Antichrist Read online

  Frederick whirled and splashed him. “Watch yourself. I’ll string you up on a yardarm.”

  Everybody laughed, Enrico the loudest, but the Grand Master only smiled. Frederick walked over to the side of the pool and splashed water on the Grand Master’s feet. The old man flinched, startled, and looked down; Frederick looked up, and grinned, and winked.

  “Sire.” The Grand. Master looked from side to side, his face tightening. “Do you wish to come up?” He reached down one hand to pull Frederick out of the pool.

  Frederick shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I can get out by myself.” He turned his back and walked to the far side of the pool. Pages and servants with his gown, his slippers, oils and towels fled around to meet him. No matter what he did, he hurt the old man. He thought, Is that why I like him so much? Putting both hands on the tile rim of the pool, he heaved himself out and stood up. On the far side all the men watched him, immobile. If I were not Emperor, would I stand and stare at the man who was? He could not conceive of not being Emperor. Piero della Vigne came in, papers in his hands, while the pages dried and oiled Frederick’s body.

  “Sire, do you want to read this before the audience?”

  “Yes.” He reached out one hand. The breeze from the windows cooled him. He stood so that they could put the gown around, his shoulders and started forward, and like dogs on leashes or birds with thin strings around their necks, they followed him into the next room.

  Peacocks and fanciful trees covered the walls of the audience chamber, small gilt flowers and majolica leaves and stems. Against the elegant forgeries the real flowers seemed to tingle with life. De la Moile, the French envoy, sat straddle-legged between two gigantic clumps of yellow lilies, glaring at Frederick; he’d been playing rough, honest warrior ever since the audience began.

  Piero read the opening statement. On either side of the room the officers of the court and the courtiers stood silent, bored. Frederick had been staring at the wall above De la Moile’s head for so long that the elaborate birds and trees were changing color and blurring. He shut his eyes, counted to five, and opened them again.

  “Honest and loyal, these virtuous men—”

  Four more sentences and the prepared note would end. He concentrated on keeping still. Serene, he thought. The majesty of the Emperor is beyond mortal details, like tired eyes and sweat under this robe. The robe pressed like chain across his shoulders, and under the rim of the crown his forehead itched. He wanted to look like a statue, an envelope of flesh for the mind of the Emperor. With his ears he listened to the speeches, but the words never reached his brain; he was thinking of the miracle.

  Every once in a while the memory overcame him, like a renewal of it. He remembered running barefoot through the courtyard to look at the sundial, dressed in nothing but an old shirt, and he remembered, a few years later, stealing peaches in the bazaar at Palermo. He remembered his first marriage and his elder son’s birth and the fear, the shame when the false Emperor Otto the WeIf invaded Sicily and he had to make a ship ready to carry him off to Africa in case . . When he was only Henry VI’s son, who wasn’t old enough, who had been forgotten, even by the Pope who had sworn to protect him. And the day they brought him the news that he had been elected Emperor—that Otto was deposed and he, Frederick, was Emperor if he would only come to Germany.

  Transfigured, as if a lightning bolt had drilled into his body and turned him to pure fire. Constanza, his first wife, hadn’t believed it. She’d pleaded with him not to go: it was a trap, it was too dangerous. He had known it was true. When the messenger told him, he felt in it the rightness, the ineluctable simplicity of truth. I am Emperor. Fourteen years I labored for Rachel. But Constanza had wept and begged; she had been ten years older than he and just out of childbed.

  I am seventeen. For three years I’ve been of age and done nothing, no, nothing; jumped around like a hare, sniffing up conspiracies and blocking them just before they would have . . . Seventeen and a father, and my dumb wife won’t let me go to Germany to be crowned Emperor.

  Piero was answering De la Moile’s prepared note, full of the hopes and fears of the French Queen, ruling for her young son. They’d worked it out the day before, anticipating every possible question the Frenchman might ask and writing up answers. Piero’s Latin was better than Frederick’s, smoother, the phrases more balanced. My Latin is Italian translated. De la Moile had praised the mild and humble tone with which the Emperor had addressed the Pope. Yes, and if you only knew, child, how—

  The miracle. That whole journey, that wonderful spring, had been nothing but miraculous. Sailing to Rome on a Genoese ship, dodging the Pisan pirate fleet, and the acclaim of the people of Rome. He’d never seen any of them before, but they had cheered him—he remembered the vigor of their voices. They were still his friends. To Cremona, and from Cremona the race to the Lambro River, with the Milanese closing in from two sides. Milan he would destroy someday, raze her to the ground, city of vipers and poisonous lizards—they’ve always hated Hohenstaufens. My father . . . whom I never met, but still . . .

  “Finally, Her Grace the Queen Regent of France wishes to express her firm devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and her fervent prayers for His Majesty’s soul throughout these perilous, grievous days.”

  How touching of Blanche. He’d met her with her King at Vaucouleurs, during his years in Germany—fortunately, living in Germany had prepared him for the style of the French court. The drafts, the chilly stone, the narrow little windows, and no sunlight, no flowers, no music, all the brooding about sin and heresy; he remembered his shock when he found out they pitied him because he was poor. But I am Sicilian, I know what your lives could be like. It had amazed him that those people could laugh.

  De la Moile was asking about the possibilities of a Crusade, and Piero answered at some length, expressing Frederick’s earnest and passionate wish to follow the Cross, his intentions to do so as soon as practical, and the careful, flexible clause they’d worked out: “Provided, of course, that the situation in Italy does not require His Majesty’s continual vigilance for his kingdom. His Majesty dare not leave without assurances of the safety and peace of Sicily.”

  And so forth. He listened to enough of De la Moile’s next question to know that Piero could answer it. His neck burned where the brocade had rubbed it raw and the sweat had gotten in. He hated clothes. In Sicily it was warm enough to go without. Especially the ridiculous long coats that tangled themselves around his legs and tripped him up. The new ones were slightly better—they came just to the middle of his thighs—except that the sleeves, full as a woman’s and slit from cuff to elbow, tended to get into the food and slap people if they knelt too near him.

  When he’d ridden up to the city of Constance, seventeen years before, he’d worn a green velvet coat with a big gold buckle on the belt and patches on both elbows. I am here, I am the Emperor. . . . The city had prepared a banquet for the imperial visitor, for Otto IV, not Frederick II, and the people were amazed to see him there. With only three hundred men and the Welf’s huge army just across the lake—knock on the gate, let me in: the Emperor. So at last he came in from the dark and sat down at the feast cooked for his enemy, and when Otto finally arrived, after the dishes were taken away to be washed, they barred the gates and would not let him through.

  That was when I beat him. De la Moile was asking a question he’d have to answer, and he drew himself back into the imperial body.

  “. . . most urgently desires to know how the information that the Holy Father had misused the fund for the Crusade reached the notice of His Imperial Majesty.”

  Frederick said, “Whatever abuses and misuses occur within our realm we will surely learn of, even though they be committed by those once believed beyond accusation. His Holiness paid the Lombard cities more than one hundred thousand ducats over the past years, much of it in the gold augustales that we ourself provided him for the Crusade. Milan received four hundred new augustales alone, still in the sacks beari
ng the imperial seal. This His Grace our cousin may verify, since the Milanese did not bother to smelt the coins down; they have transferred some two hundred of them through the bankers of Florence to certain hands in Paris who have in their turn paid out fifty of them to agents of our cousin His Grace.”

  De la Moile stared, open-mouthed. Frederick fought the urge to smile, to shift his gaze, to yawn or spit or pare his nails—anything now would ruin it. He’d spoken Latin, purely because De la Moile had spoken Latin, and in his inner ear he heard the harsh contrast between his style and Piero’s. De la Moile was stammering out another, question. Piero could handle this. He retired to contemplate the wall again.

  Much more of this and I’ll die. I’ll die, right here, let Heinrich be Emperor and to hell with them all. His eyes were fighting him, trying to look elsewhere, and his skin under the robe shuddered with each breath he drew.

  Otto, gigantic, brave as a bear, had died under the whips of priests, thrown fiat on the floor to confess his sins before a German bishop. His raw skin quivered away from that. Heretic-hunters. Ludwig, the Landgrave of Thuringia, had spoken of his wife, back last summer in Otranto, where Ludwig lay dying of the malaria that had wrecked the Crusade. Elizabeth the saint. Northern saints are different from our southern species. Caught himself in the fever, whimpering sometimes, he’d found out how German he was. Hell frightened him. I don’t mind dying, but to go to hell afterward. Goat-footed demons, the lank hide of their shanks and thigh—he’d dreamed of them. Francesco never spoke of hell; he’d loved birds and flowers, and the stigmata had come from love, not fear. Not terror. To burn forever the way I burned in the fever—I would go mad. Maybe that was the worst thing about hell; you weren’t allowed to go mad.

  Still, there might be something in that, to endure hell without submitting. If they’re right, I’m going, so I may as well talk myself into a proper attitude. Piero was walking forward to knock his staff on the floor.

  “This audience is ended. Go and bear the word of the glory of the Emperor.”

  Frederick bit down his sigh of relief. His court charged the door; there was a fierce but muted struggle to see who would get out first, the courtiers on the left or the officers on the right. The courtiers won, whooped, and streamed out into the great hall beyond. De la Moile followed, surrounded by pages and notaries and his personal attendants. Piero joined him at the door, spoke quietly to him, gave him two copies of the prepared note, and bowed him out. The Saracens guarding the door from the outside slammed it shut at De la Moile’s heels, and Frederick collapsed.

  “Oh, God. I’m sweating to death.” He pulled off the crown and shook his hair. “I want a facsimile of that made of something light. Tin. Paper. Paste. Feathers. Piero, do you see what I mean? They were impressed, weren’t they?”

  “Very.” Piero opened a side door and let in the pages and servants. “When you spoke that time, it shocked them. Us.” He smiled. “You’d been quiet so long.”

  “I’m thirsty.” He still held the crown in his hands, but the two guards were walking toward him, and he held it out to them. The state robe was already half off his shoulders; he shrugged, and it fell off completely. The pages and his gentlemen brought him a cup of chilled wine with rose petals floating in it.

  “De la Moile was just startled that you knew about the augustales, I think,” Piero said.

  Frederick shrugged. “They all think they’re so subtle and secretive, it shows on their faces as soon as they try anything sneaky.” He ducked so that Corso could slip a tunic over his head. “If they were either smarter or stupider than they are, I’d be helpless. Not that coat, Giancarlo. The black one.”

  The side door opened again, and Hasan walked in, strode around to face Frederick, and saluted. Above the spotless white of his robes his dark face split into a flashing smile, and Frederick grinned back. “What did you find?” he said in Arabic.

  Hasan raised one fist, worked his fingers deftly, and held up the first two, an Augustus between them. Frederick roared. He thrust one arm into the coat Giancarlo held for him and raised the other. Hasan threw the coin underhand to him.

  “Who had it? De la Moile himself?”

  Hasan nodded. He backed off, still smiling. Piero had seen the Augustus and made a face.

  “I don’t remember what the bet as,” Frederick said to him, in Italian.

  Piero clasped his hands before him. “Sixty ducats.”

  “I’ll take it out of your salary.”

  The pages bustled around him, brushing off his shoes and the gold hem of his coat. He looked around for his jewel case, and Marco advanced, holding it out to Corso. Frederick squinted. “The garnet, the big ruby, all three signets and the diamond chain.”

  Piero said, “Perhaps just the Jerusalem signet, Sire.”

  “Don’t be short-sighted.” He held out his hands so that Corso could put on the rings. Immediately another page grabbed his wrist and buffed them. He bent so that they could put on the chain and medallion, stood while they buckled his belt, and took his cap from Marco. The horde of pages and servants backed away, their eyes critically on him. Piero and Hasan opened the main door, and he started out toward the roar and dance of his court under the immense vault of the great hall.

  The stir of brocade and gold cloth struck him like flashes of lightning. They all saw him at once and the clatter of voices died. They bowed, tier on tier of satin and silk and fine cotton, all sewn with pearls and rubies. He heard the herald bawling out his titles, but he didn’t walk forward; he stood, sweeping his gaze from one end of the room to the other, delighted. They were all so beautiful, so rich—the light shone on the sleek hair of the women, brighter and finer than gold.

  “King of Sicily, Duke of Apulia, Duke of Calabria—”

  He waved impatiently at the herald and stepped forward. Suddenly they were surrounding him, all their voices murmuring, “Your Majesty.” He flung his head back and laughed. Pages in scarlet and black held up trays full of sweetmeats, cups of wine and sherbet and milk. “Your Majesty—” He saw Fulk of Ancerra, small and dark and neat; he saw David the Jew and Adelaide and Piero, Michael Scot, Enrico da Malta, the Archbishop Jacopo of Capua, and the Cistercians—all the faces floating around him, all their eyes on him. “Your Majesty.”

  “Papa,” Enzio called. He was tugging at his sleeve. “I’m here, Papa.”

  Frederick bent and picked him up. “Isn’t it late for you to be up?”

  “Mama said—”

  He lifted Enzio onto his shoulders and grabbed a handful of plum tarts off a tray passing by. “Enrico, have you found a ship for Hermann yet?”

  “He sails from Brindisi in ten days, Sire.”

  Fulk of Ancerra shoved past the Admiral. “Are we going on crusade, Sire?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” He ate a tart. “Ezzo. When did you get here?” He handed another of the tarts up to Enzio.

  “This morning,” Ezzo d’Ise called. “I brought you six new merlins.”

  “You’re trying to buy my favor,” Frederick said. He started across the hall toward the banquet tables. “And you’re succeeding.”

  “I live but for your favor, Sire.” Ezzo bowed himself out of sight behind Fulk.

  “Well, as long as you don’t ask for anything else . . . Klaus, are these your plums?”

  The monk smiled. “Unfortunately not, brother. They are from the north, I believe.”

  “You should raise plums.”

  Adelaide was beside him, and he turned and beamed at her, to prove he hadn’t really been ignoring her. She smiled back. All in silk, her waiting women fluttered around her, keeping her enormous sleeves from tangling and making sure nobody trod on her skirt. De la Moile was standing to one side, bowing and smiling, his eyes everywhere; Somewhere behind the crowd, musicians tuned up.

  “Papa, let me down, let me down.”

  Frederick swung him by the hands to the floor. “Don’t eat too much.” He started toward De la Moile. Adelaide followed him, and he
glanced over his shoulder at her to keep her away. Her face fell. Damned woman.

  “My dear Count.” He hadn’t spoken French for months. “How do you like Sicily?”

  “Very well, Sire. Very well.” De la Moile flexed rapidly from the waist. His bright eyes kept following the men and women swooping and circling around him. “This is my first visit here, as Your Majesty knows. I can’t—I’m overwhelmed.”

  “My cousin the Queen Regent keeps a charming court.” Frederick snatched a goblet from a passing tray. “So . . . austere, so very French.”

  De la Moile stared down the front of the dress of the girl nearest him; she turned and smiled. De la Moile licked his lips: “Your Majesty, I—” He hemmed. Rustic soldier. His eyes flew from the breast to Frederick, and he smiled nervously. The girl turned away, chattering to a knight. “We in France are used to a more simple life.”

  “Naturally, with a regent.” He looked around, bored. Somebody had brought in half a dozen Egyptian hounds on leashes, and the women were flocking around them, cooing, while the dogs snarled and yapped and tucked their tails between their legs. De la Moile was talking to him, but Frederick ignored him. One of the hounds reared up against its leash, and the courtiers swayed back away from it; wild, excited laughter rang out.

  “Is it always like this?” De la Moile asked.

  “What?” Frederick frowned at him.

  “Are those dogs Sicilian, Sire?”

  De la Moile’s eyes were bulging, and he couldn’t see enough to satisfy him. Frederick shook his head. “They’re a gift from the Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt. I sent him a white bear from the north. He liked it, but it died, it hated the heat.” He shrugged. “I wanted a zebra, but he tells me they’re impossible to tame.”

  “A zebra.” The Frenchman’s voice quivered.

  “Kind of a mule with black and white stripes. Enzio wanted one. My son.” He’d been going to get something to eat. Turning away from De la Moile, he started off through the mob.

  Bianca Lancia suddenly appeared before him—the girls around her and the young men had stepped back at his approach. They all bowed, but the rest were only the petals of a flower around her, the fertile center. He realized he was staring, and his mouth moved in a slow smile. She rose and met his gaze, blushing, looked down, and raised her eyes to his again.