“Their names, these lay brothers?” prodded Abbot Fergus.
“Gilliosa Hay. Brother Gilliosa Hay, he and that wild Highlander barbarian, Ian MacBean.”
“And our charges, the sick and injured for whom we were caring in their need?” demanded Abbot Fergus. “Were all of them saved?”
Brother Pzkruig wrung his hands and sighed. “No, not all were saved, I fear me. In the dark and the confusion there was . . . was a … a regrettable error made. It was no one’s fault, really, but … but” A glimpse of familiar and feared fire in the abbot’s steely eyes sent Brother Paruig stuttering on with his tale.
“It was simply that . . . that the villagers all thought that we, the brothers, had fetched out the seriously ill patients. We all thought that they, the villagers, had done that deed of mercy. And by the time we—I—realized that . . . that …”
The younger monk began to tremble uncontrollably and whimper like a hurt child, while a great gush of tears bathed his stubbled cheeks. Patting the man’s shoulder, the old abbot led Brother Paruig to a jumbled pile of boxes and casks and sat him down, beckoning over another monk to care for him. Any man, the abbot well knew, could take but so much and no more; poor Paruig had never been as strong as average, and the horrific events of last night and earlier this morning, whilst he was nominally in charge of monastery affairs, had simply pushed him temporarily beyond his limits of endurance. The two missing lay brothers were found as soon as the monks and villagers got around to delving into the charred ruins of the main hospital building, but the corpse of the priest did not turn up until a trio of husky monks went to feed the three madmen lodged in a row of five low stone-built cells that composed the last remains of the very first monastery to stand upon this ground, possibly as much as ten centuries past.
Abbot Fergus was frantically summoned to the spot to find one of the three madmen gone. In his malodorous little cell lay the naked corpse of Father Mark. The priest’s face was horribly contorted and discolored, his tongue protruding well beyond his jaws and lips. His eyes too were bulging from their sockets, and the thin cord which had been used to throttle him—it looked to be made of braided hair—was still knotted deadly tight about his neck and throat.
The priest’s warm woolen habit was gone, as was the peculiar foreign footgear he affected—something on the order of Lowlander brogues, but finer and crafted of finished leather rather than rawhide.
Back at the ruins of the monastery, Abbot Fergus penned in his own hand an addendum to the letter to his parent bouse, noting that Father Mark had been found dead, murdered by a mad Sassenach, one Uilleam Kawlyer, who now was roaming at large in the habit and shoes of the murdered priest.
Sir Ugo led the Duce di Bolgia and the lieutenant along a well-lit interior corridor which debouched into a grpat hall boasting a high, vaulted ceiling, and with loggias on oo less than three sides, one of these being faced with carven wood-and-ivory privacy screens in the Moorish manner and designed to prevent observers from being themselves observed.
From the lavishly decorated and furnished great hall, they entered another short corridor, then climbed a flight of stairs and passed along one of a pair of marble-arched loggias which faced one another over a long, narrow garden of tile walks, manicured greensward, carefully tended shrubs and small fruit trees, flowers, twittering, darting birds, and gurgling fountains.
The loggia they had traversed and now quitted extended on around to the right, and halfway down that stretch, two huge, towering, albeit a little pudgy men with shiny blue-black skins and shaven heads stood obvious guard before a pair of carven and inlaid doors. The ball-butts of a brace of wheellock pistols projected from under each blackamoor’s saffron sash. Heavy and very cursive scimitars hung from their baldrics, and, in addition, one was armed with a two-barreled wheellock fowler with bores looking to be as wide as small cannon, while the other leaned on a six-foot pike.
Di Bolgia knew quite a bit about firearms, and he knew that even as big as that guard was, if ever he had to fire just one of those two-digit-wide barrels without a harquebus prop, he was going to find himself on his arse ten feet back from where he’d started, likely with a caved-in chest, to boot. The two men with their too-smooth faces were probably castrati, which meant that behind those doors lay the women’s wing of the cardinal’s palazzo. And the cardinal was deluding himself if he thought that that garish duo of Aethiop eunuchs provided any true protection of his hareem from invasion by any really determined body.
They were instructed to. wait in a chamber whilst Sir Ugo went off somewhere alone. Silently, a servitor entered bearing a silver-gilt tray on which were a ewer and a pair of goblets—ruby-red glass bowls set in heavy, intricately carven silver. Wordlessly, the man poured wine into the goblets and would then have departed had di Bolgia not grasped an arm in one powerful hand.
Waving at the goblets, he growled, “You drink first, a good healthy swallow out of each, or . . .”He laid his other hand to the jeweled hilt of his dagger.
With an indulgent smile, but still no words, the servitor padded back over to the table and obediently lifted first one goblet, then the other, taking a double swallow from each, then refilling them from the ewer. With another deep bow, the wordless man turned and left the way he had come. Picking up one of the goblets, di Bolgia remarked to the lieutenant, “That little farce proves nothing, of course. He could have hurried back to a waiting emetic or antidote. His employers might have failed to inform him of the fact that he was to serve poisoned wine. He could even have been willing to sacrifice his own life in order to take mine . . . and yours, too, of course, my boy. But I’ve found it never hurts to take such rudimentary precautions.
“Ahhh, this is indeed a fine vintage. A hint of sweetness and an aftertaste of well-hung apples. This is a northern wine, my boy, none of this vinegar-sour Sicilian horsepiss. His eminence has a superb palate. My estimate of him has risen to new heights, and I’ve yet to even lay eyes to the man.”
From somewhere nearby came a single, dry chuckle. As the two soldiers glanced all around the room, a section of the western wall swung silently open to reveal another, larger chamber wherein sat three men garbed as cardinals. Sir Ugo stood a bit off to one side of the trio.
“Come in, your grace of Bolgia, Lieutenant di Crespa. Bring the wine and we all will share it. It comes of one of my own vineyards located in one of the westerly electorates of the Empire. Viticulture has been practiced in the valley of the Moselle River, there, since the days of the Caesars.”
Most of the westernmost wall of the larger chamber consisted of five pairs of doors with clear glass panels letting onto a wide, deep balcony. Silhouetted against the bright sunlight flooding in through these glass doors, no details could be seen of the faces of the three seated clergy.
But, once more, that resonant, well-modulated baritone voice invited, “I say, come in, gentlemen. We have been awaiting you.”
Leaving Pandolto to fetch the ewer, Timoteo strode through the concealed doorway . . . and nearly dropped his goblet. The cardinal in the center seat, he who had been speaking, was none other than the catfooted, wordless “servitor” he had intimidated into drinking of the wine when first it had been proffered. Setting down the goblet, he hurriedly swept off his cap, dropped to one knee, and kissed the ring on the extended hand. The nails were manicured and the hand soft, but with a perceptible hint of steely strength in the muscles and sinews underlying the flesh.
When he had been introduced and had made his obeisances to the other two prelates, Sir Ugo returned to the chamber followed by a column of servitors, who bore in a carven and upholstered chair with arms and back for di Bolgia, an armless chair for Sir Ugo, a backless arm stool for Lieutenant di Crespa, four more of the glass-and-silver goblets, and a second, larger ewer of wine.
When all were seated and the doors tightly closed behind the servitors, Cardinal D’Este began by asking, “Your grace, how much do you know of the English Problem?”
Shifting his baldric slightly, Timoteo crossed his booted legs and leaned forward. “Enough, your eminence, to stay as far away from that part of the world as is humanly possible. That kingdom is become of late a meatgrinder of armies, and not even the Holy See has enough money to hire me and mine to follow in the footsteps of old Conte Hreszko. Nor am I alone in this firm resolve, your eminence. The come left Rome proud and confident, a living legend amongst professional captains. He came back a humbled and broken old dotard who, they say, will not live long because, disgraced, he no longer has the will to live.