Pope Joan (57 page)

With the addition of these extra hands, the wall rose more quickly. In three years, it stood complete—a masterpiece of medieval engineering, the most extraordinary construction the city had seen in over four hundred years. The whole of the Vatican territory was enclosed within a structure twelve feet thick and forty feet tall, defended by forty-four massive towers. There were two separate galleries, one above the other; the lower gallery was supported by a series
of graceful arcades opening within. Three gates gave entrance: the Posterula Sant’Angeli; the Posterula Saxonum, so named because it opened into the Saxon quarter; and the Posterula San Peregrinus, the principal gate through which future generations of kings and princes would pass to worship at the holy shrine of St. Peter.

Remarkable as the wall was, this was only the beginning of Leo’s ambitious plans for the city. Dedicated to “restoring all the places of the saints,” Leo embarked upon a great plan of rebuilding. The ring of anvils sounded day and night throughout the city as work went on in one after another of the city’s churches. The burned basilica of the Saxons was restored, as well as the Frisian church of San Michele and the Church of the Sancti Quattro Coronati, of which Leo had once been cardinal.

Most important of all, Leo began the restoration of St. Peter’s. The burned and blackened portico was completely rebuilt; the doors, stripped of their precious metal by the Saracens, were covered with new, light-diffusing silver plates on which myriad sacred histories were carved with astonishing skill. The great treasure that had been carried off by the Saracens was replaced: the high altar was covered with new plates of silver and gold and decorated with a massive gold crucifix set with pearls, emeralds, and diamonds; above it a silver ciborium weighing over a thousand pounds was mounted upon four great pillars of purest travertine marble, ornamented with gilt lilies. The altar was lit by lamps hung on silver chains, garnished with golden balls, their flickering light illuminating a veritable treasure trove of jeweled chalices, wrought silver lecterns, rich tapestries, and silken hangings. The great basilica gleamed with a splendor that outshone even its former magnificence.

O
BSERVING
the vast amounts of money pouring forth from the papal treasury, Joan felt troubled. Undeniably Leo had created a shrine of awe-inspiring beauty. But the majority of those who lived within sight of this glittering magnificence spent their days in brutish, degrading poverty. A single one of St. Peter’s massive silver plates, melted into coin, would feed and clothe the population of the Campus Martius for a year. Did God’s worship really require such sacrifice?

There was only one person in the world with whom Joan dared raise such a question. When she put it to him, Gerold considered soberly before replying. “I have heard it argued,” he said finally,
“that the beauty of a holy shrine provides the faithful with a different form of nourishment—food for the soul, not the body.”

“It’s difficult to hear the voice of God over the grumbling of an empty stomach.”

Gerold shook his head affectionately. “You haven’t changed. Remember the time you asked Odo how he could be certain the Resurrection had taken place, since there were no eyewitnesses?”

“I do.” Joan flexed her hand ruefully. “I also remember how he answered me.”

“When I saw the wound Odo gave you,” Gerold said, “I wanted to strike him—and would have, if I hadn’t known it would only make things more difficult for you.”

Joan smiled. “You always were my protector.”

“And you,” he bantered, “always had the soul of a heretic.”

They had always been able to talk like this, free from the world’s restraints. It was part of the special intimacy that had bound them from the very first.

He looked at her now with a familiar warmth. Joan was keenly aware of him; she felt his nearness like a touch on her naked skin. But by now she was skilled at disguising her feelings.

She pointed to the pile of petitions on the table between them. “I must go hear these petitioners.”

“Shouldn’t Leo do that?” Gerold asked.

“He’s asked me to see to it.”

Lately Leo had been delegating more and more of his daily responsibilities to her so he could devote himself to the continuing plans for rebuilding. Joan had become Leo’s ambassador to the people; she was so familiar a sight going about her charitable duties in the different regions of the city that she was hailed everywhere as “the little Pope” and greeted with some of the affection reserved for Leo himself.

As she reached for the pile of papers, Gerold’s hand brushed hers. She drew her hand back violently, as if from a fire. “I … I’d better go,” she said awkwardly.

She was immensely relieved, and a little disappointed, when he did not follow her.

B
UOYED
by the success of the Leonine Wall and the renovation of St. Peter’s, Leo’s popularity was soaring.
Restaurator Urbis
, he was
called, Restorer of the City. He was another Hadrian, the people said, another Aurelius. Everywhere he went, crowds cheered him. Rome rang with his praises.

Everywhere, that is, but in the palace on the Palatine Hill, where Arsenius waited with gathering impatience for the day when he could call Anastasius home.

Things had not gone as expected. There was no way to depose Leo from the throne, as Arsenius had originally hoped, and even less hope that it would be left vacant through the happy accident of death: healthy and vigorous, Leo gave every evidence of living forever.

Now the family fortunes had suffered another blow. The week before, Arsenius’s second son, Eleutheris, had died. He had been riding down the Via Recta when a pig darted between his horse’s legs; the horse stumbled and Eleutheris fell, receiving a cut on the thigh. At first no one was concerned, for the wound was slight. But misfortune has a way of following upon misfortune. The wound became corrupted. Arsenius called in Ennodius, who bled Eleutheris profusely, but it availed nothing. Within two days his son lay dead. Arsenius immediately ordered a search for the owner of the pig; when he was discovered, Arsenius had his throat slit from ear to ear. But such revenge was cold comfort, for it could not bring back Eleutheris.

Not that there had been much love lost between father and son. Eleutheris was the exact opposite of his brother—soft, lazy, and undisciplined even as a child, he had scorned Arsenius’s offer of a church education and chosen instead the more immediate gratifications of a lay existence—women, wine, gambling, and other forms of debauchery.

No, Arsenius mourned Eleutheris not for the man he had been or might have become, given time, but for what he had represented: another branch of the family tree, a branch that might yet have borne promising fruit.

For centuries, theirs had been the first family of Rome. Arsenius could trace his ancestry back in a direct line to Augustus Caesar himself. Yet this illustrious heritage was tarnished by failure, for none of its noble sons had ever achieved Rome’s ultimate prize: the Throne of St. Peter. How many lesser men had sat upon that throne, Arsenius thought bitterly, and with what tragic result? Rome, once the wonder of the world, was sunk into ruinous and embarrassing decay. The Byzantines mocked it openly, pointing to the gleaming splendor of
their own Constantinople. Who but one of Arsenius’s family, Caesar’s heirs, could lead the city back to her former greatness?

Now Eleutheris was gone, Anastasius was the last of the line, the only remaining chance the family would ever have to redeem its honor, and Rome’s.

And Anastasius was banished to Frankland.

Arsenius felt dark despair close in on him. He shook it off brusquely, like an unwanted cloak. Greatness did not attend upon opportunity; it seized it. Those who would rule had to be willing to pay the price of power, however great.

D
URING
mass on the day of the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Joan first noticed something wrong with Leo. His hands trembled while receiving the offerings, and he faltered uncharacteristically over the
Nobis quoque peccatoribus.

When Joan questioned him afterward, he dismissed his symptoms as nothing more than a touch of heat and indigestion.

The next day he was no better, nor the next, nor the next. His head ached constantly, and he complained of burning pains in his hands and feet. Each day he became a little weaker; each day it took more effort for him to rise from bed. Joan grew alarmed. She tried every remedy she knew for wasting diseases. Nothing helped. Leo continued to sink toward death.

T
HE
voices of the choir rose loudly in the
Te Deum
, the final canticle of the Mass. Anastasius kept his face expressionless, trying not to grimace at the noise. He had never grown accustomed to the Frankish chant, whose unfamiliar tones grated upon his ears like the croaking of blackbirds. Remembering the pure, sweet harmonies of the Roman chant, Anastasius felt a sharp stab of homesickness.

Not that his time here in Aachen had been wasted. Following his father’s instructions, Anastasius had set out to win the Emperor’s support. He began by courting Lothar’s friends and intimates, and making himself agreeable to Lothar’s wife, Ermengard. He assiduously charmed and flattered the Frankish nobility, impressing them all with his knowledge of Scripture and especially of Greek—a rare accomplishment. Ermengard and her friends interceded with the Emperor, and Anastasius was readmitted to the royal presence. Whatever
doubt or resentment Lothar might once have harbored against him was forgotten; once again Ana stasius enjoyed the Emperor’s trust and support.

I have done everything Father asked, and more. But when will come my reward?
There were times, such as now, when Anastasius feared he might be left to languish forever in this cold, barbarian backwater.

Returning to his rooms after mass, he discovered a letter had arrived in his absence. Recognizing the hand as his father’s, he took up a knife and eagerly cut the seal. He read the first few lines and cried out exultantly.

The time is now
, his father had written.
Come claim your destiny.

L
EO
lay on his side in bed, knees drawn up, suffering from sharp pains in his stomach. Joan prepared an emollient potion of egg whites beaten into sweetened milk, to which she added a little fennel as a carminative. She watched him drink it.

“That was good,” he said.

She waited to see if he would keep it down. He did, then slept more restfully than he had in weeks. When he awoke hours later, he felt better.

Joan decided to put him on a diet of the potion, restricting all other food and drink.

Waldipert protested: “He’s so weak; surely he needs something more substantial to keep his strength up.”

Joan replied firmly, “The treatment is helping him. He must take no food other than the potion.”

Seeing the determined look in her eyes, Waldipert backed down. “As you say, Nomenclator.”

For a week, Leo continued to improve. His pain went away, his color returned, he even seemed to regain some of his old energy. When Joan brought him his evening dose of the healing potion, Leo eyed the milky mixture ruefully.

“How about a meat pasty instead?”

“You’re getting your appetite back—a good sign. Best not to rush things, however. I’ll look in on you in the morning; if you’re still hungry, I’ll let you try a bit of simple pottage.”

“Tyrant,” Leo responded.

She smiled. It was good to have him gibe with her again.

E
ARLY
the next morning, she arrived to find that Leo had suffered a relapse. He lay in bed moaning, too much in pain to reply when she spoke to him.

Quickly Joan prepared another dose of the emollient potion. As she did, her eyes fell upon an empty plate of crumbs on the table beside the bed.

“What’s this?” she asked Renatus, Leo’s personal chamberlain.

“Why, it’s the meat pasty you sent him,” the boy replied.

“I sent nothing,” Joan said.

Renatus looked confused. “But … my lord Vicedominus said you ordered it specially.”

Joan looked at Leo doubled over with pain. A horrible suspicion dawned.

“Run!”
she told Renatus. “Call the superista and the guards. Don’t let Waldipert leave the palace.”

The boy hesitated only a moment, then ran from the chamber.

With shaking hands, Joan prepared a strong emetic of mustard and elder-root, spooning the mixture through Leo’s tightened mouth. In a few moments, the cleansing spasm took him; his whole body heaved convulsively, but he brought up only a thin green bile.

Too late. The poison has left his stomach.
Joan saw with distress that it had already begun its deadly work, tightening the muscles of Leo’s jaw and throat, strangling him.

Desperately she tried to think of something else to do.

G
EROLD
ordered a search of every room of the palace. Waldipert was nowhere to be found. Immediately he was declared criminal and fugitive, and an intensive hunt was instituted throughout the city and into the surrounding countryside. But they searched in vain; Waldipert had completely disappeared.