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  Benedict wasn’t cowed for long, however, and countered that the assassin, if indeed he was one, was dead and no evidence had been presented to show that any further threat existed. Nevertheless the rules of the patriarchum were clear: no priest could abandon his duties for a period longer than three weeks. Therefore Anastasius, the Cardinal of San Marcello, was excommunicated from the church.

  Johanna was disconsolate and dreaded sending her beloved the terrible news, but Bishop Arsenius appeared unconcerned. “This isn’t a major setback,” he said, “only a bump in the road. Theophylact and his supporters fear that the Emperor extends his power within the Papal Palace, and they wish to nip it before his influence can take root. They believe they’ve won,” he laughed. “No such thing. Their authority doesn’t extend past the diocese of Rome. Anastasius is safe at my house in Chiusi where Lothair rules, just beyond their reach.”

  “But he’s been deprived of his priesthood.”

  “This is a political move not a religious one,” Arsenius said. “Anastasius will be a priest in Lombardy until he can return to Rome. Excommunications are just words. They can be pronounced but also withdrawn. Never fear for Anastasius. His excommunication will be undone, but you are the one who should take care. You stand in Benedict’s way. What they tried to do to my nephew, they are sure to visit upon you.”

  “Are you saying they would try to assassinate me? I’m no favorite of the Emperor’s.”

  “It wasn’t wise to stand up for Anastasius and expose Benedict in the bargain. Benedict can’t fathom how you undid him, and I should like to know as well. I won’t ask, for we all need our secrets. But while he doesn’t vie against you for power, for you possess little, Benedict is vexed the other cardinals listen to you. You revealed that you’re audacious enough to thwart his ambition.”

  “I only wished to defend Anastasius,” Johanna said.

  “Yet you’ve made Benedict fear you. Poor judgment, I must say. You’d do well to remember that in the Papal Palace, there are only two kinds of clerics: those who hold power and those who wish to take it from them. It’s not advisable to let people see which one you are.”

  “I’m neither. I simply want to serve the church in the best way I can.”

  “Um, too bad,” Arsenius said as he surveyed Johanna’s soft, hairless face. “I think you might be the cleverest of all. No matter, I’ll tell you where you must get for the time being. Leave the schola cantorum at once, or you won’t live many more days. Find a place outside the city walls where allies can watch you. There’s strength in numbers.”

  “Where would I find such a place and still perform my duties as Cardinal?”

  “Are you not English by birth, Johannes Anglicus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should move to the Borgo. There’s an Anglo-Saxon school and a hospital as well as a church, Santo Spirito in Sassia, I believe. You would be with your own people where neither Benedict nor Theophylact nor any of their spies can enter without being spotted. Get you to the Borgo, Johannes Anglicus. You’ll be safe there.”

  The Borgo, which was the old fourteenth district of Imperial Rome, lay sandwiched between the Vatican to the north and the Jewish ghetto in the Trastevere to the south, with the Tiber on the eastern edge. Its inhabitants were mostly Anglo-Saxons, but also Lombards, Franks and Frisians, and not a single Roman. King Ina, the monarch of the West Saxons, had founded the schola Anglorum in the Year of our Lord 727 with the blessing of Pope Gregory II. Attached to the schola, he built a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary to serve the spiritual needs of English pilgrims.

  Yet many who made the arduous pilgrimage across the channel from Wessex to Francia, then crossing Burgundy and Italy, were the lame and infirm, who hoped to pray for a miracle at the tomb of Saint Peter. Alas, many prayers received no answer, so King Ina set aside a cemetery for their earthly remains. Later in the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxons’ most powerful sovereign, King Offa of Mercia in the English midlands, added a hospital to the schola Anglorum.

  Around this island of English transplanted on the alluvial sands between the Tiber and the clay hills leading to the Vatican, a community of expatriates had grown. They set up shop to serve like-minded immigrants who flocked to Rome for a new life in the capitol of Christendom.

  Thus did the Borgo become a safe haven for foreigners across the river from the city. Bishop Arsenius was right, neither Benedict nor Theophylact cast any influence here. In fact, Romans avoided the outsiders, who they considered to be of low caste. Those few who dared venture into the Borgo were watched with resentment and mistrust.

  Not only did Johanna find safety among her own people, but Prince Ahmad could wander without his metal collar, unshackled and unmolested. Baraldus reveled in his newfound celebrity with his Lombard countrymen and guards of the foreign scholae, who he had commanded in the defense of Rome. They hailed him as savior of the city and bought him drinks in the taverns in exchange for tales of his exploits in the days when he was a captain in the army of the Empire. As for Johanna, the Borgo seemed like the home of her childhood, which she had put out of her mind for years and years.

  Unlike Romans who fashioned their homes with flat brick and stone covered by marble veneers, the English built with wood. They constructed their houses and shops in the half-timber style, beams attached with pegs to frame the structure, and planks for the joists. The walls were fashioned in layers called a cob. The middle was a mat of branches or reeds woven into the frame and plastered over with a mixture of mud and straw. The floors were earthen or wooden boards, and the roof was thatch. The only stone to be found was the fireplace in the main room, which held a crackling fire that cast warmth and shadows. It was just the comfort Johanna needed, cocooned in the memories of her youth, and only a fifteen-minute stroll to a cup of tea, sweet cakes, and intellectual diversion at the table in the Rosh Yeshiva’s kitchen.

  Her new home was better suited to her position as Cardinal of the Apostolic farms since the Borgo adjoined the Trastevere. A short stroll and Johanna could survey the Jewish craftsmen who worked with an industry and efficiency that dumbfounded her. Plows, rigid horse collars, yokes, and harnesses were manufactured by the hundreds, along with spades and scythes.

  Baraldus, for his part, commanded the tenant farmers and freemen as he would a brigade, ordering which fields to plow and which to leave fallow; when to harvest, and which crops to rotate. He purchased the choicest cows, bulls, ewes, and rams like a shrewd hand. Then, running roughshod over the husbandmen in the raising of the beasts, the offspring bullocks, heifers, and lambs were sold to the fleshmongers.

  Crops and cattle flooded Rome, and a large surplus was exported to the Frankish lands, Lombardy, Frisia, and Germany. Plows and farm implements were hauled to the port of Ostia and loaded on ships bound for foreign ports, even to the Saracens in Spain and Sicily. The great city of Rome that had fallen upon desperate times became prosperous and proud once again.

  Laborers came from all over Lothair’s Frankish empire to build Leo’s new wall, and the finest artisans worked on the restoration of Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s as well as the ruined schola cantorum. People labored and laughed and played. Everyone was content; everyone, that is, except Johanna, who for long years lived inside her longing letters to her love, Anastasius. She took care, of course, not to post them with church’s couriers, for she knew they would be read. Instead she gave her dispatches to Avraham, who entrusted them to Jewish traffickers, traveling north to sell their goods in Chiusi’s markets and fairs.

  Her visits with Avraham became as frequent as her letters and today she handed him the latest, lingering as usual to accept the hospitality of his cozy kitchen.

  “What troubles your soul Johannes,” Avraham said. “You come to talk, yet are quiet. In truth, I think your body is here but your thoughts are far, far away.”

  “I don’t know what ails me. It’s just that I feel rather useless, like I’m not needed.”

  “Ridiculous.
The farming is a great success. All of Rome is astounded by what you’ve done. Your genius is the talk of the city. Coins flow into everyone’s hands like water. Craftsmen and artisans can hardly keep up with their orders. Farmers are flush with crops and hard cash, yet their burden is eased. Money fills the church’s coffers once again, and Leo has the finances to build his wall, which even now spreads around the Vatican. Masons and carpenters rebuild your cathedrals grander and more glorious than before. This is a revolution the world has not seen in many centuries. Only the rich grumble. They watch their power slipping away.”

  “Do you know me so little? I don’t care what Rome says about me, good or bad. Baraldus works with the farmers when he isn’t spinning tales in the inns. Ahmad’s days are full of contracts, finance, and endless ledgers. Even your son is occupied organizing the suppliers, but what do I do? I’m idle.”

  Avraham pondered his guest for a long moment. “You’re right. I have not seen you, but I’m not quite as blind as you might think.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s easy enough to see if one looks beyond how we wish others to view us.”

  Johanna’s jaw dropped until she caught herself.

  The Rosh Yeshiva smiled serenely, “You would fill the days to overflowing so your mind has little time to dwell on the hole in your heart.”

  “It’s only that you all contribute and I do nothing.”

  “You’re the cardinal of the Apostolic farms. You don’t toil in the fields and workshops like the others. You hold a position of authority, to make sure all do their jobs well, and you’ve done it better than anyone might have fathomed. Yet your idleness is not what you lament. Your melancholy is that you miss Anastasius.”

  Johanna fidgeted in her seat. “Of course I do. He’s my dearest friend and I worry for his safety.”

  The rabbi leaned back in his chair and sighed, “Who would not in your place?”

  “I need his help and advice. I’m lost without him.”

  “Do you need him to help you with your idleness?”

  Johanna realized her misstep and searched for an answer.

  “I’m sorry, my words were thoughtless,” Avraham said. “Who would not long to hold their dearest friend once again and listen to his soft voice and gentle counsel? Do I not miss you when you’ve been too long at your labors?” The Rosh Yeshiva leaned forward at the corner of the table, bringing his grizzled face close to the priest’s. “Still, there’s no despair like the longing one feels when they’ve lost their wife.”

  Johanna peered into the old man’s eyes.

  “When my beloved wife died, I believed my world had come to an end; indeed, part of it had. I knew I would never again enjoy the affection and comfort of a woman. My love was gone to me until my time comes to join her.”

  Tears filled Johanna’s eyes and flowed down her rosy cheeks. She flung herself into Avraham’s open arms, weeping.

  “Now, now daughter. Put your faith in God and pray that he will protect your love and guide him once again to you. I’ll say a prayer in the synagogue that He Who Cannot Be Named hears our plea. I’m certain He will.”

  Johanna sobbed and sniffed, trying to control her crying. “How long have you known?”

  “Since the day we met. I’m bewildered you didn’t spot it in this old man’s eyes.”

  37

  Peripleumonia

  The English school’s Headmaster was beside himself with joy that such a famous cardinal and distinguished scholar would offer his services as a mere teacher at the humble schola anglorum, the English guild’s university in the Borgo. Avraham had counseled Johanna to fill her days helping her own people. “There can be no greater gift than education,” he had said, “and you possess a surfeit. I’ve spent my life educating my Jewish brethren about the Torah and its lessons for our lives and souls. No occupation could be nobler than a teacher. Do your scriptures not call Jesus, Teacher? Let Him be your example.”

  Thus did Johanna leave primicerius Baraldus in charge of the apostolic farm colonies assisted by Ahmad and Elchanan. They were the real force behind the success of the farms anyway, she told herself.

  “But surely you should be Master of the Trivium or Quadrivium departments,” the school’s Headmaster said.

  “No,” Johanna replied. “I wish only to be a humble teacher. I’m well qualified to teach grammar and logic, and perhaps even geometry so my students can measure the length and breadth of their lands and daily work.”

  Rome’s academic institutions, like all those in the Western World, were based on Aristotle’s model of education: the Trivium, which included grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the Quadrivium’s arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Schools educated children of the nobility or wealthy merchants to prepare them for a life administering their family’s lands or business, or a career in law or even the church. Although the English school taught mainly their own people, they educated lesser nobles and less prominent merchants as well. There were also a few students from wealthier families who wanted to be immersed in a foreign language like Frankish or English.

  However, Johanna had a new idea. She believed that knowledge was power. Farmers and ordinary people might free themselves from mind-numbing labor or indenture to the church or nobility if only they could be educated.

  “If their minds can be freed from ignorance,” she told the Headmaster, “then they might devise a way to emancipate themselves from their servitude.”

  “Education is expensive. Who will pay for it? We’re not a charitable institution, and while our classes have not the quality of universities in Rome, they still cost money.”

  “I will,” Johanna said.

  “You? Has a priest such a fortune that he can compensate us for our costs?”

  “For each man that labors on the farms or on Leo’s wall or the restoration of the cathedrals, the church will pay for a child, boy or girl, to be educated here.”

  “Girls, in the schola anglorum? Unheard of!”

  “All or nothing, that’s my offer. You can either become the largest, most profitable university in Rome, with girl students, or I shall find somewhere else to teach. What say you?”

  Johanna began her newest career as a teacher the following week, but, never having taught, she didn’t know where to begin. Frazzled, she fled as usual to Avraham, who patiently instructed her in the rudiments of lesson plans, starting from the simplest ideas and building on them to more complicated ones. He assured her that within a month, it would become routine but at the end of two long and frustrating weeks, her head swam. She returned to the Borgo and fell into bed without eating the supper Ahmad had prepared and was sound asleep before Vespers.

  She tossed and turned, locked in a dreadful nightmare where she stood in front of her class stark naked as students laughed and mocked her. Worse, her womanhood was stripped bare, and she tried to cover herself with her hands. Schoolboys pointed and snickered while the girls hung their heads in shame. The boys yanked at the girls’ hair and lifted their frocks to humiliate them.

  One part of her heard the bolt on the door slide and the other did not, and she was scarcely aware that her covers were pulled back and a man had slipped onto the pallet beside her. It was only when her body began to warm that she jerked awake. A hand covered her mouth. “Anastasius!” she cried in surprise and delight, then threw her arms around her sorely missed love, showering his face with kisses.

  “I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck and holding her in his large hands.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “The streets are empty except for a few snoring drunks.”

  Their lips met as they grasped and caressed, smelling one another’s musky sweetness, trying to crawl into each other’s skins, to cleave together physically just as their hearts were already joined. Anastasius brushed back Johanna’s short, cropped hair as she clung to him, kissing his lips and finally pulling her fugitive love upon her. The
y feasted upon one another, giving their passion free rein, worshiping and adoring until satisfied unto exhaustion. Then they fell into a deep slumber, side by side, wrapped safe and contented in the tenderness of each other’s arms.

  Johanna coughed and choked, awakening to an acrid stench that strangled her. Her eyes stung, and she was blinded by tears. Shoving herself off the pallet, she felt for the clay lamp on her bed stand, knocking it over, and crawled on hands and knees to search for it. The air was cleaner near the floorboards, and her head cleared a bit. The thatched roof sparked and sparkled like fiery stars. Smoke filled the room, and the ceiling burst into flames.

  “Anastasius, wake up!” Johanna shook and shook, but couldn’t rouse him so she dragged him off the pallet to the ground and slapped his face, to no avail. She pressed on his chest over and over. Finally, he spat and coughed, then retched. They crawled to the door, keeping their noses close to the ground, but thick smoke descended like a fog and they choked and heaved. Holding his breath Anastasius pulled the bolt and shoved, but the door wouldn’t budge. He drove his shoulder into the wooden planks with all his might, but it moved scarcely an inch. Starved for oxygen, he slumped over.

  Johanna pushed on the door from the floor, but it would open only a crack, and flames crept in when she did, licking at her hands. “Help us,” she croaked, gasping for air while holding her palm to her nose. Her head spun and her eyes rolled as she heard a crashing from outside. She could barely utter a whisper and lay down, clasping Anastasius’s hand, willing herself to remain conscious.