The Psalter (17 page)

The mounted Count pinned Pope John to the altar with his charger. It snorted white spume on John’s face and robe. John tried to flee, but the well-trained warhorse lunged and blocked his escape. Theophylact dismounted, death blazing in his eyes, his blade gripped at his side. Discerning his master’s step out of one fiery eye, the giant horse clopped backward, relinquishing the attack to the count. Theophylact seized Pope John by the collar of his habit and dragged him to the ground. “So you would be pope, would you?” Venom dripped from his words. “You son of a whore from the filthy streets.” He raised his broad sword high over his head. Pope John stared, unflinching, into the count’s murderous eyes.

“Stop!” The shrill voice from the back of the basilica. “Please, nephew, I beg you.” Pietro di Porca wrung his soft hands at the entrance. He stood sandwiched between
vicedominus
Adrian and Archdeacon Nicholas. They had accompanied the small army to the
patriarchum
.

Theophylact’s lethal trance was broken, and he came to himself. He scanned the basilica. Priests and soldiers alike stared, aghast, at the scene. Even nobles shook their heads in horror. Johannes thought Hogsmouth had won a reprieve for John until he heard his voice say, “Do it outside.”

“Seize him,” the count said. Two sergeants grabbed Pope John by his arms and dragged him behind Theophylact down the nave. The foot soldiers, all of common stock, watched as horrified as the priests.

A young soldier holding a pike to Johannes’ chest, mouth agape at the Pope’s humiliation, lowered it unwittingly. Johannes leapt over the shaft and charged forward to block Theophylact’s retreat. “Enough,” he barked in the count’s face with his youth’s green voice. “How dare you touch His Holiness?”

Taken aback at this affront for but an instant, Theophylact struck the
secundarius
with the hilt of his sword, knocking him to the floor. “The next one who tries to stop me will feel the bite of my blade,” he said. He motioned the sergeants forward but Johannes, hunched over and spitting blood, threatened Hogsmouth, “Pietro, if you allow this, then, by the saints, there’ll be no music archive.”

“I can do nothing. It’s the will of God,” Hogsmouth said.

“Then I swear I will never teach you harmonies and I will discredit your music with every stroke of my pen. Your songs will be ill regarded and forgotten before you’re even dust in the grave.” Johannes’ icy glare pierced the Archpriest’s soft exterior.

“I am to be the rightful Pope, and I will order you.”

“If you can do naught, so too can I do nothing. I will be a humble priest or even a layman. That you cannot stop. But you won’t have your music, and I’ll write of the wicked pope who murdered a pope to seize his crown. Your legacy will be most foul and your songs will be unsung and forgotten, I swear.”

Noble cardinals who hated Pietro’s songs smirked. Common priests, aghast at the sacrilege of the holy
patriarchum
defiled by blood and armed troops, murmured in agreement. Even the soldiers, fearful for their immortal souls, nodded hopefully.

Hogsmouth grasped that if he allowed John Hymonides to be slaughtered, his papacy would indeed be stained: power without authority. Worse, he would be forever beholden to Theophylact. He had but one chance to free himself from his nephew’s rapacious bullying, and it was now. “If I spare John’s life, will you obey me?”

Johannes glanced at Anastasius, but found no advice in his gaze. He turned to Pope John Hymonides and detected no fear, but also no counsel. “I’ll do whatever you bid.”

Hogsmouth’s voice trembled as he spoke to his nephew. “Release him, I beg you.”

Theophylact was furious. “I give the orders here!”

Pietro’s trembling turned to resolve and his quivering voice congealed to ice. “No, nephew, in the Holy See, it is I who command.”

“You, Hogsmouth, dare to defy me?”

“I’m grateful for your assistance, Uncle. Nonetheless, in the
patriarchum
, I sit on the throne. I order you on pain of your everlasting soul to release Deacon John.” Pietro added with cruel glee, “Unless you fear neither God nor excommunication in front of these assembled witnesses.” The tide had turned and Pietro, ever the politician, sensed it. “Any man, be he noble or common, who harms a priest or a hair on Deacon John’s head will be excommunicated and face damnation in Satan’s Hell.” Soldiers lowered their pikes and nobles slid swords into scabbards. Fearful whispers filled the church, and Pietro knew they would obey him.

Theophylact fumed, but his rage waned as the assembly obeyed Hogsmouth. “I will not see this false pope, who would purloin Saint Peter’s throne, set free to work his wickedness.”

Archpriest Pietro grasped that his nephew had left an opening for compromise, and he would give him an accommodation so he might leave with some scrap of honor. “So he shall not. I order that henceforth, Deacon John shall be banished to the monastery at Monte Cassino far from Rome, where he will serve God and not his own ambition.”

Theophylact spoke politic for the crowd, “Then we are satisfied that justice has been done. Release the prisoner.” The assembly heaved a collective sigh. “I will not leave, however, until the rightful pope has been crowned.”

Johannes, still bleeding and dabbing at his mouth with his sleeve, intervened indignantly. “The Pope may not be consecrated until he’s been confirmed by Lothair. It’s the Emperor’s lawful right.”

The count’s hackles raised at the priest’s continued impudence. “Lothair is not here and I’ll permit no further mischief. I demand the Pope be consecrated now! I will deal with Lothair.”

“As you wish nephew,” Pietro di Porca said. “Surely the Emperor will understand that in this state of rebellion, an immediate consecration is necessary.” He sauntered to the church altar, glancing left and right at his brethren, a gloating smile on his double-chinned face. He turned to the assembly, smug and satisfied that his lifetime ambition had been realized.

The
vicedominus
hurried forward to pick up the conical tiara that had been knocked to the ground and placed it without hesitation or pomp on Hogsmouth’s head. There were no cheers, no prayers of thanksgiving, and no psalms recited. Priests, nobles, and soldiers alike felt somehow defiled.

Pope Hogsmouth rose imperiously from the throne of Christendom. “I will no longer be Pietro de Porca, for no pope is worthy of the Apostle Peter’s name. Nor shall I suffer further the indignity of being called Hogsmouth. I henceforth take the name Sergius after an illustrious and pious pope, and I shall be the second of that name.”

It had never been done before, that a Pope changed his name to call himself by that of another. Many of the priests who witnessed the night’s violence grasped the irony that Pope Sergius II took the name of a Syrian who had purchased the papacy for one hundred pounds of gold. Few knew, however, save Hogsmouth, that the first Sergius had likewise been raised and trained in the
schola cantorum
.

17
1969 Citroën

Colonelo Del Carlo and
Capitaine
Desmoulins had forbidden Father Romano from leaving Paris without their express permission. As he sat in the emergency room lobby while the Hébers were being examined, the priest brooded over the last twenty-four hours that had dismantled his quiet life of refuge in the Holy Church.
Why did I take the Psalter
, he asked himself.
All of this could have been avoided
.

Well, not all. The Pope’s trusted Secretary and his confessor would still be dead, murdered by some arcane group. And these unknown assassins would still be after the Psalter, which was in reality a great deal more than a mere prayer book. Nevertheless, the Hébers would not have been assaulted and the Archive receptionist would still be alive. So what did he have to show for the last forty-eight hours? A ruined career, a sore groin, and the sole responsibility for the theft of the most valuable manuscript in Christendom. It seemed a ruinous way to learn the virtues of obedience.

Nevertheless, Romano was sick of obedience, at least the kind that turned otherwise intelligent people into simpletons as their ideology trumped intellect, and the librarian felt no better than they. He was one of few with unlimited access to hidden writings in the Secret Archives, and he was tired of hiding knowledge that should belong to the world so they could judge for themselves. Two billion Christians echoed the official creed, but hardly a soul raised a voice for the suppressed writings, at least until Giovanni.

Romano sat in a plastic chair, head bowed. A hand patted his shoulder. “Are you in pain?” Pascal leaned over, purplish blotches spotting his cheek where he’d been struck.

“My groin aches a little.”

The corners of the linguist’s mouth curled up in an impish grin. “They don’t make bandages for such an injury.”

The priest’s face turned from self-pity to concern. “How’s Isabelle?”

“Concussion, but the doctors say she’ll be fine.”

“I was shocked to see her get up after the blow she took. I’ve seen football players sidelined by less.”

“My daughter possesses remarkable willpower. Of course, there’s a fine line between willpower and stubbornness, and Isabelle lives on the edge, a family curse, I fear. They’re keeping her for the night as a precaution. She made the mistake of telling them she’d been knocked unconscious. I told the doctor our attacker hit like a little girl. I think he believed me because he’s letting me go home. Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.”

Pascal poured an infusion of herb tea into china cups that made the apartment smell like a summer garden while the priest righted overturned furniture. “Leave it for tomorrow. I’ll call the cleaning lady in the morning.” He glanced at his watch. “I suppose it is morning. The sun will be up in an hour or so. Drink some rose tea. I brew this for Isabelle when she suffers from cramps. She would berate me if she knew I told you. Perhaps the herbs will help; it’s in the same general area, no?”

Pascal’s jests made brightened Romano’s spirits a bit, although a foreboding still enveloped him like a cheerless fog. The tea relaxed the spasms in his nether region in a way the ibuprofen did not. “I’ve made a mess of this,” he said in a piteous voice.

The retired professor rose from the overstuffed chair to sit beside the heartsick priest. “This isn’t a tragedy of your making. Sometimes when one rushes to great heights, every setback seems like the end of the world. Your scholarship and intuition led you to uncover the most significant scriptures in two thousand years. How can it be, how did you put it, a mess?”

“If I hadn’t taken the book, none of this would have happened. Now it’s lost forever.”

“Had you not brought the Psalter to Isabelle, you might never have uncovered the text, and the words are not quite lost.” Romano looked at him, not comprehending, as Pascal pulled folded sheets of paper from the side pocket of his cardigan. “I took the liberty of copying the photograph to recheck some of the more obscure words. It’s Aramaic, an exact copy, but I can translate for you.” The smile on the professor’s face grew larger.

“No one will believe a word, especially if I tell them what the book says. Like the Bible, without an original, there would always be doubts and accusations.”

“People are hard set to give up their beliefs, even those founded on nothing more than myth or old wives’ tales. Some would doubt and accuse you whether you had the original or not.”

“I must still face the Vatican. At the least, I’m certain to lose my job in the Archives. Even if I’m allowed to remain a priest, which I doubt, I’ll likely be assigned to some obscure position in a remote backwater so I can do no more damage. And if I dared reveal to the public what I discovered, I’d be discredited, even targeted for retribution.”

“Is the Pope’s Secretary ill regarded because he fell prey to these criminals? Did he not remove the book from the library as well? He was unable to stop them, and neither could you. One man against a well planned attack?”

“Father Mackey didn’t question the doctrines of our faith.”

“The words in the Psalter are Thomas’, not yours. You would simply be reporting what you discovered.”

“Someone else said the same thing to me not long ago.” Romano thought of his last conversation with Father Mackey. “But I’ve been down that road before. I don’t think the church will make a distinction.”

“You’re burning bridges before you reach them. If I understand correctly, you face three choices. You can do nothing, in which case the church will believe you’re ignoring their authority and they’ll impose their decision on you, an unfavorable one, I would imagine. Or you could quit the priesthood, return to the outside world, and your career in the church will come to an end. So will your quest for the original scriptures.”

“They’d never allow me to be a researcher again,” Romano said.

“Perhaps, and maybe it’s likely. But your only hope, if it’s the path you desire, is to return to the Vatican and explain what happened. You have nothing to hide. Your motives are honorable even if the church views them as rash. We all err, but our intentions make us who we are. How can the search for truth be dishonorable? Of course, you’re forgetting the most important point.”

“What?”

“If you want proof of your discovery, you’ll not find it in Paris or anywhere in the outside world. You will in all likelihood discover what you’re after in the libraries of the Vatican, beneath the prayers and psalms of Giovanni. Personally, I’d like to hear what Jesus’ twin brother has to say. Now, I believe we need some sleep. I’ve had a long day, and I don’t know how you can keep your eyes open.”

Pascal awoke to the sound of a distant voice and the blessed aroma of coffee. His room was still dark although it didn’t seem possible nighttime had come again. He pulled back the drapes to look into the courtyard. The sun was veiled by a thick haze. The damp air seeped into his old bones. His head throbbed and his neck ached as though it had been wrung like a chicken. He glanced at the windup clock on the nightstand: almost noon.
Not so bad. Still morning
, he thought. Then he gazed in the mirror. A bruised, swollen face stared back, and the reflection made his head ache even more.