Frederick glanced at Constance, saw the tightness of her bearing. He would have liked to comfort her, but she couldn’t have heard him anyway in the din. When he had told her that Henry must remain in Germany, she called him a monster. He patiently explained that it could take several years before their return. Henry was now king of Germany. The loyalty of princes and people needed a focus. But even Constance, far more intelligent than most women, had the typical female failing of being unable to separate the wider issues from the narrow field of her private emotions. If she refused to understand that the duties of an empress differed from those of a cobbler’s wife, he couldn’t help it.
They left behind the farms and dwellings that sheltered beneath the city walls. Open, rolling country stretched on all sides. The morning was overcast but warm. Frederick inhaled the scent of freshly cut hay, spread to dry on the fields. An invigorating sense of freedom filled him. The road began to climb, skirting the river. They were on their way south, to Rome, and to Sicily.
SILENCE FILLED THE basilica of Saint Peter’s. For a moment, held in the pontiff’s hands, the ancient octagonal crown, adorned with gems and enamel, seemed to float above the altar. Then Honorius placed it on Frederick’s bowed head.
The years receded in Berard’s mind. Instead of the emperor in his coronation regalia, he saw an eleven-year-old boy in a short grubby tunic, assessing him with wary eyes in a bazaar … I’m getting fanciful in middle age, he thought, blinking, and maudlin as well.
Unlike him, Frederick was calm and detached. No mystic fervor gripped him today as it had in Aachen. After receiving the orb and scepter, he stepped aside so that the pope could crown the kneeling Constance.
His grandfather’s mantle fitted him today as if it had been made for him. Berard remembered the first time Frederick had worn it, at his wedding. It had been too wide at the shoulders then. Frederick had it brought especially from Palermo. True, it was grander than the German coronation cloak. But it was also a link with the past, with Sicily. Its splendid hem, silver-embroidered with Kufic characters, swirled over the steps above the tomb of Saint Peter in an image filled with symbolism. Like the mantle, Frederick too was half of the East and half of the West, half heathen and half Christian, half doubting heretic and half faithful believer.
Berard’s eyes wandered over the congregation. The most illustrious guests stood close to the altar, under Constantine’s mosaic-covered arch. The Germans were calm and dignified in their furred cloaks. Representatives of the Lombard League, voluble and gorgeously arrayed, stood side by side with stern, hawk-eyed governors of the imperial cities in Italy, each group ignoring the other. The Sicilians, gleaming with jewels, smiled obsequiously. With every league that Frederick got closer to the realm, the Sicilians’ nervousness no doubt increased; the liberties of the past had come to an end.
After Frederick and Constance received communion and exchanged the kiss of peace with the pontiff, silver trumpets sounded. The choir burst into plainsong. Frederick, with Honorius and Constance, left the basilica erected over a thousand years before by Constantine. They stepped into the afternoon sunshine. The colonnaded atrium was crowded with those who hadn’t been able to get into the church. In the square beyond thronged the Roman populace. Mercifully there was no sign of the riots that had broken out during previous coronations. Frederick had been generous. Preceding their cavalcade all the way from the Monte Mario, heralds had distributed largesse to the crowd.
The square was black with people. Every balcony, every rooftop was filled with spectators. Frederick raised his hand. The roar of the crowd rose in a crescendo: “Viva l’imperatore! Viva l’imperatore Federico! Viva! Viva! Viva!”
“Bread and circuses. Nothing’s changed,” Frederick whispered to Berard. He said something to Constance but she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were far away. She’s thinking of Henry, Berard thought.
The papal chamberlain led the pope’s white mule forward for the ceremony that had caused such bitterness in the past between emperors and popes. Frederick held the silver stirrup for Honorius with a smile, even lending his other hand in support as the aged pontiff mounted the richly caparisoned animal. How humble Frederick could be, Berard thought, when it served his purpose! It was the substance of power that interested him, not the symbols by which other men laid such store.
Frederick mounted his black stallion. With the pope in the lead, the cavalcade set off toward the Tiber. Surging, cheering crowds pressed in on them from all sides. At the Church of Santa Maria in Transpontina the procession halted. Honorius and Frederick exchanged a last embrace. “Go with God, my son,” the pope said, kissing Frederick on both cheeks.
“May God be with you, too, Holy Father, and rest assured that I shall defend the Church from all peril.”
The Pontiff raised his hand in a last salute. Amid flying church banners, he crossed the Tiber and rode back to the Lateran palace on the other side of Rome.
The imperial party rode up the ancient Via Triumphalis, toward their camp on the Monte Mario. At its summit, Frederick drew rein. Turning in his saddle, he stared for a long moment at the great city fading into amber dusk. Then, abruptly, he spurred his horse into a canter.
BARI, SICILIAN MAINLAND, APRIL 1222
Outside the walls of Bari, on the Apulian plain bordered by the Adriatic, a city of tents and makeshift hovels had sprung up for those who couldn’t find lodging in the crowded city. An air of newfound prosperity filled the town. Carts rumbled through the streets, filled with produce or piled with building materials for the houses and palaces being repaired or the new buildings springing up everywhere. Half-veiled women walked in the dust, balancing bundles of firewood or jars of water on their heads. Little herd boys drove fat black swine to market, while Bari’s fishermen gave thanks to their patron, Saint Nicholas.
Since the emperor had decided to spend part of each year here, a bushel of sardines fetched four times what it had two years ago. Couriers on lathered horses from as far afield as Lombardy or Germany were a common sight in the streets, jostling the well-groomed mounts of German and Sicilian lords. Haughty, black-garbed imperial notaries traveled on foot, preceded by stick-wielding servants to clear their way. Troubadours, craftsmen, sailors, whores, and mountebanks from all over Europe flocked to Bari.
BERARD MADE HIS way down the vaulted passage amid chiseling and hammering, sidestepping piles of masonry. Frederick was rebuilding this Norman castle, ripping open walls for lead piping to fill the baths by which he laid such store, and the flushing privies he said were the foundation of civilized life.
He sat down on a bench that ran along one side of the otherwise bare council chamber. The emperor, a page assured him, wouldn’t be long. The room smelled of damp plaster. Weary from a long morning in the chancery, he leaned his head back. Despite the chill of early spring, the shutters stood wide open to allow the walls to dry. From his bench, he could see the sea, blue and calm, stretch to the horizon. He sighed with contentment. It was pleasant to be back in the town where long ago he had received his bishop’s pallium.
Time in Frederick’s service passed swiftly. Nearly two years had gone by since the coronation in Rome. Frederick hadn’t lingered to savor his triumph. The next morning he left at dawn with a small escort that included Berard, leaving the court to follow. They covered a distance of more than sixty miles in a single day of exhausting riding. Berard saw tears in Frederick’s eyes as that same evening, exhausted and saddle-sore, they crossed the boundary between the Papal States and Sicily.
In Palermo, Frederick was received with jubilation by the townspeople. They prostrated themselves before his throne, set in the old Norman manner under an ancient palm tree in the palace square. Frederick established his court there for the winter, and set to work at once. Before the astonished eyes of a much aged Walter of Palear he drew forth from his traveling chests scroll after scroll of new laws for the kingdom, ready for promulgation.
The edicts covered a wide range of issues. Roads were to
be made safe for travelers. Tolls and other fiscal matters were dealt with, increasing the crown’s revenues. The precarious land tenure of peasants was to be improved. Even Berard hadn’t realized to what extent Frederick had planned every detail of Sicily’s revival during his years in Germany.
One ordinance decreed that all castles built without royal permission since the death of Frederick’s mother must be handed over to the crown. Hundreds of fortresses fell into this category. The lesser ones were demolished, the major ones retained. The barons who had resisted royal authority during Frederick’s absence were declared outlaws. Offenses such as non-payment of taxes, appropriation of crown lands, brigandage, even failure to maintain roads and bridges all fell under this.
The majority complied. A number of outraged barons appealed in vain to the pope. Some, headed by the powerful Count of Molise, rebelled. Frederick himself led the campaign that ended with the surrender or capture of every one of the rebels. Frederick didn’t, as was customary, hand them to other, more trustworthy vassals. Instead, he did something unheard of: he made the castles crown properties. They were manned by soldiers paid by the treasury. Frederick was now the only Christian monarch, other than the Byzantine emperor, to possess a standing army as well as a string of royal fortresses throughout his realm. “Never again,” he told Berard with a thin smile, “will the barons rise against me.”
The following summer, Frederick moved the court to Bari. August, the date on which he had sworn in Rome to lead the crusade, had come and gone. Fortunately, just then the mountain Saracens on the island rose in revolt. Frederick wrote to the pope, and obtained a postponement of his departure to deal with the rebellion. He placated Honorius by sending much-needed aid in ships and gold to the crusaders floundering in Egypt, while occupying himself mainly with the restoration of Sicily and her navy.
Teams of shipwrights, recruited from as far afield as Greece and Byzantium by Frederick’s agents, worked day and night in the newly dredged port of Bari to build a Sicilian navy under the supervision of Alaman da Costa, appointed admiral of the infant fleet. The republic of Genoa viewed this with concern. Genoa sent an embassage asserting her exclusive rights to the transport of merchandise to and from Sicily. Frederick, who had been waiting for just such a pretext, replied by canceling the treaty with Genoa. When the Genoese vehemently protested, reminding him how they had backed him in uncertain times, Frederick answered coolly that while his personal gratitude was undiminished, the prosperity of his kingdom took precedence over his private inclinations.
Berard was jolted out of his reverie by the opening of the door. Frederick emerged from the adjoining study listening to a wiry little man with a long face, a maroon cap pulled low above his beetling black brows. The older man was talking rapidly, his soft voice magnified by the bare walls.
Berard knew him well: Roffredo of Benevento. Frederick had met him in Bologna, where he was professor of canon law. Always on the lookout for talented men, Frederick offered him the challenge of unifying the welter of often conflicting oral and written laws of Sicily into a single code. Roffredo accepted immediately, undeterred by the fact that it would take him and a team of jurists, notaries, and scribes years to accomplish their task. The last such undertaking had been Justinian’s code in the sixth century.
Frederick waved to the scholar. He turned to Berard: “What brings you into this builder’s warren?”
“A man, just arrived from Palestine, whom I think you should meet. He’s a famous friar. Some say a holy man. I thought you might find a firsthand account of conditions in the Holy Land valuable.”
“Holy men, phew! They smell and are deranged by too many visions and too little food. I can’t imagine that this fellow will have much of practical value to tell me!”
“He’s no ordinary friar. He’s a most remarkable man. My friend Elias of Cortona, who accompanied him to the East, tells me that he actually attempted to convert the Sultan of Egypt during an audience!”
Frederick smiled, “Such temerity appeals to me. What’s his name?”
“Francis. Francis of Assisi.”
“The one who had a dream about the tottering edifice of the Church? Whom Innocent helped found an order of mendicant friars?”
“The very same. They, say, too, that he speaks to the birds.”
FREDERICK SLOWLY CUT a slice off his apple with an ivory-handled knife while he studied his guests. Elias of Cortona, the taller and broader of the two, was helping himself to another large ladleful of deer stew from the serving dish. Elias was a tall, muscular man in his forties, of noble birth, who had been drawn in his youth to join Francis’ little band. Francis, unwilling to deal with the administration of the growing order, had entrusted this to the robust, more practical Elias.
Francis, of the same age but slighter than his deputy, ate almost nothing, turning the food over with slender elegant fingers. Although only in his late thirties, the penances and deprivations he’d inflicted on his body left him prematurely gray, with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. He refused the wine and drank water sparingly out of his silver goblet. Although he was clothed in a ragged tunic of brown homespun, with a cord in place of a belt, his manners were gracious.
Berard had told Frederick that Francis had once been a fashionable young man. But after hearing God’s voice, he gave away all his possessions. When his wealthy father, fearing for his sanity, cited him before the local bishop, Francis stripped himself to his loincloth and returned his clothes to his father. Poverty, he said was a virtue. The bishop, instead of censuring Francis, gave him his own cloak and sent him on his way. Preaching poverty and love, Francis, befriended by Pope Innocent, went on to found the Franciscan order.
In deference to the austere habits of the friar but also because Frederick wanted to keep any information about the East to himself, they were gathered not in the great hall, but in his privy chambers, around a table spread with the simple Apulian dishes he himself preferred.
He had warmed instantly to the Umbrian friar despite the latter’s ascetic ways. Far from being the otherworldly fanatic he had expected, Francis had the serene, uncluttered intelligence of one who has done away with all unnecessary mental baggage, keeping in sight only his goal. His large hazel eyes were gentle but compelling. But the most outstanding thing about Francis was his voice. A voice of extraordinary beauty, rich, melodious and deep, it enthralled and filled his listeners with a sense of peace. With a voice such as this, perhaps he really did speak to the birds. Frederick said, “Tell me about your meeting with the sultan, Francis.”
“Al-Kamil received us most graciously. He listened when I explained the benefits of Christianity, declining, however, to embrace it. In parting the sultan gave me and my companions a safe-conduct for our pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”
“What manner of man is he?” Frederick asked.
Francis looked thoughtful for a moment, crumbling his bread. “A friar from Acre, who interpreted for us, told me it is said that he would rather have been a scholar than a sultan. Yet he rules as well, though not as harshly, as his predecessors.” Francis leaned forward, his face suddenly animated: “I was astounded, Your Grace, to discover that Muslims, too, believe in the retribution of evil and the reward of goodness. When I exhorted him to save his soul by embracing Christianity, the sultan responded that good and pious Muslims went to heaven anyway.”
Frederick smiled. “I’ve always told Berard that they aren’t half as bad as Christians think they are.”
“You are right, Your Grace,” Francis said. “They, too, are God’s children.”
Elias glanced up sharply. Like a watchdog scenting danger, Frederick thought. If it were reported that Francis had actually said such a thing, it might be used against him. Because of his denunciation of the Church’s abuses, Francis had many enemies. Leaning back in his chair, still toying with his knife, Frederick asked, “Tell me, Francis, do you really think it is possible to purge the Church of her evil ways? To stop her prelates from stealing and for
nicating and selling indulgences to the credulous?”
Berard, who had just taken a mouthful of wine, nearly choked. Coughing, he sought refuge behind his napkin.
Francis raised his eyes, unperturbed. “Alas, Your Grace, I don’t think so. The Church is made of men, and men are weak. I can’t rebuild her the way Christ would wish her to be. But by our example we can inspire many to abandon their evil ways and love one another. Thus, we will at least buttress our mother the Church and stop her from falling, mayhap even righting her edifice a little.”
“I too, would wish the Church to return to what Christ wanted her to be. I however, have less faith in mankind than you.”
Holding Frederick’s gaze, Francis said, “It would greatly benefit the cause of Christ if the princes of this world would abandon their sinful ways and set an example to the simple and the poor.”
Frederick’s eyes narrowed for an instant. “There are different ways of serving God, Francis.” He rose, indicating that the audience was over. “You and brother Elias will of course be my guests for as long as you are in Bari.” To the steward who was attending them, he said, “See to it that the friars lack for nothing.”
Then, to Berard’s utter astonishment, Frederick said, “Will you bless me, Francis?”
“How could I refuse, Your Grace?”
Frederick’s eyes twinkled. “I think you quite capable of it, if you so wished.”
The Falcon of Palermo Page 27