The Psalter (35 page)

The room was warm and stuffy, yet Anastasius shivered. “I’m so cold.” His teeth rattled.

Johannes lifted the covers and slid in, rubbing him all over, trying to pass heat from his body to his friend’s. It seemed to be working. The shivering subsided and Anastasius relaxed. His breathing came easier and he sighed in relief. “You saved my life tonight.”

“I killed a man.” Johannes’ lip quivered.

“You had no choice.”

“I could have hit him or struck him with something, but I stabbed him without thinking. No, that’s a lie. I thought he was killing you and I wanted to hurt him, kill him.” Tears flowed from Johannes’ reddened eyes, and he began to weep.

“You did what you had to do.”

“Thou shalt not kill.”

“You took a life to save one, mine. The scales are balanced.”

Johannes weeping grew into sobs. “Oh, I don’t care. What would I do if I lost you?”

Anastasius turned on his side and pulled his young friend close, holding his body tight with one hand, wiping the tears with the other. “Please don’t cry. You committed no sin.”

Johannes reached out his own hand, touching his companion’s cheek with his fingers, and gazed into his eyes. “To lose your dear words, I simply couldn’t bear it.” Unthinking, he pressed his lips to his friend’s, kissing him softly at first, then harder.

Anastasius recoiled.

“I’m sorry,” the young priest said, realizing what he had done.

He tried to push away but Anastasius held him close. “I share the same desire although I can’t explain it. Some priests in our brotherhood consort with men. I’ve never felt such yearning, not before I met you or even after. Only with you have I craved these things. I try to resist, but cannot.”

Johannes pulled Anastasius to him, kissing with closed lips at first, but opening them finally to his friend. They held each other close until Anastasius bowed his head. “I can’t. I want to. God forgive me, I do. I desire a part of you more than anything on earth…but I don’t wish to be with a man.”

Johannes gazed on his friend’s sweet face; however, Anastasius would not meet his eyes. “Can’t you love me for who I am?”

“I do, but I don’t want to make carnal love with you.”

“Is it my body?”

“Yes.”

“Then let God’s true creation be revealed.” Johannes rose up to his knees and untied the cincture binding his robe. He slid it over his head and pulled off his linen shift. “Let this robe never come between us. Can you not at least look at me?”

Anastasius raised his eyes, and his mouth gaped. “Oh my God!”

Johannes broke into sobs once again. “I should’ve told you. I never meant to deceive. I wanted to learn and it’s forbidden for us and I…”

“You’re a woman!”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you? I love you.” Anastasius kissed her passionately, uninhibited. He laid her down on the pallet. Gazing into her eyes, the cardinal rolled on top, spreading her thighs, touching the sweetness of her soft skin. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Of course you do. I’m Johanna. Joan, not John.”

“Who would believe it?” Anastasius said smiling, fulfilled, even amused at the idea. “A woman cardinal.”

“Oh dear heart, I never meant for it to go this far. I wanted to learn what I could, only a year or two, then I planned to leave. But I received interesting jobs and I believed the church needed me and what I did was important.”

Anastasius laughed. “Let me see,” he said. “The woman Junia was a priest during Saint Paul’s time, a bishop even, and many argued that Mary Magdalen was an Apostle. In fact, the scriptures call her the Apostle to the Apostles. Of course, Bishop Theodora was a woman and Priscilla a priest who worked with Saint Paul, and Paul tells us Phoebe was a deacon. You might be on solid ground.”

“You’re teasing me.” Johanna poked Anastasius.

“The early church had many female priests, but oh yes, I remember now: the popes put an end to it. Women were forbidden to hold the priesthood in the fourth century at the
Council of Laodicia
. Then the
Council of Chalcedon
forbade women under the age of forty from being deacons. That rule is quite confusing because anyone holding the title of deacon has the right to be a priest as well. On the other hand, I haven’t heard of any women deacons lately.”

Johanna wasn’t nearly as amused as Anastasius. She shook her head as he continued his reflection while they lay in each other’s arms. “In truth, one might argue there’s no legitimate prohibition against women being priests. All the same, I don’t think I’d advertise it just yet.”

“If only I had been born a man.”

“And where would that leave me? I thought I had become a Sodomite. How did you keep it hidden all these years?”

“The worst was my monthly cycle. Thank heaven I worked alone most of the time, but hiding the evidence was a chore. I was sick every month believing I might be discovered.”

“We’ve all been fools. How did we ever believe such beauty as yours could be a man?”

“Oh, sweet Anastasius, what am I to do?”

“Do? You’re to do nothing and say nothing. You’re right. The church needs you, and I need you. Now that I’ve found you, I’ll never let you go.”

“What if I’m discovered?”

“You guarded your secret these many years and I believe God will protect you just as he has seen fit thus far. I swear I’ll find a way for us to be together, every second of every day.”

“Oh no, impossible. You must flee today.”

“Leave? What are you saying? Don’t you love me?”

“More than my own life and that’s why you need to go.” Johanna caressed Anastasius’ cheek with her palm. “Don’t you understand? Who do you think tried to kill you tonight?”

“I don’t know, a thief perhaps. Rome has many poor and destitute.”

“Did you not see the assassin’s clothes? He was no pauper. This is Theophylact’s doing, and likely the cur, Benedict. They don’t intend to allow the Emperor’s power to grow in the Papal Palace. And now they have you where they want you, isolated at San Marcello, where you’re an easy target.”

“Uncle Arsenius supports the Emperor as well. Will they not try to kill him? I can’t leave him unprotected.”

“They wouldn’t dare touch the Emperor’s
missi
at Leo’s palace and risk Lothair’s wrath. You have no such protection. They’ve seen to that. You must flee. I’ll be your eyes and ears in the
patriarchum
. When it’s safe, I’ll know. Then we can be together.”

Anastasius grabbed his beloved Johanna’s hands and pulled her close. “What am I to do without you?”

“You’re to get you out of Rome, far from Theophylact’s reach. Make for the border of the Frankish country where Lothair can protect you. I’ll come to you, but first, I must farm the apostolic lands and earn the money Leo needs for his wall. Until then, you’re to stay alive and love me as I love you.”

32
Heresies

Isabelle Héber scanned the images on her computer screen at the desk provided for her in the Vatican Library. Father Sabella had been more than accommodating and supplied her with everything she required. He avoided her at first, but once he discovered she would be deciphering early Biblical scriptures, the librarian in him overcame his suspicion of an outsider, and a woman to boot. He even acquired the habit of hovering around her desk while she installed her equipment. She explained everything to him solicitously at first, but lately had to shoo him away to get her work done.

Isabelle had purchased a digital-imaging software program used mostly by professional photographers and graphic artists. However, finding a digital document camera had been difficult. In the end she bought the best camera she could find in Rome and added a macro lens and colored filters.

Photographs were easily downloaded from the camera to the computer, and a colleague had emailed her a dictionary of first-century Aramaic that interpreted the words she uncovered. Pages had just begun to appear when the doorknob turned and the hinges creaked. “Please Father Sabella,” she said, “I’m at a critical point…”

“Sorry if I’m interrupting.”

Isabelle jerked around to the welcome sound of Michael Romano’s voice, then her jaw dropped. “Oh my God, what did you do to your eye?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Romano countered. “This was done to me.”

“By who?”

“It’s a secret.”

Isabelle’s intuition told her the priest’s black eye had something to do with the men who had attacked them in Paris. “Does your shiner have anything to do with a raid on terrorists in Normandy?”

“How did you hear about that?”

“So I’m right?”

“I promised not to say.”

“You just did. Anyway, it’s not much of a secret since every newspaper and TV station is running the story. But what would Arabs want with Psalters?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Romano said. “I feel like I should, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Sit here while I find some ice.” Isabelle rose from her chair and pushed Romano into the seat.

“You’re a little late; the damage is done. What might interest you, since you’ve guessed already, is that the man who gave me this is the same one who assaulted us in your apartment.”

“Are you positive?”

“I’d recognize his punches anywhere,” Romano said.

“You mean actual terrorists were in our home?”

“I don’t think they’ll be bothering you. The one who attacked me was killed, and the others are in jail.”

“Did you find the Psalter at least?” Isabelle was hopeful.

“No, but it had been in the terrorist’s compound. I found photocopies of the pages. The police are still searching.”

“Oh Michael, I am sorry. But this might cheer you up. I’ve got a rudimentary system up and running, and I just translated the first pages of a Giovanni Psalter
.
”

“Is this the page on the screen?”

“Yes, although some of the words are missing. I need to find more filters, but I think enough is legible to tell which book this is. If I’m not mistaken, Giovanni copied over the text in the exact order it was written.”

“An entire scroll was cut and bound into a single codex?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Isabelle said.

“That’s never happened before. Monks cut scrolls into pages and they ended up in many different books.”

“Maybe I’m mistaken, but as I loaded photographs on the computer, the sentences continued from one page to another. I don’t read Aramaic, but the script appears to be unbroken.”

“That would mean Giovanni intended to keep the contents of the scroll whole. I’ve always had a hunch about this monk.” Romano eyed the digitized image of Aramaic writing.

Isabelle reached over him. Her hair brushed against his face as she tapped the enter key. The ancient writing disappeared and English words reappeared in their place. “Do you recognize the text?”

Romano grimaced as he stared at the computer monitor. “The sentence construction is confusing. We could certainly use your dad to translate but yes, I know the verses,” he said.

“Well?”

“The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.”

Isabelle was flummoxed. “I had no idea women were Apostles.”

“They weren’t, according to the church. But there’s been a lot of debate lately. Some of the early church fathers called Mary the
Apostle to the Apostles
. Even Paul referred to a woman named Junia as ‘foremost among the Apostles.’ Women certainly held positions of authority, but later popes suppressed their roles. However, they continued to be ordained as late as the fourteenth century.”

“If women were priests, could they also marry?”

“I suppose,” Romano said. “The early church had no restrictions on marriage. Some of the Apostles were married, but in the fourth century, marriage began to be forbidden, although the prohibition wasn’t absolute. By the fifteenth century, half of the clerics continued to marry. Even popes had wives and children, but I’ve never heard of priests marrying each other.”

“So you and I might have been married if we lived in the middle ages.” Isabelle gently touched the black ring under Romano’s eye.

Michael clasped her hand and brushed the fingers against his cheek. He stood and wrapped his arm around her waist. His lips moved toward hers, and she closed her eyes. He whispered in her ear, “You’d better get the ice,” and turned to open the door.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes?”

“Why?” Isabelle asked.

“You know why. Do you think your dad would help you?”

Isabelle pleaded on the telephone with her father to come to Rome. “Please Papa, I need you. Michael needs you.”

“So he’s Michael now, not Father Romano?”

“Really Papa, we’re colleagues and we’ve become close friends.”

“I’m teasing. Romano’s a good man. I meant no harm.”

“Then you’ll come? Can I tell Michael you will?”

“I have a too much work,” Pascal said.

“You’re retired.”

“I do a lot for the university and I chair some committees. How would it look if the Chairman was absent? It would be easier if you brought the codices to Paris. There’s better equipment at the Archives. You said so yourself.”

“Impossible. The church would never release their Psalters after what happened, and it would be dangerous for us. The terrorists know where we live. If they got wind we had more Psalters in our apartment… Well, I don’t want to think about it.”

“You said they’d been arrested.”

“The police aren’t sure if they found them all and the Psalter hasn’t been recovered, so someone’s got the thing.”

“So lock them up in the Archives,” Pascal said.

“Oh, sure and work on them while I’m imagining what happened to poor Eugène. No thank you very much. They broke into the Archives too, remember?”

“They connived their way in and that’s not likely to happen again. How many books did you say you’d uncovered so far?”

“Five, but we’ve only deciphered the first pages, enough so Michael can tell which ones they are. I’ll finish all of the photographs in a few weeks. Then the computer dictionary won’t take long to translate them and you can fill in the gaps.”

“Computers, bah!” Pascal groused. “They can’t comprehend syntax, idioms, metaphors.”