Pope Joan (47 page)

Gerold withdrew from his saddlebag the square of oiled sheepskin that held his ration of food for the next few days. There remained a good-sized loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and some dried salt venison. He started to break the loaf in half, then saw the children watching.
Ah, well
, he thought, handing over the whole parcel.
It’s only a few more days to Rome; I can get by on the biscuits in the supply wagon.

With a glad cry, the children fell upon the food like a swarm of starveling birds.

“Are you from the village?” Gerold asked the woman, pointing to the blackened ruin behind them.

The woman nodded. “My husband is the miller.”

Gerold hid his surprise. The ragged figure before him appeared to be anything but a prosperous miller’s wife. “What happened?”

“Three days ago, after the spring planting, soldiers came. The Emperor’s men. They said we had to swear allegiance to Lothar or die immediately by their swords. So of course we swore.”

Gerold nodded. Lothar’s doubts about this part of Lombardy were not entirely unjustified, for it was a relatively new addition to the Empire, acquired by Lothar’s grandfather, the great Emperor Karolus.

“If you took the oath of loyalty,” he asked, “how did your village come to be destroyed?”

“They didn’t believe us. Liars, they called us, and threw torches onto our roofs. When we tried to put the fires out, they held us back with their swords. Our stores of grain they torched as well, though we begged them not to, for the children’s sake. They laughed and called them traitors’ spawn, who deserved to starve.”

“Villains!” Gerold exclaimed angrily. He had tried many times to convince Lothar that he could not win his subjects’ loyalty with the
use of force but only through just dealing and the rule of law. As usual, his words had fallen on deaf ears.

“They took all our men,” the woman continued, “except the very young and the very old. The Emperor was marching to Rome, they said, and needed men to swell the foot ranks.” She started to weep. “They took my husband and two of my sons—the younger is only eleven!”

Gerold scowled. Things had come to a sorry pass when Lothar needed children to fight his battles.

“My lord, what does it mean?” the woman asked anxiously. “Is the Emperor going to make war against the Holy City?”

“I don’t know.” Until this moment, Gerold had thought Lothar meant only to intimidate Pope Sergius and the Romans with a show of force. But the destruction of this village was an ominous sign; in so vengeful a mood, Lothar was capable of anything.

“Come, good mother,” Gerold said. “We will take you with us to the next town. This is no safe place for you and the children.”

She shook her head fiercely. “I’ll not budge from this spot. How will my husband and sons find us when they return?”

If
they return
, Gerold thought grimly. To the black-haired girl he said, “Tell your mother to come with us, for the sake of the little ones.”

The girl stared mutely at Gerold.

“She means no discourtesy, lord,” her mother apologized. “She would answer if she could, but she cannot speak.”

“Cannot speak?” Gerold said, surprised. The girl looked sound and showed no sign of being simple.

“Her tongue’s cut out.”

“Great God!” The loss of a tongue was a common punishment for thieves and other miscreants not quick enough to dodge the law’s harsh justice. But surely this innocent young girl was guiltless of any crime. “Who did this? Surely it was not—”

The woman nodded grimly. “Lothar’s men used her unlawfully, then cut out her tongue so she could not accuse them of the shameful deed.”

Gerold was stunned. Such atrocities were to be expected of heathen Norsemen or Saracens—not of the Emperor’s soldiers, defenders of Christian law and justice.

Brusquely Gerold gave orders. His men went to the wagons and took out a sack of biscuits and a small barrel of wine, which they placed on the ground before the little family.

“God bless you,” the miller’s wife said feelingly.

“And you, good mother,” Gerold said.

They rode on, passing other plundered and deserted settlements along the way. Lothar had left ruin behind him wherever he passed.

Fidelis adjutor.
As sworn fidelis to the imperial crown, Gerold was bound in honor to serve the Emperor faithfully. But what honor was there in serving a brute like Lothar? The disregard with which the Emperor cast aside the law and all other standards of human decency surely wiped clean the slate of obligation.

Gerold would lead this rearguard of the imperial army into Rome as he had promised. But afterward, he resolved firmly, he would quit the service of the tyrant Lothar forever.

B
EYOND
Nepi, the road deteriorated. The solid, hard-surfaced high way gave way to a narrow and decaying track, pitted with treacherous crevices and gulleys. The Roman paving was gone, the ancient stones removed and carted off for use in other construction—for such strong building materials were scarce in these dark times. Gerold read the marks of Lothar’s passing in the dark earth, deeply rutted with the multiple tracks of wagons and horses. They had to take extra care with the horses, lest they lame themselves with an unlucky step.

During the night, a heavy rainfall turned the road into an impassable sea of mud. Rather than call another halt, Gerold decided to strike out through the open countryside and come round to the Via Palestrina, which would bring them into Rome through the eastern gate of St. John.

They rode swiftly through budding, sweet-scented meadows of gentian and woods sprouting with the gold-green leaves of spring. Emerging from a patch of dense scrub, they suddenly came upon a group of mounted men riding escort around a heavy wagon pulled by four strong cart horses.

“Greetings.” Gerold addressed the man who appeared to be their leader, a dark-avised fellow with narrow, puffy eyes. “Can you tell us if we are headed toward the Via Palestrina?”

“You are,” the man responded curtly. He turned to ride past.

“If you’re bound for the Via Flaminia,” Gerold said, “better think again. The road’s washed out; your cart will be mired to its axles before you’ve gone ten yards.”

The man said, “We’re not headed there.”

That was curious. Other than the road, there was nothing in the direction they were headed but deserted countryside. “Where are you going?” Gerold asked.

“I’ve told you all you need to know,” the man snapped. “Ride on and leave an honest merchant to his business.”

No ordinary merchant would address a lord so pridefully. Gerold’s suspicions were aroused.

“What is your trade?” Gerold rode to the cart. “Perhaps you’ve something I’d be interested in buying.”

“Leave that alone!” the man shouted.

Gerold wrenched the covers back, revealing the contents of the cart: a dozen bronze coffers secured with heavy iron locks, each marked unmistakably with the papal insignia.

The Pope’s men
, Gerold thought.
They must have been sent from the city to transport the papal treasure out of reach of Lothar’s clutches.

He toyed with the idea of commandeering the treasure and bringing it back to Lothar. Then he thought,
No. Let the Romans salvage what they may.
Pope Sergius would no doubt find a better purpose for the money than Lothar, who would only use it to finance more brutal and bloody military campaigns.

He was about to ride on when one of the Romans leapt from his horse and prostrated himself on the ground. “Mercy, lord!” he cried. “Spare us! We must not die unshriven with the weight of this great crime upon our souls!”

“Crime?” Gerold echoed.

“Hold your tongue, fool!” Their leader spurred his horse and would have trampled the other in the dirt, but Gerold intercepted him with drawn sword. Immediately Gerold’s men drew their swords and surrounded the Romans, who, observing how greatly they were outnumbered, wisely kept their own blades scabbarded.

“Benedict’s the one to blame!” the man on the ground sputtered in a burst of retaliatory anger. “It was his idea to steal the money, not ours!”

Steal the money?

The man called Benedict spoke placatingly. “I have no quarrel with you, lord, nor need our petty quarrels concern you. Let us pass in peace, and in token of our gratitude you may have one of these coffers.” He smiled at Gerold conspiratorially. “There’s gold enough inside to make you a wealthy man.”

The offer and the manner of his making it resolved all doubt. “Bind him,” Gerold commanded. “And the others. We’ll take them and these coffers to Rome with us.”

T
HE
triclinium was ablaze with the light of a hundred torches. A phalanx of servants stood behind the high table at which Pope Sergius sat, flanked by the high dignitaries of the city: the priests of each of the seven regions of Rome to his left; their temporal counterparts, the seven defensores, to his right. Perpendicular to this table, and just as grand, was another, at which Lothar and his retinue were placed at seats of honor. The rest of the company, some two hundred men altogether, sat on hard wooden benches drawn up before long tables in the middle of the room. Plates, ewers, goblets, and platters crowded together on the tables, whose cloths already carried the marks of innumerable spills and stains.

As it was neither a Wednesday nor a Friday, nor any other fast day, the meal was not confined to bread and fish but included flesh meat and other rich viands. Even for a Pope’s table, it was an extraordinary repast: there were platters of capons smothered with white sauce and ornamented with pomegranate and crimson sweetmeats; bowls of soup, filled with tender morsels of rabbit and woodcock swimming in a thick cream, giving off an aromatic steam; jellies of crayfish and loach; whole pigs larded with grease; and huge plates of roasted roe deer, kid, pigeon, and goose. In the center of Lothar’s table, a whole cooked swan was displayed as if alive, its gilded beak and silvered body resting upon a mass of greens artfully arranged to appear like waves of the sea.

Seated at one of the tables in the center of the room, Joan cast a worried eye over the extravagant display. Such rich delights might well tempt Sergius into dangerous overindulgence.

“A toast!” The Count of Mâcon rose from his place beside Lothar and raised his cup. “To peace and friendship between our two Christian peoples!”

“Peace and friendship!” everyone chorused, and drained their cups. Servants hurried along the tables, pouring more wine.

There followed a multitude of toasts. When at last they ran out of subjects for liquid tribute, the feasting began.

Joan watched with alarm as Sergius ate and drank with reckless abandon. His eyes began to swell, his speech to slur, his skin to
darken ominously. She would have to give him a strong dose of colchicum tonight to prevent a return attack of gout.

The doors to the triclinium opened, and a group of guards marched in. Sidestepping to avoid the innumerable serving boys who scurried nimbly about the room fetching and clearing dishes, the guards made their way briskly to the front of the room. A sudden quiet fell as the guests broke off talking, craning their necks to make out the cause of this extraordinary intrusion. This hush was followed by a murmur of surprise as they caught a glimpse of the man who walked in the midst of the guards with bound hands and lowered eyes: Benedict.

The cheerful circles of Sergius’s face collapsed like punctured bladders. “You!” he cried.

Tarasius, the leader of the guards, said, “A troop of Franks found him in the campagna. He had the treasure with him.”

Benedict had had a good deal of time on the trip back to Rome to consider his predicament. He could not deny taking the treasure, having been caught in the act. Nor could he think of a plausible excuse for what he had done, though he had racked his brain trying. He finally decided that the best course was to throw himself upon his brother’s mercy. Sergius was tenderhearted to the core—a weakness Benedict despised, though now he hoped to use it to his gain.

He dropped to his knees, lifting his bound arms toward his brother. “Forgive me, Sergius. I have sinned, and I repent most humbly and sincerely.”

But Benedict had not counted on the effects of the wine on his brother’s temper. Sergius’s face crimsoned as he swung unexpectedly into rage. “Traitor!” he shouted. “Villain! Thief!” He punctuated each word with a violent thump of his fist on the table, setting the plates clattering.

Benedict paled. “Brother, I beseech you—”

“Take him away!” Sergius ordered.

“Where should we take him, Holiness?” Tarasius asked.

Sergius’s head was spinning; it was difficult to think. All he knew was that he had been betrayed, and he wanted to strike back, to wound as he himself had been wounded. “He’s a thief!” he said bitterly. “Let him be punished as a thief!”

“No!” Benedict shouted as the guards took hold of him. “Sergius!
Brother!”
The last word was left echoing as he was dragged from the hall.

The color drained from Sergius’s face, and he dropped into his chair. His head fell back, his eyes rolled, his arms and legs began to shake uncontrollably.

“It’s the evil eye!” someone shouted. “Benedict’s put a spell on him!” The guests cried out in consternation, crossing themselves against the workings of the Devil.

Joan raced through the crowded tables to Sergius’s side. His face was turning blue. She took hold of his head and pried his clenched jaws open. His tongue was folded back upon itself, blocking the airway. Grabbing a knife from the table, Joan inserted the blunt end into Sergius’s mouth, slipping it into the folded loop of tongue. Then she pulled. There was a sucking sound as the tongue flipped forward. Sergius gasped and began to breathe again. Joan pressed down gently with the knife, keeping the airway open. After a moment, the paroxysm subsided. With a muted groan, Sergius went limp.

“Take him to his bed,” she ordered. Several serving boys lifted Sergius from his chair and carried him toward the door as the crowd pressed round curiously. “Make way! Make way!” Joan shouted as they bore the unconscious Pope out of the hall.