Once some huds of yards distant from the palace. Sir Ugo laid hold to Sir Roberto’s bridle arm and nearly jerked the stocky man out of the saddle. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re up to, man? You may be as deluded as that so-called king is into thinking that you’re still living two or three hundred years ago, but not me, not the third son of Geraldo D’Orsini. I’ve got far better things to do with my life than toss it away in the most senseless of a harebrained pocket king’s schemes. Ride out to your death with those mad FitzGeralds if that is your desire, but ride without me!”
Roberto just grinned. “Simmer down, Ugo, simmer down. Nobody’s going to ride anywhere. Haven’t you yet taken the true measure of that precious pack of FitzGerald cousins who were introduced to us as the Royal Council? Oh. yes, they every one talk and rant just as bloodthirstily as does their royal relative, but one and all, their hands are every bit as soft as my mistress’s bottom. I have no doubt that they’d make good poisoners, and one or two of them might even be able to screw up the gumption to thrust a dagger in a man’s back, but no one of them is in any manner of means a soldier. Recall, if you will, the exact way in which I phrased my offer of military service to Sniffing Tamhas: ‘If your majesty and his concillors and his gentlemen-at-arms wish to ride out …” and so on. Did you note the suddenly milk-pale faces on those three mothers’ mistakes. Ugo? I did, and I also saw the ‘secret signal’ that they gave Tamhas just before he dismissed us and announced an urgent meeting of the full council.”
Sir Ugo dropped his hand from Roberto’s arm and sat back in his saddle. “By the dusty pecker of Christ’s ass-colt, di Bolgia. you’re as devious’as a cardinal. With any luck, you’ll split that royal dolt away from his council as cleanly as … God’s Wounds, if you and your brother had chosen the church instead of war . . . who knows?
“But once they’re all sacked or worse, what then. Roberto? That man is about as capable of dealing with the affairs of what little is now left of his kingdom as is this gelding I ride today, and what noblemen are there about who are not related to him some way or anoth—? But . . . but. of course! And just who dreamed all this up, you or il Duct?”
“Actually.” drawled Roberto, “the germ of the plan came from Le Chevalier. He is a shrewd judge of the weak he descended, a sleekly groomed and richly accoutered seem. It was either somehow get firm control of this easily swayed kinglet … or do away with him entirely, only to see him succeeded by yet another of his ilk who might have been even more difficult and intransigient.
“This way, we two are just now the very jewels of Tamhas’s bloodshot eye; while, shortly, he will have damnedall his councillors for cowards and be very much in need of solace and sage counsel by men he feels are alike to him and so can be implicitly trusted to lead him in the pursuit of old-fashioned honor.”
Sir Ugo slapped the reins languidly on his mount’s neck and tapped his heels gently against the barrel to get moving once more, then he chuckled and shook his head. “So, Tamhas will rule the city, we will rule Tamhas, and . . . who will rule us. Roberto? Does His Grace di Rezzi, the legate, know anything concerning any of this?”
Sir Roberto shrugged. “I didn’t tell him. I’ve only seen the man once, after all. Whether others have or will or haven’t or won’t is none of my purely personal affair, Ugo. As to who will rule us, I don’t know about you. but my loyalties will lie just where they always have lain: with His Grace my brother, and the welfare of his company. You will find as has many another that we di Bolgias cleave closely one to the other, for there are but the two of us against a hard and often a cruel world.”
After his early-morning wall-walk, the Duce di Bolgia returned to his small but comfortable mansion, where his serving men helped him to disarm and redress in less military and far more ornate clothing. In the courtyard, as he descended, a sleekly groomed and richly accoutered barb awaited him. stamping and prancing and tossing her small, neat head. At a brisk walk, trailed closely by his bannerman, his squires, and some of the axmen of his personal guard, the eldest of the di Bolgias wound his way through the already bustling streets of the city to the mansion of the Papal Legate, Giosue di Rezzi, acting Archbishop of Munster.
il Duce could not say that he liked di Rezzi—his employer in residence and in fact. The rigid old man was flinty of nature, and the irreverent, thoroughly practical, outspoken, and not overly moral di Bolgia steel right often struck sparks off that flint. For all of that, the condottiere thoroughly respected the legate, for the man—unlike many another representative of the clergy di Bolgia had met on occasions too numerous to count—said just what he thought, said it out in words any man could understand, and never, so far, had tried to honey-coat criticisms of di Bolgia or anyone else. So. having this degree of marked respect for the cleric, il Duce felt an obligation to apprise him of just what he and his brother and the other military leaders were about with regard to their figurehead employer, King Tamhas di FitzGerald.
He was ushered into the legate’s bedchamber, where the air was hot and thickly cloyed with the competing scents of burning incense and herbs piled upon coals of the half-dozen braziers near the huge bed. When he once had dropped to one knee and kissed the ring, the legate signed a servant to bring a chair for him, signing another to bring wine for the noble guest.
His eyes swollen and wet-looking, speaking nasally, while sneezing and coughing often, the old man got directly to a point. “Your grace di Bolgia, yesterday afternoon. King Tamhas saw fit to dissolve his Royal Council, having three of his closest advisers hustled into an inner courtyard and there beheaded by members of the FitzGerald Guards. Two others of them were hanged last night, and it is my understanding that the rest currently languish in the warren of cells and foul dens under the royal residence.
“Now, while a spate of interfamilial violence is far from uncommon among these primitives here in Irland, I think me that I detect the fine Italian touch in all of this barbarity just past. The proper and more usual pattern would have been for the king to chose new advisers from among others of his kin. Instead, he has named his latest councillors to be none other than Sir Roberto di Bolgia, Sir Ugo d’Orsini, Your Grace, himself, le Chevalier Marc Marcel de Montjoie dc Vires, and one solitary FitzGerald, a guardsman named Sean something or other, who will be about as outclassed on such a council as a lapdog among as many boarhounds.
“Your Grace di Bolgia, I demand to know just what chicanery you and your brother and the rest are perpetrating here against the King and the Kingdom of Munster.”
The servant padded in with a ewer of wine, a goblet, and a small legged silver tray. When he had poured and tasted and departed, di Bolgia took a long draught, smiled, and said, “Your Grace di Rezzi, to tell you of these things was the very reason I called upon you so early. I should have known that such information would already have been imparted to you by others, of course, for Your Grace is ever a well-informed man.”
“Your Grace di Bolgia should be aware by now that flattery will accomplish him nothing but suspicion from me,” snapped di Rezzi. “Now get on with it man. Just what are you up to
Timoteo shook his head. “No flattery was intended. Your Grace di Rezzi, I but stated established fact. Under the circumstances, with the city and port besieged—albeit mildly so—the king dimwitted and most ill-reded, but a true, old-time fire-eater to suicidal extremes, i was afforded but three options, namely: to take you and your people aboard with me and mine and sail away, forfeiting the city and port and all to the Ard-Righ (whenever he got back to take it); to arrange the quiet demise of King Tamhas and maybe still be saddled with a royal FitzGerald nincompoop in his successor; or to arrange to get rid of that sycophantic so-called Royal Council and give the poor royal ninny advisers who could and would cool down his hot head and help him to keep the city and port, which seems so important to the Holy See. This lastmost option we have now accomplished. Your Grace di Rezzi.”