The Religion (87 page)

The water slid by and he dipped his hand and his cuts stung sharp in the brine. Pandolfo and Marra on the poles he could've pitched into the drink in a trice, where their armor would have seen them drowned. Corro
he could take by hand. He contained himself to the fantasy alone. The barge docked and they disembarked.

By torchlight they led him through the dark and abandoned precincts of the castle. Emptied of all pomp and hurly-burly, the fortress felt like a monumental tomb. They traversed a maze of hallways that sucked the sound of their footfalls into an oblivion brute and huge and shorn of echo, as if their destination were nowhere and none would reach it. Peculiar whispers, ambiguous and occult, rustled beyond the limit of their torches, and Marra and Pandolfo exchanged glances rank with fear. Tannhauser quelled his own fear, for it was useless. They descended a stair, and then another, and a third, and again Tannhauser fancied loping off into the uttermost blackness, then tracking them down and murdering them in these catacombs without name. He realized that wherever they were taking him a darkness without equal would form his world, and he resolved to make it his own, for if he didn't, it would devour him. They reached a wide door studded with iron and a key was produced and the door was opened and he walked ahead of them, unprompted, into the gloom.

The air was dank and cool and redolent of urine and desiccated shit, as one would expect of a dungeon as deep and dreadful as this one was. Inside the door, Corro told him to strip his clothes and he complied without a qualm. As he did so he palmed his last three Stones of Immortality. He stood there nude as an egg in the flicker of the flames. He did not remove his lions' head bangle and he looked at his jailers and they let that be. He could see that his calm unnerved the two Italians, and fanned Corro's hatred, and since it came at no great cost he gave the latter a smile.

By gesture they provoked him deeper into that subterranean cave, until a stark black hole gaped before him in the floor. They stopped, and his jailers held out their torches so he might examine it in the flames.

The hole was nine feet across and eleven feet deep. It was in the shape of an inverted bell, carved from the base rock of the island on which Castel Sant'Angelo was built. The smooth perfection of its symmetry and the flawless circularity of its maw won Tannhauser's amazement. Not even the largest and most athletic of men could get out of this pit unaided. And in this geometric punctiliousness lay the source of its power to terrify. Tannhauser might almost have applauded, for it was, without
doubt, the most exquisite prison in Creation. It could only have been conceived and built by the Religion.

Then in the flickering yellow light he saw that its integrity had been blemished in its lower reaches by a screed of markings, as primitive in execution as those left in caves by the vanquished races. The bald walls below were gouged by-he knew not what. Rings, fingernails, bones, or teeth, perhaps. The carvings were scattered in confusion random and wild, as if authored by a blind man gone insane: numerous crosses, often eccentric in dimension; the words "Iesus" and "God" and "mercy" in various tongues; scratches to mark the days, yet too higgledy-piggledy to serve; representations of tombstones; most artful of all, a portrait of a gallows, complete with a dangling man. They were the last marks left upon this world by the pit's former occupants.

Corro looked at Tannhauser, and Tannhauser looked at him.

"This is the Guva," said Escobar de Corro. "It is the dungeon reserved for false and wicked knights. Once delivered into its keeping, the only destination hence is the place of execution."

Tannhauser spat in his face.

So shocked was Corro by this insult that he reeled back and lost his footing and almost tumbled into the pit. Had he done so, Tannhauser's restraint would have been in vain, and Pandolfo and Marra would have had to die right there. With a determination that could only be rooted in the strictest possible orders from one they feared, Marra and Pandolfo restrained the trembling Castilian from hacking Tannhauser apart. All then was fair and proper: for if it was Ludovico who forestalled their rage, and it could be no other, then it was this proof-that Ludovico wanted him alive-that prevented Tannhauser from slaying them.

"Next time we meet," said Corro, "it will be to the death."

Marra dropped a goatskin of water over the edge and Corro moved to push Tannhauser after it. Tannhauser denied him the satisfaction. He vaulted into the pit of his own accord, one hand clasping its edge to gentle his fall. He landed without fresh injury, sliding onto his arse in the pit's nadir. Tannhauser stood up and looked at the wall and he saw once more by the evanescing flames the gallows carved therein. The torches retreated from the rim of his desolate habitat and with them the light.

Tannhauser resolved to be cheerful.

And for a while, at least, he had the means. He popped a Stone of Immortality
under his tongue. He molded the other two pills into cones and crammed them into his ear holes to keep them safe and at hand. The bitter flavors of opium and citrus and gold filled his mouth. The bitterness reassured him, he knew not why. Then the door to the Guva crashed shut and darkness absolute descended and with it an enormous silence that was scarcely less profound.

PART V

Bloodred Roses

Thursday, September 6, 1565

The Courts of Law-The Oubliette

Ludovico sat on the Grand Inquisitor's throne, in the tribunal chamber of the Courts of Law. Here were souls cleansed and the temporal fates of guilty and innocent alike determined and fixed. The beauty of Law lay in its purity, its clarity of instruction and purpose, its absolute exclusion of feeling. Within its halls all confusion and doubt were vanquished in favor of Decision, right or wrong. And as long as that purity, that process, was honored, any error in regard to Justice was the province of eternity. Yet what Law could root out his own doubt, his own confusion and guilt?

He was alone. Shafts of light from the south-facing windows fell on the empty benches and bounced in random flares from the varnished oak. Dust milled through the yellow beams, disturbed by the draft from the shot hole in one wall. Here, in the seat of power, he brooded on his powerlessness. His body ached from wounds. His heart ached from wounds more obscure and less readily healed and more heavily borne. Carla's face, her eyes, haunted him. Were the theories of Apollonides true? Had those eyes bewitched him? Should he relax her to the flames and have done? Certainly no poison or ague could make him suffer so evil a malaise. He had neither counselor nor confessor. In this he was friendless. The only one whose wisdom, he sensed, might best guide him was confined to the darkest pit in Christendom. If there was such a thing as a Guva of the mind, Ludovico was immured within it.

The staff of the Courts of Law had been either evacuated or conscripted, and its precincts were Ludovico's to do with as he pleased. He'd kept his prisoners segregated, each woman in a more or less comfortable room; the grotesque English brute in a basement dungeon. He'd seen none
of them since their arrest. In the whirlwind of debate that consumed his mind there remained an eye of tranquillity. It contained two words: Patience and Time. He had waited weeks. He had waited years. A few days more he could endure.

The Turks had maintained an attrition of musket fire, bombardment, mining, and sluggish raids. After the great repulse of September 2 a mood of low-grade despair had settled over the city, as another famous victory became just another reprieve won at tragic cost. The question in the minds of the high command was: Where was Garcia de Toledo? The promised relief force was more than two months late. Where were the knights from the far-flung priories of the Order, who must have gathered in Sicily throughout the summer? Was the viceroy really content to let Malta fall?

Since the Grand Master's pleas had taken little evident effect, Ludovico had sent his own Maltese messenger, a cousin of Gullu Cakie, to Messina some weeks ago. He carried two letters to a trusted familiar in the high Sicilian nobility. One letter was to be opened only in the event that Malta fell without Toledo's aid. It contained material and instructions that would ensure the viceroy's downfall and disgrace. The second was delivered to Toledo in person.

This letter was prefaced by an account of the sufferings endured by the besieged, the valor of the Christian defenders, and the heroic death, in the fight for the first siege tower, of Toledo's own son, Federico. Only the direct intervention of Divine Will could justify their survival to date, for it defied all human and military explanation. If Toledo intended to set himself against that Will, his eternal destiny would be a matter for God to decide. In the temporal realm, however, there were those, such as Michele Ghisleri, who would feel obliged to honor the dead by chastising those who had so dishonorably failed them. It would be a very great sadness if a soldier of Toledo's reputation were to end his days as the basest coward in Europe.

Threatening a Spanish viceroy was unexampled, but Ludovico knew Toledo. The letter would inspire a fury awesome to contemplate, and fury would provoke him into action.

Despite Ludovico's faith in Providence and his own diplomatic ploys, there was yet no sign of reprieve. Until there was, he did not dare execute the final stroke that his intrigue required. More than ever the Grand Master's
leadership was vital to the garrison's spirit. The miracle required to withstand the next Turkish assault would, as had the last, hinge on La Valette's person. When the relief landed, Ludovico would advance his cause. If it did not, he'd die with the rest. Death caused him no great anxiety. If he feared Death at all, it was because it would deny him the consummation with Carla that he craved. Thither did his mind turn yet again. Her proximity troubled him. She was here, waiting, in this very building. Waiting for his visit, as were they all, for on his appearance hinged their futures. Yet he didn't know what to say to her. He didn't know how to bend her to his will. All others, always, yes; but not her. And if he could not bend her, how could he cut her from his brain?

Anacleto entered the chamber. A scabbed mass distorted his eye socket and cheek: the purulence had resolved but not yet the pain. The deformity to his beauty never would. The sight filled Ludovico with pity. Tannhauser's English brute, Bors, had fired the bullet. The man had boasted as much as they'd thrown him in the cell. Anacleto walked toward the throne. His gait was odd: not unsteady, yet less nimble than usual. He bowed.

"The English screams your name," said Anacleto. "He's banging the door of his cell, the turnkey says with his head. His own head."

"He's emptied the keg already?"

Anacleto shrugged. "It seems so."

"Let him bang. What news of the women?"

"All is quiet."

Anacleto's single eye focused on him. It oscillated minutely from side to side, as if unhinged by the loss of its fellow. The pupil was tiny. Opium. Hence his gait. Yet there was something else amiss.

"What more?" asked Ludovico. "Tell me what troubles you?"

Anacleto shook his head. "Nothing."

"The pain?" said Ludovico.

Anacleto didn't answer. Tolerance of pain was a matter of honor.

"You have enough opium?" asked Ludovico. Tannhauser's packs had been crammed with slabs of the stuff. And with gunnysacks stuffed with jewels. Anacleto nodded.

"The relief will come." Ludovico took his arm. "I believe it. So should you. The war will soon be over. Our work is almost done. There will be less of horror and, by God's grace, our lives will change."

"Life will always change," said Anacleto. "And of horror there is always an abundance. Why would I wish it otherwise?"

"You were lost when I found you," said Ludovico. "In some ways you are lost still. Let me be your guide."

Anacleto took his hand and kissed it. "Always," he said.

"Good," said Ludovico, but his mind was already elsewhere. A revelation so bright he'd been blind to it. The boy lost. His own boy.

"I will see the English after all," he said. "Have him taken to the oubliette and restrained."

Bors did not dare open his eyes, for they'd left it on a stool right in front of him, and of that fell vision he could take no more. God had abandoned him. And why not? He was the bad thief. He too would have taunted Christ to call down His Father's vengeance on the rabble. It had taken only four of them to drag him from one cell to another and chain him to this wall, and only two had been carried out insensible, hopefully dead. Thus had his strength abandoned him too. Was that any surprise? Gallons of brandy he'd poured down his throat. Gallons. Gallons of poisoned brandy. And worse than poisoned. Defiled. Polluted. A decoction of evil, the squeezed juice of madness. He retched but there was nothing left in his stomach. His beard and chest hair were matted with old puke. Nothing could cleanse his blood now. Or his brain. Nothing short of death, and that they would not allow him. Not yet. He felt the tendrils of insanity growing inside his skull, strangling his reason, cracking the container of his fears and undermining the walls of his courage. All was lost. But what of it? Losing had never broken him before. Nor hardship nor poverty nor pain. Bring on pain. Bring on the hot irons and the lash. Rope him to the rack and heave away. He craved pain. At least it would fill his mind with something he could embrace, something he understood and knew, something more tolerable than this crawling venom in his veins, his gut, his spine. Something to uproot these weeds of delirium. He'd never greatly warmed to the Jew, it was true. But he'd admired him, had stood by him, had never shied from admitting their association. And woe betide any man who whispered an insult within his earshot. Even so. An act of madness to sow madness. There was blood in his mouth for he'd bitten off the turnkey's nose. Human flesh he could stomach; it was a bite he'd enjoyed
before, a time or two. But this? This-this what? Was it a phantasm born of liquor and the evil of his heart? He opened his eyes. And there it was. Pale and wrinkled as a maggot. The hair curled into obscene clumps and spikes. The dead eyes gelid and opaque. And it was no phantasm. He'd felt its monstrous weight with his own hands. They'd brought it all the way from Messina. Imagine. Shipped it across the sea, and lugged it through the Turkish lines and stored it, through the grimmest siege in the books, for just such a moment as this. A moment such as he'd now inherited and somehow deserved. He closed his eyes.