Part Three: The Nature of Chaos – The Allure
“Right.” I do my best presage of the Thinking Man, only flat on my back. “And what is that? Destroying the Church?”
“Is that what you think Metus is afraid of?” Peitho asks at my side.
I don't answer immediately. Something like, I don't think about what Metus is afraid of, is on the tip of my tongue, but I keep it to myself. Not because it wouldn't do anything to move the conversation along – and definitely not because it wasn't something nice to say and my mother would prefer I said nothing at all. So what I say instead is:
“I think... I think we have to wonder what this moment could mean to the people involved. The Carolingians are gone. Or they will be, effectively, in another generation. There's no way that Louis survives to adulthood in the East and They don't call him Charles the Simple to his face because he's a particularly complex guy.”
“All right. What are you suggesting?”
“I'm suggesting that the moment that Charles, son of Pepin, son of Charles Martel, became Karl der Grosse was the moment Pope Leo snuck up on him and placed the Roman Imperial crown on his head.”
“You don't think that Charlemagne went to Rome knowing that Pope Leo – III, right? Leo III?”
“Right.”
“You don't think Charlemagne knew that Leo would want to position him between the Pope and Empress Irene of Constantinople?”
One hundred years is plenty of hindsight, but whatever I think on the subject – whatever I thought – the debate continues to rage whether Charlemagne wanted the Roman Imperial crown or not.
“Do you really want to talk about Charlemagne?” I ask, looking down at her.
She shrugs, smiles as though to say Anything is as good as anything else. Which, knowing her is a lie. So is there something in this topic she thinks I'm overlooking? I look away, frown at the night.
“I think that Charlemagne already had his empire by then. He'd consolidated Christendom, right? More of the lands north of Italy than any Roman Emperor had been able to tame – to say nothing of Christianizing.”
“Did any of them really try?” Peitho's question is, of course, rhetorical.
“The emperors? To Christianize modern East and West Francia? Noo. It was much more convenient for the Empire – especially at it's End – to use the so-called Barbarians and Germans to fight for them – against other so-called Barbarians. The point is that Charlemagne – whether he already had the name or would otherwise – didn't become Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor until Christmas Day, the year of our Lord eight and hundred.”
I nod solemnly.
“You're stupid sometimes, do you know that?”
I look down at Peitho, a little puzzled; but her eyes are almost cartoonishly sickle-moon smiling.
“I've been called worse, for sure,” I say with a shrug. “But the point wasn't whether Charlemagne knew. Whether his going to Rome was cunning. You know— There's a legend about Charlemagne. Supposedly he couldn't ever learn to spell his name. Did you know that? All the work and money and energy he put – really that he had other people put, but you know, kings and especially well-remembered politicians are given the sole credit for the things that happen while they're in office – even if they disagreed with their execution.
Anyway, Charlemagne couldn't spell his name. And it wasn't like he didn't try. They say that he was obsessed with learning how to read and write and just could not unlock literacy's secrets. To the point that he would sleep with a wax tablet and stylus under his pillow at night, pushed there after he exhausted himself with practice. That's the legend, anyway.”
My mind suddenly cramps to a total stop. I can almost imagine Peitho asking me what is actionable about what I'm saying. Nothing.
I – But that's not right, is it?
R – What was it the Master used to say?
S – I don't care what the Master used to say. I don't want to think about the Master.
“Anyway, that's all beside the point.”
“Is it?” Peitho asks. I can feel her eyes on me. I don't look at her. “You're talking about great men, men who have been Called by life to do great things, and who have answered the call – in their own ways. Leo III is not remembered as a coward and a political loser. He is remembered as the man who put the crown on Charlemagne's head – the only human – man, woman, or child – with the power to invest more power in Charlemagne.”
“Right. Because he took the only avenue available to him when he was defeated politically in Rome and fled to Charlemagne's empire.”
“You act like it is an act of desperation which brought Leo to give re-birth to the Roman Empire in the West. You seem to prefer to pretend that the Bishop of Rome believed that it was rightfully within his power to name the successor to the Empire in the West in error. That because the Empire had largely dissolved in the West that the name and legacy were gone as well. But the politicians of Rome – then, as today – do not think this. They think they are the successors to their ancestors' legacies – regardless of how far removed from Reality in terms of time that may be.
“An ancestral inheritance is not a temporal thing. This is why it could destroy the faith if it was widely believed that Jesus was a Man, a husband, a father—“
“Metus mentioned a particular disdain for the Papal throne,” I ejaculate.
“The kind you would have if it disbanded your beloved Order,” Peitho muses. “I see. Then this is not about Charlemagne. This is about the Venatores Maleficarum.”
“Precisely. But also for the same kind of reasons Leo needed Charlemagne to wear the Roman crown – and for it to be Leo who put it on his head: Leo needed Charlemagne to fight his wars for him. Whether this is the official history or not, I am willing to bet you every coin I have on my person that what really was going on is that Irene of Constantinople was the one behind the Roman nobility trying to get rid of the Pope.
”I do not prefer to pretend that it isn't within the power of the Papacy to decide Emperors. I don't know why that is. I mean I do – I guess I just don't get it.”
“Old things, Robert. Traditions. They last, even as they morph and change.”
“Yes, yes. You get rid of the Pope, you get to decide who is Western Emperor. Seems that simple to me. I bet Irene told any number of those petty nobles they'd get to be the next Constantine VI—“
“And like him, have Irene as their regent.”
Now I do look down at Peitho. She says this as though to remind me that a woman would be in control. There is no pleasure in her eye, no What do you think of that, male?glare. Really there is a kind of... disappointment.
“So then you think that the Venatores Maleficarum want to be the next Leo.”
I'm not sure that was what I was thinking. But I am thinking about how the Ninth who is also the Thirteenth could want just exactly that. What if as the Ninth he is somehow a Kingmaker in the political sense and as the Grand Magus he wishes to actually make a king in his image? What would that look like.
Would it actually be something new?
I – Something new could be interesting....
Does Metus know?
“And what of Lamiya?” I hear myself wonder.
“What of her? It was our Rod which was stolen. We only want it back.”
“I wonder about that. The Rod – you said it is a conduit to Wadjet, right?” I look down at Peitho.
She's looking up at me with a sort of default defiance. She clearly doesn't know what angle I'm coming from, but I must be attacking.
“I did,” she cautiously allows.
“Well.... Isn't prophesy among Wadjet's domains? Wasn't the first Lamiya an oracle for Apollo at Delphi? Wasn't that—“
“Yes, Rob. Yes.” Peitho's tone is patient, but her voice is also wounded. As though the reminder is like the lash of a whip.
“Don't you think she knew? Lamiya? Don't you think – if she's an oracle, right? She should have known the Rod was going to be stolen.”
“And if she did?” Peitho is as rigid as a battleaxe.
“Then what is her play? What is her goal in all of this? Does she think that— Hm. Do they all think that this could be the moment that exposes the Secret? Is this really The End? Will something actually new emerge out of this?”
“I don't know, Robert,” Peitho says. Her voice has the silky smoothness of a serpent's belly. “That's up to you to decide. But do you want to know what I think? I don't think so. The Rod is proof. It could challenge the Church – but people will believe what they choose, even if it's nonsense. The Church is built to withstand an... earthquake like that – an impact event of that magnitude, if you like.”
“Then why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Steal the Rod? It's too much work to go the itinerant preacher-cum-Messiah route. If, as you say, the impact won't be felt enough to actually shake the face of Christendom.”
“What do your dreams say, Robert? Can you not speak with Her?”
“With whom?” I ask, startled. “Lamiya? Why would you think I could speak with her?”
R – You have spoken with her.
I – And Wadjet
R – Which, you realize, is who she actually means, you dolt.
I – Called out for them!
R – Twice.
“You won't tell me what you dream,” she says, leaning on one arm to look over me. “But meaningful dreams are meant to be obvious. You say you do not have trouble interpreting them. Why do you act as though you have not yet made Contact?”
“Because I don't know that I have,” I shrug. “If they're Contacting me, why not when I'm awake, in the flesh?”
Peitho adjusts herself so that she sits with her knees tucked to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs.
“Perhaps you have,” she shrugs. “Who's to say that you have not? The Material gods are very old, some of them ancienter than ancient. They are mysterious – and many of them still mischievous enough to thrill at being involved in mortal affairs at all, after so long.” She thinks a moment. “What of Stefano?”
“Who?”
“The tavernmaster – in Genoa.”
Is that his name?
“What of him?”
“Do not tell me—“ She looks at me, peers down. “What happened, after you went to visit him on Calendimaggio?”
“Wait. Do you want me to not tell you or—?”
“Don't act stupid, Robert. What happened?”
I'm taken aback by this question. How did she know that I'd left my office to go visit the tavernmaster that day? I try to search my memory, for the sequence of events which happened leading up to meeting Peitho, and I can't remember them. They're all a jumble of images and moments, blurred and discolored by time, trauma, ennui, and, of course, drugs. But—
“I didn't go see the tavernmaster,” I say, about as decisively as I might if I were on the stand in a courtroom.
“Stefano,” Peitho confirms as much as she corrects.
“Yeah, sure. I don't think I did, anyway. I think I had a couple drinks in the plaza, danced with some virgins – and then I met a Hindi merchant. Well— Francis said he was Persian. But I don't remember meeting a Persian. I met a Hindi. Actually—“
“I arrived in Genoa with The Captain,” Peitho says, just exactly as though she had said someone innocuous. No one could have been innocuous – that is to say she could have named no one. But she said The Captain – his name, his title, his epithet – like he could have been.
I am thankful that I'm not sucking on a lozenge of opium – I nearly swallow my tongue.
“The Captain? Like—“
“Yes, Rob. Jesus. The Captain. When I say these things you recognize from your Scholeio past, I am not—“
“No, you're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't do that every time, but—“
“Right. You follow the Rules.”
I might have sighed a Yeah. But I hear the sigh in her own voice. The implication vis-a-vis her, the Rules, and the Consequences.
“But you didn't meet him? The Captain? You met a Hindi?”
“Correct.”
“Robert—“ Peitho sighs out of her nose, as though to say that she has said all she can say on the issue. “My life is in your hands.”
“And that's why you're really willing to teach me – to say you want me. You just want me to save you.”
Peitho doesn't say anything. Maybe I'm right. Probably not. She's not telling.
“Peitho— If... if I help you... am I choosing Chaos?”
“Do you understand what you are asking?”
“No. I don't.”
She scoffs through her nose. But her voice is introspective to a degree that suggests I don't understand the scoff, either, when she speaks.
“I had not considered that Matere could be in some way involved, as you suggest. But it is possible. Looking into the future is not as simple as it sounds. Oracles are... unreliable by their very nature. When they are accurate, that may only remain true for a short period of time. Maybe even the very instant of delivery. It is possible that speaking the future necessarily changes it. It could also be true that speaking it necessarily brings it into existence. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“The box can be both empty or contain anything at all,” I say.
“All at the same time. Yes. The relationship of a Cause to an Effect is that it is. Not that it will be. In an Ordered system – the Material Universe, for instance – Cause and Effect are often linear, and the pattern is such that finding the exception to the Rule is what proves it. Am I wrong?”
I shake my head and shrug.
“But this isn't true of the greater Cosmos. When you begin to tinker with probability, to play with what will be, you are required to work backward: from Effect to Cause. When you look into the future, you are seeing only a very small portion of potential realities. Even the most nearsighted glimpse, the surest possible thing, can rely on millions of factors, any one of which can suddenly change at any moment. You're looking for an Effect”
I might editorialize that she means billions – trillions – orders of magnitude more than that. But millions was kind of the word which meant inconceivably vast at the time – sort of like how the trillions of US dollars spent on war machines is today. I might also say that as she is saying this, I am thinking of my own experiences within the Void. The seeking, the finding – the way Time itself seemed less like something my mind had to constantly concentrate on comprehending that something which was – something like seeing only with the Mind's Eye – or like the most perfect sort of Streaming service.
“This is the nature of Chaos – the allure,” Peitho practically purrs.
I really wish she had not used that word.
I feel it again, her arousal. Every time she talks like this she – well, she doesn't get warm, that would not be an apt descriptor. She writhes, I could say, around on my leg. Almost but not quite grinding her body against mine. And whether she is doing it intentionally or not, it does make me hot.
“You have read fortunes, yes.” She does not ask this, but states it.
“No.”
“Please don't play semantical games with me, Rob. I know that you are famous across the western Mediterranean as a fortune teller.”
“No,” I insist. “I'm not. I've never read fortunes. Not once, never. People asked to have their horoscopes, et al, read. All I ever did the whole time was ask questions about people's questions – about their lives, their families, what they wanted from their lives, and then I'd give my counsel on their question.”
“Yes. You read their fortunes.” Peitho giggles. “Magick as you refuse it is that. Except observing for the patterns of the Cosmos and learning to manipulate It. It's a kind of thinking. To the men and women you merely advised, you worked magick. Do you know your hit rate?”
“No. They weren't targets I was aiming at. They weren't some... skill trial – some game where I was keeping score.”
“You should have been.” Peitho's face is alight with excited energy. This is where, in the movie, particularly if it's in a more modern setting, she sits up and introduces, with a huge flourish and a bang for gags, a briefcase – so she can reveal a file or system of files cataloguing every “prediction” I had ever made. Alas, she did not. I half-expected something like it. What I got was sufficient to numb my brain a little bit, however.
“Someone has. How many do you think you got wrong? How many did you think were wrong when you gave them?”
“None,” I answer readily but cautiously. “I am confident in my observations, if nothing else.”
“And that's how many were. Every single one, accurate near enough to be exact.”
I'm not exactly proud of this. No few of those predictions was bleak. I sit for a moment, numbed by the thought that this might be true. “How can you know that?”
“I was told. Matere has means of learning these kind of things.”
“I... see. I guess what I really want to know is: If your people ever confront Christianity, will it be you who is called on to proselytize for your people? If there's a duel, you will be the one who fights it, right?”
She turns her eyes to regard me. “Yes.”
“Then you are not bluffing when you say you are prepared to kill Metus. You were trained to fight – and to kill.”
“And to die, if my dying could protect my family. Yes.”
“Then it would make sense for you to be here, if the Lamiya knows that this moment is potentially the birth of the next Charlemagne. What if Pepin – what if Pepin does win? What if – what if somehow he does manage to make himself King of Italy – and of Venice – with the Rod.” My voice is solemn, as is my stare as I look into the night but think of the devastation – not fires and blood, but lifeless, empty-eyed corpses everywhere.
S – What sort of empire would be left for him to rule?
“What if, rather, that is Metus's goal? What if that's—“ I don't clarify by saying the goal of the Grand Magus. Almost do, though. “And what if the Lamiya knows that you are the only person – maybe in the whole world, certainly in Christendom and the Mediterranean – who can stop him.”
“I'm not the only person,” Peitho says. There's no sentimentality. In fact, she's not even looking at me.
“Me, you mean.”
“And Matere did send me to get your aid at any cost.”
“Because she knew that Metus would?”
“Metus specifically?”
“Or Order,” I muse.
I can't – or won't – wrap my mind around the idea that Peitho is some kind of... I'm not sure. If she were a Satanist, I could think I understood what she is. But what does it mean to worship a deity of chaos? I really don't know, and thinking about it is like a sweaty hug that lingers too long – I want to be doing or thinking about nearly anything else.
“Robert—“ Peitho abruptly stops. When she starts again, her tone is much less demanding. “I want you to try to dream for me tonight.”
“Tonight? Like – right here?”
“Not like right here. Exactly right here.”
I sigh, close my eyes.
They burn, and I can feel the pull of sleep just behind my optic nerve. I'm so tired. So gods damned—
“I really don't want to do that, Peitho,” I say through my hands, which appear to suddenly be covering my face like a game of peek-a-boo – like I hope Peitho might think I'd disappeared.
“I know, Rob. I just— Look, tonight is the last chance for you to know if he's in Pavia, right? He could be— I guess he could be anywhere. But we'll know he's in Pavia if you can— He's active, at night, right?”
I look down at her with one eye, through my fingers. She has, evidently, sat up, and is now kneeling at my side, her feet tucked beneath her, hands on her thighs.
“What makes you think that?”
“Well—“ her eyes drift from mine. “It just seems like— If he's hurting people, and you're avoiding the dreams because you think he might hurt someone—“
“That's why I'm more inclinded to sleep during the day. I get it.”
“Is he – resting during the day and active at night?”
“Yes.”
“Then if he is active at night, he may pass a landmark you will recognize – a church, something like.”
“Or he'll kill a girl and I'll have to watch like I'm—“
I don't want to tell her what it's like to feel like you're taking someone's light from them – because I don't know what the hell it means. But also the—
“And if he is killing, I don't need to see it to know if he's in Pavia. I'm sure that he's had time to terrorize that city like he did Venice – it took me literal minutes to learn he was there.”
Peitho looks at her lap.
“Then you will not try?”
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