"Adams, Robert - Castaways in Time 03 - Of Quests and Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

Sir Roberto shrugged. "I didn't tell him. I've only seen the man once, after all. Whether others have or will or haven't or won't is none of my purely personal affair, Ugo. As to who will rule us, I don't know about you. but my loyalties will lie just where they always have lain: with His Grace my brother, and the welfare of his company. You will find as has many another that we di Bolgias cleave closely one to the other, for there are but the two of us against a hard and often a cruel world."

After his early-morning wall-walk, the Duce di Bolgia returned to his small but comfortable mansion, where his serving men helped him to disarm and redress in less military and far more ornate clothing. In the courtyard, as he descended, a sleekly groomed and richly accoutered barb awaited him. stamping and prancing and tossing her small, neat head. At a brisk walk, trailed closely by his bannerman, his squires, and some of the axmen of his personal guard, the eldest of the di Bolgias wound his way through the already bustling streets of the city to the mansion of the Papal Legate, Giosue di Rezzi, acting Archbishop of Munster.

il Duce could not say that he liked di RezziЧhis employer in residence and in fact. The rigid old man was flinty of nature, and the irreverent, thoroughly practical, outspoken, and not overly moral di Bolgia steel right often struck sparks off that flint. For all of that, the condottiere thoroughly respected the legate, for the manЧunlike many another representative of the clergy di Bolgia had met on occasions too numerous to countЧsaid just what he thought, said it out in words any man could understand, and never, so far, had tried to honey-coat criticisms of di Bolgia or anyone else. So. having this degree of marked respect for the cleric, il Duce felt an obligation to apprise him of just what he and his brother and the other military leaders were about with regard to their figurehead employer, King Tamhas di FitzGerald.

He was ushered into the legate's bedchamber, where the air was hot and thickly cloyed with the competing scents of burning incense and herbs piled upon coals of the half-dozen braziers near the huge bed. When he once had dropped to one knee and kissed the ring, the legate signed a servant to bring a chair for him, signing another to bring wine for the noble guest.

His eyes swollen and wet-looking, speaking nasally, while sneezing and coughing often, the old man got directly to a point. "Your grace di Bolgia, yesterday afternoon. King Tamhas saw fit to dissolve his Royal Council, having three of his closest advisers hustled into an inner courtyard and there beheaded by members of the FitzGerald Guards. Two others of them were hanged last night, and it is my understanding that the rest currently languish in the warren of cells and foul dens under the royal residence.

"Now, while a spate of interfamilial violence is far from uncommon among these primitives here in Irland, I think me that I detect the fine Italian touch in all of this barbarity just past. The proper and more usual pattern would have been for the king to chose new advisers from among others of his kin. Instead, he has named his latest councillors to be none other than Sir Roberto di Bolgia, Sir Ugo d'Orsini, Your Grace, himself, le Chevalier Marc Marcel de Montjoie dc Vires, and one solitary FitzGerald, a guardsman named Sean something or other, who will be about as outclassed on such a council as a lapdog among as many boarhounds.

"Your Grace di Bolgia, I demand to know just what chicanery you and your brother and the rest are perpetrating here against the King and the Kingdom of Munster."

The servant padded in with a ewer of wine, a goblet, and a small legged silver tray. When he had poured and tasted and departed, di Bolgia took a long draught, smiled, and said, "Your Grace di Rezzi, to tell you of these things was the very reason I called upon you so early. I should have known that such information would already have been imparted to you by others, of course, for Your Grace is ever a well-informed man."

"Your Grace di Bolgia should be aware by now that flattery will accomplish him nothing but suspicion from me," snapped di Rezzi. "Now get on with it man. Just what are you up to?"

Timoteo shook his head. "No flattery was intended. Your Grace di Rezzi, I but stated established fact. Under the circumstances, with the city and port besiegedЧalbeit mildly soЧthe king dimwitted and most ill-reded, but a true, old-time fire-eater to suicidal extremes, i was afforded but three options, namely: to take you and your people aboard with me and mine and sail away, forfeiting the city and port and all to the Ard-Righ (whenever he got back to take it); to arrange the quiet demise of King Tamhas and maybe still be saddled with a royal FitzGerald nincompoop in his successor; or to arrange to get rid of that sycophantic so-called Royal Council and give the poor royal ninny advisers who could and would cool down his hot head and help him to keep the city and port, which seems so important to the Holy See. This lastmost option we have now accomplished. Your Grace di Rezzi."

Di Rezzi stared at Timoteo over slender, steepled fingers and asked, "And had this . . . this scheme not blossomed as it did, what would Your Grace then have done, pray tell?"

Timoteo spoke bluntly. "Then Tamhas would have been dead inside a week, of course. Your Grace. And had we drawn yet another of his ilk for the new Righ of Munster, then I would have advised total withdrawal from the city. port, and land."

"Hmmph!" grunted the ailing old man. "You're candid enough, aren't you. Your Grace di Bolgia? And your morality leaves much to be desiredЧyou cheerfully admit to planning that has resulted in the deaths of at least five noble Irlandesi already, with who knows how many more yet to be done to death, and to contemplating regicide and/or desertion of your trusting allies in their time of direst need. What other dark sins lie upon your soul, eh? Besides corrupting a child-mistress, as you have been doing for some time, that is?"

Timoteo laughed good-naturedly. "Your Grace di Rezzi. the lady Rosaleen is no childЧshe is a full fourteen years old and a widow."

"Do you intend marriage ... or merely sinful lust and dalliance with this poor, bereaved young woman, then?" demanded the legate, his tones now that of a stern priest.

Timoteo laughed even more heartily. "Marry Rosaleen? Hardly, Your Grace. Bigamy is not one of my vices, and I still have a wife living in Bolgia. Nor does Rosaleen want marriage, only . . . ahhh, variety, shall we say, a lover who is neither an Irlandesi nor yet a distant relative. Our relationship is purely physical, lustful, sinful, and enjoyable as all hell. Your Grace di Rezzi. and I will be the first to admit to those unvarnished facts."

Dropping his hands to his lap. the old man pursed his lips and glared at his visitor in helpless rage. "Is Your Grace aware that I have petitioned His Grace D'Este no less than three times to have a certain intemperate, blasphemous, insubordinate, and unabashedly sinful condot-tiere recalled and replaced with one who might be easier to control and might offer a better example to his soldiers?"

Timoteo arched his eyebrows. "Really? And His Grace D'Este made reply?"

Looking as if he had but just bitten into something rotten, the Legate replied sourly, "I was advised that said insubordinate sinner was, with all of his glaring faults, still the best of the best for this work at hand and that I should temper my care for the good of his immortal soul with the knowledge that just now Holy Mother the Church owns more need for the proven expertise of his mind and the strength of his body."

Timoteo nodded once. "Yes, I had thought that I had proper measure of the man. His Grace D'Este and I are much alike, when push comes to shove ... as, too, are Your Grace and I, would Your Grace care to admit that which I am certain he knows aloud."

"IO humbly beseech our Savior that that not be so. Your Grace di Bolgia. Like all mortal men, I harbor many faults, but I would hope that adultery, fornication, a mind freely set to cold-blooded murder, debauchery, frequent blasphemy of the very crudest water, I would pray that these not be included amongst them.

"I would suppose that were I to inform King Tamhas of the cruel trick you have played against him, it would scarcely improve matters, so I shall keep my peace . . . for now. But I warn Your Grace, do not make the cardinal error of pressing my forbearance too far.

"Now, leave me. I am ill, as Your Grace can see, and I own but little energy to do all that I must do every day, ill or well. The very sight and sound of Your Grace sorely angers me. and that fire of rage consumes energy better put to creative uses."

Timoteo il Duce di Bolgia felt a twinge of shame as he left his most recent "conference" with the Papal Legate. The man was both old and infirm, and he had disliked that which he had had to doЧcalculatedly enrage him, bait him, reallyЧbut it had ail been very necessary; now, at least, he knew for certain that di Rezzi knew no more of the di Bolgia schemes than Timoteo wanted him to know and so would be able to transmit no more than that to Palermo or Rome, and il Duce thought it best for the nonce that only his version of the roiled, muddy politics of Munster and I Hand reach the eyes of D'Este and his co-conspirators. Nor must anyone of power in the Church harbor, for a while, even the barest flicker of suspicion that their hired great captain was most assiduously frying some of his own fish on the same griddle as theirs.

Sir Sean FitzRobert of Desmonde sat across an elaborate chessboard of white and black marble squares set in enameled bronze from his opponent, Le Chevalier Marc. Sir Sean was, like all of the nobility and not a few of the commoners of Munster, a blood relation of Righ Tamhas Fitzgerald. Careful scrutiny of many genealogical tables had affirmed to the di Bolgias, Marc, and Sir Ugo that FitzRobert owned as much clear title to the blood-splattered throne of Munster as did any living man other than the reigning monarch, and should it prove a necessityЧas it very well might, all things consideredЧto send King Tamhas to hell suddenly, a quick replacement of the water of Sir Sean would be a most handy asset.