The Psalter Page 24

  “Frail Johannes attacked, on horseback, with no weapon against Saracens armed with swords? Did he strike fear into their hearts by chasing them like a game of tag?”

  Benedict searched for a plausible parry to Sergius’ thrust when a shout came from the back of the Papal Palace, “Lies, they’re all lies!” The assembly separated down the middle, opening a pathway from the throne to the door where a dirt-caked Johannes stood with Anastasius at his side. Cheers arose from the assembled clerics and cries of, “He lives,” and, “Our brother’s alive!” filled the great hall while Benedict shrunk and Theophylact glowered.

  “As all can see, I wasn’t butchered by Saracens and I assure you I was never taken hostage, nor did anyone seize me on the field of battle. I feel remarkably well for a dead man,” Johannes said. Anger rose like bile in his throat and made him forget how tired he was.

  “Brother Johannes,” Benedict said. “Confusion reigns in the heat of battle.” Now Benedict’s voice grew sinister. “It only appeared you were taken captive.”

  “Wicked liars!” Johannes walked down the aisle. The much taller Anastasius kept pace with him.

  “How dare you call me liar?” Theophylact gripped the hilt of his sword.

  “Liar and thief!”

  “Calm, dear Brother,” Benedict said. “You’re spent from the battle.”

  “What battle?” You were unprovoked yet attacked a lone man who came to trade in good faith.”

  Benedict stepped away from the approaching Johannes. “Brethren,” he addressed the congregation, spreading his arms like an orator. “Johannes is addled. He knows not what he says. We fought for our Holy Scriptures, I swear.”

  The assembled priests grumbled their doubts. Their murmuring reverberated through the hall.

  “You had no intention of trading the gold for the library. You didn’t even bring it.” Turning to Sergius, Johannes said, “They off-loaded the wagons and filled them with rubble. They still have the treasury hidden, likely in Theophylact’s castle.”

  The count drew his broad sword over his head and rushed for Johannes. But priests mobbed him, flinging themselves from all sides and disarming him of his blade.

  “Thief,” Sergius cried out, lifting his considerable bulk from the chair.

  “No, Brother, we sought only to protect the church’s fortune, so we hid it from the vile Saracens who would have surely taken the gold and our library, as well.”

  “Did you not say they were the ones who stole the gold?”

  Sergius stepped toward Benedict, who backed away, cowering. “Well…I…”

  “False priest, liar. Avarice is your sin. You have no truth in you.”

  “You hypocrite,” Benedict snarled back, “glutton and drunkard. You would’ve given away our treasure to pagans who desecrate the offerings with their filth.”

  Sergius glared at his brother. “Instead, you debase what is holy with your greed. You’re not fit to live in our brotherhood.”

  The grumbling of the clerics grew louder, their faces grim as they formed a circle around Benedict. “Wait, you know me,” he said. “I’m the Pope’s own brother, a noble like you.”

  “You’re no brother to me.” The ring of brown robes closed smaller, tighter like a noose. They fell upon Benedict and Theophylact, hoisting them aloft. “Cast them out,” Sergius said.

  Priests echoed, “Cast them out!” over and over as they passed the two helpless souls over their heads as though they were tossed helplessly on storm-churned waves. The raging current of hands washed them to the door and flung them out on the stone porch. Then, a dozen priests slammed the heavy doors with a resounding clang.

  The assembly heaved a collective sigh as if they had relieved themselves from aching bowels. Sergius hugged Johannes as a father would his son and begged him, “Tell us what happened, dear brother.”

  The crowd surrounded him pleading, “Give us a true accounting.”

  “I’ll reveal everything, but the telling grieves me. The loss is measureless for us all, for the world.”

  “You mean our gold and silver?” Sergius said. “Fear not. Theophylact and Benedict will return the lot or I’ll excommunicate them for this foul deed. The treasury will come to its rightful home.”

  “Not the patriarchum’s treasury. The Saracens took the silver altar over the tomb of the Apostle Peter and all of the gold. Indeed, they pilfered everything of value from the basilica and from the cathedral of Saint Paul as well. I watched them load perhaps three tons of gold and thirty of silver. Father Baraldus is in hot pursuit with troops from the foreign scholae and the Jews. Yet the Saracen retreat was swifter than you can imagine. I doubt they can be overtaken. Pray, Brothers, for we need a miracle.”

  Pope Sergius felt his knees buckle. Two priests rushed to support his massive weight. Johannes took the Holy Father’s weakened hand. Sergius probed the depths of the bibliothecarius’ eyes and asked, “Is there yet more?”

  “Saints preserve us, the worst hasn’t been told.”

  “I must know. Tell me all.”

  “They’ve stolen our library, the Scriptures, every document and every page. I was allowed to keep what few I could collect. Everything else is gone.”

  “My beautiful music, my compositions. Barbarians would have no use for my music.”

  “They’ve taken that as well.”

  “No,” the Pope said hoarsely. His eyes bulged and his legs gave way. As he slumped, the priests lowered him to the floor. Convulsing on the cool stone, he gripped his tightening breast with one hand. The other lay lifeless. One side of his face sagged and drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. “No,” he whispered again as his eyes rolled.

  “Get him to his bed,” Anastasius said. “He’s afflicted by a seizure.”

  Sergius languished unconscious, murmuring incomprehensibly with his half-paralyzed mouth. Doctors from all over Rome went to his bedside. They checked his pulse and measured his breaths, examining and postulating, then consulted even more doctors. The second-century Greek doctor, Claudius Galen, was still the medical authority in Rome, and his treatises were read over and over until a diagnosis was unanimously delivered. His Holiness had fallen victim to evil humors transmitted through the air by unclean barbarians. These foul humors had weakened his vital spirit and caused an imbalance of blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm, weakening his heart.

  A course of treatment was agreed upon. First, the evil had to be expelled. Thus, a regimen of bloodletting three times a day was prescribed until the poisons had been drained. Then a medicine of herbs would be administered to restore the internal balance of the natural humors. Rabbi Avraham had come at Johannes’ urgent request, accompanied by the finest Jewish doctors, who abhorred Galen’s outdated therapies. Though they already attended most of the nobility and cardinal priests, they were refused admittance by suspicious senior clerics who oversaw the Pope’s treatments.

  Johannes found himself idle for the first time in his life. He had no construction to oversee, no library to sort and catalogue. He delivered what canon scriptures he had saved to Anastasius, who had charge of the scriptorium, so his scribes might begin their laborious copying. Of course, he had kept the heresies hidden in the papal crypt beneath the basilica. Nevertheless, he was now reduced to a librarian in name only, in charge of perhaps the world’s smallest library.

  The basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul were a shambles, stripped of their finery. Tombs were hewn open, and the remains of popes and saints scattered. Altars and niches had been used as privies, and now priests and workmen labored to clean the filth so repairs might begin. How that might happen seemed a mystery. The church found itself destitute and with Sergius lying delirious on his sickbed, no authoritative threat of excommunication could be leveled at Theophylact or Benedict. Nevertheless, the details of their deception had come to light as soldiers in the service of the count repented to parish priests, confessing their part in the profane theft.

  Three days had passed, yet B
araldus sent no runner. Johannes made his way to the Trastevere to the house of the Rosh Yeshiva. He carried the odd horse collar that Prince Ahmad said could make him rich, although he had not divined how that might be. A horse pulling a wagon faster than oxen would be a great gift and more efficient for hauling goods. Still, horses were much more expensive, and swifter transport would make no man rich.

  “Any word from your son, Elchanan?” Johannes asked at the door before greeting the rabbi.

  “And good morning to you, too, Father bibliothecarius,” Avraham said, bowing low with a mocking courtly sweep of his arm.

  “You’re quite right, my sincere apologies. Good morning, Rosh Yeshiva. How are you today?”

  “Come in, come in. I’m eager for news like you. That’s how I am. How’s Sergius?”

  “I fear his condition is the same, but those attending him will say nothing. What news from your son?”

  “Not so much as a rumor. Still, I have faith that they can handle themselves.”

  “Against Saracen cavalry and infantry?”

  “A battle is fought in many ways. They will do what they can, but sit you down. Enjoy some tea, and what in heaven’s name is that thing you carry?”

  Johannes sat at the long table. He leaned the collar against the wall. “It’s a harness of some sort, for a horse.”

  Avraham eyed the object as he poured tea. “For a horse, you say?”

  “Yes, and I watched the Saracens use it. They hitched their small Arabians in teams to stout wagons and hauled them away like child’s play. I wouldn’t have believed it had I not been a witness.”

  Avraham lifted the collar, turning and examining it at various angles. He placed it on the table and stood back as though he might understand better from a distance. Finally, he put the contraption around his neck and let it rest on his shoulders. Bending over at the waist, he trotted up and down the kitchen, hollering, “clip-clop, clip-clop.”

  Johannes stared in shock at first then burst out in laughter as the old rabbi played horsey.

  “How simple,” Avraham said. “The collar rests on the beast’s withers and pulls against the sternum instead of bearing on the trachea, so horses can haul great loads without strangling. What a fine gift, a grand improvement over the throat-and-girth harness. You say the Saracens used them to pull their wagons?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you come by this one? Did you steal it?” The rabbi feigned an accusatory stare.

  “Of course not. It was given to me by their prince. And he said the oddest thing, that it could make me rich.”

  Avraham scratched the top of his balding head and knitted his brow while he pondered. “I wonder.” He turned without taking his leave and walked out of the room. Johannes had become accustomed to the rabbi’s odd flights of fancy and simply sipped his tea, waiting for him to return. “Johannes, come here,” Avraham called to the priest.

  “Where are you?”

  “In my study.”

  The priest followed the sound of his voice to a room whose walls were lined with shelves loaded with ancient scrolls and books. The rabbi had rolled out a scroll and traced the sentences with his finger. “I knew I had heard of such a thing although I couldn’t remember where, but it has come back to me.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “The Roman historian Pliny the Elder. He had a voracious mind.”

  “What could a historian possibly say about getting rich with a newfangled type of horse collar?”

  “You’ve obviously never been a farmer,” the rabbi said.

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t be expected to see the possibilities, so let me explain. Oxen are stupid beasts. Two years are required to train a team to the yoke to pull carts and wagons, but more importantly, a plow. Then their working life is only another two years, so farmers must constantly breed and train new teams; and oxen are also slow and plodding. Of course, they have their benefits. Ox meat is delicious. On the other hand, horses last twenty years and can be trained in a few months.”

  “That’s certainly more efficient, but how would that make a person rich?”

  “Because my learned friend who knows not a whit about agriculture, a horse walks three times faster than an ox, and a horse or team of horses can pull a plow three times faster than oxen.”

  Johannes began to catch on. “So a horse would plow more fields in less time and triple the yield.”

  “Now you know the potential for such a simple invention. Just one problem remains.”

  “That is?”

  “A farmer would need to triple the size of his farm.”

  Johannes shrugged his shoulders. “Why not clear more land?”

  “That’s the answer, of course, but clearing new land is slow and difficult with our light wooden plows, and that’s what made me remember Pliny. Look here.” Avraham pointed to a portion of the scroll. “He describes a heavy plow mounted on wheels in use hundreds of years ago in Gaul.”

  “The wheels would certainly make plowing easier because the farmer wouldn’t have to toil to hold it upright.”

  “Indeed, but there’s an even greater benefit. With wheels supporting the weight, the plowshare can be raised and lowered to change the depth of the furrow, depending on the crop. Such a plow on wheels could do everything from clearing land to shallow furrows for vegetables.”

  Johannes arched his eyebrows. “A new plow pulled by horses? Our poorest people would be awash in food.”

  “And in wealth.” Avraham thought for a moment and added, “But you must take care.”

  “Why?”

  “Wealth is power, and the powerful guard their privileges.”

  Not only was there discovery in the visit with Avraham, his words dispensed their usual wisdom. Johannes resolved to build these new rigid collars and heavy plows so they would be available to all, but he dare not do it in the church. That he knew, for word traveled faster in the patriarchum than a loosed arrow, and the inventions would fall into the hands of the wealthy while the poor lost their benefit. The librarian who had no library had to find a way to use these marvels for the poor. Still, the greatest landowner in Christendom was the Holy Church and for his church, he would find a way to use the collar and plow to earn back the money that had been lost.

  29

  Corruption of the Flesh

  Johannes inquired daily on the condition of Pope Sergius. Cardinal priests replied in vagaries, saying he was “as well as can be expected,” and “the learned physicians do everything humanly possible,” or “it’s in God’s merciful hands.”

  “Is His Holiness getting better or worse?” Johannes demanded, to which he would hear the infuriating reply, “Only God knows. Nevertheless, the physicians are hopeful but cautious.” Johannes deduced from their downcast spirits, however, that Sergius worsened.

  Weeks had passed since the Saracens fled with the church’s library, yet still no word from Baraldus. Johannes spent his time in the Jewish quarter with Avraham making drawings from Pliny’s description of a heavy plow on wheels.

  They gave the rigid horse collar to artisans: a carpenter, blacksmith, and harness maker to manufacture a copy. Having disassembled the prototype Johannes had provided, each crafted exacting reproductions of their part. The carpenter made a frame of wood. The harness maker copied the leather cover, and the smithy forged metal buckles for the collar to attach to the traces. However, they had not thought about who would assemble the parts. In the end, they took their jealously guarded pieces to the furniture maker, who fashioned padding from flax fibers and straw bound with linen and fitted them together while the others offered unwelcome suggestions.

  Johannes and Avraham were walking from the Rosh Yeshiva’s home to the furniture maker to inspect the finished product when a loud commotion came from all around. People fled their homes and workshops to the streets, making for the Ponte Rotto and the city. “They’re coming, they’re coming!” the crowd shouted as they hurried past. Avraham stoppe
d an old woman who tried to keep up with the horde. “Who’s coming, mother?”

  “Why, Rabbi,” the woman grinned from ear to ear. “It’s my son and your son, Elchanan. All our sons return in triumph.”

  Tears escaped Avraham’s shining eyes, and he grabbed Johannes’ arm for support. Together they merged into the river of Romans rushing down the street and flowing across the bridge.

  A long column of horsemen on sleek Arabians had already entered the city through the San Paolo gate, followed by the wagons that had left Rome laden with books and gold and silver from Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s. Only now, they were filled with naked, pitiful Saracens chained and shackled or bound with leather thongs.

  At the head of the convoy rode Baraldus, looking weary and uneasy on his mount with Elchanan by his side, sitting ramrod straight. Next to them was a captain wearing the uniform of the Emperor’s army. The mob surrounded the column, searching for husbands and fathers and sons and brothers. Avraham held his son’s hand as he walked beside his horse, gazing up at him.

  “Baraldus, you old warhorse,” Johannes greeted the Lombard. “You look miserable.”

  “I hate horses,” he said, “and this beast has thrown me twice. I’m an infantry man, fought on the ground with real men, may God forgive me. I’ve got blisters on my arse the size of walnuts. Here, you ride and I’ll walk.” With that, he hopped off and laced his fingers together so Johannes could climb up.

  “You sent no word, nothing. We were worried sick. You might have shown a little consideration.”

  Baraldus hung his head. “I had only evil tidings and didn’t want to be the one to tell of our misfortune.”

  “But you won. The Saracens are in chains and you recovered what they stole.”

  “Nothing of the sort, we lost…everything.”

  “I don’t understand. The enemy is defeated and you ride their horses.”

  “Oh, I can’t say it even now.” The hulking priest, who sported a steel helm and bronze breast plate over his brown priest’s robe and who had commanded a ragtag army against the Saracens, began to sniffle.