The Psalter

by Galen Watson

  “But, sir,” the guard at the gate said, “they went to the Vatican Museum, to a storage room in the cafeteria.”

  “That’s not where they went.” Turning to the major he said, “Maggiore, I need your car.”

  “You’re not allowed in. This is Vatican City.”

  Romano jumped in the driver’s seat. “It’s alright, Maggiore. They’re with me.”

  The Swiss Guard Captain stood resplendent in his brilliant blue-and-gold striped traditional dress uniform and cape. He paced back and forth behind a semicircle of cars that surrounded the double red doors at the entrance to the Vatican Library. Romano negotiated the Carabinieri Alpha around the corner and stomped on the brakes, skidding to a stop just outside the barrier of Vatican Gendermaria police cars.

  “I hope this is a real threat,” the captain said to Del Carlo as he eased out of the car. “I’m supposed to be at Saint Peter’s, leading the honor guard for His Holiness.”

  Romano supported Del Carlo by an arm as he hobbled to the captain. The captain looked first at him then at Lieutenant Moretti’s battered face and the sling supporting his arm. “I thought you were in the hospital. You look like shit.”

  “Early release,” Del Carlo said. “The men who did this to us are in the Library, Captain.”

  “The explosion in Rome. You think they’re going to do the same thing here?”

  “I’m positive.”

  The Swiss Captain spoke into his radio. “Anything unusual, corporal?” He pressed on the earbud in his ear, listening. “I just talked to the control room. They monitor every part of the Library through the video cameras. There’s no one except a few priests. Everyone has left for the mass at Saint Peter’s.”

  “Who’s in my office?” Romano asked the captain.

  He spoke again into the radio. “Only the cardinal’s secretary, Father Sabella.”

  Romano bolted through a space between two police cars and up the stone steps. He opened the red door and disappeared inside while the Swiss captain, Del Carlo, and the guards stared in shock.

  “Damn,” Del Carlo grunted and trotted after him.

  Romano bounded up the stairs to the second level and sprinted down the hall to the offices of the cardinal and prefect, his own offices. Turning the corner, Father Sabella was pulling the door closed. A briefcase sat on the floor by his foot. Spotting Romano, he grabbed the case and fled in the opposite direction. Romano pumped his arms, rising on the balls of his feet in an all-out sprint, and dove, tackling the priest. The two slid down the marble floor as though they were on a rain-slicked football field.

  “Let me go,” Sabella bellowed, trying to shake free. But Romano held him down by his shoulders.

  Del Carlo, Moretti, and the Swiss Guard Captain, followed by Vatican police, rounded the corner, their mouths open and eyes locked on the two priests struggling. The captain shouted, “Father Romano, what’re you doing?”

  “Open the briefcase.”

  “No,” Sabella said. “It’s mine. You have no right!”

  “Open it, Captain,” Romano said, glaring into Sabella’s dark eyes.

  Sliding two buttons, the captain opened the cover and pulled out an ancient leather-bound book, and held it up. Romano grabbed Sabella by his lapels and heaved him to his feet. Turning to the Swiss captain he ordered, “Hold him.” Sabella tried to jerk away, but Romano gripped his jacket, pulling his face close. “You did this, didn’t you?” Two guards seized Sabella by his arms.

  The captain handed the book to the paleographer and Romano flipped open the cover to the first page. He needed only a glance to realize what he held. “This is the stolen Psalter.”

  Del Carlo faced Sabella, pondering his approach in microseconds. He recognized the haughty defiance in the priest’s countenance. “Do you want to confess something, Father? Perhaps your involvement in Father Mackey’s murder?”

  “You have no authority here. We have our own laws in Vatican City.”

  Romano held the Psalter in front of Sabella’s face. “You killed a brother, a man of God like yourself.”

  “They weren’t supposed to kill him, only take the book. That’s all I wanted.” His eyes grew wild and he curled his lip at the co-prefect. “We tried to deal with you. You stole everything: land, authority, even the right to the title of pope. For seven hundred years we thought we could make you see reason, but you swindled us with rank forgeries. We Melkites were the original Christians, and you called us names and stole the church from us with lies.”

  Romano glowered at Sabella. “Who’s in this with you?”

  “You and Minissi and Mackey. Yes, even him. This is your fault. You think I didn’t know what you were doing, were about to do? You dare to question the Holy Scriptures by publishing more lies? I’ll stop you once and for all.”

  “How?”

  Sabella stared straight ahead, refusing to answer.

  “I said, how?”

  “I couldn’t discover where you’re finding these Psalters, but I’ll make sure they never get out again. By the time you figure out where they’ve gone, it’ll be too late.”

  “We know your plan, Father,” Del Carlo said.

  “You understand nothing.”

  “The Swiss Guard are searching the Library as we speak. You planned to burn it down, didn’t you?”

  Sabella’s arrogance turned to desperation. “Get out while you can.”

  “Brother, why would you destroy the Holy Library?”

  “If thine hand offend thee, cut it off. The Gospels can be duplicated. But no more forgeries will escape this wicked place. I’ll make sure of that even if I have to destroy everything.”

  “You would burn the Library for the sake of a few books?”

  “It’s done. I tried to discover where you found these palimpsests. Oh yes, I know it all. You think you were clever and Cardinal Minissi with his secret closet, gone all gone.”

  A crackle squawked from the Swiss captain’s earpiece. “Are you sure? Did you check every room? Then seal the building.”

  “What is it Captain?” Del Carlo asked.

  “The Library is clear. No sign of anyone, no explosives, and no bombs.”

  “That can’t be,” Sabella said, unbelieving. “I don’t believe you, you’re lying. I just….”

  “Just saw them? I’m sorry to disappoint you, Father,” the Swiss captain said. “I’m sure they’re somewhere, but they’re not here.”

  Del Carlo turned to Romano. “Are any rooms not monitored?”

  “Of course. The cardinal’s office.”

  They rushed to the Administration offices, led by Romano, who dashed into Minissi’s office. He pushed on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and the wall swiveled open. The closet’s shelves had been emptied, but the Protector of the Vatican Library lay bound and gagged on the floor.

  Romano bent and untied the gag. “It’s alright, Eminence,” the co-prefect said. “We caught Father Sabella. I would have never have guessed, an Italian priest in league with Arabs.”

  “Sabella is not Italian, he’s Lebanese. He came to us from the Middle Eastern Melkites who split from the church in the fifth century. I hired him because he’s an expert in Aramaic.”

  Romano reassured Minissi, “It’s under control. We know all about the Library.”

  “You fools,” Minissi said, his throat dry from the gag. “Get to Saint Peter’s.”

  “But Eminence,” Romano worked on the knot that bound the cardinal’s hands. “The library is safe, and we’ll get the Psalters back.”

  “Forget the Library, Michael. Remember the prophecies of Fatima and Malachy. Today is the day of penance. They’re after His Holiness. Save my friend!”

  The microphone crackled again in the Swiss captain’s ear. “They’ve located the truck behind Saint Peter’s abandoned, but the Psalters are inside.”

  “Thank God,” Romano said.

  “But the intruders are nowhere to be found.”

  40

  Decretals of
Isidore Mercator

  Pope Leo had indeed hardened his heart against Anastasius. He was infuriated the excommunicated cardinal stayed outside of his reach, too distant to feel the humiliation he would heap on him. So Leo convened a synod to anathemize Anastasius. Excommunications might be pronounced but also removed by any bishop. However, anathemas were the ultimate punishment, complete separation from the church, and could only be meted out by the Pope.

  “For what reason do you anathemize Cardinal Anastasius?” Bishop Arsenius interrupted Benedict’s list of infractions.

  Pope Leo sat on the wooden chair of the Apostle in the lavishly reconstructed basilica of Saint Peter, glowering at the Imperial missi. “If you would listen, Bishop, instead of interfering you might hear the charges against your nephew.”

  Arsenius started to respond, but an agitated Johanna cut him off. “With all due respect, Holiness, we’ve listened to these accusations and they’re the same ones for which Anastasius was already punished. Do you plan to indict him twice?”

  “I have proposed nothing yet. We are pronouncing his transgressions against the church. At least, we’re trying.”

  “I submit that Anastasius has been charged and sentenced. Can a man be punished over and over for a single offense? He abandoned his basilica and I say for good reason, for there are those in Rome who plot against him. Yet neither the church nor the nobles give their protection. Nevertheless, he’s been excommunicated for his absence. So what’s his latest foul deed?”

  Leo rose from the wooden throne, his face bright red. “He refuses to return to Rome and accept his punishment.”

  Arsenius placed his hand on Johanna’s shoulder and spoke in a low voice, “This is not the time or place…”

  Johanna jerked away, the bit in her teeth. “You’ve stripped him of his church and denied him communion, and he has accepted your will. What law says he has to live in the Diocese of Rome?”

  “I say so!”

  “By what authority? This council must first decide whether canon law was broken, some new infraction. Only then can judgment be passed.”

  “By this authority.” Leo held a codex high over his head.

  “I know the law better than any here. Tell me which of the canons he violated.”

  “The Decretals of Bishop Isidore Mercator! This is the law that gives me the absolute license over all.”

  “I recall no such Bishop Mercator. You say these Decretals are his? Why do we not know this book?” Johanna faced the assembled cardinals. “Who among you knows this book or the Bishop?” The cardinals looked at one another, dumbfounded, for no one had ever heard of either the cleric or his Decretals.

  “Do you call me liar, Johannes Anglicus?”

  “Far from it Holiness. However, I fear that you aim to pass judgment based on letters and laws you may believe to be true. But before you do, would it not be prudent to let scholars examine them to see if they’re genuine?”

  “I’ve examined the contents and I say they are!” Leo placed the purple cope around his neck and sat on Peter’s throne, beginning to recite while twelve cardinal priests lit black candles.

  “The council has not decided,” Johanna said.

  “The council advises and I decide, only I. You’d be wise to remember it, Englishman.” The Pope read from a parchment page. “We deprive Anastasius, nephew of Arsenius, himself and all accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the body and blood of our Lord…”

  “This isn’t right! You can’t do this thing!” Johanna shouted.

  “…we declare him excommunicated and anathemized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and all his angels and the reprobate…”

  Bishop Arsenius tried to put a halt to the pronouncement. “In the name of the Emperor, I protest!”

  “…we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the Day of Judgment.”

  Twelve cardinal priests chanted, “fiat, fiat, fiat, let it be done,” and flung their black candles to the ground. Leo marched into the sanctum santorum and yanked a drape from the wall. A new fresco had been painted, depicting Jesus receiving the kiss of betrayal from Judas.

  Johanna recoiled at Judas’ face. The likeness was Anastasius’. Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor, unconscious. Only Arsenius knelt at her side to hold her head off the cold stone. The assembled cardinals watched, mortified, but feared to help their beloved brother.

  The doctor uttered solemn words in Hebrew to Avraham, who ushered him to the door and thanked him, pressing coins into his hand. Then he padded to his own bedroom, peering in with his smiling, frizzy face.

  “Come in,” Johanna groaned.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’m on a ship in the middle of a storm and I want to get off.”

  “Could you eat some chicken soup?”

  Johanna shuddered. “Don’t even mention food. What did the doctor say? Is it serious?”

  Avraham petted her brow and smoothed the red hair that curled at her temples. “Indeed it is.”

  “Am I to die?”

  “On the contrary, no life is forfeit. One is to be given.”

  Johanna looked at him, puzzled.

  “You’re going to be a mother.”

  As the anthology of letters and documents comprising the Decretals of Isidore Mercator was studied by experts, it was evident by the handwriting that they had been composed in Francia. In fact, specialists in monastic script pinpointed the exact location: the monastery of Corbie near Amiens.

  Patriarchum theologians noted that the one hundred letters, supposedly authored by popes and bishops during the first three centuries after Christ, gave the papacy absolute power. Nevertheless, it was just as certain that none of the letters had been written then. Each and every one had been penned in the last few years, and all of them at the Corbie monastery. And curiously, many of the passages resembled the writing style of the brilliant author and theologian, Abbot Paschasius Radbertus.

  Tucked away in the collection of forgeries was perhaps to most brazen of the church’s fakes, the Donation of Constantine. The forged Donation conveyed colossal power to the papacy proclaiming, among other things, that the Bishop of Rome was Christ’s representative on earth and giving him dominion over all the churches of God in the whole world.

  Leo relied on the Donation to command that the title Pope would be reserved exclusively for the Bishop of Rome. Bishops the world over were confused, since they were already called pope, which simply meant father, by their congregations. Even priests were often dubbed popes. The Patriarchs of Alexandria and Africa and the Patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople, also popes, protested the effrontery. Yet in each negotiation, Rome produced mountains of forged documents to support claims of primacy, so much so that for hundreds of years, the Roman Church was derided as the Home of Forgeries.

  Archbishop John of Ravenna rankled at the exaggerated powers Leo granted himself based on a collection of dubious Decretals which had never before existed and had been assembled by a bishop who also didn’t exist. Naturally, he rebelled at his own diminished authority. After all, Leo was only the Bishop of Rome and had no sovereignty over any other bishop outside the Roman diocese. However, everything changed with the Decretals and the Donation of Constantine.

  Accordingly, Leo and Benedict and Count Theophylact, accompanied by a cohort of soldiers, journeyed to the Italian capital with the intention of inspiring the Archbishop. The trip was successful, and Archbishop John submitted to the Holy will after Leo’s prayers and Theophylact’s display of military might. However, the exertion of travel had weakened the aging Leo. And far from calming rebellion, the Pope discovered that another archbishop, Hincmar of Reims, publicly proclaimed the Decretals to be obvious frauds and rejected not only their authenticity, but the absolute power they bestowed on the Holy See.

  Hincmar bristled at Leo’s audacity and claimed the forged Decretals were blasphemy. He derided the worst of the one hundred forger
ies, a letter attributed to Saint Ambrose, proclaiming that anyone who disagreed with the Holy See was a heretic. Such a profane belief would render the pope infallible. No bishop or cardinal or even lowly priest could accept such a preposterous premise. “Blasphemies like the Decretals cannot stand,” Archbishop Hincmar preached to his followers, “and such an obvious power grab is based on a pack of lies.”

  Leo had no other choice but to embark once again on another holy pilgrimage supported by Theophylact and his troops, to the Frankish lands northeast of Paris to inspire Hincmar as he had John of Ravenna. The voyage to Reims in Lothair’s territory was much further than Ravenna, and the journey was made more grueling by the heat of the mid-July sun. Leo and his retinue had journeyed but three days when a courier galloped back to the patriarchum with an urgent dispatch. Pope Leo IV was dead.

  What no one in Rome knew until imperial dispatches arrived from the Empire’s capitol in Aachen was that Emperor Lothair had fallen seriously ill. He commanded that no Papal Elections would be held until he recovered, upon threat of retribution. However, there would be no recovery. Two months and twelve days later, Lothair followed Pope Leo to his eternal reward. His son, Louis, the avenger of Lothair’s honor, now ruled the Holy Roman Empire.

  Louis’ first order of business was the Papal election. “I shall allow no further shenanigans from Theophylact, nor permit the Roman nobility to thumb their noses at the Constitution,” he told his Queen, Engelberga, and his councilors. “The law will be enforced.” For the first time in many, many years, there was to be a lawful vote for the Holy Father.

  41

  Pope of the People

  The patriarchum’s cardinal priests in their finest robes, emblazoned with red cinctures and scarlet skullcaps, assembled in the piazza in front of the Apostolic palace to pay homage to the newest Emperor and his Empress. The two senior clerics, old vicedominus Adrian and Archdeacon Nicholas, positioned themselves at their head. Even the Bishop of Albano, Benedict, was in attendance, although he had slunk to the back of the assembly.