Communion Blood (5 page)

“You compel me to act in a way that distresses us both; you bring pain upon yourself by your obstinacy,” said her eldest brother, putting his hands together as if in prayer. “I cannot accept your answer, and you must know it.”

“And I cannot accept such a husband.” Her voice rose. “My brother, think! You cannot want me to marry a man so far gone in pox. I would rather not have a husband at all,” she said, forcibly calming herself by clenching her hands on the heavy brocade of her voluminous skirts. “If you would grant me permission to take my vows as a nun—I would choose any Order that suited you. Mendicants, teachers, nurses, cloistered penitents, they are all welcome to me. I wouldn’t mind living a chaste life.” She saw his face darken. “I cannot marry Hubert Walmund, and nothing will make me do it.”

“You will change your mind,” said the Cardinal with cool certainty. “It need not be forever,” he went on soothingly. “I have said you will not have to continue to live with him when you have given him two sons. He will agree to let you live apart from him once his family line is assured. He may even prefer that he not be encumbered with a wife.” His mouth turned up at the comers but there was no sign of warmth or amusement in his countenance. “The longer you delay the wedding, the farther off is the day when you may live independently.” Leocadia’s eyes shone with fear and welling anger. “I cannot do it. I will not do it.”

“But you will. I have given el Rey my promise that you will help Spain to continue her ties to the Holy Roman Emperor; this marriage will suit his purpose as well as mine. It will also suit the Church. For the honor of our House, you must not refuse.” He reached out and sunk his long, blunt fingers into her shoulder, pleased when she winced. “I had never thought you would be ungrateful, Leocadia.” “I am not ungrateful. I know what is due to my family.” She willed herself to stop trembling; for a few breaths her shaking ceased, then began again. “It is not my intention to stand against you, Eminenza.”

She used his title deliberately. “I am prepared to marry any healthy man you wish me to. I do not have to know him. I do not have to like him. He may be old or young, rich or poor, Spanish or foreign, and I will not refuse, so long as he is not sick.”

Her brother struck her abruptly, then took hold of her shoulder again. “You are a defiant, unruly trollop. I am ashamed to call you my sister. You disgrace the three Spanish women you are named for. They are saints because of their obedience.”

“Let me be a nun and I will show you how obedient I can be,” she pleaded, shamed by the tears that stood in her eyes.

“Six of our cousins are nuns. The devotion of our women to God is clear. You alone are putting your will above the family and Spain.” He released her and struck her again, leaning into the blow this time so that she stumbled with the impact. “Go beg God to change your sin to virtue.”

She took another step back from him. “God does not demand this sacrifice of me. You, and el Rey, want it.”

“And you, had you any goodness in your heart, would acquiesce in what is asked of you. Madre Maria did not show Gabriel such unbecoming refusal.” He saw one of his servants coming, so cut short his intended castigation. “I do not want to see you until morning Mass. You may go to your rooms.”

“May I have anything to eat?” she asked, anticipating the answer. “Since you wish to show me how apt you are at the discipline of nuns, you will have bread and water when I have finished dining.” He gestured to his servant. “See my sister to her apartment and be sure the door is locked.”

The footman bowed deeply, then started toward Leocadia. “You have heard the Cardinal’s orders: my duty is clear. Do not make it necessary for me to summon aid.”

“Why should I?” asked Leocadia. “My brother is granting me an opportunity I welcome.” She stood as straight as she could and set out ahead of the footman, walking with her head up as if the places he struck her did not hurt, nor any of the many other places on her body where he had left impressions of his disfavor.

Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte clicked his tongue as he watched

Leocadia depart. “She will do my bidding.” He was mildly surprised he had spoken aloud, but hearing his conviction gave him confidence; he knew women and believed they would not refuse anything a man demanded for long—particularly if that man were her brother, now the head of his family since the death of their father some five years ago. There was no authority other than the Pope to whom she could appeal, and without doubt the Pope would require her submission to the Cardinal’s wishes. He strode along the gallery that curved away from the red granite staircase, descending the steps quickly, calling out for his coachman as he went. “I have an urgent task for you. I want you to go to the house of Ahrent Rothofen and bring him here to me. Tell him I bid him to dine with me.” This grand concession would bring the ambitious Rothofen running, the Cardinal had no doubt. “I will sit down in an hour. I will expect you here by that time.”

The coachman, a stalwart young man from Calabria, flourished as much of a bow as his caped cloak would allow; he knew the testiness of Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte’s temper, and he had no wish to displease his employer. “I will have the horses put to immediately. I will depart as soon as they are harnessed.” He understood the Cardinal’s intent sufficiently to plan to use the second-best carriage.

“Very good.” This settled, he was about to depart. “Oh, and Giu- liano,” Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte added, as if it had just occurred to him, “did you happen to notice if my younger brother went out?”

Giuliano Buonfratello hesitated, trying to decide how best to answer. “His red horse is not in its stall. I did not see him leave. If you wish, I will ask the grooms.”

The Cardinal sighed. “You needn’t bother. No doubt he will return before dawn.” It was more of a hope than a certainty, but he spoke with no trace of apprehension.

“Then I will be about my task, Eminenza,” he said, and strode quickly along the corridor through the ground floor of the palazzo to the stable at the rear.

Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte waited a short while, looking out into the street beyond his loggia, his eyes far away. Then he shook himself and called out to a footman for a glass of Sangre del Torro wine. He had crates of it shipped to him from Spain and it was his wine of choice for all occasions but Mass.

The footman scurried off to obey, returning promptly with the glass on a silver tray, a small fruit pastry accompanying it. He bowed without speaking and waited while the Cardinal took the glass and the pastry, then withdrew at once.

The Cardinal strolled along the gallery, sipping his wine and occasionally nibbling his pastry: his thoughts were preoccupied. He was a Prince of the Church, yet he was prey to many checks and humiliations, unacceptable to a man of his rank. That his position was the result of simony did not make it any less genuine in Cardinal Calav- eria y Vacamonte’s eyes; almost all high Churchmen paid for their advances. He occasionally wondered if he had the support to become Pope, for it was whispered that Innocenzo XI would not last many years longer, and when he died there would be many men vying to fill the vacancy. Carlos el Rey had discouraged Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte from setting his sights so high—the Spanish crown could not afford it. But Carlos was no longer young himself, and would die without legitimate issue. The Cardinal could not banish his sense of injury at this, for when Spain passed from Hapsburg hands, he—the Cardinal, and the other Spanish Cardinals—would no longer be assured of royal support.

At the end of the gallery was his smaller dining room, suited for groups of up to twelve. It was as elegant as any chamber in the palazzo, with a tall marble fireplace at the far end, the mantel supported by life-sized statues of Saints Hippolytus of Porto and Fru- tuosos of Tarragona, two significant bishops, one Italian, one Spanish. Today it was chilly enough to require a blazing log to make the place comfortable, making it appear that the Saints were presiding over the flames in Hell. The Spanish theme was continued throughout the room, with paintings by Spanish artists, including a recently completed portrait of Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte by Velasquez. The table had been made in Barcelona ten years ago when the Cardinal had first come to Roma as an ambitious bishop of twenty-five. It was rubbed with oil-and-beeswax twice a month and was nearly as glossy as the red silk soutane the Cardinal wore daily. The chairs, more Spanish than French, were high-backed and straight, upholstered in specially woven tapestries showing various martyrdoms of Spanish Saints.

Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte sat down at the head of the table and finished his wine and pastry. He did not want to ask Rothofen to delay the negotiations with Archbishop Walmund any longer, but unless Leocadia relented, he would have to do so. He clapped loudly, knowing a footman was never far away.

The youngster who answered the summons had just begun shaving a few months ago, and he was still awed by the Cardinal. He bowed deeply. “What am I to have the honor of doing for you, Eminenza?”

“Which one are you?” the Cardinal inquired.

“Emani, Eminenza. I have been in your service more than a year.” He did not dare to look his employer in the face, but stood still, his eyes on a spot a stride in front of his feet.

Gratified, Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte smiled. “I will want supper served here within the hour. While I wait you may bring me another glass of wine. The service will be for two, 'but lay three places.”

“Of course,” said the footman, bowing and withdrawing hastily, only to return a short while later with a goblet of wine and two other footmen to set the table.

By the time the Cardinal’s carriage returned, the dining room was in readiness; silverware, settings of crockery with the Calaveria y Vacamonte arms painted on the faces, and three crystal goblets were ready, snowy napery waiting. As the steward escorted Rothofen to the dining room, the first of the waiters arrived bearing the first course of a lavish meal.

Ahrent Julius Rothofen aspired to dandyism but had neither the figure nor the style for it: he was angular and graceless, with a bit too much jaw and nose to be handsome, and a bit too little flair to be amusing. Tonight he had dressed in a long, dark-turquoise justau- corps with forty-eight covered buttons down the front. His doubletiered ruffles fell over large, big-jointed hands. He carried a walking stick as tall as his shoulder and minced along on high-heeled shoes with elaborate, enormous silver-and-tortoiseshell buckles. He had given his cloak to the servant at the door, or the Cardinal would have seen a dark-green garment lined in fawn-colored satin. Rothofen should have been elegant, but he failed to carry off the air that would make his clothes seem appropriate; instead he gave the impression of a man in borrowed finery. At the sight of his host he doffed his wide-brimmed hat and made a leg. “How very magnanimous of you, Eminenza, to bring me to dine with you. I confess I am overwhelmed by your unexpected courtesy,” he enthused in his German-flavored Italian.

Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte achieved a frosty smile, and answered in Spanish, “You and I have much to discuss. I thought it would be advisable to do that where I am certain the servants spy for me, not for those who pay for whispers.”

Rothofen made a leg again, saying in Spanish, which he spoke marginally better than Italian, “You are a wise man, Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte. I bow to your superior understanding.” When he donned his hat again, his chestnut-brown wig shifted a little, giving him a rakish air.

Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte liked flattery as much as any man of high position, but only when it sounded convincingly sincere; this had not persuaded him. He made a moue of distaste at Rothofen’s inept technique. “Let us say I have lived in Roma long enough to know how the city works.”

The laughter with which Rothofen greeted this was as overdone as his Compliments had been. “Very true, Eminenza.”

“Shall we sit down?” the Cardinal suggested, nodding in the direction of the table. “I will send word to my sister to join us, and then the waiters will serve us.” The offer was sham—he had no intention of allowing Leocadia to speak to this man—but his strategy for the evening required it. He clapped for a waiter to hold a chair for his guest. “And summon my sister.”

The waiter bowed as his superior held out the chair for the Cardinal. As soon as the two men were settled and wine poured for them, the younger waiter hurried away on his errand.

“She can be headstrong,” said Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte as he lifted his goblet.

“What woman cannot?” Rothofen asked, chuckling. “Vain, willful

creatures, all. Yet where would the sons of Adam be without them?”

“The sooner in Heaven, Senor, the sooner in Heaven,” said Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte piously. As he drank, he watched his guest over the rim of his goblet.

“Ah. Ah, yes,” said Rothofen, laughing immoderately once more. “I can see why you, Eminenza, have a reputation for wit.” He drank thirstily, using his drinking to make a covert adjustment to his wig. “Fine vintage. Excellent savor.”

“There is none better in Spain,” said Cardinal Calaveria y Vacamonte proudly.

“I should think not,” said Rothofen, “for surely a man in your position should have nothing less than the best to be had.”

This fulsome praise was beginning to wear on the Cardinal. “The world, as we know, does not always reward merit fittingly.”

“True, Eminenza, sadly true,” said Rothofen, and had another large sip of wine. As he put his goblet down, the waiter at the sideboard refilled it from the fine decanter of Venetian glass. “This invitation was an honor I did not anticipate,” he said suddenly but with caution.

“I have a few matters to discuss. I thought this would be an appropriate setting.” Those familiar with the Cardinal would have known that the news was not good, but Rothofen did not have the close acquaintance he claimed, and so he smiled as the Cardinal went on. “There is some concern about Hubert Walmund’s ... health?”

Rothofen’s smile vanished. “We’ve discussed the matter, Eminenza,” he reminded the Cardinal cautiously.