Chapter 242
It was a large room that took the morning sun well. His eyes did not bother to glance around the unfamiliar interior but went straight to the ceiling. A familiar herbal smell drifted from above his head. It was the kind often used on the battlefield to stop bleeding. It seemed the blood had been slow to cease.
Now that the wound—spanning the line between his forehead and hair—had been neatly treated by someone, the pain began to make itself known. But it did not feel very important. Cárcel stared blankly at the ceiling for a time, then, unable by habit to lie long, pushed himself up.
"Ah, you're awake?"
A priest, seated at a table some distance away and recording something, belatedly turned to him and spoke.
"…Where am I?"
"The Doctrinal Office. This room is used for receiving guests of honor."
Only then did Cárcel's glance skim lightly over the interior. It was a guest chamber such as one might find in a noble's manor, and not a little too splendid to be meant for high priests.
"Guests of honor…"
"The wound has been treated well, but you lost too much blood earlier. It's deeper than it looks, so it will take quite some time to knit properly."
"..."
"For the time being, you must take care of your body."
Unless he were a criminal. Letting the priest's words pass by, Cárcel drew up a knee and briefly rested his chilled head upon it.
Meanwhile the priest busied himself across the room and went out. Cárcel glanced once at the closed door and climbed out of bed. The shirt ruined with blood was gone—someone had stripped it off—and his face and body were wiped clean.
Even so, he went to the drawer where a basin had been set and washed his face and neck again, then his arms, and wet a cloth in fresh water to wipe himself down once more. The force of it bordered on compulsion. Beside him lay his gear, which by rights should have been left with his horse in the stable. He changed completely into fresh clothes and looked in the mirror.
Disordered blond hair fell over the bandage slanted round his head. He swept his hair back once and saw that the stain had crept a little beyond the bandage. A strange color where blue-black herb juice and blood had mingled.
He gazed at it with an odd look, then at length let his hair fall and tidied it. Uncommonly neat—for a man with a bandage.
The face that still held straight was drained pale. The eyes that met his were quiet, yet exhausted. Like the place a typhoon has passed.
All the way riding hard toward Bilbao, there had been only a single night when he properly lay in a bed. And even then, had he truly slept? To let his weary horse rest, Cárcel had stopped at an inn each night, only to wash and then come straight out to sit for hours before the stable waiting for dawn.
So there was no reason he would look in his right mind. Had he not blacked out from blood loss, he would not have slept so long as this.
At last he turned away from the mirror and, as he did aboard ship, tidied his surroundings to order—by habit.
Then he gathered his things and set them on the table, meaning to call someone and settle the situation.
Until the priest's open Bible at the center of the table—and his transcription beside it—suddenly caught his eye.
"...While I lived the days of my vanity, I observed all these things: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who, despite his wickedness, lives long."
((Ecc 7:15) All {things} have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just {man} that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked {man} that prolongeth {his life} in his wickedness.)
A very familiar passage. Cárcel recalled a time he had heard the sermon of some old priest. Was it a class at the naval academy, or the brief mass held by the chaplain aboard ship during the war?
He slowly reached out and brushed his fingers over the dried ink on the page. Where his fingertips passed, the words found their voice.
"Be not overly righteous, and be not overly wise. Why should you bring ruin upon yourself?"
((Ecc 7:16) Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?)
An aged voice from far-off memory. A wrinkled hand sprinkling water over his head.
"Be not overly wicked, and be not foolish. Why die before your time?"
((Ecc 7:17) Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?)
Cárcel recalled kneeling on a pitching deck, the waves and the wind, the prayer before casting the soldiers' bodies into the sea. Those years not so long past when death was very common, when he lived closest to death; the boundless sea, the heathens, the pirates, and…
The black sleeve of a cassock left his head—left his sight.
Following the departing hand, he slowly lifted his eyes.
The face looking down at him was not that of the elderly naval chaplain who had stood there years ago.
He stared, blankly, up at the sight of the Apostle's icon he himself had toppled now risen and gazing down at him.
"There is no one who commands the wind to move the wind, no one who orders the day of death; there is no avoiding the time of war; wickedness will not deliver those whom it holds."
((Ecc 8:8) {There is} no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither {hath he} power in the day of death: and {there is} no discharge in {that} war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.)
Ah. He had seen that one before already. Long ago.
A face that knew nothing of the fatigue of life. A man who neither aged nor died.
On a gray day the sun shoved the ship along with the waves, and shimmered over Anastasio's silver-white hair.
Among soldiers he did not know at all, Cárcel rose as if spellbound and beheld God's Apostle.
And the instant their eyes met—
"You're awake, Lord Escalante!"
The Apostle's eyes vanished as if it had all been a lie. Along with the sanctity of long ago.
As if to say he stood there instead, Archbishop Claudio, hauling his bulky body, entered the room.
All of it wavered away like a mirage. Behind a blank expression he clenched his teeth and bowed his head politely.
"I hardly know how to offer thanks enough to you, my lord! Truly, when God exercises His might, there is no difference between His servants and those who are not."
"There is nothing for which I should receive thanks."
"As expected of the Navy that safeguards Ortega—so humble that even wounded thus, you did precisely what was to be done where you stood."
Putting aside the regret of having let Anastasio slip away, Cárcel calmly regarded the archbishop, who went on with words he could make no sense of.
"…But even so, had Lord Escalante not been there, how could we possibly have stopped those armed heathens who slyly slipped into the new temple, taking advantage of the fact not a single holy knight remained nearby?"
"..."
"The very fact you stayed there until evening shows that God had arranged His holy intent upon you, Lord Escalante. He sent the Apostle of War to work in your body."
"...Ah."
"The painters and the stonemasons had all gone far off to eat supper—and even had they stayed, they were all powerless civilians. What resistance could they have put up before those vicious devils?"
"..."
"The fact that the Blessed Sacrament had already been re-interred in the crypt was, within the order, a secret of secrets; thus we had deliberately not posted holy knights there. There was still a long time until consecration; we could not already draw the eyes of tomb-robbers. With the heathens growing so brazen by the day, we could no longer trust even our own."
Wearing a face sunk in concern, the archbishop invited Cárcel to sit first. As he sat, Cárcel, with distaste, looked past him at the young saint behind. The young man already wore an expression moved as if witnessing the very manifestation of a saint.
"Even though everything there is still in an unfinished state, you felt, earlier, in the nave, a purity like never before, did you not?"
"…Yes."
"The thought that you suddenly wished to remain longer and pray—that was not Lord Escalante's own thought, but one God budded within you."
"Of course."
"The testimony of the painter who witnessed the scene of history has now been entered into Bilbao's sacred record."
He swallowed, bringing to mind Emiliano's face—so good, so fair—as if it knew not the tiniest speck of falsehood.
"This sort of thing can be rebuilt with money. Culprits and pretexts are things one makes."
Who would have guessed both the culprits and all the pretexts would come from that saintlike mouth.
Of course, had Cárcel had his wits at the time, he too would have plotted a swindle like this. It would be a lie to say that while smashing the icon he had not, for a single moment, considered how to smooth it over in the world.
Yes—he had thought just along these lines. Similar in direction, only a little less grand. To hand Bilbao a vast ecclesiastical endowment, declaring he blamed himself for failing, despite his efforts, to protect Anastasio's icon, and thereby smother suspicion.
He had not imagined it could be wrapped up as "he safely protected the icons of the remaining seven Apostles"…