Chapter 479

We found ourselves standing before a massive milky-white stone column as Narke returned to his original appearance. The moment we saw the Ionic capital high above us and the regular vertical grooves running down the column, we instinctively knew we had reached Rome. The warmth that came from the fluid-like texture of the stone that made up the temple moved in the opposite direction from the tension in our bodies.

Narke casually made the first move in the great task of tearing apart the pope’s family, then strode ahead without another word. His cassock, completely devoid of color, fluttered in Rome’s rough wind. He had neither the fascia nor any of the other adornments of his clerical dress when he left Rome, and he didn’t have them now that he had secretly returned. We hurried after the young priest who had finally returned to his homeland.

Elias muttered quietly enough that only I could hear him.

“So Rome builds its checkpoints like this, too.”

Instead of worrying about what excuse he would make to the checkpoint officers, he was practically giddy at every sight of the city, as though Rome had stolen his heart. The enormous temple standing at the edge of the precipice before us was, just as he had said, a checkpoint.

Baroque? Or Greek?

We had no ability to distinguish the style of this magnificent architecture, and for some reason, we didn’t particularly want to. Even though trying to make sense of and name Rome’s everyday sights was something left to outsiders, whether they came from another era or another region. As far as I was concerned, our first duty as outsiders was simply not to get lost, so the two of us Germans had no choice but to follow the Roman.

I grabbed Elias by the collar as he gently ran both hands around one of the stone columns and pushed him toward a table inside the temple. Narke stopped before the guard and pulled out a document from inside his robe that served as identification.

“Peace be with you. I was away for a while on missionary business for the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.”

He waited impassively while the guard greeted him with the same “And also with you.” and read the document.

— “Gregorio XVII.”

At the same time, words carried by divine power came flooding into my mind. I had known from the moment we set out for Rome without waiting a moment that he had no intention of wasting time.

— “Giuseppe Vincenzo Orsini. The Orsini are a powerful clerical family in Rome. They’ve already produced three popes.”

The guard looked up. He spoke in Italian with an accent that was difficult for me to understand.

“Father Lorenzo Russo. Are the people behind you with you?”

“Yes. They are new Jesuit¹ brothers. They have never been to Rome before, so I brought them along to broaden their horizons.”

As Narke’s Italian flowed aloud, information in German conveyed through divine power came rushing into my mind.

— “Including Gregorio XVII, that makes four popes from the Orsini family. The Orsini claim they haven’t been in contact with the Pope since a year before the conclave.”

Ah, was something like this even possible? I nearly furrowed my brow. I knew that humans could develop several lines of thought logically at the same time, but this was something else entirely. At the same time Narke was speaking aloud, he was conveying words on an entirely different subject to me, in a different language, through a different sense.

The guard’s eyebrows lifted pleasantly at the mention of the Jesuits.

“Ah, you are Jesuits. Where are you from?”

The sounds coming in from both sides made it difficult to keep my thoughts centered. I planted my feet firmly and forced myself to stay upright. Narke smiled faintly.

“We are all from Genoa. We also came to have continental travel permits issued under our Roman names.”

“I see.”

The guard gave a brief reply and ran something resembling a detector over Narke from head to toe. Even as he did so, they continued making small talk.

“What’s the weather like in Genoa these days?”

Why on earth did he want to know something like that?

Narke dutifully answered about the weather in northwestern Italy, despite never having been there. Meanwhile, his story about the Orsini continued to flow through my mind. Maintaining a blank expression, I sincerely wished, inwardly, that this merciless friend would do just one thing for me.

― “His Holiness still has no contact with the family. At least, as far as I know, that was the case until the very end.”

Something suddenly surged up from my stomach. I grimaced and clamped my throat shut, forcing it back down. I had no idea whether my body was trying to defend itself after being exposed to a phenomenon beyond the limits of my perception for so long, but my stomach churned through some mechanism I couldn’t understand.

Only then did Narke abruptly fall silent. The guard, having finished inspecting our artifacts as well, gave us a friendly smile and pointed toward the other side of the temple-like checkpoint.

“You may enter. Welcome to Rome.”

I curled up the corners of my mouth even though they refused to rise, using the gesture as a substitute for a greeting, and followed the priest walking ahead of us.

And so began my first impression of Rome. Sunlight filtering through the white colonnades. The red city stretching out in the distance below us. A rock-hard wind that must have blown here thousands of years ago, too. And, of course, Narke’s ability to challenge the limits of what a human could possibly do.

Suppressing the urge to flick Narke on the back of the head, I asked about the question that had been bothering me earlier.

― “He cut off contact with the Orsini on his own, and he was still elected in the conclave?”

― “Yes.”

A conclave is a meeting held after the pope’s death to elect his successor, with the pope chosen by a vote among the College of Cardinals. Even I already knew that the Orsini were one of Rome’s most influential families; that was how well known they were. In practical terms, cutting ties with the House of Orsini meant that Gregorio XVII could no longer count on the protection of Cardinal Orsini or the cardinals from families allied with the Orsini. The election of the leader of the Catholic Church should not have been reduced to a factional struggle, but since it was still a matter handled by people, it was difficult to separate it from the power structure behind it. In the end, Cardinal Giuseppe Vincenzo Orsini was either a clergyman respected enough to be elected pope even without the votes of the Orsini and their allies, or…

― “Are you saying the families that wanted to keep the Orsini in check banded together and backed Cardinal Giuseppe, Narke?”

― “I can’t say that’s impossible. There were several circumstances at play. …Anyway, let’s start over. The Orsini are still on bad terms with the Colonna.”

I waved a hand at that. Finding the traitor within the Orsini was important, but there was something strange here that I needed to address.

― “No one can know when a conclave will be held. How could anyone know when the pope is going to die? They just happened to lose contact exactly one year before?”

Narke kept walking, his eyes fixed ahead. Once we stepped outside the temple, the wind had died down somewhat. Then he answered.

― “Exactly.”

He had skipped over a turn in the conversation. He knew what he was going to answer, knew what I would say in response, and was already responding to an answer that would undoubtedly have existed in some possible world. It would have been bewildering to a third party listening in, but I wasn’t confused.

“Wow.”

Elias, who had been following behind us, let out an exclamation. We looked toward the city portal at the edge of the cliff—it looked like the holy-water basin that might have stood beside an altar in ancient Greece.

The landscape of Rome unfolded before our eyes. Here stood the capital of the world that the German emperors of the Holy Roman Empire had spent nearly a thousand years coveting, constantly seeking to place beneath their feet as they crowned themselves the Roman Emperor. We read the passage of time in the red city washed gold by the sunlight. We looked toward the Colosseum and down at the Pantheon and Capitoline Hill. We watched the deep-blue waters of the Tiber and the arches of the aqueducts.

Elias stared at the city he had longed to see, his mouth hanging open.

The throne of the Roman Empire, which had vanished a thousand years ago, had survived without decaying, still passing on the splendor of empire and the certainty of imperial rule to the emperors of Germany, Russia, and the rest of the world. The Roman Empire had extended far beyond the Italian Peninsula, yet this place had somehow remained both in the past and in the present. Borrowing a phrase I once liked, Rome would only perish when the last city of humanity disappeared—the city bearing the same name would keep Rome eternal. Rome had melted into the European mind, recreated before the continent’s cities, villages, plains, and rivers. And the capital of the Roman Empire needed no recreation at all. It had inherited every grain of its past, every trace left behind there.

Elias was completely captivated by the city as he whispered, “Before claiming himself Emperor of Rome, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire should’ve taken this city back.”

“Ah…”

Narke smiled with a puzzled look. We often forgot that he was Roman because his German was so fluent—and, unfortunately, I had just remembered it again, even though I’d had the exact same thought earlier.

Calling Narke a Roman wasn’t really any different from calling someone a Dessauer or a Berliner based on where they were born. It was nothing more than a play on words. He hadn’t lived in antiquity, so he wasn’t a Roman but an Italian. And although we came from Germania, we weren’t Germanic people but Germans. Trying to determine the origins of something whose origins could never truly be known—what percentage of Germanic, Slavic, Jewish, or countless other bloodlines flowed through our arteries—could be an ugly thing to do sometimes.

Of course, that didn’t change the fact that we were descendants of the Germans who had invaded Italy whenever they were given half a chance.

Elias began rolling his eyes, but Narke knew perfectly well that Elias didn’t approve of conquest and subjugation carried out in the name of the Empire. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care much about whatever we said. Without much change in expression, he pushed Elias halfway into the portal.

“WAAAAAAAH!”

Elias disappeared with a scream at the top of his lungs. Seeing my face go pale, Narke pushed me in after him. Thankfully, he didn’t let go of my hand and came along with me.

“Huff…”

I found myself in one of the city squares I had looked down on earlier. To keep the Roman citizens watching people come down through the portal from becoming suspicious, Narke slipped his arm between mine and my body to keep me from slipping.

“Out of breath?”

“Yeah, I—”

“What are we going to do on the way back? I’ll have to help you a little more then~”

I pushed him away to let him know I was fine. Narke patted my shoulder and stepped away. Elias, now looking every bit like a tourist visiting Rome for the first time, made no attempt to hide how much of a tourist he was. We followed him down the street, talking through divine power.

― “We were talking about the Colonna family. As far as I know, the Pope reconciled them back in the 15th century.”

― “Do you really think a grudge disappears overnight? First, when it comes to Rome’s influential clerical families, there are the Savelli, Conti, Orsini, Colonna, and Caetani. And then the Farnese. Six families in all. There are others, but for now, let’s just look at the political landscape.”

― “Somehow, it feels like things haven’t changed much since the 17th century.”

― “Haha. We don’t have to go all the way back to the Guelph and Ghibelline conflict… Ah. Actually, we might.”

The Guelphs and Ghibellines were rival factions born when the conflict between the Welfs and Hohenstaufens, which had taken place when the Holy Roman Empire was still centered in German lands, spread into Italy. To put it very simply, the Guelphs wanted to protect the authority of the papacy, while the Ghibellines fought for the Roman Emperor. I narrowed my eyes at Narke’s words, and he gave a quiet laugh before continuing.

― “Their alliances and rivalries change often, but they frequently fall back into their old historical alignments. The Orsini and Caetani were staunch Guelph allies, while the Colonna were Ghibellines who supported the German Emperor. But Caetani also tried to stop Orsini’s territorial expansion. Even so…”

Narke deliberately guided them down a bustling tourist street. Adrian admired a statue emerging around a street corner as he took over the thread of conversation.

―”Even if the Caetanis might oppose the Orsinis for various reasons, the likelihood of them joining hands with the Colonna right now is low. Outwardly they’re polite, but the Caetanis secretly suspect the Colonnas could reach out to Germany or France at any moment. The same goes for the Orsinis. Besides, the Caetani family currently professes surface loyalty to the Pope.”

―”Then it’s a bit unsettling that the Orsini side, rather than the Colonna, has been in contact with the French Imperial House.”

He deliberately chose a route crowded with tourists. As I looked at a statue that appeared when we turned down an alley, Narke’s words continued to reach me.

― “Caetani may have reasons to feud with Orsini, but it’s unlikely they’d join hands with Colonna now. They get along on the surface, but Caetani privately believes that Colonna could reach out to Germany or France at any time. Orsini feels the same way. Besides, the Caetani family is openly loyal to the Pope right now.”

― “Then it bothers me that it was someone on the Orsini side, rather than Colonna, who contacted the French Imperial Family.”

In other words, it wasn’t the Colonnas, Italians who had been willing to cooperate with foreign powers, but House Orsini, who had tried to protect Italy from foreign powers, that had someone colluding with France’s Terminus Eukairia. Wasn’t that strange? I thought about it a little more before continuing.

― “If someone on the Orsini side needed another faction to keep the Pope in check after he had, at least temporarily, betrayed his own family… then I suppose that’s a plausible scenario. Do you think so too?”

― “Yes.”

Narke’s answer was clear. But as far as I knew, it hadn’t been just a day or two since Gregorio XVII became pope. He had already been sitting on the Papal See for quite some time. And now his family was trying to keep the pope in check? The pope wasn’t the Papal See itself, so surely the Orsini family had already enjoyed most of the benefits that came with being a ‘family that produced a pope,’ hadn’t they? Narke didn’t answer my questions. Instead, he kept feeding me information, giving me enough to draw my own conclusions.

― “First, out of those six families, excluding the Orsini and Colonna, which one gets mentioned the most in history books?”

― “Savelli. They’ve produced five popes.”

― “Right. Most of them were medieval popes, but they still hold considerable influence in the Papal See. There are plenty of mages employed there, too. With the Corte Savella, their right to exemption from the death penalty, behind them, they’re raking in a fortune.”

He casually tore into the families of his own aide and his fellow clergyman. Then he stopped walking, held out a hand with a warm smile, and spoke aloud.

“Brother, would you like something to eat?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know how Narke would rate my Italian, but I felt it was still too lacking to risk drawing people’s attention by opening my mouth unnecessarily. As he watched Elias taking in the sights of the city, Narke once again let his words flow into my mind.

― “But at least as far as the past century is concerned, Savelli has no reason to turn against Orsini. On the surface, Savelli and Caetani have formed a perfect alliance with Orsini. They share the same interests.”

― “What about Farnese?”

Narke didn’t answer. I moved my gaze from the spot I’d been staring at straight ahead to Narke’s back. Then he answered.

― “The same.”

By then, we had reached a fountain. Elias was sitting in front of it, trying to catch the falling water with his hands. Even for a tourist, an adult dressed as a priest doing something like that was conspicuous, so we kept our distance from him as we continued talking.

― “There are currently two members of the Orsini family serving as cardinals in the Papal See, and one serving as a priest. The two cardinals are both nearly a hundred years old, while the priest is only in his twenties. And there’s one more condottiero. Natalia Orsini, who serves as a condottiero, isn’t in Rome right now.”

A condottiero could be thought of, in the simplest terms, as the commander of a mercenary force. That was probably the easiest way to put it.

― “Even if it’s an Orsini who isn’t in Rome right now, they could have played a major role in leaking information to the French Imperial Family. They could have pretended to ask after their family’s well-being, drawn information out of them, and used it to establish contact with Terminus Eukairia. In that case, we’ll need to find out whether the two Orsinis—the cardinal and the priest—are all right or not…”

Narke looked at me with a quiet hum. I kept my eyes forward as I continued.

― “The problem is, how do we draw those three Orsini out? Getting into Rome was easy because you had your credentials. But getting into the Papal See is another matter. Security will have tightened, and just like you can’t infiltrate the House of Farnese, you can’t simply walk into the Papal See either.”

Even if Narke was a secret cardinal, once he got deep enough inside, plenty of people would know his face. From the moment Narke set foot inside the Papal See, it wouldn’t take more than thirty minutes for countless clergymen there to recognize him. Changing his hair and eye color wouldn’t help much when he was standing in front of people who knew his face outright. He could gamble on a cognitive distortion spell and hope not to be discovered, but…

― “So we agree that we need to draw them out first.”

― “Yes. And you’re thinking of using another powerful family to lure the Orsinis out.”

Narke must have heard the right answer, because he glanced back at me with a grin. Then, just as when we had returned to Rome, his face settled back into its calm, expressionless state.

How could we use another powerful family to draw them out? To sum it up, the Pope was from the House of Orsini, yet he had cut off contact with his family even before becoming Pope. From the family’s perspective, the Pope was unpredictable, so they may have felt the need to keep Gregorio XVII in check. According to Narke, the Savelli, Caetani, and Farnese families were all close to the Orsini. The Colonna were not. He hadn’t said anything about the Conti, so we still knew nothing about that family. And judging from everything so far, there was someone among the Orsini who had been in contact with the French Imperial Family.

If there really was a culprit within the Pope’s family, it made some sense that they had managed to get through the Papal See’s tight security. Even so, it was still astonishing.

I had heard Narke explain how the various strands of power were intertwined, but I still had no idea how we were supposed to get those three Orsini out of the Papal See. I led Narke over to a newspaper stand and bought a paper.

“Let’s read the newspaper first…”

Before I could finish, I figured out what the bold Italian letters splashed across the headline meant and frowned.

[Shocking News About Eugène Lamour?]

[Germany’sDaily Saxonyclaimed today that it had obtained significant information from an anonymous source concerning Sir Eugène Lamour, France’s national painter. We are publishing this article after agreeing to share the information withDaily Saxony.]

I closed my eyes, sighed, and turned the page. Regardless of Rome’s tranquil scenery, it was obvious that the people here were just as hungry for sensational news.

I had no particular feelings toward Eugène Lamour. I did find him a little suspicious, of course, but I really could have done without coming across an article like this. If the news had already drawn attention in Italy, then the whole continent must be up in flames by now. All I could hope was that Sir Eugène Lamour was still in his right mind.

― “That’s enough of the newspaper.”

I closed it, roughly rolled it up, and stuffed it into my robe pocket before finally following Elias, who had emerged from the fountain. Elias already knew perfectly well that we were communicating through divine power—after all, that had been the plan from the moment we came here—so he didn’t say a word to us. Instead, he stuck a strange blade of grass into my pocket.

We were heading down a road where the Colosseum was visible in the distance. I had no idea which family’s mansion we would find if we followed this road, but I knew enough to say that no matter where you poked around in Rome, you were bound to come across an aristocratic residence. Narke had deliberately wiped the usual smile from his face throughout our time in Rome, and he was no different now.

I didn’t feel that Narke was consumed by any negative emotions, but I asked a question to turn his attention back to the pope’s family.

― “Let’s think about this. Why are the Savelli, Caetani, and Farnese all on good terms with the Orsini? Their struggles over interests were so fierce, so why is this generation different?”

― “Even now, if you look beneath the surface, they’re wary of one another and constantly on guard. They cooperate because they have a common goal, but they’re always on edge about who’s going to walk away with the greater share of the benefits.”

― “A common goal?”

― “An obvious one.”

Since Narke didn’t give me a clear answer, I let my thoughts wander in another direction. More precisely, I told him the thought that had already occurred to me.

― “At least it’s not the Colonna. We don’t need to touch them for now. Narke, you choose. Savelli or Caetani?”

Narke stopped walking at that and raised the corner of his mouth into a faint smile. His eyes narrowed. He had already guessed what I was going to say, and I knew he had guessed it, but I still had to say it myself.

― “We have to steal one of the family seals now. Tell me which one you think would be easier.”

Translator Note

1. A Jesuit is an ordained priest or brother who belongs to the Society of Jesus, a large male religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. ↩︎