by Ben Hopkins
“We were robbed!” I exclaim, “by thieving children! And when we tried to recover our stolen property the crowd turned on us! Not on the thieves!”
“Very regrettable,” says the director, bowing again. His white hand slips out of his Benedictine robes like a snake from a stone. “Let me show you to your chambers, My Lord Treasurer.”
The Director leads me up a scuffed marble staircase to the second floor. Flaking, whitewashed walls surround an inner courtyard where the scent of flowers competes with the stench of the streets and achieves a temporary victory.
He opens the door to my room; wide, white, and decorated with roses in silver-plated vases. White sheets, white walls, white shutters, white roses. Peace and purity, unblemished.
He opens the shutters, and I am moved to see that my room looks out on the Basilica itself; seemingly only an arrow’s flight away, the Church founded by Peter, beloved of Christ! Its bell tower, separate from the church itself, rises over the rooves of the city, over the domes and spires, over the sea of terracotta tiles, smoking chimneys, circling doves, over the thousands of Romans, pilgrims, clerics and thieves. The sun is setting, and an auburn light deepens the lengthening shadows of the stones. From a hundred churches, the soft toll of vespers bells. And beneath my window, an old lady squatting to defecate in the street.
† † †
“Why me?”
His Grace passes me a short letter, in poor handwriting and in poorer Lothringen German, addressed from Dagsburg Castle. Lady close to deathe.
“From my spy at Dagsburg,” says the Bishop with a wink.
“We have heard this before, many times.”
“As soon as the thaw comes, you’ll go. By sea from Provence, not over the Alps—it will take too long for the passes to open. I need you in Rome as soon as you can get there.”
I fold the letter and stare into the leaping flames in the grate. “I am to persuade the Curia to judge in our favour? The Dagsburg Inheritance?”
“You are.”
“And how much will that cost?”
Berthold shrugs. “I don’t know. But somehow I judge that you will get a better price than Varenus. You are a fine haggler.”
I look up at His Grace. “I had better succeed. We have sore need of new revenue.”
“We do?”
“Our bequests are down, Your Grace. A long way down.”
He nods gravely. “Our people are punishing us. We struck a strong blow against heresy, and it was well received in Rome. But here, it feels that we struck too hard.” He looks up at me. “When you are Bishop, Eugenius, these are the books that you will have to balance. Not everything is counted in marks, shillings and pence.”
“In my world, Your Grace, it is. I will have to reduce our outgoings this year.”
“Do as you need to do. I trust you. Just,” and here he raises an admonishing finger, “do not touch the Cathedral.”
An unhappy silence.
“I am afraid I will have to. The work will have to be slowed. Workers dismissed. One in four.”
The Bishop shakes his head. A pause. He clears his throat. “One in six.”
“One in four. Or would you have me borrow from the Jews?”
“Everyone else does.”
“I will have to borrow, already. To pay the Curia. But I prefer to raise that from the banks in Rome.”
“If we win the Dagsburg case, then we will pay back the loan immediately.”
“If.”
His Grace folds his hands. “That Cathedral is my legacy to Hagenburg.”
“One in five, effective immediately. Even that will leave us exposed.”
A grunt. A nod. “One in five.”
† † †
I had never expected to see this. I thought I would spend my days pushing pennies and abacus beads in the Counting House. I thought I would die at my desk, or, failing that, be stabbed to death in a forest by some embittered landowner on my way back from collecting his taxes.
I never thought I would come to Rome.
It is Sunday morning, the day after we arrived. We flow through the huge gateways into the basilica courtyard, surrounded by columned arcades and crowds of people; I am adrift in a sea of pilgrims and supplicants from all four corners of Christendom, from Ireland, the Baltic, from Portugal, from Dalmatia. From Alsace.
Magnus pulls at my sleeve, and my junior clerk stumbles behind as we push our way into the shadow of the bell-tower, now tolling for mass, and rush towards the Basilica’s sun-dazzled portals. I am surprised to find myself excited like a child at the idea of taking communion in St. Peter’s. It is as if I have shed two decades of weariness, disappointment and cynicism. I feel elated, blinded by the bright sunlight, hopeful of holiness.
At the doorway, liveried wardens usher the congregants to their places. As we stumble inside one of them looks us up and down, as if a slave-trader estimating our value, pauses, and then, as we say nothing, gestures us to his right at the back of the Nave. We obediently follow, taking our place in the crush of the crowd. The basilica is already full to bursting . . . and we were just in time; they are now closing the doors behind us to still the flood of pilgrims.
There is no room to kneel, to bow, to genuflect. We are like sheep herded together to be shorn, pushed into a pen. I look around (thanks to God, I am a head higher than most of the congregation) and cannot help but notice we have been ushered amongst the poor and indigent at the back of the Basilica. Some twenty paces ahead there is space, light, and room to move. There are even benches where one may sit, and these pews are dotted with priests and nobles, colourfully dressed Ladies, and velvet robed Lords.
I look over to our Usher, who shrugs at me with an insolent face, and looks away. Curse him and the bitch that bore him. Why have we been accorded this insult to our station?
There is a tug at my sleeve. I look down and see a Roman boy with a dirt-smudged yet bright-eyed face. “Luca summa,” he says in his dog Latin. These Romans add at least three syllables to every word they speak. They call me “Eugenio Vonnalazzabberna”—just as an egregious example.
“Yes, Luca?” I say.
“This issa no place-a for a gran signore like-a you, sir,” he says and tugs at my sleeve again. “I take-a you?” His grinning face nods in the direction of the front benches. “Yes, take me,” I say, gesturing to my retinue to stay where they are.
Luca pulls me out into the slightly-less-crowded aisle. “One half augustale for middle-a, and one full-a augustale for front-a,” he says.
“You take me for a fool?”
“No, signore is gran signore. Today papa issa in massa, and price is alto.”
A gasp ripples through the congregation. I look towards the marble columns of the Choir, but can see almost nothing; here I am in the thick of the crowd. Luca explains: “Papa issa entrato.”
The Holy Father is here, and I cannot see him. I dig in my purse and pull out—God forgive me—a golden augustale. Luca grins triumphantly, takes the coin and runs over to give it to the usher.
The usher, God damn his soul, nods superciliously and comes to escort me to my place near the Transept. He enjoys his smirking triumph at having milked me for my gold, and, with practised dexterity, pushes the crowds aside as he leads me forward through the envious horde. Ahead, the choir has begun its chanting and the Basilica’s marble resounds with song. Here the crowd is denser, and it’s only with difficulty that I arrive at the wooden fencing that corrals the people in their pen.
With a pretence at ceremony, the usher swings open the gate, and bows deeply as he takes his leave. I am now in freedom, and can choose my place from the few remaining empty seats, amongst nobles, Bishops, canons, and—by the look of it—courtesans.
I slide into a vacant seat between a tiny Spaniard nobleman attired in black velvet and an over-painted, dark-skinned strumpet with flaxen gold hair gl
eaming through the loose folds of her wimple. I nod a greeting to the nobleman, shun the whore, and look up to the splendour of the Choir and its gleaming windows, lit by the rising sun.
We kneel. The sound of thousands of people falling to their knees as one before God; a holy sound. As I close my eyes to meditate, I see a man looking at me intently. Bright green eyes, trimmed dark beard, clothes of a beautiful, dark blue silk . . . When I open my eyes again, he nods at me; welcoming, respectful.
I look away, to the Crossing and the Choir. In the distance, by the altar, Our Holy Father Gregory the Ninth. A little, bent old man, heir of St. Peter, swaddled in gold thread and jewels.
† † †
Outside, the sun dazzles me, and an elegant, manicured hand takes mine. It belongs to the man in blue silk. “I am Guido Terzani. You are the Treasurer of Hagenburg?”
“I am.”
“I am a banker. Please come with me, I have some information for you.”
His soft hand tugs gently at mine, guiding me away from the flowing throng, towards a door in the marble arcade, guarded by two Papal Soldiers. The Soldiers recognise Terzani and step aside, and we are admitted into a quiet courtyard where flowers and herbs grow in profusion.
“The sun is too hot for you?” asks Terzani, gesturing questioningly towards the seats in the bright herb garden.
“My clothes are too heavy for the climate. I must have new ones made.”
“Tomorrow I will bring you to my tailor.” His hand springs once more into life, turning and gesturing towards one of the arcade benches in the cool of the shade. “We will make some fine new clothes for you, signore. Please sit.”
“I thank you.”
We sit. Other notables are filing in from the courtyard door, coming from mass, taking places in the arcade and garden, talking in the Italian style: all at the same time as each other, and moving their hands around in intricate gesticulations.
Terzani’s green eyes look at me as I gaze at the new world that surrounds me. “This is the first circle. The Basilica Courtyards—a place for conversation, discussion, for gossip, for news. The Second Circle . . . the front steps and hallway of the Papal Palace—a place to make appointments, to manufacture chance meetings, to accost the Cardinals’ messengers and servants to request an audience. The Third Circle, the office corridors where one can meet face to face with the clerks of the Curia, the Fourth Circle, the rooms of their personal secretaries, the Fifth, audience with a Cardinal himself, the Sixth, to be heard in camera by a sitting of a quorum, the Seventh . . . ”
“The Holy Father?”
“Oh no! The Seventh, the Holy Father’s personal secretaries, the Eighth, the Holy Father himself. And the Ninth . . . ”
“There is a Ninth?”
“The Ninth is to be heard by God. Or the Devil. Whichever is of more value to you.”
I concede him one of my warped smiles. It’s nice patter, and I am intrigued, but not yet impressed.
“Tomorrow,” says Terzani, “you will be charged with murder, but do not worry.”
This gets my full attention. Terzani’s eyes are sparkling; he seems amused at my doubtless ashen expression. “It seems you or one of your entourage cut a child’s arm, and later he died.”
I am shocked. “The child died?”
Terzani shrugs. “Maybe he died, maybe he didn’t, it is not relevant.”
“It seems so to me.”
“The point is, the child is probably running around happily, with his arm bandaged, and another child has been registered as dead, in any case, tomorrow a bailiff will come to you and charge your party with murder, and you will have to pay bail and a security, and they will set a watch over you to make sure you do not flee the city and so on and so on. Do not worry, this is just intimidation.”
I try and maintain a level expression, as if this were all perfectly normal. Terzani continues volubly, his elegant hands dancing, emphasising, punctuating the flow of his beautiful Latin.
“I know officials in the Tribunal, in the courts, in the authorities. With the right donations, the charges will be dropped.”
“I understand.”
“But this is just the beginning. You have walked into a trap, Treasurer, a labyrinth. And you will need a guide to help you to escape and win a victory in the case of the Dagsburg inheritance.”
“And that guide would be you, I take it?”
Guido shrugs, lifts his arms to the sky in a gesture of modesty. “You are a genius, Treasurer! You see everything!”
Even though this man is doubtless a fraud, I cannot help but like him. There is charm in the way he does not attempt to hide his machinations.
“You are being . . . ” and his two hands make a truly obscene gesture, “fottuto. Is it Metz? Or Lüttich? They both have a claim in this inheritance case. Or even the Zähringen and Habsburg families? They have a claim. Are they furbi, foxy enough to seek local help in Rome to fottere the competition?” And his hands gleefully fornicate each other once again.
“I very much doubt it.”
“You underestimate your opponents?”
“They are German nobles. So am I. I know them well. This is not their modus operandi. Nor is it mine.”
“Then it must be Metz or Lüttich. But listen, Treasurer, to the winds of politics. The whispers in the Second and Third circles . . . His Holy Father. Whom does he hate more than anyone else?”
That is an easy question. “Emperor Friedrich.”
“Bravo. From what family is the Emperor?”
“The Staufen.”
“Bravo. They are saying . . . the Pope, he wants to give support to a new noble family in Germany, to a new clan that can take away the strength of the Staufen. And the new clan is the Habsburg. And . . . they have a good claim in this Inheritance.”
“That is interesting. But Hagenburg’s case is stronger. And we too have been resistant to the Staufen. A strong Hagenburg is the greatest rock His Holy Father can rely on in the German Lands.”
“A nice speech, Treasurer. But now your words fall on deaf ears. You are paying the wrong Cardinal, and not nearly enough. You need new advice, new champions. And a new bank.”
The sparkle dims from his eyes, and they harden. Here it comes. “I can help you. With everything. And it won’t be as expensive as you think.”
† † †
The Ides of March. The Vogesen snows are melting, the Sâone will be a-swell with the thaw and will speed me to Lyon, whence via the Rhône to Arles and the sea. I am packing my things for the journey to Rome. Countess Gertrud is dead. This time it is incontestable; His Grace had his Dagsburg spy stick pins into her corpse, just to make sure.
My personal possessions are few, and are packed in a few brief moments. The Dean has given me a St. Christopher statuette for the journey. I would be touched if it were well-intended, but it is probably smeared with poison. On balance, I feel I will “forget” to take it with me.
There is one more thing I want to do before I go.
At last, a knock on the door. My Clerk Hieronymus.
“You are late. Come in.”
He bows, and kisses my ring.
“Hieronymus, last year we raided a village of Cathar heretics near Honau. Some escaped, but most were captured and were burned at the stake. Very few repented their sins and returned to the Church.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“I must go now. Whilst I am gone, look into the records, and see if you can find the whereabouts of the surviving converts. And go quietly to where they can be found, and ask them . . . if they know Achim von Esinbach.”
Hieronymus looks up at me, surprised. And then comprehension creeps into his eyes.
“If you value your life, you will tell no-one of this.”
Hieronmyus nods.
“Although the Dombaumeister is manifestly mad,
the Mason’s Lodge and the Bishop remain loyal to him. And so von Esinbach’s extravagant, costly vision remains uncontested. But if he were a heretic . . . ?”
“I see.”
“Report to me your findings by letter. Now, I am for the road.”
“A safe journey, sir.”
I shoulder my bag.
“Sir, you’ve forgotten your Saint Christopher?”
“God damn you, Hieronymus.”
Mists are rising from the Ehle as we embark on the barges that will take us upriver towards Burgundy. Despite the cold, I sit on the prow and stare ahead as we creep slowly against the swell. The thick fog repaints the world as a variation in grey and shadow, a world without forms or definition.
In my mind, a day of high wind, in the reedbeds by Honau. The village of the Heretics, and amongst them, the two sisters, remarkable in their beauty. And then, some days later, at the Burning Ground, as the elder girl began to burn, Master Achim von Esinbach, raving, and calling out her name. “Odile!”
The ravings of a Madman? Or of a Lover?
The Lover of a Heretic? Or a Heretic himself?
The world of mists gives no answer. The brown waters churn and swirl, making patterns and shapes. A heron, surprised by our sudden emergence from the fog, launches upwards, disappearing in the direction of the invisible sky.
This is how journeys begin.
ANNO
1235
THIS IS AN “A”
(ANNO 1235. MANFRED GERBER V)
The Merchants’ Church. Difficult to believe, but it was originally Bertle’s idea. One evening a short time after Manfred Senior’s murder, they were drinking in zum thrunkenen Cahne and Bertle slammed down his mug and said, “And if their big bastard church is too good for the likes of us then we’ll build our own bloody church and go and kneel there!” And there was a short silence at the table; one of those silences in which an Angel seems to flutter past and perch on your shoulders, and Manfred looked at Günther and Günther looked at Rolo and Rolo looked at Manfred and they thought . . . Our own bloody church?