The Psalter (46 page)

“Araghhh!” A booming howl came from outside the mob as commoners and cardinals were thrown aside, bowled over by Baraldus, who plowed his way to Johanna’s side. Benedict turned just in time to be knocked flat on his back as the old soldier lunged and sprawled over Johanna and her baby. His body took the full force of the stoning.

Ahmad followed, waving Baraldus’ short sword. He thrust the blade at the throng and menaced anyone who reached for a stone. Benedict tried to rise, but Ahmad spun and crashed the hilt of the sword into the bishop’s jaw, driving him back to the ground. Grabbing the reins of Benedict’s white stallion, he led the horse between the howling pack and a splayed Baraldus. “Get her on!” he cried. The old soldier, bleeding from gashes on his cheek and temple, heaved himself to his knees. He lifted Johanna, who clutched her babe, staggered to the mount, and set her gently on the saddle. “Now you,” Ahmad said, facing the angry crowd that edged closer.

Ahmad felt himself hoisted off his feet. He waved his arms helplessly as he was plopped on the back of the horse behind Johanna. Baraldus slapped the stallion on the rump and it lunged forward, sending priests and citizens scurrying out of its path. Those who were too slow were tossed against the wall or knocked to the road. Free of the mob, the steed charged down the lane. Ahmad turned in the saddle as he passed Saint Clement’s to watch a hail of stones and bricks, yet he could no longer spot his friend Baraldus. A lump rose in his throat, for he knew that no man could survive such a stoning.

Elchanan HaKodesh was led by a group of suspicious students to Johanna’s apartments on the second floor of the
schola cantorum
. They surrounded him until Anastasius opened the door. “I’m here to fetch you,” his voice quivered. “You’re to come to my father’s house without delay.”

“What’s happened? Is Johannes alright? Tell me, for the love of God!”

“Father says you must come now,” he insisted and offered no more.

Elchanan and Anastasius ran through the narrow streets between the
schola cantorum
and the Trastevere until they came to the Rosh Yeshiva’s low brick house next to the synagogue. A rabbi watched for them at the window and opened the door as they approached.

The slave Ahmad stood in the salon, cradling a newborn babe wrapped in white linen. Tears lined his cheeks. Anastasius stepped toward him. “Is this…can it be…?”

“You have a son.” Ahmad’s lips smiled, but sorrow filled his countenance.

Anastasius touched the infant’s cheek with his outstretched finger. The newborn seemed to focus his eyes on his father while he reached for the long finger with a tiny, closed fist. The bedroom door opened and Avraham crept out. His beard glistened with droplets. “You’re here at last. She needs you.”

“Is she alright?”

“No, she’s not,” Avraham choked on his words, “but there’s no time to explain. Go to her now for she has not long and hangs on to life only for you.” Anastasius reached for the door, but Avraham grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t show your grief, for it will make her passing harder. Let her see your love for her and the child. Then she can be at peace.”

Anastasius sat in the chair at the side of the bed. He took Johanna’s small hand in his. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know the feel of his palm. “You’ve come at last,” she said in a weak, breathy voice. “I knew you would.”

“No power on earth could keep me from you, my heart.”

“Have you seen our son? Is he not…beautiful?”

Tears streamed down Anastasius’s face. “He’s the most beautiful boy ever born, and his hair is red, like yours.”

“He is my gift…to you.” Johanna coughed, and her wracking brought up blood mixed with bubbling drool. Anastasius wiped the red spittle with a linen towel. He willed himself not to cry. “I would have grown my hair…long for you, but alas…I cannot. You’ll never see my curls.”

“I care not for your locks, dearest. It’s you and our child I love above all else.”

“But you would have loved my hair…all the same.” Johanna sucked in a breath of air and looked away. A faint smile curled the corners of her lips. “It’s time for me to leave you…my love.”

“No.” Sobs sneaked out of Anastasius’ mouth and he tried to stop them, but some squeaked out.

“Fear not, darling. I don’t travel alone.”

The cardinal gazed into her eyes not, understanding.

“Mother and father,” she took another long breath, “are by the window.” She closed her eyes for several moments.

Anastasius looked but perceived nothing.

“Baraldus is just outside. He can’t quite be here, but refuses… to stay away. They wait to take me.”

Tears rolled down Anastasius’ cheeks.

“I want to go, but I wouldn’t leave until I gazed upon your face…once more. I knew you needed to tell me goodbye.” Johanna took in several slow breaths, saving her last bit of strength for her words. “And when your time comes… dearest, I’ll be waiting to walk with you. Take care of our son…and love him for both of us…and raise him unto manhood. Now, kiss me.”

Anastasius leaned over and touched his lips to Johanna’s. She raised her hand to his moistened cheek, then it fell back to the bed.

“We didn’t know how to find you, Cardinal,” Old
vicedominus
Adrian said as he stood at the door with Archdeacon Nicholas. Anastasius had been holed up in Johanna’s apartment for days. He had eaten nothing, and his eyes were clouded and red. “Are you ill?”

Anastasius seemed not to hear and looked through Adrian to a far-off place. “Yes, I’m ill.”

“Shall we send for a doctor?”

“No.”

“Can you walk? Are you well enough to make it to the
patriarchum
?”

“I think so. Why? Am I not still anathemized?”

“Why Anastasius, Emperor Louis awaits you. You’re our Holy Father, our new Pope.”

43
Season of Penance

Saint Peter’s Basilica had stood for almost twelve hundred years, adorned with gold, silver, sculptures, mosaics, and countless works of art crafted by the world’s greatest artists and artisans. By the sixteenth century, however, part of the foundation built over Nero’s cursed circus had begun to crumble. Pope Julius II ordered the basilica razed.

Nothing from the original church was spared, not a mosaic, fresco, or work of art as laborers tore Saint Peter’s to the ground, and the destruction didn’t end there. They demolished Countless temples and Roman monuments to provide building materials for the new church. Every single stone and brick and piece of marble was ransacked from the ancient buildings that once were the marvels of the empire.

But after 160 years of construction, a modern Saint Peter’s had replaced the worn-out one, more lavish and opulent than its ancestor. The basilica was a magnificent Frankenstein, constructed from the bones of pagan temples and monuments to the glories of Rome. Even the altar over the tomb of Saint Peter was cast from bronze pinched from the Pantheon, temple of the old Gods. Surrounding Peter’s altar, where once stood stone columns pilfered from the Temple of Solomon, metal pillars rose like vines or twisted tree trunks supporting Bernini’s magnificent canopy.

All that remained of the original church was the Sacred Grotto, the burial place beneath the basilica of saints and popes. And underneath the grotto, hidden for seventeen hundred years, lay the Roman graveyard, cemetery to pagans and gladiators and Christian victims of Nero’s brutal spectacles, as well as the grave of Rome’s first Pope, the Apostle Peter.

“I hate sitting in the front row,” Pascal complained.

“Why?” Isabelle replied, hoping her father was not about to deliver one of his long-winded complaints.

“Because I don’t remember when to kneel or stand or clap or any of the other things you’re supposed to do.”

Isabelle was touched and tickled at the same time. She seldom observed her father express genuine self-consciousness. “Copy me,” she said. “I remember everything from childhood. It’s ingrained, like guilt.”

The seated congregation chatted as they waited for the Ash Wednesday Mass to begin, their voices echoing off stone and marble like the sound of a rushing stream. The conversations quieted as altar boys holding large candles entered the basilica. They walked on either side of a white-robed priest who held up a super-sized book of the Gospels.

The choir began a hymn, and the crowd hushed. Every eye turned toward the front doors. People crowded against the waist-high aluminum railing that blocked off the center aisle. Archbishops in white robes and miters followed the altar boys. Hands in the audience rose, holding cameras and digital recorders, trying to capture even a fleeting image of the Pope.

His Holiness entered Saint Peter’s wearing the papal miter, gold on white. He held a staff in his left hand and with his right made the sign of the cross, blessing the assembly. Veering to the rail, he shared a moment with a few of the faithful to the delight of the congregation. Adolescent girls squealed in excitement. The multitude stretched out hands, palms open, as though they could touch some of the Vicar of Christ’s saintliness across the ether.

Cardinals of the Curia followed the Pope. Pascal and Isabelle spotted Keller, the Grand Inquisitor. Pascal whispered to his daughter, “It doesn’t feel right to be here. We’re not Catholic, so why would he invite us?”

“Shhh. I’m trying to see.” In fact, Isabelle strained to find Father Romano, but there was no sign of him.

“He won’t be with the Pope.” Pascal said.

“What do you mean?”

“Romano’s not a cardinal or a bishop and he’s certainly not an altar boy.”

Yet Isabelle searched the procession all the same. Something told her he’d be there.

“What’re you doing?” A
sanpetrini
maintenance worker who multitasked as an usher questioned Rashid as he exited the door to the cupola, the dome that rises over Saint Peter’s.

“I was showing my co-worker the dome.”

“Can’t you read the sign? It’s closed,” the
sanpetrini
said.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to show my colleague before mass starts. He begged me.”

The
sanpetrini
scowled. “Did the old man get to the top? It’s 320 steps.”

“Magnificent,” the imam replied. “I’m spry for my age.”

“Well, don’t do it again or I’ll have to complain to your company.”

“I won’t,” Rashid said.

“Get to the basilica or all of the seats will be taken.” The
sanpetrini
examined the two as they walked down the path to Saint Peter’s. He turned toward the entrance to the cupola just as his radio squawked. “I’m on my way,” he said into the microphone.

Rashid squirmed in his seat next to the imam, who sat calm and serene as the Pope and archbishops and cardinals entered Saint Peter’s. While everyone in their row crowded to the center rail to get a better view, they sat on the outside near the rear and didn’t move. Rashid looked back at the entering procession. “We don’t have to be here, imam. I can pull the trigger from anywhere in Rome—or the other side of the world, for that matter.”

“Yes, but who would witness the completion of what our ancestor did not achieve? He’s in paradise, and I want him to watch us finish his work and be at peace.”

Rashid’s palms were clammy, and he fidgeted in his chair.

“What is it, my son?” the imam said, patting Rashid’s knee like a consoling father. “There’s no shame in fear.”

“I don’t want to be a martyr. Let’s leave while we can.”

“You believe I intended to sacrifice you? No, that is not to be your fate.”

“Then let’s get out now.”

“Dear Rashid, today’s sacrifice is not to be yours. You’re to carry on after me. You will be the imam.”

“What are you saying?”

“Time for you to leave. I only brought you to this point to be a witness and tell our people what we’ve done. Take the Psalters and hide them. Allah will guide you.”

“No, let’s go together. You’re the one who must continue.”

“Now, now. Give me your cell phone.”

Rashid pulled the phone from his pocket.

“How does this thing work?”

Rashid shook his head miserably and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

“Who can say what shall be my fate?” The imam said. “That’s in the hands of Allah, His will be done.
Allahu Akbar
.”

“
Allahu Akbar
,” Rashid repeated through a moist, choking voice.

“Now, show me.”

“The telephone number is programmed here.” Rashid scrolled down the list. “Press the green
call
button twice. When the phone rings, the TATP will ignite.”

“Is there enough?”

“More than enough.”

“Now kiss me and leave. Everything has been provided for you. Don’t worry, your path shall be revealed. Get to the truck and wait. The diversion will let you escape and we’ll meet at the warehouse or in paradise.”

Rashid held the imam in his arms, then the imam pushed him away. “Go,” he said. Rashid walked swiftly to the front of the basilica. He looked behind only once to behold the imam’s face one last time.

The guard stopped him at the door as he tried to exit. “I can’t guarantee you’ll get back in,” he said.

“I need to use the toilet.”

The guard shrugged. “To your left and down the steps toward the crypt.”

Rashid disappeared into the throng. But instead of heading to the bathroom, he turned in the opposite direction, shoving his way through the crowd that stood in the square to listen to the Pope on the loudspeaker.

Reaching the colonnade on the south side, he waited as two Vatican police cruised by in their electric Lamborghini cart, then passed between the columns to the Perugino guard station. He offered his ID. “My truck is in back. I just wanted to get a look at the Pope before I left.”

The guard tried to make eye contact, but Rashid looked away. Instead of holding the plastic card under the scanner that tracked visitors, he picked up the telephone and spoke in a low voice. “
Si, Maggiore
, I understand,” he said. The guard eased his hand to the holster on his hip to unclasp the snap. He turned to face the open door. Rashid al-Ansar had disappeared into the crowd.