Part Two: Old Friends, New Problems
Adalbert.
Fuck.
R – He was bound to show up at some point, right?
S – Right. Naturally. Just— Why did it have to be here? Now?
I – How did he find us?
“Carl? Carl Cartwright? Is that—“
I turn, the third – or maybe fifth – time the voice repeats this call. As much because it takes that many refrains for Adalbert to be close enough to bother looking at as because if he isn't deterred yet, he definitely won't be when he drunkenly pulls up beside me. Except Adalbert doesn't—
I smell him, first. Largely because he doesn't stink. Or, rather, that his particular odeurs humaines were obliterated in a cloud of odeurs de lux – expensive perfumes and oils, et cetera. The kind of thing a guy who lets people call him The Rich like Dick Rich allowed Richy would wear. And not a single part per million of alcohol. Not even a drop, spilled by accent by some unknowing stranger.
And that stranger would not be, I think, expected to know on whose person he had just spilled that single, offensive, drop. Because Adalbert was dressed less expensively than even I. Hell, he looked like he'd just walked here from working a nearby farm all his life.
S – What in the—
I try neither to frown in puzzlement nor to turn down my nose – at the stink, at the sight of him.
I – He killed her.
S – I know. Shut up.
I – He killed her and you let it happen.
"Adalbert."
He is a tall and striking man. Short of my own six feet by his hair, and boy-howdy, could he grow a beard. He looks like a damn statue of Zeus, all black curls, from the top of his head to his shoulders, just eyes and cheeks as hard as Scylla and Charybdis. His nose, then, is the strait which ran between – and straight, it is. Straight and long and proud and as Italian as the rest of him.
"Aww, it's not Bert anymore?" His voice is deep and masculine, and he chides me like I'm a child – worse, like I'm a girl child.
Now I am glaring at him. "What do you want? Why are you in Pavia?"
"You know why I'm in Pavia," he says with a twitch of his beard which must have been a devious smile, closing on me so that the beard tickles my ear. "Why don't you come with me? We should catch up."
"Come with you," I echo, nodding slowly and working the Hell no around in my mouth like a broken tooth.
“Yes. Or I could let any one of these men know how much I have offered as a bounty to the person who can bring you to me.“ The predator's gleam isn't only in his eyes. It shines off his teeth in a grin like that of the mustachioed twin of the Cheshire Cat.
I don't look around me. He is bluffing. But at the same time, I know he's not. All it would take is one glimpse at the evidence of the coin he carries as walking around money, and these men would tear one another to shreds to be the one to get the reward for killing me – and all to his amusement, believe me. Adalbert's eyes say as much. The glint there is black and sharp, like an obsidian mirror.
Do I see myself in him?
He makes the universal This way motion with his head toward the door, and I fall into step behind him.
Just like I always do.
Like I always am. Always following someone else's lead.
I can't remember his voice, but I remember my father saying it: You either lead, follow, or you get the hell out of the way. Why is it, then, that my every attempt to get the hell out of the way! has ended with me forced to get behind and follow someone?
I sigh.
I haven't been paying attention to where we're going. Nor have I noticed that dusk has settled over the firmament, the first stars of the night already shining bright, when Adalbert stops and turns to me. The stars - they mean that this moment had to happen, right? That if we were not going to be here, they would not have shined for us? Would I notice that I am out of place in the Plan of the Cosmos, the Weave of the Universe, if there were no stars but should be? Would that mean the universe didn't know I was going to be there?
I don't like the thought – that the universe could know anything – so I don't let myself articulate it.
Instead, I try to focus my attention on Adalbert. I should really have watched where we were going. But it didn't matter, did it? If he were taking me somewhere to kill me, he was taking me there to kill me. There wasn't anything I could do about that. Not after starting to follow him. What, make a scene and try to slip away? Only to discover that, alone though he seems, there is an army of his men-at-arms, you might call them, surrounding us in the night?
It wouldn't even matter if that were true. Not the way I'm feeling.
“You know that I knew, right?” Adalbert turns, stopping dramatically in front of a fountain. “That you weren't really dead?”
I must do something with my face: He laughs, a low, sad noise.
“Carl, there was no body. No body, no death. Look, you were upset about Maria. I get it. So you ran. But— How did you convince yourself I'd believe you were dead?”
“I'm just that good, I guess,” I say, walking up beside him, but looking into the fountain. “But really – people go missing all the time.”
“They do,” Adalbert concedes, dramatically. He regards me. He wanted to be an actor when he was a boy. All he needs is a cigarette to really chew up the scenery. I'm ignoring him.
“But not the Fulcrum of Fate, Carl. Not you.”
The only counter I have to this is to ignore it.
“I knew. I even knew you'd settled down in Genoa. Got yourself a wife. Things were going well. Too well to last. You must have known that. Ah. I can see on your face that maybe you did. You did not exactly try to hide. Did you think that making yourself valuable to them would make them loyal to you?”
I can't keep my face from glaring – and no longer keep myself from aiming it at him.
“Is that what this is?” I ask. “Are you just going to taunt me? Why are you here at all?”
“I came looking for you. I am...” he pauses, offering me that look which demands to be taken seriously, “compelled to speak with you. Would you take a walk with me?”
“Where are we going?”
“Nowhere special, I guess. I want to see San Michele Maggiore.”
“The church?” Now I'm regarding him. “Why?”
“Eh.... I want to see it, all right? Will you come?”
I don't know. Then again, what's the difference? I was probably going to end up drunkenly wandering town at some point – and hey, someone besides Peitho to talk to.
“All right. Off you lead.”
“Things have changed in the world, Carl. Since—“ He sighs. “And more change is coming. I know that you are here chasing after the one they call Pepin the Great.”
I shrug. By now, I wouldn't be surprised if my own father showed up and knew what I was up to.
“Not exactly.”
Adalbert frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this is my last stop. I'm not going any further.”
“I see. I was going to say – but you are wavering. I see that you are not wavering. You have decided, then?”
I look over at him, my lips jamming up the corner of my mouth. But what I see are the towers, literally towering over the environment.
Nodding toward one in the distance, I say, “Do you think this will be the future? Towers, filling every city?”
Adalbert neither looks nor slows. “You've never been to Pavia?”
“I don't know. I like it. High-tech.”
“You know that these towers are mostly means for people like me to compete with one another? The one with the tallest tower has the longest dick.”
“Yeah. But that's everything you guys touch.”
We walk for a long while after that in silence. I don't know if he is thinking about what I've said or what he plans to say next.
“At least this way you're building something,” I offer.
“Putting men to work and inspiring children, isn't that what you told me? What do you think?”
“I think you have a better memory for the things I say than I do.”
“Be that as it may, I remember that you weren't too fond of people like me convincing others to fight and die for them.”
“Are you here about Berengar?” I glance over at him.
“You know that I am.” These words hang, heavy, like a snow-laden tent over me – dreading how he figures to get me involved. “But that's not why we're talking. I'm here to convince Adalbert – of Ivrea, yeah? Fun, for you: two Adalberts in your story. Don't mix us up.” His grin is wolfish.
“I'm sure I won't.” What the hell is going on? Why are we just talking like this – like old times? Some part of me knows I don't have long with him – can't spend long here – and that there is something I'm supposed to get – something he wants to give to me, but cannot simply give it to me. There is no articulated thought. Just the knowledge of how men like him politic. Like the system of endowments Berengar used to keep his nobles under thumb.... They can't ask for what they want to keep them happy – that's extortion. But if a representative asks for them, and the king agrees on their behalf....
“What do you want with of Ivrea?” I ask.
“I want him to let Pepin have the city.”
I almost laugh. I don't , because he isn't joking. Thankfully, I don't have to think of something to say that won't sound incredulous – nay, condescending. He keeps going:
“Adalbert of Ivrea is the only thing that stands between Berengar of Friuli, King of Italy – for now – and utter ruin. He is as-yet undecided about which side he will be on.”
“Then you're here to, what?” I ask, stupidly.
“You know exactly what. Convince him to allow Pepin the Great to have the city when his army arrives over the mountain. Turin have already been convinced to allow his army through the mountain. Susa will be more difficult to convince – Berengar has strong support in his mountain pass. For now. Adalbert of Ivrea will change that.”
I see it, for just a second, a single frame across my vision – the mountain pass, standing beside Wadjet. Were we looking down on the Susa Valley?
S – Oh, gods. I know where that is.
R – It's a three-way pass in the mountains. One way leads north to Burgundy—
I – The other south, to—
S – Provence. Are they going to try to march two armies on that pass?
“Why do you hate Berengar so?” I ask. “You don't even bow to—“
“I am aware to whom I bow,” he snaps. Then he suddenly stops. I nearly trip over myself. “There is is. The San Michele Maggiore,” Adalbert breathes, his voice half-reverent. “Its magnificent, isn't it?”
S – Maia—
Francis – Right. Maia. Mother of Hermes, daughter of Atlas and Pleione, one of the Pleiades— And in Rome, her name means Larger, Greater. Maggio. Not so different from Maggia, yeah?”
S – Magick.
Francis – Right. Growth. The magick of nature, friend. By the end of the Romans, she was wrapped up in every ancient goddess, eh? Fauna, Ops, Juno.... She's the Great Mother, friend. The Great Midwife.
I look at the basilica with a disinterested ye. “You could even say magica. It's a church.”
“Ah, but you're wrong. It is so much more than a church. It is a signpost. A bulletin board. A guide to the Seeker.”
I regard him with single raised brow. “And what is it saying?”
He looks at me. His smile gives me the willies.
“Everything.” Then he looks back at the basilica and we're talking about something entirely different. “They thought they killed us – the Hunters. We thought they had, too. Things were bad. Things have been bad – for centuries. Oh, don't look at me like that. You know I'm not old enough to have watched it all happen. But the School remembers – thus I know.
“Things were bad. Bleak. Dire.”
“Would you say you barely believe—“
“Shut up, Carl. You're not being funny. The School almost didn't survive. But we did. And we built this. The Lombards helped – the kings and their wives – Theodolinda, Agilulf, Autharis... Liutprand. But mostly Theodolinda. She gave us an excuse to exercise old skills and get new ones. But here's the thing—“ He looks at me, pointedly, from the corner of his eye. “We didn't survive unscathed, unchanged.”
“All right....”
“Any injury will leave the body scarred, different. Carl, the School – the Circle of Masters, they're—“
I have been trying not to react to any of this. We are far from spies trading Cold War secrets. And yet.... But he was doing an admirable job of using different words at least, if he were going to speak so openly. When he mentions the Circle, however, instead of thinking of the Ogdoad – none of whom I knew, nor had I seen so much of them as their meeting place – I think of the Nine.
And have to suppress a shudder.
“Different. Changed. You were— But there is no point dwelling on what you should have done. We can't meaningfully change what is – not right now.”
“Then what will-be do you want to change?” My voice is hard, but optimistically cautious.
Adalbert's eyebrow quirks.
“Do you know what is planned for the Rod?”
I'm looking at the church's facade, at its recessed windows and doors, the colonnades along the top, beneath the roof.
“What about this church speaks to everything? It just looks like a Lombard church to me.” His eyes press me for an answer, and I sigh. “No. No one will tell me.”
“Now... I'm sure that's not true. But I will rectify it. Order wishes to use it, to establish a new, lasting Order.”
“The Rod.”
“And other items of Power. Yes.”
“Why? Why would they do that? This isn't new. This is—“ Just more of the same? Why would I say that?
“What do you mean?” Adalbert asks, eyeing me with a theatrical squint.
“Nothing. Just tell me what you want.”
“I want you to stop him,” is his answer.
Now I actually can't believe what Adalbert is saying, and I react like it:
“What?”
Adalbert makes an indulgent sort of face, patient, like he were talking to a child – or an idiot.
“The School was once a great monument to Balance. An exemplar for all to see. Now.... Order does not mean always Good. And it is not always to be trusted blindly. It is no wonder that you are here. You must sense it, the Great Potential. The creeping Chaos. Something is going to happen. Something that could forever alter the Fate of Humanity. And you want to be there. You're driven – like a cart behind forces over which you have no control, and of which you have no understanding – as yet no ability to comprehend.”
“No, actually, I don't—“
Adalbert interrupts me with a laugh.
“It seems that you did not know that I am Scholeio. This is interesting. I had assumed.... Well, you know what they say about assumptions – an ass out you, but especially me, huh?” He regards me.
I am standing upright, shoulders square. My hands are in my pocket, but I can feel the set of my jaw, and I know my eyes burn. He said it – the name, the Scholeio. I'm supposed to kill him. What do I do? Is he daring me? Taunting me? I've felt like he's been taunting me this whole time. And the Voices' silence right now – gobsmacked, they are, apparently – is not the best timing.
My hands itch.
A bead of sweat rolls down my spine, leaving a creeping, formicatious trail to the base of my skull.
“Let me ask you something, since I seem to have stunned you to silence and I know that you are not willing to do as you must,” Adalbert says, extending his hand as though he were going to slap me on the shoulder, then retreating it: “Does it ever just feel too... easy for you? Like everything is lining up exactly in place, just for you? Like you're Moses and Life is the Red Sea? Anything you want just comes to you? That your only Struggle is with the boredom, with apathy toward it all?”
I don't say anything.
Of course it feels that way. I'm already getting bored of this conversation. I think, though, that he's asking if I'm bored with Pepin – and yes, I am – because, yes, it's been easy – like he said, too easy – like everything's just been falling in place and I'm James Woods following a candy trail.
“I thought that might be why you ran,” Adalbert says, evidently reading my thoughts – but more likely my face. “I thought to keep you for myself, once. Hm. Seems I can't stop myself from sharing things which I would prefer not to with you. Then the Truth it is: I thought that since you did not know what you were yet I might benefit by you. And I did. Greatly. The position I now occupy is largely because of you – I should be giving you my thanks. And perhaps I am, in my way. Maybe that is why I am speaking to you, now. Warning you as I am. I thought to come here and impress you to my vision. But seeing you now, I care nothing for that. I... need only for you to be informed. As informed as I can make you without putting myself at significant risk.”
Again— He's talking to me like I'm not really here. Like he's saying what he's thinking – and his face as he does so makes it seem like he's surprising himself. And yet— And yet his words, his meaning, is so selfish. Like— Like he thinks he is being generous with me. And maybe he is, in his mind.
Something about him, about the things he's saying— He's connected to this all, involved in more than the aloof, political nature he claims. He and his father didn't make Tuscany – and especially Lucca (Florence comes soon) – an independent province by being anything less than opportunistic of the conflicts between the East and West Francians and those other Italians who wanted to control the kings which were offered to them. But... I freely admit I had never thought that he might be Scholeio.
And now I am well and truly fucking confused. I thought I had decided that the Scholeio wanted the Rod in the world. Were there factions within the factions? Does that mean the Circle of Nine I saw was the Scholeio? I'd all but convinced myself that they were a lesser, splinter-type group.
Does that mean that the Grand Magus of the Venatores is more powerful than I thought?
R – Adalbert mentioned the Hunters.
I – He seemed afraid of them.
R – More like leery.
S – Now you guys chime in?
“You were a good friend, Carl. I have learned much since you died. But—It's getting late. I don't believe I am breaking any Rules – because I am not telling you anything you have not learned from someone else. That Rod cannot be allowed in the world. Its very presence could cause the breakdown of society. The utter collapse of civilization.”
I regard him a moment. Does he believe this?
P – The Church is built to survive an earthquake like that.
“How can that be?” I say this, and suddenly I'm angry. Not just angry – furious. My chest feels hot, like an alembic's cucurbit, boiling and under too much pressure, on the verge of exploding. I'm shaking violently in my legs and trying not to shout as I spit: “You aren't the first person to tell me that. How can an artifact from a long-dead religion hope to be that destructive? Just—“ I hold up a hand, silencing his response. “Civilization is not something that is going to just end. Societies may end – but even then, what is the end if the people who come after pretend to be – or try their damnedest to be – those who met their supposed ends? East Francia calls itself the Holy Roman Empire, yet she holds no Italian cities, least of all Rome. Hell, even Rome, by the end, had two capitals, neither of them the city of Rome— Even Rome was emulating Rome by the end.
“No.” I hold up a finger. “But of course even the final collapse of Rome wasn't that bad – not for the survivors. Your family no doubt accurately trace your lineage to ancient Roman elite, as do those of how much of the Italian nobility? Half of them? All of them? Civilization didn't collapse. A new ruling elite didn't even really come in and replace the previous one. The governing system collapsed. It was made a chimera by competing calamities. In 500 years, when they look back on this time, they will not see it as all that different from the systems before. More of them, smaller and more diffuse, sure, but still trying to emulate Big Brother Rome. We're still one, maybe two hundred years from anything new and truly different developing.”
I look at him. I feel like I'm panting, like I should have steam venting around my head, maybe out of my ears and nose. But Adalbert is listening to me. I expect to see the disappointment I always saw in the Master's eyes when I said these kinds of things – like I'd missed something. Adalbert just nods – many times – throughout. I resume:
“Civilization didn't collapse. The lie of perpetual growth did. A government by any name did. And Rome still lives on in the East. But this happens all the time, all over the world. The world is a big place. Filled with places so different from this one that you'd think you were on another world beneath a distant set of constellations, and those places are filled with people so alien of features and complexion, clothing, music, art, and religion that you could convince yourself they're a different animal altogether.”
Adalbert continues nodding his head, as genuine a display of humility as I have ever seen in him. If he knows who I am, then he knows that I speak from experience – that, in fact, I am more qualified to speak on this than he is. I'm certainly better educated. Had he ever picked up a book? I feel less like the apprentice addressing the Master than like a master addressing a peer – someone of different but equally-high status.
I am not used to this feeling.
“All of these places, all of these people, all of these civilizations say this of their secrets: If the people knew the Truth, it would spell the End of the World. I'm just... not impressed with civilization as we know it. So before you answer me what could be so dangerous about a rod, know that I'm asking you what could cause people to leave their farms and their homes, forget their languages, and return to the lives of naked beasts, Adalbert. What kind of secret threatens the very foundation of civilization?”
The Margave takes a breath, settling himself. And I'm glad for it. The tremble in my legs is starting to piss me off. Then he answers deliberately, the way he might to his king at counsel.
“The world as we know it is built on many lies. I remember well your perspective that anything which is not the truth in itself is, to you, a lie. I maintain that a lie is any untruth which is shared with the intent to cause or cover harm. What harm do we cause? What are we obfuscating?”
“Just because I don't know doesn't mean it doesn't exist,” I point out
“Precisely. The Rod of Asclepius represents infinite potential. Just because I cannot know how it will or could be used does not mean that I cannot imagine how it might – enough that I might come to think that civilization could end over it.”
“You believe this.” I'm not asking.
Adalbert is looking down his strong nose at nothing in particular.
“Governments have no real power. The Roman Senate had no real ability to reign in their Emperors. People have power. And once a person tastes power, it's like anything – he wants more of it. Since the beginning of time, kings have known that they were only temporary. Even the great god-king pharaohs died. But more than this. There was a time when kings, even the Roman kings, were appointed, often to die within the span of years, if not only months. The priestesses were permanent – the strega were permanent – the Goddess is permanent. Any Order we impose on the Cosmos is temporary by its very nature. But this does not mean that we should not strive. That we should not still build.”
S – The Goddess?
R – As opposed to Order?
I – Yaldy – God – Order.
“For thousands of years, maybe since the Beginning, people have stored power in institutions.” Adalbert continues, as though he doesn't notice that I'm only sort of paying attention, now. “Kingships and their administrations – and religion. The Church is the civilization of Christendom. Our kings wear their crowns. But their people do not worship the kings. Their people do not even believe in them – that is not to say that their people do not believe that they exist, as they believe in their God. They do not believe the king has any power to do anything in respect to the quality of their lives. Not in Italy. The Margraves do – the nobles do.
“The Lombard and Carolingian kings care nothing for Italy. It is the Saints, the Bishops and their bishoprics, who rule Christendom. It is the Pontiff in Rome and his gangs of petty politicians who continue to decide the fate of Christendom. Any king who were able to do as Charlemagne had, and who refused to be crowned by the Pope could see this world ended and another one birthed.”
Hm. My own thoughts, spoken from another's mind. Does this mean I'm right – that I'm on to something? Or does it prove that great minds do think for themselves but come to the same conclusions independently?
I don't know which I like less – implying that mine is a great mind, or the thought that Adalbert's was.
“Venice announced themselves as players on the world stage half a century ago by stealing the remains of Saint Mark. Churches have made their claims to fame and fortune with relics and miraculous artifacts since nearly the very next day after the Resurrection. This is our way, humans. But naturally it is our way to lie as well. Many of these relics and artifacts are fakes. Clever forgeries. Their miracles entirely unattributable to them, but instead to natural processes.”
He looks at my face hard, probing my mind with his eyes. I know neither what he is looking for nor what he finds.
“You know that they say that Augustine is buried here, in Pavia?”
“Yeah?” I ask, not sure whether I care.
“Yes. Pavia has many churches – and many secrets. Augustine is in San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. King Liutprand and his uncle, a bishop Peter, of Pavia, rescued them from Saracens – from the isle of Sardinia. Liutprand himself is buried in the church. You know these churches were built by the School, yes?”
“Were they?” I ask, not letting my voice sound anything but bored – but on the inside, I'm wondering.
The Scholeio members I knew... is a statement which, making it now as I sorted through the acquaintances from my childhood, is absurd. I didn't know any Students. I knew the Archi. And I knew al Shamshir – and I was introduced to and educated by dozens of people. But I didn't know any of them. I couldn't write them letters. I wouldn't be getting Christmas cards. I didn't know them on any level whatsoever. All that I knew was that I was supposed to be quiet. That everything I knew and everyone I met was a secret. Did that mean they all took the secret that seriously, too?
Or were they playing on a boy's gullibility?
Certainly the last month would suggest that Students weren't as fastidious in their secrecy as I'd been led to believe.
“They were not commissioned by the School. Nor by Students. Theodolinda, wife to Authari and later Agilulf, commissioned them. She – of course not singlehandedly, but still – built churches all over Lombardi. With the help of the School. That family which managed to survive the Goths, the last five-hundred years, those Comacine masters who build the entire world – from Carthage to Jerusalem to Rome, secret stone masons and occultists, made free by the Lombards, and soon to enjoy that freedom across the face of Christendom, building churches like this, like d'Oro.”
“Comacine?” I ask. “Like, from Como?”
“Yes.” Adalbert laughs. “Como was a colony of Rome, up in the Alps, and when disaster came, Como survived, independent, til now.”
My eyes are moving around in my head, darting back and forth as though I were searching for some invisible threat, some connection. “All right. So some of the School survived in Como.” I try not to gulp as my throat works dryly to swallow nothing. Builders, whatever. What does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with the Rod?”
“They said that you were educated,” Adalbert says this, and again, he's not really talking to me. Definitely not answering my question directly. “ I knew this. It is... pleasant, speaking to you when your eyes aren't glazed over. Churches, Carl, built to house relics of perceived power. Now. Imagine that one of these relics were not only perceived to have power, but did have a power, a power which could be used, manipulated, which could change the very course of History. Imagine that one of these miraculous items were lusted after by a king. Imagine an Excalibur which does not simply grant a kingship, which does more than just vanquish those foes you have at arms' reach, which does more than make you invulnerable. Imagine being able to achieve conquests greater than Alexander and Julius Caesar combined – easily. With next to none of the effort which kings of kings of the past have needed. Imagine an item with the power of a god. Accessible by any mortal. Imagine being able to open the Book of Fate and write in it anything you like – and for those things to come true exactly as you write.
“This is sort of something like the Rod that Pepin the Great has in his possession. This is something like the moment that Christendom is facing. But imagine that it does not make you a god yourself, won't make you anything more than mortal. Imagine the chaos and turmoil, as kings and paupers alike fight to lay claim to it. Anyone with a killing hand or a scheming mind will have opportunity to claim it. The politics for emperor of Rome will not compare with the Chaos that will be unleashed, brought back to the world. You are right when you say that this is nothing new. But it is – new to this world, to this Age.”
I hate this – the look in his eyes, that particular emphasis. I know what he's talking about. He's talking about Peitho's secret history of the world. I hate that I know it. And I hate that I've been thinking exactly this same thing – before this conversation.
“Order has convinced the... Circle that they are capable of what the original gods were not – using the infinite power of the magick cosmos to give this world and the Human Soul to Order. The Circle have unleashed the rod unto the world. They stole it from the Daughter – Peitho, I believe her name is. And they gave it to that Pepin the Great. My understanding is that they did this through Charles the Simple in the West. On the condition that he would invade and take Italy. With promises of being a puppet king in a land unfriendly to foreign puppets.”
“But all of the Italian kings are foreigners – Germans or Franks.”
“Yes. But they're foreigners we choose, Carl. What is so difficult to understand about that?”
“Then what's your beef with Adalbert? He's at least closer to locally born than any of his rivals.”
“Adalbert is a coward and a weakling. He politics like a woman – with women, mothers, and children. He buys his enemies with concessions – of castle-building, or basilicas and cathedrals, and their own sort of autonomy. But this is not kingship. This is not Order. This is diffusion. This is decentralization. This is the opposite of the acquisition and manipulation of power. This is—“
“Democratization?” I suggest.
“Yes!” Adalbert is practically fuming at the mouth at the idea. He's not, of course. In fact, besides his wild, practically unkempt facial hair, he is the picture of nobility. His Renaissance descendants would be more than impressed.
“But all of this is to say nothing of the true question which must be asked vis-a-vis the Rod of Asclepius: Who can hold such power – even briefly – and not go mad with it?”
As I'm hearing this, I'm thinking of Pepin. Memory flashes flit through my mental vision. The girl with the red bow. How I'd treated that innkeeper, her memory.
My eyes have drifted away. I bring them back to him.
“Is it real?”
“The Rod of Asclepius? Yes. And, with it, anyone could do anything. There could be war unending.”
“It could encourage the common people to take an interest in their leadership,” I suggest.
Adalbert nods, his face as stony as blank slate.
“It could also mean perpetual peace, if it is properly used and cared for,” I continue.
“That is not civilization. That is a man-god stalking among the people doling out holy writ. You do not force peace by fiat – a Man cannot decree that he is perfect before the Lord God. That is an abomination. Whatever else you do, Fulcrum, you must not allow that to come to pass.”
Ignoring it the first time didn't make it go away, I guess.
I shake my head. “This has nothing to do with me. I'm leaving the trail here.”
He shakes his head. “I'm afraid that is not possible.”
“What, you're going to make me?”
By whatever trick, there seem to be fires dancing in his pupils.
“Not I. It has already been determined that you have a part to play. You can not get out of this by doing nothing. You cannot wait forever. The more you resist, the further you run, the harder and more difficult life will become – for you, and for the world. You are already so far behind you almost make it a certainty that the Rod falls into more capable hands.”
More capable hands?
“There are, currently, two plans to give Italy to a king besides Berengar. You know – it is remarkable. I have not spoken to you for two years, and here I am, candidly telling you my secret master plan. It's like.... It's like I want to tell you. Like I couldn't lie to you if I wanted to. Have you bewitched me? No, I think not. I might say that I am unthreatened by your ability – that is your inability – to stop me from getting what I want. But that is only the ugly truth. The whole truth is simply that I trust you. You are loyal like a dog. You did not bite my hand when Maria— And I do not believe that you will act against me now.”
I'm glaring at him, but waiting.
“Carl, damn it— You were never going to save her. She doomed herself. She looked where she knew not to look. Yes, I know that you believe that somehow you put the idea in her heart. But I wasn't going to punish you in her place. You cannot claim all of the responsibility for yourself. She made the choice. She paid the consequence. Stop this. You really are being foolish, childish. Have you forgotten so little of what you were taught? Or have you refused it?”
“I wasn't going to say anything,” I say between my teeth. Was I going to avenge her?
Or was I beginning to agree with him that she'd done this to herself?
He looks at me, long and peering. “When did you become a coward? The Carl I knew— But he died, didn't he? You have not practiced, have you? Hm. Perhaps it is I who am the fool. How much of what I know about you is a lie? And who is telling it? You – or the Archi?”
“I thought you were gushing your secret plan like a virgin shepherdess?”
Adalbert makes a hmph noise in his nose, looking down it at me all the while. I had a feeling that my privileged status of peer might have slipped. Was it something I said?
“The first plan is the simplest: Louis of Provence will move on Pavia by summer's end. The second is more of a gamble. King Charles has sent a small force. They could be here inside two weeks. Berengar is in Verona— Oh, you didn't know? Were you not just there? Well— Berengar knows about this and is already mobilizing an army to intercept them. I do not know why Charles sends so few men – my understanding is that his army is only one thousand strong, nearly entirely infantry. Nor do I know his play. Does he expect Upper Burgundy to join them in the event of a victory, confident that Rudolph will want to outdo Louis?”
The glee that shines in Adalbert's eyes says that he does, in fact, know both of these things. But I don't ask. I just want to get this over with.
“And now you know. In two weeks, it will all be decided. Pepin will have used the Rod, and the New World Order will have been initiated.”
I laugh. I can't help it. This is all so absurd. Even Adalbert believes all this nonsense?
Before talking to him, I might have thought that hearing him say these things would give them more credibility. Now I just think he might be insane too. And then he does something I had not anticipated.
He says my name, and when I look at him, he's almost invisible in the night in a black robe, face completely lost, a blacker-than-black void in the maw of his hood.
“What is so funny, Fulcrum,” he asks in the nondescript voice of one of the Nine. Though, thankfully, not the Ninth. I'd already met him, hadn't I? “You don't think I know things? You don't think I'm powerfully connected?”
He's laughing as he says this, a good-old villains laugh, maniacal and half-insane.
My knees are shaking – to run, now. “That sounds like my cue to leave, then. Not that it wasn't nice to catch up.”
“It is a pleasure to know that you yet live.” He says with his invisible face.
Only barely able to believe I'm doing it, I turn my back on him – and leave, determined to get out of Pavia free of any other entanglements. Then Adalbert calls something over my shoulder that shakes that determination to its foundations:
“How many will you let die before you act? Huh? Fulcrum?”
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