Benedict was not content to let his future hang upon the slender thread of prayer. I must do something. But what?
“My lord.”
Benedict was roused from his reverie by the small, hesitant voice of Celestinus, one of the papal cubicularii, or chamberlains. Like most of his fellows, Celestinus was the scion of a rich and aristocratic Roman family that had paid handsomely for the honor of having their young son serve as chamberlain to the Pope. Benedict regarded the boy with dislike. What did this pampered child of privilege know of life, of the hard scrabble to raise oneself up from obscurity?
“What is it?”
“My lord Anastasius requests an audience with you.”
“Anastasius?” Benedict could not place the name.
“Bishop of Castellum,” Celestinus offered helpfully.
“You dare instruct me?” Furious, Benedict brought his hand down forcefully on Celestinus’s cheek. “That will teach you respect for your betters. Now be off, and bring the bishop to me here.”
Celestinus hurried away, cradling his cheek tearfully. Benedict’s hand stung where it had contacted the boy; he flexed it, feeling better than he had in days.
Moments later Anastasius swept regally through the doors. Tall and courtly, the epitome of aristocratic elegance, he was well aware of the impression he made on Benedict.
“Pax vobiscus,” Benedict greeted him in mangled Latin.
Anastasius noted the barbarism but took care not to let his contempt show. “Et cum spiritu tuo,” he responded smoothly. “How fares His Holiness the Pope?”
“Poorly. Very poorly.”
“I grieve to hear it.” This was more than politeness; Anastasius truly was concerned. The time was not yet right for Sergius to die. Anastasius would not be thirty-five, the minimum age required in a Pontiff, for more than a year. If Sergius died now, a younger man than he might be elected, and it could be twenty years or more before the Chair of St. Peter stood vacant again. Anastasius did not intend to wait that long to realize his life’s ambition.
“Your brother is skillfully attended, I trust?”
“He is surrounded night and day by holy men offering prayers for his recovery.”
“Ah!” There was a silence. Both men were skeptical of the efficacy of such measures, but neither could own his doubt openly.
“There is someone at the Schola Anglorum,” Anastasius ventured, “a priest with a great reputation for healing.”
“Oh?”
“John Anglicus, I believe he is called—a foreigner. Apparently he is a man of great learning. They say that he can perform veritable miracles of healing.”
“Perhaps I should send for him,” said Benedict.
“Perhaps,” Anastasius agreed, then let the matter drop. Benedict, he sensed, was not a man to be pushed. Tactfully, Anastasius shifted the discussion to another matter. When he judged a reasonable amount of time to have passed, he stood to leave. “Dominus tecum, Benedictus.”
“Deus vobiscus.” Benedict mangled the form once again.
Ignorant oaf, Anastasius thought. That such a man could rise so far in power was an embarrassment, a stain upon the reputation of the Church. With a bow and an elegant sweep of his robes, Anastasius turned and left.
Benedict watched him go. Not a bad sort, for an aristocrat. I will send for this healer-priest, this John Anglicus. It would probably cause trouble, bringing in someone who was not a member of the society of physicians, but no matter. Benedict would find a way. There was always a way, when one knew what one wanted.
THREE dozen candles blazed at the foot of the great bed in which Sergius lay. Behind them knelt a clot of black-robed monks, droning litanies in deep-voiced unison.
Ennodius, chief physician of Rome, raised his iron lancet and drew it deftly across Sergius’s left forearm, slicing into the chief vein. Blood welled from the wound and dripped into a silver bowl held by Ennodius’s apprentice. Ennodius shook his head as he examined the blood in the bowl. It was thick and dark; the peccant humor that was causing the Pope’s illness was compacted in the body and would not be drawn out. Ennodius left the wound open, letting the blood flow longer than usual; he would not be able to bleed Sergius again for some days, for the moon was passing into Gemini, an unpropitious sign for bloodletting.
“How does it look?” Florus, a fellow physician, asked.
“Bad. Very bad.”
“Come outside,” Florus whispered. “I must speak with you.”
Ennodius staunched the wound, pressing the flaps of skin together and applying pressure with his hand. The task of binding the wound with grease-coated leaves of rue wrapped in cloth he left to his apprentice. Wiping the blood from his hands, he followed Florus out to the hall.
“They’ve sent for someone else,” Florus said urgently as soon as they were alone. “A healer from the Schola Anglorum.”
“No!” Ennodius was chagrined. The practice of medicine within the city was supposed to be strictly confined to members of the physicians’ society—though in actuality a small and unrecognized army of medical dabblers plied their questionable skills among the populace. These were tolerated, as long as they operated anonymously among the poor. But a forthright acknowledgment of one of these, coming from the papal palace itself, represented an undeniable threat.
“John Anglicus, the man is called,” Florus said. “Rumor has it he is possessed of extraordinary powers. They say he can diagnose an illness merely by examining a patient’s urine.”
Ennodius sniffed. “A charlatan.”
“Obviously. But some of these medical pretenders are quite artful. If this John Anglicus can mount even an appearance of skill, it could be damaging.”
Florus was right. In a profession such as theirs, where results were often disappointing and always unpredictable, reputation was everything. If this outsider should meet with success where they had been seen to fail …
Ennodius thought for a moment. “He makes a study of urine, you say? Well, then, we’ll provide him with a sample.”
“Surely the last thing we should do is help the foreigner!”
Ennodius smiled. “I said we’d provide him with a sample, Florus. I didn’t say from whom.”
SURROUNDED by an escort of papal guards, Joan walked quickly toward the Patriarchium, the enormous palace housing the papal residence as well as the multiplicity of administrative offices that constituted the seat of government in Rome. Bypassing the great Basilica of Constantine, with its magnificent line of round-arched windows, they entered the Patriarchium. Inside, they climbed a short flight of stairs which let upon the triclinium major, or great hall of the palace, whose construction had been commissioned by Pope Leo of blessed memory.
The hall was paved in marble and decorated with myriad mosaics, worked with a degree of artistry that left Joan awestruck. Never before had she seen colors so bright, nor figures so lifelike. No one in Frankland—bishop, abbot, count, not even the Emperor himself— could command such magnificence.
In the center of the triclinium, a group of men was gathered. One came forward to greet her. He was dark avised, with narrow, puffy eyes and a crafty expression.
“You are the priest John Anglicus?” he asked.
“I am.”
“I am Benedict, papal missus and brother to Pope Sergius. I have had you brought here to cure His Holiness.”
“I will do all I can,” Joan said.
Benedict dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “There are those who have no wish to see you succeed.”
Joan could well believe it. Many in the assemblage were members of the select and exclusive physicians’ society. They would not welcome an outsider.
Another man joined them—tall, thin, with penetrating eyes and a beaked nose. Benedict introduced him as Ennodius, chief of the physicians’ society.
Ennodius acknowledged Joan with the barest of nods. “You will discover for yourself, if you have the skill, that His Holiness is afflicted by demons, whose perniciou
s hold will not be dislodged by medicines or purgings.”
Joan said nothing. She put little credence in such theories. Why look to the supernatural when there were so many physical and detectable causes of disease?
Ennodius held out a vial of yellow liquid. “This sample of urine was taken from His Holiness not an hour ago. We are curious to see what you can learn from it.”
So I am to be tested, Joan thought. Well, I suppose it’s as good a way to start as any.
She took the vial and held it up against the light. The group gathered round in a semicircle. Ennodius’s beaked nose quivered as he watched her with vulpine expectancy.
She turned the vial this way and that until the contents showed clearly. Strange. She sniffed it, then sniffed again. She dipped a finger in, put it to her tongue, and tasted carefully. The tension in the room was now almost palpable.
Again she sniffed and tasted. No doubt about it.
A clever ruse, substituting a pregnant woman’s urine for the Pope’s. They had confronted her with a true dilemma. As a simple priest, and a foreigner, she could not accuse so august a company of deliberate deceit. On the other hand, if she did not detect the substitution, she would be denounced as a fraud.
The trap had been skillfully set. How to escape it?
She stood considering.
Then she turned and announced, straight-faced, “God is about to perform a miracle. Within thirty days, His Holiness is going to give birth.”
BENEDICT shook with laughter as he led the way out of the triclinium. “The looks on those old men’s faces! It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud!” He was deriving an inordinate amount of pleasure from what had transpired. “You proved your skill and exposed their deceit without uttering a single word of accusation. Brilliant!”
As they approached the papal bedroom, they heard hoarse shouting from the other side of the door.
“Villains! Ghouls! I’m not dead yet!” There was a loud crash, as of something thrown.
Benedict opened the door. Sergius was sitting up in bed, crimson faced with fury. Halfway across the floor, a broken pottery bowl rocked wildly before a group of cringing priests. Sergius had snatched a golden cup from a bedside table and was about to hurl it at the hapless prelates when Benedict hurried over and pulled it from his grasp.
“Now, Brother. You know what the doctors said. You are ill; you must not exert yourself.”
Sergius said accusingly, “I woke to find them anointing me with oil. They were trying to administer unctio extrema.”
The prelates smoothed their robes with ruffled dignity. They appeared to be men of importance; one who wore the pallium of an archbishop said, “We thought it best, in view of His Holiness’s worsening condition—”
“Leave at once!” Benedict interrupted.
Joan was astonished; Benedict must be powerful, indeed, to address an archbishop so uncivilly.
“Take thought, Benedict,” the archbishop warned. “Would you endanger your brother’s immortal soul?”
“Out!” Benedict swung his arms as if driving off a flock of blackbirds. “All of you!”
The prelates retreated hastily, exiting in shared indignation.
Sergius fell back weakly against his pillows. “The pain, Benedict,” he whimpered. “I cannot bear the pain.”
Benedict poured wine from a pitcher beside the bed into the golden cup and put it to Sergius’s lips. “Drink,” he said, “it will ease you.”
Sergius drank thirstily. “More,” he demanded as soon as he had drained it. Benedict poured him a second cup, and then a third. Wine spilled down the sides of Sergius’s mouth. He was small boned but very fat. His countenance was a series of connecting circles: round face connecting to round chin, round eyes centered inside twin rings of flesh.
“Now,” Benedict said, when Sergius’s thirst was quenched, “see what I have done for you, Brother? I have brought someone who can help you. He is John Anglicus, a healer of great repute.”
“Another physician?” Sergius said mistrustfully.
But he made no objection when Joan pulled back the covers to examine him. She was shocked at his condition. His legs were hugely swollen, the stretched flesh cracked and splitting from the strain. He was afflicted with a serious inflammation of the joints; Joan guessed the cause, but she had to make certain. She checked Sergius’s ears. Sure enough, there they were: the telltale tophi, little chalky excrescences resembling crabs’ eyes whose presence meant only one thing: Sergius was suffering an acute attack of gout. How was it possible that his doctors had not recognized it?
Joan ran her fingertips gently over the red, shiny flesh, feeling for the source of the inflammation.
“At least this one hasn’t the hands of a plowman,” Sergius conceded. It was astonishing he was still lucid, for he burned with fever. Joan felt his pulse, noting as she did the multiple wounds on his arm from repeated bleedings. His heartbeat was weak, and his coloring, now the fit of choler had passed, a sickly bluish white.
Benedicite, she thought. No wonder he suffers from thirst. They have bled him within an inch of his life.
She turned to a chamberlain. “Bring water. Quickly.”
She had to reduce the swelling before it killed him. Thank heavens she had brought corm of colchicum. Joan reached into her scrip and withdrew a small square of waxed parchment, unfolding it carefully so as not to spill any of the precious powder. The chamberlain returned with a jug of water. Joan poured some into a goblet, then infused two drams of the powdered root, the recommended dosage. She added clarified honey to mask the bitter taste and a small dose of henbane to make Sergius sleep—for sleep was the best anodyne against pain, and rest the best hope for a cure.
She handed the goblet to Sergius, who gulped it thirstily. “Pah!” He spat it out. “This is water!”
“Drink it,” Joan said firmly.
To her surprise, Sergius acquiesced. “Now what?” he asked after he had drained the cup. “Are you going to purge me?”
“I should have thought you’d had enough of such tortures.”
“You mean to do no more than this?” Benedict challenged. “A simple draft and that is all?”
Joan sighed. She had encountered such reactions before. Common sense and moderation were not appreciated in the art of healing. People demanded more dramatic measures. The more serious the disease, the more violent the cure was expected to be.
“His Holiness is suffering from gout. I have given him colchicum, a known specific for the disease. In a few moments, he will sleep, and, Deo volente, the pain and swelling that have afflicted him will recede in a few days’ time.”
As if in demonstration of the truth of what she said, Sergius’s ragged breathing began to ease; he relaxed against the pillows and closed his eyes peacefully.
The door swung open with a bang. In stalked a small, tensely coiled man with a face like that of a bantam cock spoiling for a fight. He brandished a roll of parchment beneath Benedict’s nose. “Here are the papers. All that’s needed is the signature.” By his dress and manner of speech, he appeared to be a merchant.
“Not now, Aio,” Benedict answered.
Aio shook his head fiercely. “No, Benedict, I will not be put off again. All Rome knows the Pope is dangerously ill. What if he dies in the night?”
Joan looked anxiously at Sergius, but he had not heard. He had slipped into a doze.
The man jingled a bag of coins before Benedict’s eyes. “One thousand solidi, as agreed. Have the paper signed, now, and this”—he raised another, smaller bag—“is yours as well.”
Benedict took the parchment to the bed and unrolled it on the sheet. “Sergius?”
“He is sleeping,” Joan protested. “Do not rouse him.”
Benedict ignored her. “Sergius!” He took his brother by the shoulder and shook him roughly.
Sergius’s eyes blinked open. Benedict took a quill from the table beside the bed, dipped it in ink, and wrapped Sergius’s hand aroun
d it. “Sign this,” he commanded.
Dazedly, Sergius put the pen to the parchment. His hand shook, spilling the ink onto the parchment in an uneven scrawl. Benedict covered his brother’s hand with his own and helped him trace the papal signature.
From where she stood, Joan saw the paper clearly. It was a formata appointing Aio Bishop of Alatri. The contract being made before Joan’s very eyes was a bribe to buy a bishopric!
“Rest you now, brother,” Benedict said, content now he had what he wanted. To Joan he said, “Stay with him.”
Joan nodded. Benedict and Aio exited from the room.
Joan pulled the bedcovers over Sergius, smoothing them gently. Her chin was set in characteristic determination. Clearly, things in the papal palace were very much amiss. Nor were they likely to be righted as long as Sergius lay ill and his venal brother ruled in his stead. Her task was plain: restore the Pope to health, and that as quickly as possible.
FOR the next few days, Sergius’s condition remained perilous. The constant chanting of the priests kept him from sound sleep, so at Joan’s insistence their bedside vigil was terminated. Except for one brief excursion to the Schola Anglorum to retrieve more medicines, Joan did not leave Sergius’s side. By day she carefully monitored his condition; by night she slept on a pile of cushions beside the bed.
On the third day, the swelling began to recede, and the skin covering it started to peel. In the evening, Joan woke from a restless sleep to find that Sergius had broken sweat. Benedicite, she thought. The fever has passed.
The next morning he awoke.
“How do you feel?” Joan asked.
“I … don’t know,” he said groggily. “Better, I think.”
“You look a good deal better.” The pinched look was gone, as was the unhealthy blue-gray cast of his skin.
“My legs … they’re crawling!” He began to scratch at them violently.
“The itching is a good sign; it means the life is returning,” Joan said. “But you must not irritate the skin, for there is still a danger of infection.”
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