“Benedicite!” Joan quickened her steps. She could imagine the effect this news would have on Sergius.
Even so, when she saw him she was shocked. Sergius was scarcely recognizable. His hair was disheveled, his eyes red and swollen from weeping, his cheeks covered with scratches where his nails had scored them. He was on his knees beside the bed, rocking back and forth, whimpering like a lost child.
“Holiness!” Joan spoke sharply into his ear. “Sergius!”
He kept on rocking, blind and deaf in an extremity of grief. Clearly there was no way to reach him in his present condition. Taking some tincture of henbane from her scrip, Joan measured out a dose and held it to his lips. He drank distractedly.
After a few minutes, his rocking slowed, then stopped. He looked at Joan as if seeing her for the first time.
“Weep for me, John. My soul is damned for all eternity!”
“Nonsense,” Joan said firmly. “You acted in just accordance with the law.”
Sergius shook his head. “‘Be not like Cain, who was of the Evil One and murdered his brother,’” he quoted from the First Letter of John.
Joan countered with an answering passage. “‘And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.’ Benedict was not righteous, Holiness; he betrayed you and Rome.”
“And now he is dead, by my own word! O God!” He struck his chest and howled in pain.
She had to divert him from his grief or he would work himself into another fit. She took him firmly by the shoulders and said, “You must make auricular confession.”
This form of the sacrament of penance, in which one made private and regular confession ad auriculam, “to the ear” of a priest, was widespread in Frankland. But Rome still held determinedly to the old ways, in which confession and penance were made and given publicly, only once in a lifetime.
Sergius seized on the idea. “Yes, yes, I will confess.”
“I’ll send for one of the cardinal priests,” she said. “Is there someone you prefer?”
“I will make my confession to you.”
“Me?” A simple priest and a foreigner, Joan was an unlikely candidate to serve as confessor to the Pope. “Are you sure, Holiness?”
“I want no other.”
“Very well.” She turned to Arighis. “Leave us.”
Arighis shot her a grateful look as he left the room.
“Peccavi, impie egi, iniquitatem feci, miserere mei Domine …” Sergius began in the ritual words of penitence.
Joan listened with quiet sympathy to his long outpouring of grief, regret, and remorse. With a soul so burdened and tormented, it was no wonder Sergius sought peace and forgetfulness in drink.
The confession worked as she had intended; gradually the wild passion of despair subsided, leaving Sergius drained and exhausted but no longer a danger to himself or others.
Now came the tricky part, the penance that had to precede forgiveness of sin. Sergius would expect his penance to be harsh—public mortification, perhaps, on the steps of St. Peter’s. But such an act would only serve to weaken Sergius and the papacy in Lothar’s eyes— and that must be prevented at all costs. Yet the penance Joan imposed must not be too light or Sergius would reject it.
She had an idea. “In token of repentance,” she said, “you will abstain from all wine and the meat of four-footed animals from this day forward until the hour of your death.”
Fasts were a common form of penance, but they usually lasted only a few months, perhaps a year. A lifetime of abstinence was stern punishment—especially for Sergius. And the penance would have the added benefit of helping protect the Pope from his own worst instincts.
Sergius bowed his head in acceptance. “Pray with me, John.”
She knelt beside him. In many ways, he was like a child—weak, impulsive, needful, demanding. Yet she knew he was capable of good. And at this moment, he was all that stood between Anastasius and the Throne of St. Peter.
At the end of the prayer, she rose. Sergius clutched at her. “Don’t leave,” he pleaded. “I can’t be alone.”
Joan covered his hand with her own. “I won’t leave you,” she promised solemnly.
ENTERING through the crumbling portals of the ruined Temple of Vesta, Gerold saw with disappointment that Joan had not yet arrived. No matter, he told himself; it’s early yet. He sat down to wait with his back against one of the slim granite pillars.
Like most pagan monuments in Rome, the temple had been stripped of its precious metals: the gilt rosettes that had once adorned the coffers of the dome were gone, as were the golden bas-reliefs ornamenting the pediment of the pronaos. The niches lining the walls were empty, their marble statues having been carted off to the lime kilns to be turned into building material for the walls of Christian churches. Remarkably, however, the figure of the goddess herself survived, ensconced in her shrine under the dome. One of her hands had broken off, and the lines of her garment were roughened, eroded by time and the elements, but the statue still had remarkable power and grace of form—testimony to the skill of its heathen sculptor.
Vesta, ancient goddess of home and hearth. She represented all that Joan meant to him: life, love, a renewed sense of hope. He breathed deeply, drinking in the damp sweetness of the morning, feeling better than he had in years. He had been low of late, weary of life’s stale, unchanging round. He had resigned himself to it, telling himself it was the inevitable result of his years, for he was nearing forty-six, an old man’s age.
Now he knew how wrong he had been. Far from being tired of life, he was hungry for it. He felt young, alive, vital, as if he had drunk from the fabled cup of Christ. The rest of his life stretched ahead bright with promise. He would marry Joan, and they would go to Benevento and live together in peace and love. They might even have children—it was not too late. The way he felt at this moment, anything was possible.
He started up as she came hurrying through the portal, her priest’s robes billowing behind her. Her cheeks were rosy from the exertion of her walk; her cropped white-gold hair curled around her face, accentuating her deep-set gray-green eyes, eyes that drew him like pools of light in a darkened sanctuary. How ever had she succeeded in this man’s disguise? he wondered. To his knowing eyes, she looked very womanly and wholly desirable.
“Joan.” The word was part name, part supplication.
Joan kept a cautious distance between them. If once she let herself into Gerold’s arms, she knew her resolve would melt.
“I’ve brought a mount for you,” Gerold said. “If we leave now, we’ll be at Benevento in three days’ time.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m not going with you.”
“Not going?” Gerold echoed.
“I cannot leave Sergius.”
For a moment he was too taken aback to say anything. Then he managed to ask, “Why not?”
“Sergius needs me. He is … weak.”
“He’s Pope of Rome, Joan, not a child in need of coddling.”
“I don’t coddle him; I doctor him. The physicians of the schola have no knowledge of the disease that afflicts him.”
“He survived well enough before you came to Rome.”
It was gentle mockery, but it stung. “If I leave now, Sergius will drink himself to death within a six-month.”
“Then let him,” Gerold answered harshly. “What has that to do with you and me?”
She was shocked. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Great God, haven’t we sacrificed enough? The spring of our lives is already behind us. Let’s not squander the time that is left!”
She turned away, so he would not see how much this affected her.
Gerold caught her by the wrist. “I love you, Joan. Come with me, now, while there’s still time.”
The touch of his hand warmed her flesh, sparking desire. She had a treacherous impulse to embrace him, to feel his lips on hers. Embarrassed by these weak and shameful feelings, she was suddenly, un
reasonably angry with Gerold for having aroused them. “What did you expect?” she cried. “That I would run off with you the first moment you beckoned?” She let the wave of anger rise and crest within her, submerging her other, more dangerous emotions. “I’ve made a life here—a good life. I’ve independence and respect, and opportunities I never had as a woman. Why should I give it all up? What for? To spend the rest of my days confined to a narrow set of rooms, cooking and embroidering?”
Gerold said in a low voice, “If that’s all I wanted in a wife, I’d have married long before now.”
“Do so, then!” Joan retorted hotly. “I’ll not stop you!”
A knot of bewilderment appeared between Gerold’s brows. He asked gently, “Joan, what has happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I’ve changed, that’s all. I’m no longer the naive, lovesick girl you knew in Dorstadt. I’m my own master now. And I won’t give that up—not for you, not for any man!”
“Have I asked you to?” Gerold responded reasonably.
But Joan did not want to hear reason. Gerold’s nearness and her strong physical attraction to him were a torment. Savagely she tried to break its hold. “You cannot accept it, can you? The idea that I’m not willing to give up my life for you? That I’m one woman who’s actually immune to your masculine charms?”
She had sought to wound, and she had succeeded.
Gerold stared at her as though he saw something new written upon her face. “I thought you loved me,” he said stiffly. “I see I was mistaken. Forgive me; I’ll not trouble you again.” He went to the portal, hesitated, turned back. “This means we will never see each other again. Is that really what you want?”
No! Joan felt like crying. It’s not what I want! It’s not what I want at all! But another part of her cautioned her to hold back. “That’s what I want,” she said. Her voice sounded curiously distant in her own ears.
One more word of love and need from him, and she would have broken and run to his arms. Instead he wheeled abruptly and went through the portal. She heard him racing down the temple steps.
In another moment he would be gone forever.
Joan’s heart rose like a cup filled to overbrimming. Then the cup tilted, spilling forth all her pent-up emotion.
She ran to the door. “Gerold!” she cried. “Wait!”
The loud clatter of hooves against stones drowned out her cry. Gerold rode swiftly down the road. A moment later he rounded a corner and was gone.
24
THE Roman summer arrived with a vengeance. The sun beat down relentlessly; by midday, the cobblestones were hot enough to blister a man’s feet. The stench of rotting garbage and manure, intensified by the heat, rose into the still air and hung over the city like a suffocating pall. Pestilential fevers raged among the poor who lived in the damp and decaying tenements lining the low-lying banks of the Tiber.
Fearful of contagion, Lothar and his army quit the city. The Romans rejoiced at their departure, for the burden of maintaining so large a host had strained the city’s resources to the limit.
Sergius was hailed as a hero. The adulation of the people helped soften his grief over Benedict’s death. Buoyed by newfound health and energy—gained in large measure from the spartan diet Joan had imposed in penance—Sergius was a man transformed. True to his promise, he began rebuilding the Orphanotrophium. The crumbling walls were reinforced, a new roof added. Tiles of fine travertine marble were stripped from the pagan Temple of Minerva and used to line the floor of the great hall. A new chapel was constructed and dedicated to St. Stephen.
Where previously Sergius had frequently been too tired or ill to say Mass, he now celebrated the holy service every morning. In addition, he was often to be found praying in his private chapel. He threw himself into his faith with the same fervor with which he had once pursued the pleasures of the table—for he was not a man to do things by halves.
Two years of mild winters and plentiful harvests resulted in a time of general prosperity. Even the legions of poor who crowded the streets of the city seemed a little less wretched, as the pockets of their more prosperous brethren loosened and almsgiving increased. The Romans offered prayers of thanksgiving at the altars of their churches, well content with their city and their Lord Pope.
They did not suspect—how could they?—the catastrophe that was about to descend upon them.
JOAN was with Sergius during one of his regular meetings with the princes of the city when a messenger burst in upon them.
“What’s this?” Sergius inquired sternly.
“Holiness.” The messenger knelt in obeisance. “I bring a message of utmost importance from Siena. A large fleet of Saracen ships has set sail from Africa. They are on a direct course toward Rome.”
“Toward Rome?” one of the princes echoed thinly. “Surely the report is mistaken.”
“There is no mistake,” the messenger said. “The Saracens will be here within a fortnight.”
There was a moment of silence while everyone took in this astonishing news.
Another of the princes spoke. “Perhaps it would be wise to remove the holy relics to a place of greater safety?” He was referring to the bones of the apostle Peter, the most sacred relics in all of Christendom, which lay housed in their namesake basilica outside the protection of the city walls.
Romuald, the greatest of the assembled princes, threw back his head and laughed. “You don’t think the infidels would attack St. Peter’s!”
“What’s to prevent them?” Joan asked.
“They may be barbarians, but they’re not fools,” Romuald replied. “They know the hand of God would smite them flat the moment they set foot inside the sacred tomb!”
“They have their own worship,” Joan pointed out. “They do not fear the hand of our Christian God.”
Romuald’s smile died. “What heathen blasphemy is this?”
Joan stood her ground. “The basilica is an obvious target for plunder, if only for the treasure that lies within. For safety’s sake, we should bring these sacred objects and the saint’s sarcophagus within the city walls.”
Sergius was doubtful. “We’ve had other such warnings before, and nothing came of them.”
“Indeed,” Romuald said mockingly, “if we took fright at every sighting of a Saracen ship, the sacred bones would have been moving back and forth like a pair of shuttles on a loom!”
A burst of appreciative laughter was instantly cut off by the Pontiff’s disapproving frown.
Sergius said, “God will defend His own. The Blessed Apostle will remain where he is.”
“At least,” Joan urged, “let us send to the outlying settlements, asking for men to help defend the city.”
“It’s pruning time,” Sergius said. “The settlements need every able-bodied man to work in the vineyards. I see no need to risk the harvest, upon which all depend, when there is no immediate danger.”
“But, Holiness—”
Sergius cut her off. “Trust in God, John Anglicus. There is no stronger armor than that of Christian faith and prayer.”
Joan bowed her head in submission. But inside she thought rebelliously: When the Saracens are at the gates, all the prayer in the world will not help half so much as a single division of good fighting men.
GEROLD and his company were encamped just outside the town of Benevento. Within their tents the men were sleeping soundly after a long night of ribaldry—a boon Gerold had granted in reward for their resounding victory the day before.
For the past two years Gerold had commanded Prince Siconulf’s armies, fighting to secure Siconulf’s throne against the ambitious pretender Radelchis. A skilled commander who pushed his men hard while they were learning discipline and proficiency at arms, then trusted them to give good account of themselves on the field, Gerold had inflicted defeat after defeat on Radelchis’s forces. Yesterday’s victory was so resounding it had probably put an end to Radelchis’s claim to the Beneventan throne forever.
Although armed sentries were posted all around the camp, Gerold and his men slept with swords and shields at their sides, where they were always ready at hand. Gerold took no chances, for an enemy could be dangerous even after defeat. The heat of revenge often drove men to rash and desperate action. Gerold knew of many encampments taken by surprise, their inhabitants slaughtered before they even had time to wake.
At the moment, however, such thoughts were far from Gerold’s mind. He lay supine, arms behind his head, legs splayed carelessly. Beside him a woman covered in his cloak breathed soddenly, a rhythmic sound broken by occasional bursts of snoring.
In the light of dawn Gerold regretted the brief gust of passion that had brought her into his bed. There had been other such transient encounters over the years, each less satisfying and more forgettable than the one before. For Gerold still cherished in his heart the memory of a love that could never be forgotten.
He shook his head impatiently. It was idle to dwell upon the past. Joan had not shared his feelings, or she would not have sent him away.
The woman rolled onto her side. Gerold touched her shoulder and she woke, opening pretty brown eyes that stared back at him without depth or meaning.
“It’s morning,” Gerold said. He took a few coins from his scrip and handed them to her.
She jingled them and smiled happily. “Shall I come again tonight, my lord?”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
She looked disappointed. “Didn’t I please you?”
“Yes, yes, of course. But we’re breaking camp tonight.”
A short while later he watched her cross the field, her sandals slapping dully against the dry grass. Overhead the cloudy sky was lightening into a flat and pallid gray.
Soon it would again be day.
SICONULF and his chief fideles were already gathered in the great hall when Gerold entered. Dispensing with the usual courtesies, Siconulf announced abruptly, “I have just received word from Corsica. Seventy-three Saracen ships have set sail from the African coast. They are carrying some five thousand men and two hundred horse.”
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