THE Holy Day of Rogation was a fixed feast, invariably celebrated on April 25. Like so many other of the fixed feasts—the Feast of Oblation, the Feast of St. Peter’s Chair, the ember weeks, Christ Mass—the roots of its celebration could be traced all the way back to pagan times. In ancient Rome, April 25 was the date of the Robigalia, the heathen festival honoring Robigo, God of Frost, who just at this season could visit great damage on the budding fruits of the earth if not placated with gifts and offerings. Robigalia was a joyous festival, involving a lively procession through the city into the cornfields, where animals were reverently sacrificed, followed by races and games and other forms of merriment in the open fields of the campagna. Rather than try to suppress this time-honored tradition, which would only alienate those they sought to win to the True Faith, the early Popes wisely chose to keep the festival but give it a more Christian character. The procession on the Holy Day of Rogation still went to the cornfields, but it stopped first at St. Peter’s Basilica, where a solemn mass was celebrated to honor God and implore, through the intercession of the saints, His blessing on the harvest.
The weather had cooperated with the occasion. The sky above was blue as new-dyed cloth and clear of any trace of cloud; the sun sparkled a golden light on the trees and houses, its heat relieved by a welcome touch of coolness from a northerly breeze.
Joan rode in the middle of the procession behind the acolytes and defensores, who went on foot, and the seven regionary deacons, who were mounted. Behind her rode the optimates and other dignitaries of the Apostolic Palace. As the long line with its colorful signs and banners moved through the Lateran courtyard, past the bronze statue of the mater romanorum, she shifted uncomfortably on her white palfrey; the saddle must have been badly fitted, for already her back hurt with a dull but painful ache that came and went at intervals.
Gerold was ranging back and forth along the side of the procession with the other guards. Now he drew up beside her, tall and breathtakingly handsome in his guard’s uniform.
“Are you well?” he asked anxiously. “You look pale.”
She smiled at him, drawing strength from his nearness. “I’m fine.”
The long procession turned onto the Via Sacra, and Joan was immediately greeted with a roar of acclamation. Aware of the threat that the presence of Lothar and his army represented, the people had turned out in record numbers to demonstrate their love and support of their Lord Pope. They thronged the road to a depth of twenty feet and more on either side, cheering and calling out blessings, so the guards were forced to keep pushing them back in order for the procession to move through. If Lothar required any proof of Joan’s popularity with the people, he had it there.
Chanting and waving incense, the acolytes made their way down the ancient street, traveled by the Popes since time beyond memory. The pace was even slower than usual, for there were a great many petitioners stationed along the route, and, as was the custom, the procession stopped frequently so Joan could hear them. At one of the stops, an old woman with gray hair and a scarred face flung herself on the ground before Joan.
“Forgive me, Holy Father,” the woman pleaded, “forgive the wrong I’ve done you!”
“Rise, good mother, and be comforted,” Joan replied. “You’ve done me no injury I know of.”
“Am I so changed you do not even know me?”
Something in the ravaged face raised imploringly to hers struck a sudden chord of recognition.
“Marioza?” Joan exclaimed. The famous courtesan had aged thirty years since Joan last saw her. “Great God, what has happened to you?”
Ruefully Marioza raised a hand to her scarred face. “The marks of a knife. A parting gift from a jealous lover.”
“Deus misereatur!”
Marioza said bitterly, “Do not pin your fortunes on the favors of men, you once told me. Well, you were right. The love of men has proved my ruin. It’s my punishment—God’s punishment for the evil trick I played upon you. Forgive me, Lord Father, or else I am damned forever!”
Joan made the sign of blessing over her. “I forgive you willingly, with my whole heart.”
Marioza clutched Joan’s hand and kissed it. The people nearby cheered their approval.
The procession moved on. As they were passing the Church of St. Clement, Joan heard a sudden commotion off to the left. A group of ruffians at the rear of the crowd were jeering and throwing stones at the procession. One struck her horse on the neck, and it reared wildly, slamming Joan against the saddle. A jolt of pain shot through her. Stunned and breathless, she clung to the golden trappings as the deacons hurried to her side.
GEROLD spied the group of troublemakers before anyone else. He turned his horse and was riding in after them before the first volley of rocks even left their hands.
Seeing him come, the ruffians ran off. Gerold spurred after them. Before the steps of the Church of St. Clement, the men abruptly wheeled, pulled weapons from the hidden folds of their garments, and came at Gerold.
Gerold drew his sword, signaling urgently to the guards following him. But there was no answering call, no sound of hooves drumming up behind. He was alone when the men surrounded him in a jabbing, thrusting swarm. Gerold wielded his sword with economical skill, making each blow count; he injured four of his assailants, taking only a single knife wound in his thigh before they dragged him from his horse. He let himself go limp, feigning insensibility, but kept a tight hand on his sword hilt.
No sooner had he hit the ground than he sprang back to his feet, sword in hand. With a cry of surprise, the nearest attacker came at him with drawn sword; Gerold moved sideways, wrong-stepping him, and when the man faltered, Gerold brought his sword down on his arm. The man dropped, his half-severed arm spurting blood. Several others came at him, but now Gerold heard the shouts of his guard approaching from behind. Another moment and help would be at hand. Keeping his sword before him, Gerold backed away, keeping a wary eye on his ambushers.
The dagger took him from behind, slipping between his ribs with noiseless stealth, like a thief into a sanctuary. Before he was aware of what had happened, his knees buckled and he folded softly to the ground, marveling even as he did that he felt no pain, only the warm blood streaming down his back.
Above him he heard fresh sounds of shouting and clashing steel. The guards had arrived and were fighting off the attackers. I must join them, Gerold thought and went to reach for his sword on the ground beside him, but he could not stir a hand.
CATCHING her breath, Joan looked up and saw Gerold turn aside in pursuit of the rock throwers. She saw the other guards start to follow him, only to be checked by a group of men standing among the crowd on that side of the road; the group closed together, blocking the way as if acting on some unseen signal.
It’s a trap! Joan realized. Frantically she cried warning, but her words were drowned in the noise and confusion of the crowd. She spurred her horse to go to Gerold, but the deacons kept tight hold of the bridle.
“Let go! Let go!” she shouted, but they held on, not trusting the horse. Helplessly Joan watched the ruffians surround Gerold, saw their hands reach up to grab him, clutching at his belt, his tunic, his arms, dragging him from his horse. She saw a last bright glint of red hair as he disappeared beneath the swirling crowd.
She slid off the horse and ran, shoving her way through the group of milling, frightened acolytes. By the time she reached the side of the road, the crowd was already parting, making way for the guards, who came toward her bearing Gerold’s limp body.
They set him on the ground, and she knelt beside him. Blood was trickling in a thin froth from one corner of his mouth. Quickly she removed the long rectangle of the pallium from around her neck, wadded it, and pressed hard against the wound in his back, trying to staunch the flow of blood. No use; within minutes the thick fabric was soaked through.
Their eyes met in a look that was deeply intimate, a look of love and painful understanding. Fear gripped Joan, fear like she had never kn
own before. “No!” she cried, and clasped him in her arms, as if by sheer physical closeness she could stave off the inevitable. “Don’t die, Gerold. Don’t leave me here all alone.”
His hand groped the air. She took it in hers, and his lips moved in a smile. “My pearl,” he said. His voice was very faint, as if speaking from a long distance away.
“Hold on, Gerold, hold on,” she said tautly. “We’ll take you back to the Patriarchium; we’ll—”
She sensed his going even before she heard the death rattle and felt his body grow heavy in her arms. She crouched over him, stroking his hair, his face. He lay still and peaceful, lips parted, eyes fixed blindly on the sky.
It was impossible that he was gone. Even now his spirit might be nearby. She raised her head and looked around her. If he were somewhere near, there would be a sign. If he were anywhere, he would let her know.
She saw nothing, sensed nothing. In her arms lay a corpse with his face.
“He is gone to God,” Desiderius, the archdeacon, said.
She did not move. As long as she kept hold of him, he was not entirely gone, a part of him was still with her.
Desiderius took her arm. “Let us carry him to the church.”
Numbly she heard and understood. He must not lie here in the street, open to the gaze of curious strangers. She must see him honored with all the proper rites and dignities; it was all that was left her to do for him now.
She laid him down gently, to keep from hurting him, then closed his staring eyes and crossed his arms on his chest so the guards could bear him away with dignity.
As she went to stand, she was taken with a pain so violent it doubled her over, and she fell to the ground gasping. Her body heaved with great spasms over which she had no control. She felt an enormous pressure, as if a weight had been dropped on her; the pressure moved lower until she felt it would surely split her apart.
The child. It’s coming.
“Gerold!” The word shuddered into a terrible groan of pain. Gerold could not help her now. She was alone.
“Deus Misereatur!” Desiderius exclaimed. “The Lord Pope is possessed of the Devil!”
People screamed and wept, cast into an extremity of terror.
Aurianos, the chief exorcist, hurried forward. Sprinkling Joan with holy water, he intoned solemnly, “Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursio adversarii, omne phantasma …”
All eyes were fixed on Joan, watching for the evil spirit to issue forth from her mouth or ear.
She screamed as with one last, agonizing pain the pressure inside suddenly gave way, spilling forth from her in a great red effusion.
The voice of Aurianos cut off abruptly, followed by a long, appalled silence.
Beneath the hem of Joan’s voluminous white robes, dyed now with her blood, there appeared the tiny blue body of a premature infant.
Desiderius was the first to react. “A miracle!” he shouted, dropping to his knees.
“Witchcraft,” cried another. Everyone crossed themselves.
The people pressed forward to see what had happened, pushing and shoving and climbing over one another’s backs to get a better view.
“Stay back!” the deacons shouted, wielding their crucifixes like clubs to keep the unruly crowd at bay. Fighting broke out up and down the long line of the procession. The guards rushed in, shouting rough commands.
Joan heard it all as if from a distance. Lying on the street in a pool of her own blood, she was suddenly suffused with a transcendent sense of peace. The street, the people, the colorful banners of the procession glowed in her mind with a strange brightness, like threads in an enormous tapestry whose pattern she only now discerned.
Her spirit swelled within her, filling the emptiness inside. She was bathed in a great and illuminating light. Faith and doubt, will and desire, heart and head—at long last she saw and understood that all were one, and that One was God.
The light grew stronger. Smilingly she went toward it as the sounds and colors of the world dimmed into invisibility, like the moon with the coming of dawn.
Epilogue
Forty-two Years Later
ANASTASIUS sat at his desk in the Lateran scriptorium, writing a letter. His hands, stiff and arthritic with age, ached with every stroke of the quill. Despite the pain, he went on writing. The letter was extremely urgent and had to be dispatched at once.
“To His Imperial Majesty the most worshipful Emperor Arnulf,” he scrawled.
Lothar was long dead, having died only a few months after leaving Rome. His throne had gone first to his son Louis II, and then, after his death, to Lothar’s nephew Charles the Fat, both weak and undistinguished rulers. With the death of Charles the Fat in 888, the Carolingian line begun by the great Karolus—or Charlemagne, as he was now widely known—had come to an end. Arnulf, Duke of Carinthia, had managed to wrest the imperial throne from a host of challengers. On the whole, Anastasius thought the change in succession a good one. Arnulf was smarter than Lothar, and stronger. Anastasius was counting on that. For something had to be done about Pope Stephen.
Just last month, to the horror and scandal of all Rome, Stephen had ordered the body of his predecessor Pope Formosus dragged from its grave and brought to the Patriarchium. Propping the corpse up in a chair, Stephen had presided over a mock “trial,” heaped calumnies upon it and finished by cutting off three fingers of its right hand, the ones used to bestow the papal blessing, in punishment for Formosus’s “confessed” crimes.
“I appeal to Your Majesty,” Anastasius wrote, “to come to Rome and put an end to the Pope’s excesses, which are the scandal of all Christendom.”
A sudden cramp in Anastasius’s hand shook the quill, scattering droplets of ink over the clean parchment. Cursing, Anastasius blotted up the spilled ink, then put down the quill and stretched his fingers, rubbing them to ease the pain.
Odd, he reflected with grim irony, that a man such as Stephen should succeed to the papacy when I, so perfectly suited to the office by every qualification of birth and learning, was denied it.
He had come close, so close to gaining the coveted prize. After the shocking revelation and death of the female Pope, Anastasius had occupied the Patriarchium, claiming the throne for himself with Emperor Lothar’s blessing.
What might he not have accomplished had he remained on the throne! But it was not to be. A small but influential group of clerics had adamantly opposed him. For several months, the issue of the papal succession had been hotly debated, with first one side, then the other appearing to prevail. In the end, persuaded that a substantial group of Romans would never be reconciled to Anastasius as Pope, Lothar chose the expedient course and withdrew his support. Anastasius was deposed and sent in ignominy to the monastery of Trastevere.
They all thought I was finished then, Anastasius thought. But they underestimated me.
With patience, skill, and diplomacy, he had fought his way back, eventually winning the confidence of Pope Nicholas. Nicholas had raised him to the office of papal librarian, a position of power and privilege he had held for over thirty years.
Having reached the extraordinary age of eighty-seven, Anastasius was now revered and respected, universally praised for his great learning. Scholars and churchmen from all over the world came to Rome to meet him and to admire his masterwork, the Liber pontificalis, the official chronicle of the Popes. Just last month a Frankish archbishop by the name of Arnaldo had asked permission to make a copy of the manuscript for his cathedral, and Anastasius had graciously agreed.
The Liber pontificalis was Anastasius’s bid for immortality, his legacy to the world. It was also his final revenge upon his detested rival, the person whose election on that black day in 853 had denied him the glory for which he had been destined. Anastasius obliterated Pope Joan from the official record of the Popes; the Liber pontificalis did not even mention her name.
It was not what he had most deeply desired, but it was something. The fame of Anastasius the Librar
ian and his great work would ring down through the ages, but Pope Joan would be lost and forgotten, consigned forever to oblivion.
The cramp in his hand was gone. Picking up the quill, Anastasius once again began to write.
IN THE scriptorium of the Episcopal Palace at Paris, Archbishop Arnaldo labored over the last page of his copy of the Liber pontificalis. Sunlight streamed through the narrow window, illuminating a shaft of floating dust. Arnaldo put the finishing flourish on the page, looked it over once, then wearily set down the quill.
It had been a long and difficult labor, copying out the entire manuscript of The Book of the Popes. The palace scribes had been quite surprised when the archbishop had taken on the task himself rather than assign it to one of them, but Arnaldo had his reasons for doing so. He had not merely duplicated the famous manuscript; he had corrected it. Between the chronicles of the lives of Pope Leo and Pope Benedict, there was now an entry on Pope Joan, restoring her pontificate to its rightful place in history.
He had done this as much out of a feeling of personal loyalty as from a desire to see the truth told. Like Joan, the archbishop was not what he seemed. For Arnaldo, née Arnalda, was actually the daughter of the Frankish steward Arn and his wife, Bona, with whom Joan had resided after her flight from Fulda. Arnalda had been only a small girl then, but she had never forgotten Joan—the kind and intelligent eyes that had regarded her so attentively; the excitement of their daily lessons together; the shared joy of accomplishment as Arnalda had begun to read and write.
She owed Joan a great debt, for it was Joan who had rescued Arnalda’s family from poverty and despair, pointed the way from the dark abyss of ignorance to the light of knowledge, and made possible the high station which Arnalda now enjoyed. Inspired by Joan’s example, Arnalda had also chosen, on approaching adulthood, to disguise herself as a man in order to pursue her ambitions.
How many others like us are there? Arnalda wondered, not for the first time. How many other women had made the daring leap, abandoning their female identities, giving up lives that might have been filled with children and family, in order to achieve that from which they would otherwise have been barred? Who could know? It might be that Arnalda had unknowingly passed by another such changeling in cathedral or cloister, toiling along in secret and undisclosed sisterhood.
Pope Joan Page 48