Chapter 478

“Well…”

Who wouldn’t be happy to see Saint Mark’s arrival?

I slowly looked around, rubbing my chin. Narke was deep in thought as well. We were taking the question more seriously than ever, even though it could easily be dismissed as a leap in logic. But Elias’s words were worth taking seriously. I had just witnessed him reach into the world of some philosopher whose name I hadn’t even told him, all from a single aphorism—not even more than one line of it… There was no helping it. I had no choice but to think as hard as I could.

My gaze shifted toward the lion statue and the golden mosaics as I spoke.

“The pagans within Venice, some of the Christians in Alexandria, Mark himself, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and…”

I reached out and pointed to one of the pillars standing in the square, where a figure stood with one foot on a crocodile.

“Theodore of Amasea.”

Elias’s brows shot together, and he snapped his fingers. A moment later, applause rang out. Embarrassed by his overreaction, I caught his hand and pushed it down.

“You were already saying earlier how unfair it was for Theodore of Amasea. And there’s also the fact that you just called him ‘someone.’ If you think about it from Theodore’s perspective, he used to be the city’s only patron saint, but after a major figure showed up, he got pushed off to a corner of the square. There’s no way he’d be happy about Saint Mark coming to Venice.”

“It’s nice when we’re on the same wavelength. I really do like you two.”

Elias pulled his chair closer with a moved expression and gently rested his head against my shoulder. When he took my hand, I looked at him without much thought—and Elias bit it.

“…?!”

I tried to yank my captured hand free as hard as I could.

“Let go!”

“Mmph.”

“No, I get that you’re happy, but why are you biting me?”

Elias set the glove aside, patting the other shoulder as he answered calmly.

“I’m so satisfied that I can’t contain my happiness. I’m genuinely happy that you understand me.”

“You can explain everything so logically, so why do you act like this?”

“Well… want me to explain?”

“Yes.”

Perhaps because my answer was so firm, Elias obediently began explaining without another word.

“It’s like this. When I was little, I raised a chick, and I loved it so much that I couldn’t contain myself. So I bit it once, and somehow that made me feel calm. Maybe I came to my senses because I realized I had to spit out the feathers that got in my mouth… But it was a fascinating experience.”

“…….”

Narke tilted his head, still smiling, his eyes darting around with an expression that seemed to say, What kind of nonsense is that? Elias, meanwhile, rested his head on my shoulder again, looking as though he couldn’t understand why I was waiting for anything more now that he had finished explaining.

“That’s just how it is.”

“What do you mean, ‘that’s just how it is’…? That was a chicken, and I’m your human friend.”

Fortunately, that chick didn’t get bitten to death by Elias. It grew up just fine and became a chicken. I already knew that, in his childhood, it had briefly been a true friend of his. The name Elias had given the chicken alone was proof enough, though just thinking about it made me let out a dry laugh, so it was probably better not to dwell on it. I knew that in an age before there were any distinctions or divisions, even nature could become a true friend. Still, all I could say for now was this.

Elias answered with his cheek pressed against my shoulder blade—or perhaps because he was lost in the memory, he mumbled, “That chicken… was my one and only friend, too. At least it was back then.”

Narke laughed and said playfully, “He keeps doing this because you let him, Lukas~”

“…I guess so.”

I knew that, but when I thought about it, I didn’t mind it that much. He wouldn’t do it again if I told him to stop—even though it seemed obvious he’d probably start again before long. It was ridiculous more than anything, and it wasn’t as though it genuinely upset me. Besides, if I seriously told Elias that I didn’t like it, he would probably never show another one of his eccentricities in front of me again from that moment on. I didn’t want to stop him that firmly. If Elias suddenly started behaving properly around me at this point, that would be shocking in its own way.

Elias’s eyes lit up, so I pushed him away and said, “I knew you were this kind of person from the moment you talked about opening a wine bottle with your teeth and all that. I’m just glad you didn’t bite your teammates’ heads off during the second round exam back then.”

Though he did almost bite my head off in Trier much later. Looking back, I suppose he must have been pretty upset. Nothing ever happens all at once. There are always signs beforehand. The problem is that by the time you put the pieces of the puzzle together and notice them, it’s already too late.

I was gradually realizing that Elias expressed small joys or disappointments through primitive actions when he was with someone he felt comfortable around. I’d never heard of anyone who bit their close friends’ heads off before, but someone with thoughts as unusual as Elias’s was hardly going to be normal in other ways, either, so I could understand it.

But most importantly, Elias didn’t act this way with Leo. In the end, to Elias, I was a different kind of friend from Leo. What kind of different friend was I, exactly?

I patted Elias on the shoulder and pulled him away. And then an answer came from Elias.

“I’m happier than I can put into words. That’s all.”

“…….”

“It’s enough to drive you mad when you’ve talked your heart out and still can’t get through to someone. I go over it dozens, hundreds of times, rewinding everything and asking myself just how much I have to flatten my thoughts before I can communicate with another person. Then I do it again. And again.”

I stared at him without a word. It was similar to what I had felt earlier, before we entered the cathedral. The sunlight glittering across the water beyond where Elias sat stabbed at my eyes. He took a sip of tea and continued casually.

“People always tell me I need to explain things properly if I want them to understand my situation, but… I’ve always explained myself. They simply lacked the ability to understand, so they let everything I said pass them by. Then they’d say something strange as though they hadn’t heard a thing, or get angry instead. ‘Why can’t you just tell me why you’re acting like this?’ they’d say. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to speak. I told them clearly, and they simply didn’t understand. Yet without understanding a single thing I’d said, they’d suddenly boast that they knew everything I was thinking and insist that I was the one at fault. It was like looking at a single fragment of a shadow cast on the wall of a cave and claiming to understand its true nature.”

‘It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to speak…’ At those words, we felt the air settle heavily around us. I understood what that life as an invisible person, forced upon him against his will, had done to him—how it had led him to doubt himself. He was talking about the process by which the world had driven him mad. Before Elias had even decided for himself to abandon the dignity expected of the Imperial Family, the Emperor had already forced him into doing so. If he had not lived as the Elias he was now, some nonexistent mental illness would have condemned him to a life sentence.

Hamlet may have pretended to be mad to delay his death, but Elias had fought so that he would not become mad. Yet no one knew. No one but us.

That was what Elias was talking about. I murmured quietly, “You’re right. I think so too.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Elias asked with his chin propped on his hand, a teasing look on his face. Instead of answering, I slowly closed and opened my eyes and nodded. Elias turned his gaze elsewhere, straightened his posture, and murmured.

“That’s why I like friends who have the ability to accept things as they are, like you two. Sure, there’s bound to be some loss, but our worlds are close enough—or have enough in common—that we can understand each other with barely anything getting lost.”

“You mean we’re resonating?”

“Exactly. That’s it. You could say we’re resonating with each other. Like the currents that meet in the Adriatic Sea.”

I smiled at Elias’s metaphor and muttered almost to myself.

“I wonder every time how I ever ended up meeting you two.”

“…….”

Narke said nothing. Elias seemed embarrassed and tried to bite my hand again, so I smacked him on the mouth and pulled my hand away. Our leisurely conversation in the warm sunlight was over.

“So, explain this thing about Theodore and the culprit. What’s the connection between them?”

“Right, that. Narke, I need your information now. Was the Secretariat of State always called the Secretariat of State?”

“Hmm…”

Narke glanced at his watch before slowly answering.

“The Secretariat of State is an old department. Exactly where you consider its predecessor to be depends on how you trace its history, but one thing is certain: it began as a secretariat. It handled most documents related to His Holiness the Pope and the Papal See, such as papal bulls and encyclicals.”

Secretariat. At the word, Elias snapped his fingers. Since a secretary was essentially a personal assistant, it made sense to call it the predecessor of the Secretariat of State.

“Then, during the reign of Leo X, they established a new secretariat to handle correspondence with diplomatic envoys. It was called Secretarius Intimus, and its secretary also assisted the Cardinal Secretary of State. It wasn’t a particularly high-ranking position at first, but over time, bishops came to fill the role more often, and by the time of Innocent X, they were selecting the secretary from among the cardinals.”

A flicker of interest appeared in Elias’s eyes. Seeing this, Narke smiled and continued.

“The reason was that during the reign of Julius III, they appointed someone unqualified as the Cardinal Nephew, so they needed someone who could actually handle the affairs of state that the Cardinal Nephew was supposed to manage. From then on, the secretary needed to be capable of taking part in matters of state.”

“Cardinal Nephew.”

Elias pointed at Narke. A Cardinal Nephew was a cardinal who was a relative of the Pope. In effect, he was the Pope’s true secretary, right-hand man, and political adviser. Historically, these cardinals handled the affairs of the Papal States. There had even been several famous Cardinal Nephews from the Farnese family, and many Popes had once held the position of Cardinal Nephew before becoming Pope themselves. But the office no longer existed, so there was no one left who could be called a Cardinal Nephew.

But by this point, you can probably see where this is going, can’t you? I bit the inside of my lip at the thought that had just occurred to me. A chill was creeping up the back of my neck. Whatever Elias might have meant, Narke seemed to take it as simply meaning that someone like that had existed in his family, and he continued with a smile.

“Anyway, once they’d raised the position that high, I suppose there was no choice but to keep it that way, right? Much later, the secretary himself became a cardinal. Eventually, under Innocent XII, they abolished the office of Cardinal Nephew and transferred the Cardinal Nephew’s authority to the Secretarius Intimus, the Secretariat of State. Ah, how should I explain this? Since you two are Germans, think of it this way. Picture how the balance between papal and imperial power has shifted over the past thousand years. Thanks to that, the Secretariat of State as we know it today took shape during the Council of Trent¹ and was made more clearly defined under Innocent XII.”

“…….”

The three of us sat around the round table, exchanging glances with nothing more than slight smiles tugging at the corners of our mouths. The sun had risen high overhead and was heating the water, but our tea had already gone cold. There was nothing left for us to do but leave. Narke checked his watch once more and whispered, “And according to Elias, it seems the answer is somewhere in all this.”

Given the principle of parsimony, it would be unwise to consider an overly complicated hypothesis.

However, if the only information we could obtain from the words ‘Saint Mark’ was that they referred to the Secretariat of State, there would be no way to narrow down the suspects. We therefore had to consider the possibility that the code contained multiple meanings. Accordingly, we accepted Elias’s method of eliminating hypotheses: combining ‘Saint Mark’ with ‘negation.’

It was now time to look for a real-world case connected to the two. And since a simple question about the history of the Secretariat of State had immediately produced a clue, we had not actually ventured very far into complicated hypotheses. Far from being complicated, it was remarkably straightforward. Moreover, Einsiedel had deliberately made use of the fact that we had someone from the Farnese family on our side from the very beginning, making it all the more difficult to dismiss Elias’s hypothesis as overly complicated.

Once again, Elias had pierced the very center of the target with a single attempt. With a speed and fluidity enough to send a chill through my entire body.

Now all that remained was to find the alley in Venice where we had first arrived. I walked quickly, map in hand, keeping an eye on my surroundings. In this city, every time you thought you could keep walking, you would soon run into water. And that made things even more difficult, since we had decided to split up and arrive at the meeting place at different times to avoid arousing suspicion.

Just as I was starting to feel hot enough to want to throw off my robe, I heard the snap of fingers. I turned toward the sound and found Elias standing there with an unfamiliar Old Human. I approached the Old Human, who was about a head and a half shorter than me.

“How’s the plan? Are you ready?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. I’m not sure where I should start.”

“…We’re supposed to head to Rome from here, and you don’t know?”

“Yeah.”

Narke was wearing a faint smile, but there was some emotion behind it that I couldn’t make out. Maybe he felt even more distant because I was looking down at the face of a complete stranger. Narke looked up at the two of us and quietly asked, “Are you two ready?”

“Yeah.”

Elias answered immediately. I hesitated, unable to imagine what lay ahead, then nodded.

“Yeah.”

Narke let go of the hem of the dress he had been holding. The hem and the black lace above it began to soak into the water. Even though it was supposed to be an illusion, it looked so real that I had to make an effort not to reach out and hold up his clothes.

Narke whispered to both of us.

“Get the silver I gave you earlier ready. Don’t use all of it, keep a portion tucked away. There’ll be plenty of mages of considerable skill there, so you can’t let your guard down for even a moment.”

Once we were ready, Narke held out his hand to me. Just as Elias had done earlier, I took it and said, “This is insane.”

“It is.”

Narke took Elias’s hand as well and raised his right heel. His blue eyes, tinged with violet, fixed on the brick wall. Standing there, he looked as though he could see beyond the stone walls of the old house and gaze across Venice and all the way into southern Italy, as if his eyes could read something beyond space and time itself. Then the dress moved. With a splash as the heel struck the water, the small-framed Old Human disappeared before our eyes.

― “We have to find the Judas hiding within the Pope’s family.”

A thin robe layered over a cassock came drifting into view before me. My gaze was no longer lowered. I could see the back of a tall New Human priest. Unlike before, his face was completely expressionless as he turned his head. When our eyes met, he turned his hand halfway around, then let it drop.

― “Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t have brought you two along.”

Translator Note

1. The Council of Trent was a major meeting of the Catholic Church held in northern Italy between 1545 and 1563 to reform church life and reply to the Protestant Reformation. ↩︎