plans to storm the breaches," Tannhauser said. "A night attack by the Turk is something to behold."

"Then let me bring him back for you," said Bors.

Tannhauser laughed. "I'd never see either one of you again."

"You doubt my good faith?"

"Never. But a madness rages out there which even at this close range cannot be imagined, and you're too prone to catch it and rave. Even I fear its glamour."

"Then take me with you. Let me sip from the chalice and I'll row you back to Venice by myself."

Tannhauser shuffled back between the crenels of the embrasure and managed to stand up without plunging to his death. He looked east across
Bighi Bay. In the thickening twilight Gallows Point was a hive of Turkish industry as Torghoud's men drilled out the spiked cannon and rebuilt the batteries and constructed a defensive palisade against further attack. Yesterday's dawn seemed a long time ago, and tomorrow's seemed far away. Perhaps Carla was right. Perhaps they were all right. Embrace Providence. And let God's Will be done.

"It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks," he murmured.

"What?" said Bors.

The guns of the raised cavalier bellowed again and balls sucked the air above their heads as they passed by. Some seconds away, in the dusk beyond, another handful of lives were about to be blighted and didn't yet know it.

"Come," said Tannhauser. "Let's see if the Grand Master has granted my wish."

Pentecost: Sunday, June 10, 1565

Auberge of England-The Crossing-The Post of Honor

Tannhauser bent over his war chest and stacked various items into a knapsack. Ten slabs of opium wrapped in oilcloth, various medicaments and decoctions, two bottles of brandy, half a dozen crocks of sweet preserves-quince, apricot, and strawberry. The knapsack's contents comprised such gifts, bribes, and wheel grease as might be needed. He didn't dwell on any eventuality that might leave him prone to consuming these goodies himself. Carla hadn't yet returned from the infirmary, and he was content to avoid the explanations and farewells.

"What are you doing?"

He turned toward the soft, musical voice with a clenching in his gut. Amparo lingered in the yellow light and shadows at the door of his monastic cell. He smiled. "Where I am going two things become priceless above all others, while gold and precious stone become worthless as dirt. Can you guess what those things might be?"

She replied without hesitation. "Music and love."

He laughed. "You've out-riddled me, and I daresay you're right. My answer is less poetic." He hefted the knapsack on the bed where his armor
was baled. "Things that ease pain and things that taste sweet. But at least I can put them in a bag."

"Are music and love not welcome in Hell?"

He walked over to her. Her eyes were dark and fearless and he fought the inclination to lose his soul within them. "On the contrary, the Devil himself craves them."

"You go to bring Orlandu back from the war," she said.

He nodded. On impulse, he said, "Can you keep a secret?"

"Better than anyone."

To his surprise, he found he didn't doubt it. "After that, I plan to escape the war itself, and return to Italy. Will you come with me?"

"I'll go anywhere you want me to."

Her mouth half opened and her body swayed, as if to counter the desire to press herself against him. He pulled her into the room by her arm and took her by the waist and pushed her against the wall. She raised her face and he kissed her. She didn't close her eyes and neither did he. Hers were full of questions. Perhaps they mirrored his own. They'd already slaked certain needs not an hour before yet his nether parts swelled with lubricity. He let go of her, before retreat became unfeasible, and stepped back.

"When will you be back?" she said.

"Tomorrow night."

He shouldered the knapsack and grabbed the baled armor and his wheel-lock rifle, freshly oiled and primed. The pistol he'd left in the chest. He pointed to the Damascus musket, still wrapped in a blanket and stacked by the wall. The elaborate Ottoman powder flask and the pouch of balls hung from it.

"Would you bring those for me?" he asked.

In the refectory, Bors brooded over his wine. As Tannhauser dumped his gear on the table, Bors made a point of not looking up.

"Well, this is a sour farewell for an old friend," Tannhauser remarked.

Bors scowled and fended him off with a hand.

Tannhauser took the blanketed gun from Amparo. "Since you never fail to have one, give me an opinion." He tossed the musket broadside across the table.

Bors stood up and caught it with both hands and by reflex tested its
weight. His eyes gleamed. He laid it down and unfastened the ties. He unwrapped the blanket, and as the silver, ebony, and steel were unveiled he let out a connoisseur's sigh. The weapon leapt into his hands as if it was alive, and he threw it to his shoulder and sighted and swept it in an arc across the room, the silver chasing and the nine-palm damascened barrel winking in the light above the table lamps.

"Perfection," he muttered. "Perfection without price." He lowered it and with the effort of one extracting his own teeth he laid it back on the blanket in a pointed display of the triumph of good manners over covetousness. "Unique. Exquisite. With that I could shoot the bollocks off a Mussulman at five hundred feet." He added, teeth gritted, "If I ever get that close to one."