The Psalter Page 12

  “I saw his holiness last night at the evening meal,” Deacon John said. “He became dizzy and slurred his words until he was no longer able to speak, as though he had been struck dumb. His hands and arms went limp, and he sweated freely as if he worked in the hot sun. His breathing was labored.”

  “Hemlock,” Johannes said.

  “You know your poisons,” Deacon John replied. “I scoured my brain to think what would cause such a seizure. It didn’t occur to me that His Holiness might have been poisoned until Cardinal di Porca announced that Gregory had succumbed to apoplexy. Then I knew. Of course, the symptoms are similar, paralysis and dizziness, but not the sweating nor difficulty breathing. I asked to view the body but was refused.”

  “Hogsmouth told you this? When?”

  “This morning after the prayers of Terse in the palace dining hall. He said His Holiness died at dawn. Why?”

  “I was just with him in the schola cantorum. When the first bell rang, he seemed as shocked as I. I thought it was because…well, I asked if he knew why the bells tolled and he said he did not.”

  Anastasius turned to Deacon John. “They begin even now to weave their web.”

  “What do you mean?” Johannes felt alarmed.

  “Don’t you grasp what’s happening? The poison would take but a few hours to do its work, so Gregory passed away last night. Yet they tell the senior clerics he died at dawn and the bell announcing his death rings a full day later. Then Hogsmouth denies he knows anything. They’re buying time to move their pieces into place. We cannot waste a minute.”

  Deacon John Hymonides took Anastasius’ hand in his own. “I beg you to listen, Brother. I hold no lofty ambitions, and you’ll put your life in danger.”

  “My friend, it must be done for the church. I would do it myself, but the people don’t know me, and they love you. Alas, time is not on our side. Your name must be put forward at once so the citizens can be alerted and organize. Then you need to go into hiding and stay alive until the people choose you as pope. The nobles wouldn’t dare touch you once you’re elected, at least not openly.”

  “Perhaps, but once you put my name forward, your life in Rome will be over. Worse, when the Emperor discovers that you nominated me instead of standing yourself, you’ll lose his favor and his protection. Then Theophylact and the other lords won’t hesitate to harm you. This I cannot allow.”

  “There might be another way.” Johannes spoke in a soft, uncertain voice.

  Anastasius and the Deacon stared at the young secundarius.

  “What if Deacon John’s name was shouted from the crowd? I mean from the entire crowd at once, a sort of spontaneous proclamation?”

  Anastasius looked skeptical. “How could it be done? First, the public must be told that Deacon John is a candidate, and secretly. Then the assembly would have to be prompted to proclaim his name at the right time and loud enough to drown out the nobles. This is a complicated undertaking and John and I are watched. Spies are everywhere.”

  “I travel unmolested through the city every day.”

  “Who do you believe might accomplish such a thing?”

  Johannes Anglicus smiled slyly. “The most unlikely of Romans.”

  15

  Interregnum

  Children wrapped in homespun rags, chosen from penniless families, led Gregory’s funeral procession. One of the older boys held a large wooden cross aloft with both hands. Archdeacon Nicholas and the Lateran’s vicedominus, Cardinal Adrian, trailed side by side, festooned in sumptuous robes covered by sleeveless chasubles. The cardinal priests followed, surrounding a horse-drawn cart. Upon the cart lay Gregory’s remains, robed in Papal white, resting on a bier.

  Archpriest Pietro di Porca should have led the cardinals, but chose instead to lead the singers of the schola cantorum as they chanted mournful te deums. His lofty tenor voice rose above the others, angelic yet somehow out of place. The proud aristocracy in their finest fashions marched after the choir, led by Count Theophylact, who measured his pace, leaving an ample gap between the nobility and senior clergy. Rome’s commoners followed in a quasi-organized column: common priests, then merchants and artisans, with farmers and the poorest straggling at the end.

  The procession stretched more than a mile as it inched from the patriarchum to the basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati. Johannes walked among the weeping clergy. He spied tall and stately Anastasius ahead, walking next to Deacon John Hymonides. Their heads were bowed and hands tucked inside wide sleeves. As they passed the needy inhabitants of the Colosseum, no whistles or taunts were hurled. Ragged souls crowded outside the arcade and simply fell into step behind the long, creeping line.

  All morning, the funeral march trod the streets and broken roads. Citizens filled the ranks, swelling the pageant of mourners. People at the edges were forced further down the parade. The column bulged in the middle like a just-fed snake as it wound through the remains of the Roman forum, once the center of commerce and politics. Now, however, the dilapidated Forum was covered with earth, and oxen grazed on the grasses.

  Johannes felt a wave of revulsion as they turned northwest at the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Criminals had been executed on the steps, and blood stains tinted the stone a gruesome pink. He was relieved when they had passed it for the blemishless basilica of Saint Mark. Finally reaching the Sant’Angelo bridge, they crossed the Tiber.

  The throng filled Saint Peter’s to overflowing, and thousands were relegated to the winter chill outdoors. Menacing black clouds threatened to drench the bereaved. Gregory’s bier was placed in front of the Altar of the Confession. The mounds of parchment had been nearly emptied, thanks to Johannes’ labor. Only a few small piles remained.

  Requiem mass lasted the entire day, with the required prayers of the office of the dead recited. Five different bishops gave five absolutions, beseeching God’s mercy on Gregory. The last was delivered by Anastasius’ uncle, Bishop Arsenius. At the appointed hour, Archdeacon Nicholas arose. His subordinate deacons followed, including John Hymonides. They lifted the bier and carried Gregory through the Door of Death which led to the grotto, the popes’ cemetery beneath the basilica. The bell in the tower tolled and the ring vibrated off stone walls, then softened as the echo faded to stillness.

  The clergy followed, descending rough-hewn steps as they chanted hymns with antiphons and responsories. Johannes noted the look of surprise on their faces as they passed the shelves crammed with documents. Where did they think the mountain of paper had gone, he thought to himself.

  Deacon John scattered salt to exorcise the tomb, and the cardinal priests lowered Gregory’s body into a casket of cypress covered with a lead-and-fir exterior. The coffin was closed and carried into the empty crypt. The hovering sextons began to seal the stone even before the assembly climbed out of the grotto.

  A crowd of thousands milled in the basilica’s piazza. At the edges of the throng, they started to disperse. Rivulets of people turned into streams flowing back to the city. Johannes thought he might stop at the schola cantorum to consider which rooms would be most accommodating for a library. But in his pensiveness, he had no desire to be confronted by Hogsmouth. So he walked on, carried by the gentle current of common Romans.

  It was somehow comforting to share his grief with the rabble who wore no official masks. Tears flowed and snippets of conversations reached Johannes’ ear as people related anecdotes about a charity the Pope had shown or a forgiveness bestowed. Some spoke of his untiring efforts to reconcile the Emperor with his greedy sons.

  Johannes eavesdropped on a poignant conversation. A mourner held his audience rapt with a tale that the pope’s mere blessing had cured his beloved child of an evil malady. The secundarius was dabbing at a tear with his sleeve when a hand grabbed his frock and steered him into an unsavory inn, pushing him onto a stool in the darkest corner. Anastasius was out of breath and blew hard. “I saw you leave, but couldn’t reach you through the crowd.”

  “What’s happened?”<
br />
  “I overheard Theophylact speaking to Hogsmouth. The papal election is set for tomorrow.”

  “Impossible. There must be an interregnum, a delay of at least three days.”

  “Do you think Theophylact or Pietro di Porca care a whit for the law? They need a new pope before Emperor Lothair can react to Gregory’s death.”

  “Perhaps they feel safer asking for forgiveness rather than his permission. The outcome would be more certain.”

  The innkeeper returned with wine, and Anastasius took an uncharacteristically long draft. “We must thwart their strategy. What have you done to get Deacon John nominated?”

  “Done? There’s been no time.”

  “There’s less now. Can you do it or not?”

  “By tomorrow? Organize the entire city? It would take a miracle.”

  “That’s what we need, for I fear we’ve been outwitted.” The archivist hung his head. “I’m left with no choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Only one chance is left under the circumstance. I must put my name forward as the Emperor’s candidate. Many foreign priests would raise their voices for me.”

  “Perhaps, but they’re not here and can’t arrive in time. That’s what Theophylact has counted on. The nobles will carry the day. Our only hope is for Lothair to nullify the election. You must get word to him.”

  “Uncle Arsenius has already sent riders, but Lothair is capricious and shrewd. Should he sense that Hogsmouth has the support of the nobles, he might waver. It rests with me to me stop Theophylact.”

  “If you do this thing, disaster will rain upon your head,” Johannes said.

  “The count’s grip on Christ’s Church must end.”

  Johannes recognized desperation in Anastasius’ dark eyes. “I have a day. Let me try.”

  “My dear friend, thank you for your help, but the game’s over.”

  Johannes Anglicus finished his wine in one long swallow. “I have a day. Promise me you’ll do nothing ’til the morrow.”

  Anastasius shook his head.

  “Do you swear?”

  “I will wait until tomorrow, but only until the nominations.”

  Johannes fled the inn, heading toward the Tiber. The going was slow, weaving in and out of mourners shuffling in the opposite direction. He crossed the Jews’ Bridge onto Tiber Island, then the Cestius Bridge into the Trastevere. The streets were empty even though the sun had not yet set. Shops were closed, their shutters shut. The bustling multi-storied apartment blocks were silent. An eerie calm had settled on the Jewish ghetto.

  Johannes easily found the Temple of the Hebrews. Everything, however, looked different in the daytime, less forbidding. In the light, he saw that the synagogue had been fashioned with simple, straight lines in a massive rectangle with a triangular gabled entry, like the elegant classical buildings of ancient Greece. It was larger than he remembered. He reckoned that a thousand would fit inside the stone walls.

  He rapped on the door of the Rosh Yeshiva’s low, brick house next to the temple until it opened narrowly. A dark-bearded face peered from the opening. “Ah, Father Johannes,” the voice said in a hushed tone. The hide merchant, Elchanan HaKodesh, widened the opening a bit more.

  “I must talk to your father.”

  “The Rosh Yeshiva confers with rabbis of the city. These meetings often last long into the night. I mean no disrespect, but tomorrow would be better.”

  “Can he not spare a few—”

  “Do I hear the young priest’s voice?” Avraham’s welcoming face greeted Johannes from the foyer. “Enter, enter. Such a coincidence; I was just speaking to my colleagues about the learned priest from the patriarchum.” He placed aged hands on Johannes’ slight shoulders. “I’m sorry to learn of Gregory’s passing. I have called for seven days of mourning and reflection out of respect for His Holiness.”

  Johannes’ mouth gaped.

  “Don’t look so surprised. Is a holy man not deserving?” Come in and meet the rabbis. They sit with me for what we call Shivah, a deep mourning. I’m sure they would like to express their sympathy, and I made far too many cakes as usual. You can help us eat them while we mourn together.”

  Johannes held the Rosh Yeshiva’s sleeve, “If I might speak to you privately, a matter of great urgency.”

  “Of course, my son. My old colleagues and I have all night, but youth is impatient.”

  Johannes scarcely knew where to begin. He started with an abbreviated description of the political powers in the Lateran Palace that jockeyed for supremacy, then bumbled through a recital of the nobles calling for an unlawful election. Finally, the secundarius launched into a disjointed explanation that the clergy needed to take back the church from the rapacious aristocracy. Johannes was flustered at his inability to condense a volume into a few logical points.

  The Rosh Yeshiva held up his hand. “What do you require?”

  The priest could tell from the rabbi’s face that, despite his rambling, Avraham had grasped all. “I need a miracle,” Johannes said. “I know the people would elect Deacon John Hymonides if given half a chance, for he’s their champion. But Count Theophylact plans to elect a puppet before the citizens get wind of an election.”

  “And before Lothair arrives, of course.”

  “The people are our only hope. But how can I alert an unsuspecting city of thousands to come to the patriarchum tomorrow to elect a new pope?”

  “You alone can do little, but come inside and let’s discuss your conundrum. Many wise men sit at my humble table.”

  “There’s no time. I must do something now. Where can I turn?”

  “To us. I said you could do little since scarce time remains, but that doesn’t mean naught can be done. I entreat you to join us and rest while we debate the problem. If a miracle can be discovered, I’m sure we can find one together.”

  Avraham led the priest into the kitchen, where a dozen bearded rabbis sat on benches around the long table. They rose as one, bowing, “Shalom.” Then they began to offer condolences, but the Rosh Yeshiva stopped them. “There will be plenty of time to express our sympathy. First, we need to discuss a matter of great urgency, but I beg you, no debates. An answer must be found, and we must find it tonight.”

  “Where were you?” Baraldus huffed. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Have you heard the election has been called for tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “What are we to do?”

  “All that can be done has been done. It’s in God’s hands and in some other, unlikely ones. Now I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed.”

  Johannes retired to his cell as the front door slammed and Baraldus barged out into the night.

  16

  The Election

  Rome’s aristocratic families flocked to their clans in the piazza facing the patriarchum. They congregated around tall poles flying colorful pennants held aloft by pageboys. Nearest the palace stood the most ancient family of Anacii, whose patriarch stood self-importantly in the center. Next to the Anacii was Theophylact’s clan, the Tusculani. Behind them, the Crescentii, Frangipani, and Pierleone had staked out their places. Lesser nobles formed a rear guard.

  Clergymen tried to squeeze to the front between the clans, but the aristocrats closed ranks, as if on cue, to block their way. Johannes and sturdy Baraldus gave up trying and wedged themselves into a gap far from the ceremonies. The great palace doors swung open. Vicedominus Adrian and Archdeacon Nicholas filed onto the terrace, staffs in hand, followed by Theophylact and Archpriest Pietro di Porca. Straining his eyes, Johannes barely made out Anastasius, who had stationed himself in the shadows just inside the door.

  Vicedominus Adrian began with a wordy blessing of the crowd, then an interminable prayer of thanksgiving. After long minutes, the throng, shuffling and agitated, would have no more. A voice rang out, “Give us a pope!” When Adrian tried to continue, others added their voices. Soon the entire cr
owd chanted, “Give us a pope!”

  Silenced, old Adrian retreated, leaving Theophylact to take his place. The tall, glowering Count held up his hand and the crowd quieted. “Citizens of Rome, noble brethren. “We elect our pope by popular acclaim according to the constitutio romanum. Your raised voices will name the new Holy Father, and I know of only one man in Christendom who merits Peter’s Holy Chair. He’s a Prince of the Church who fills the poor with joy, traveling even to their miserable slums to sing his hymns. He’s patrician of blood, as befits the Pontiff, and we find him without equal. Therefore, I put forth the name of my beloved uncle, Cardinal and Archpriest Pietro di Porca!”

  The noble families cheered while behind them, the astonished clergy whispered to one another in disbelief, “Hogsmouth?” Grumbling from the rear grew to a low rumble, then ominous thunder as defiant Romans chanted derisively, “Hogsmouth, Hogsmouth, Hogsmouth,” which quieted the aristocrats. They turned to glare at the disagreeable priests. Nevertheless, Theophylact was an expert at crowd control despite his youth, having commanded panicked soldiers. “Calm yourselves!” He shouted. “Quiet, I say! If you have a name, put it forward. Yet I hear nothing but jeers. Do you malign your betters? Shame on you. No one is so deserving as my blessed uncle, and if any man says otherwise, let him face me. What, do I hear no derision now? If there’s another, make him known. If not, I demand a vote, and I say Pietro di Porca will be pope.”

  Anastasius stepped onto the porch, challenged by frowning stares from the vicedominus and Archdeacon as well as the assembled cardinals. But the fiercest glare came from Theophylact. Johannes’ heart sank as he realized his master was about to destroy his life in the church. The primicerius tried to speak, but the nobles drowned out his voice, shouting, “Pietro! Give us Pietro!”

  Clerics in the crowd responded with a louder chant of, “Fie on Hogsmouth!” On the uneven border between patricians and priests, skirmishes erupted, with shoving and curses hurled back and forth. Even Theophylact could no longer control the mêlée which threatened to spiral into a riot. Then a wave of quiet washed over the astonished mob. Every head turned in the direction of the city.