Alaman and Manfred shook with laughter. Berard’s brows rose in warning.
Frederick surveyed their group. They were an impressive sight. He swung himself into the saddle. The others followed suit.
At the head of the horsemen, with banners flying, cantered the heralds, resplendent in yellow tabards embroidered with the black Hohenstaufen eagle. Frederick and Berard rode side by side, followed by the abbots of Saint Gall and Reichenau. Behind them came some of the greatest temporal lords of Germany. Often at loggerheads, they were now joined by a common goal: the destruction of Otto of Brunswick.
THE TRAFFIC CONVERGING on Konstanz was dense. Frederick raised his hand. The men behind him slowed down. The heralds blew their trumpets. Carts and pedestrians, riders and flocks retreated into the fields to make way for them. Sentries began running on the ramparts, helmets flashing in the sun. Above the jingle of harnesses and the murmur of the crowd, a loud creaking noise could be heard. The huge iron-studded gates grated toward each other.
“They’re closing the gates!” Frederick called to Berard. The gates clanged shut. They could hear the great bolt being rammed into place.
The crowd, angry at being locked out, pressed behind them. Frederick whispered to Berard, then turned and spoke to Manfred. The latter spurred his horse forward to transmit Frederick’s instructions to the heralds. The chief herald, carrying Frederick’s banner, moved his charger to the front and drew rein before the gate. The herald’s voice rang out: “In the name of Frederick of Hohenstaufen, king of Sicily and German emperor, I command you to open the gates!”
“Go away, impostor! We have orders to admit no one but the rightful emperor,” came the reply from above.
Frederick nodded imperceptibly. Berard threaded his horse forward. At the gate, he bellowed:
“I, Archbishop Berard of Palermo, and legate of Pope Innocent, demand, in the name of the Holy Father, to speak with your bishop!” The sergeant bowed and vanished.
The midday sun beat down. They waited. The sentinels in their helmets stared down, impassive as statues. Frederick wiped the perspiration off his face with the back of his hand. He felt sweat trickling down his ribs. They were trapped. If Otto were to appear now …
His horse, sensing his tension, pawed the ground. Behind him he could hear the others shifting in their saddles. He felt their eyes on his back. He had led them into this trap, trusting his luck. How could he have believed that his mere appearance would overcome all obstacles?
There was movement within the gate tower. A man of obvious authority, tall and fleshy, in a wine-colored gown, stepped out onto the parapet. He was flanked by archers in metal breastplates, bows at the ready.
“I am Conrad of Tegerfelden, bishop of Konstanz,” he bellowed. “Who demands to speak to me?”
Berard raised his face. “Berard of Castacca, archbishop of Palermo. As envoy of his Holiness the pope, I request that you open the gates to the new emperor, Frederick of Hohenstaufen.”
Leaning over the parapet, the bishop called down: “The Emperor Otto is expected here at any moment. He is the lawful emperor, crowned by the pope. I have no knowledge of a new emperor.” As he stepped back, Berard stopped him.
“Otto of Brunswick has been deposed by the electors and excommunicated by the pope. If you refuse entry to the Emperor Frederick, I am empowered by Pope Innocent to lay the city of Konstanz and all her people under the ban of excommunication!”
A murmur of dread went up from the populace, which had clambered onto the battlements. An excommunicate was forbidden the sacraments and thus entry into paradise. Under pain of being excommunicated himself, no man was allowed to aid someone thus punished.
Conrad wheeled around. The shock on his face, Frederick thought, seemed genuine.
Conrad addressed the abbot of Saint Gall. “Lord Ulrich, is this true?”
The abbot nodded. “It most certainly is.”
A frown appeared on Conrad’s brow. “Have you any proof of this, my lord of Castacca?”
In reply, Berard drew a folded parchment from his tunic. He read out the papal bull of excommunication against Otto. When he’d finished, he moved his destrier a few paces forward. Unsheathing his dagger, he nailed the parchment to the gate with it. “There is your proof, citizens of Konstanz!” he thundered. “Beware, at the peril of eternal damnation, of joining Otto of Brunswick among the outcasts of God!”
For a moment, there was silence. Frederick tightened his grip on the reins. Then a roar of voices rose from the ramparts: “Open the gates! Open the gates!”
From behind the walls, the invisible crowds in the streets picked up the call. “Open the gates, open the gates!”
The bishop nodded to the captain of his guard.
The battle for Konstanz had been won.
COLOGNE, NOVEMBER 1212
Dusk was falling as a courier on a lathered horse clattered across the drawbridge of Cologne’s castle. He slid off his mount and handed the guard a leather satchel.
“An urgent message for the Lord Chancellor!”
The man nodded and hurried along a covered walkway toward the chancery.
ICY COLD PERVADED the palace chapel. Six tall beeswax candles in silver candlesticks stood on the altar steps, illuminating the sanctuary. The words of the evening Mass rose toward the stone vaulting. Otto’s eyes were closed as he listened. To shield himself from the cold, he slipped his hands under his fur cloak.
Conrad von Scharfenburg threaded his way toward the emperor. “A word with you, please, Your Grace,” he whispered.
Startled, Otto opened his eyes. The faraway look in his eyes changed to one of wariness. He nodded.
He knows it’s bad news, the chancellor thought. He watched the emperor, reluctantly, turn away from the comfort of the Mass. They walked to the back of the chapel, through a door that gave directly onto Otto’s private apartments.
A fire blazed in the central hearth. Otto sat down on a settle. He looked at Conrad: “What news?”
“A message from Strassburg.”
Otto sighed. “What’s that pope’s puppet doing now? Making gold from clay?”
“My lord, you’d do well to take him more seriously. He’s more than just a youth cloaked in an illustrious name.”
“And what, Conrad, has made you accord him such praise?”
Conrad von Scharfenburg hesitated. He looked at the emperor, whom he had served long and well. The years of struggle had left their mark on Otto. The dashing young Duke of Brunswick, in whose service Conrad had risen to become chancellor of Germany, was now a weary middle-aged man who drank too much and slept too little. He was also becoming uncharacteristically pious. Having retreated up the Rhine to Cologne, Otto’s only hope now was English support. But John of England, notoriously shifty, had begun to doubt the wisdom of continuing to back his German nephew.
Conrad said slowly, “Philip of France has signed a treaty of alliance with Frederick.”
“What?”
Conrad nodded.
Otto said, “Pour us some wine, will you?”
Conrad poured one cup and handed it to the emperor. He went over to the window. Through a gap in the shutters, left open to allow the smoke to escape, he looked at the fading day outside. A cold November wind was blowing the last leaves off the trees, whirling them around the courtyard in small brittle eddies. Beyond the moat, the Rhine glistened gray and steely under a heavy sky.
Conrad rubbed his forehead to ease the pressure he often felt these days. France and England had been at war for years over English claims to French land. Since King John supported Otto, the French king had been Otto’s foe from the start. But Conrad never thought he would risk putting a French army in the field to support Frederick of Hohenstaufen. He closed the shutter.
The emperor looked at him: “We’re slowly being encircled, aren’t we?”
Conrad pursed his lips. “It may not be as bad as it seems. It could actually be to our advantage.”
“How so?”
Conrad sup
pressed a sigh of irritation. Subtlety had never been one of Otto’s strong points. “If you can persuade your uncle of England to join us now, we’ll destroy the French, and Frederick, too. The treaty calls for mutual aid in case of attack. Frederick and the south German lords will have to obey a call to arms by the French king.”
“And why should my uncle risk war against the French now, when he’s been avoiding it for years?”
“Because, my lord, you have to convince him that with your help and that of your allies, he must crush the French now. Otherwise Frederick, with French support, will gain control of the whole of Germany. Once that happens, Frederick and Philip will drive the English out of France forever.”
“Hm.” Otto stirred the floor rushes with the tip of his boot. “You may well be right, Conrad. But you know how indecisive John is. Do you really think he’ll stop procrastinating and take action?”
“Yes, I do. King John has so much trouble at home with his rebellious barons, he can’t afford to lose his French possessions. Faced with a threat of this magnitude, even John will go to war. You must persuade him. It is our only hope.”
Otto sighed. “I agree with you. With God’s and John’s aid, we might be able to defeat both Frederick and the French, once and for all.”
OUTSIDE, A VICIOUS wind was sweeping through the snow-covered forest, tearing at the shutters. Berard could hear the wolves howling. At night, the beasts, emboldened by hunger and attracted by the flames in the watch-towers of Haguenau’s castle, crept right up to the moat.
A warm glow pervaded the small paneled chamber. Berard adjusted the fur rug that had slipped from his chest. He leaned back on his settle. The last months had been exhausting. As Frederick’s following grew, the frequency with which they moved from city to city and castle to castle had increased too. They often spent days in the saddle.
He looked at Frederick, seated at his worktable. If the Lord hadn’t made him a prince, he’d have been a scholar, stooped and myopic. In many ways, he had the temperament of one. Berard watched him frown over a German petition. Frederick pulled out a grammar specially compiled for him, consulted it, and returned to the document. He was learning the language with the same thoroughness with which he tackled ruling the country. Perhaps it was the outpourings of popular affection or his dormant German blood, or a mysterious linking of the two, but Frederick had begun to develop an empathy for Germany that astounded Berard.
Frederick had conquered southern Germany. The story of Konstanz preceded them up the Rhine valley. Tales of his success spread like wild-fire as city after city acclaimed him. In castle, cloister, and village, he was hailed as the new Barbarossa, come to end years of lawlessness and strife. Villagers put down fir branches for him to ride over. In the cities, people kissed the hem of his cloak. Frederick was becoming a legend.
The bishop of Strassburg had met him at the gates of Basle and held his stirrup, adding five hundred archers to Frederick’s forces. One after another, the vacillating lay lords followed the ecclesiastical princes and joined Frederick. All that remained now was his coronation in Aachen and after that as emperor in Rome. Aachen, however, was still held by Otto. The imperial insignia were also in Otto’s possession. Having failed to halt Frederick’s advance, Otto entrenched himself in Cologne.
Frederick had decided to spend the winter in Haguenau, in his grandfather’s palace, where he could consolidate his forces for the coming spring campaign against Otto.
“God’s teeth, these documents are a mess!”
Berard woke from his reverie. “What’s a mess?”
“The whole administrative system.” Exasperated, Frederick flung the scroll onto a pile of others already on the table. He looked at Berard, wrapped up to his bearded chin in a fur rug, a tankard of ale in his hands. “Are you sure you’re comfortable, Berard? You’re getting far too soft. Like a hibernating bear who doesn’t leave his cave.”
Berard laughed. “Very comfortable. And as for riding out for pleasure in this infernal climate, I leave that to you and your new German friends.”
Frederick poured himself a cup of ale and sat down beside him. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the fire.
“You know that I sometimes feel I’ve lived here all my life?”
“Really?” After all the complaints Berard had at first heard about the scarcity of civilized amenities in Germany, he found this rather amusing.
“Maybe my grandfather wrestled with the same problems in this very room.” Frederick waved his hand across the cozy chamber with its coffered blue and red ceiling. The stone fireplace had a bulging chimney. An exotic innovation, such fireplaces were rare in Germany.
Hagenau Castle was a palatial fortress situated on an island in the river Moder. It was the grandest of several imperial residences built by Barbarossa. In addition to fireplaces with chimneys, it possessed a main hall floored with red marble and a great library.
“What do you think?” Frederick asked, “Will the French honor their promises?”
Berard scratched his beard. “Philip Augustus is a man of honor; so is his son Louis. And France needs all the friends she can get at this moment. Yes, I think they will. I’d even think so if they hadn’t pledged their faith with silver, silver you no longer have.”
This was a sore point between them. The French king had sent Frederick twenty thousand silver marks as a token of friendship. Against Berard’s advice, Frederick, at the Diet in Frankfurt, had distributed this vast sum among the leading German princes. Although this had gained him great popularity, the treasury was now so empty that Frederick had recently had to mortgage three of his towns in Swabia.
Frederick pretended not to hear. “I’ll be riding to a place called Schoenburg tomorrow to see Matilde of Spoleto.”
“She must be seventy,” Berard said, “at least.”
“It’s said she is still very lucid. She’s asked to see me. She was my mother’s best friend. She was with her in Jesi when I was born.”
“… THEREFORE THE INHABITANTS have unanimously subjected their town of Moderheim, which they possess free of all lordship, to our power, on these terms, namely that they and all their posterity will pay the Empire twenty-five measures of wheat each year in order to be under the protection of our imperial highness.”
Frederick nodded.
The secretary laid the charter before him. He glanced at it briefly before signing it. “The last one for today?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Frederick stood up and stretched. Government matters had been neglected everywhere. He had yet to appoint a chancellor. The notaries and clerks kept the chancery running, but only just. The ministeriales, officers of state who administered the Empire, were as divided as the country: some followed Otto, while others were loyal to Frederick. All of this placed a tremendous strain on an administrative machinery that, by Sicilian standards, was cumbersome and inefficient.
The two black-garbed secretaries, voluminous leather folders wedged under each arm, bowed themselves out. Although it was only early afternoon, the room was already darkening. Candles and torches burned everywhere from dawn until late at night. In winter, daylight penetrated the interior only as a dim glow through the oiled parchment on the windows. The air was stale with lamp smoke. Try as he might, he could not get the servants to keep the windows open.
He stepped up into the window and opened the latch. Icicles in gorgeous shapes hung from the eaves. Beyond the ramparts, as far as the eye could see, stretched endless forests of dark fir covered in powdery whiteness. How beautiful these northern winters were, despite their harshness. In the town below, wisps of smoke rose from snow-covered roofs. The streets and alleys were crowded. Pigs rooted in the gutters. On a frozen canal, children skated. It always amazed him how they managed such a feat on a piece of carved bone. He smiled as he watched for a moment, then closed the window.
He went back to the draft of a bull he was to sign at Whitsuntide. The pope’s support doesn’t come cheap, he
thought, pursing his lips. The document had been written by the papal curia. It reconfirmed all the privileges granted to the Church by Otto. This time, Innocent had demanded that the bull be countersigned by the leading princes of the Empire.
In it, Frederick was to surrender all fiscal and judicial rights over the German ecclesiastics. The bull granted such autonomy to the German bishops as to create an almost independent ecclesiastical state. The papal title to the disputed territories in Italy would also be confirmed. The papacy would finally be a temporal power.
He stared with disgust at the fine creamy vellum. With his signature he would undo much of what his father and grandfather had achieved. He had no choice but to obey. This time …
Someone cleared his throat at the door. “My lord, it is nearly time for Mass.”
Manfred stood in the doorway, cloaked and gloved, an elegant yellow cap with a pheasant feather on his dark head.
“Ah, Manfred. You look splendid. You’ll turn all the ladies’ heads tonight.”
Manfred shook his head. He grinned: “Alas, they only have eyes for you.”
“If only they weren’t all married, or watched like Saracen virgins! Must I really attend Mass every evening? That chapel’s freezing.”
“Orders from the archbishop. I’m to look after your immortal soul while he entertains the bishop of Mainz.”
Frederick sighed. “For Berard’s sake, then.”
“And for the sake of the Germans.”
He gave Manfred a long look. Then he smiled. “You’re right. As emperor I must set an example.”
THE LOGS IN the two great fireplaces at opposite ends of the hall were being replenished for the fourth time. Observing the pages dragging yet another basket of firewood across the floor, Frederick yawned discreetly. Not, he thought, that anyone was likely to notice. The only ones still sober were the lords whose turn it was to serve at the high table. The ladies’ voices had long become strident, their laughter overloud. Even Berard, whose drinking, unlike his eating, was usually moderate, was sinking deeper and deeper into his chair, his beard resting on his chest.
The Falcon of Palermo Page 15