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The Saturday within the Octave of the Annunciation

In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III

(27th March 1378)

Thomas told no one of his experience in St Peter’s. If Satan’s imps—demons—roamed among mankind, then who knew which among his brother friars worked for God, and which for evil? So Thomas remained silent, sinking deeper into his devotions and burying himself in his studies within the library of St Angelo’s friary. Here were the ancient books and manuscripts that might cast some light on what the archangel had revealed to him. Here might lie the key to how he could aid the Lord.

He watched and listened, and learned what he could.

His feet healed, and his hands, and somehow that disappointed Thomas, for he would have liked a lingering ache or a stiffness in his joints to remind him of his duty to God, and also, now, to St Michael.

In the year following his ecstatic vision, the archangel did not appear to Thomas again. Thomas was not overly concerned. He knew that the Lord and his captains, the angels, would again approach him when the time was right.

In the meantime, Thomas did all he could to ensure he would be strong and devout enough to serve.

Prior Bertrand observed his new arrival with some concern. He had been instructed by Father Richard Thorseby, the Prior General of the Dominican Order in England, to keep close watch on Brother Thomas Neville. Thorseby, a stern disciplinarian, did not entirely trust Thomas’ motives in joining the Order, and doubted his true piety.

Whatever Thomas’ motives for joining the Order—and Bertrand agreed with Thorseby that they were dreadful enough for Thomas’ fitness for the Order to be suspect—Bertrand could not fault Thomas’ piety. The man appeared obsessed with the need to prove himself before God. Every friar was expected to appear in chapel for each of the seven hours of prayer during the day, beginning with Matins in the cold hours before dawn, and ending late at night with Compline. But the Dominican Order, while encouraging piety, also encouraged its members to spend as much (if not more) time studying as praying, and turned a blind eye if a brother skipped two or three of the hours of prayer each day. Dominicans were devoted to God, but they expressed this devotion by turning themselves into teachers and preachers who would combat heresy—deviation in faith—wherever it appeared.

But Thomas never missed prayers. Not only did he observe each prayer hour, he was first in the chapel and last to leave. Sometimes, on arriving for Matins, Bertrand found Thomas stretched out before the altar in the chapel. Bertrand assumed he had been there all night praying for…well, for whatever it was he needed.

At weekly theological debates held between the brothers of St Angelo’s, sometimes including members of other friaries and colleges within Rome, Thomas was always the most vocal and the most passionate in his views. After the debates had officially ended, when other brothers were engaged in relaxing talk and gossip, or wandering the cloisters enjoying the warmth of the sun and the scent of the herbs that bounded the cloister walks, Thomas would seek out those who had opposed his ideas and beliefs and continue the debate for as long as his prey was disposed to stand there and be berated.

Bertrand admitted to himself that he was frightened by Thomas. There was something about the man which made him deeply uneasy.

On occasions, Thomas reminded him of Wynkyn de Worde. That Bertrand did not like. He had fought long and hard to forget Wynkyn de Worde. The man—as sternly pious as Thomas—had frightened Bertrand even more than Thomas (although in his darker moments Bertrand wondered if Thomas would eventually prove even more disagreeable than Wynkyn).

In the years following the great pestilence (and the Lord be praised that it had passed!), Bertrand had spent the equivalent of many weeks on his knees seeking forgiveness for his deep relief that Wynkyn had never returned from Nuremberg. He’d heard that the brother had reached Nuremberg safely, but had then failed to return from a journey into the forests north of the city.

Brother Guillaume, now the prior of the Nuremberg friary, had reported to Bertrand that Wynkyn had been consumed with the pestilence when he’d left, and Bertrand could only suppose the man had died forgotten and unshriven on a lonely road somewhere.

No doubt he’d given the pestilence to whatever unlucky wolves had tried to gnaw his bones.

Bertrand spent many hours on his knees seeking forgiveness for his uncharitable thoughts regarding Wynkyn de Worde.

He did not know what had happened to Wynkyn’s book and, frankly, Bertrand did not care overmuch. Guillaume had not mentioned it, and Bertrand did not inquire. It was not within his friary’s walls, and that was all that mattered.

So Bertrand continued to watch Thomas, and to send the Prior General in England regular reports.

He supposed they did not ease Thorseby’s mind, and Bertrand did occasionally wonder what would happen to Thomas once the man journeyed back to Oxford to resume a position of Master.

Piety was all very well, but not when taken to obsessive extremes.

Outside the friary, the Romans continued to rejoice in the presence of the pope. Gregory showed no sign of wanting to remove the papal court and curia back to Avignon, and people again were able to attend papal mass within St Peter’s Basilica. Every Sunday and Holy Day citizens packed the great nave of the Basilica, their eyes shining with devotion, their hands clutching precious relics and charms. On ordinary days the same citizens packed the atrium of St Peter’s, as they did the streets leading to the Basilica, selling badges and holy keepsakes to the pilgrims who flooded Rome. The presence of the pope not only sated the Romans’ deep piety, it also filled their purses. Gregory was in his mid-fifties, but appeared hale, and could be expected to live another decade or more. The Romans were ecstatic.

The papacy appeared to be once again safely ensconced in Rome, and many a Roman street worker, walker or sweeper could be seen making the occasional obscene gesture in the general direction of France. At night, the Roman people filled their taverns with triumphant talk about the French King John’s dilemma. When Gregory had removed himself and his retinue from Avignon, John had lost his influence over the most powerful institution in Europe. Rumour said John was rabid with fury, and plotted constantly to regain his influence over the papacy. Everyone in Rome was aware Gregory had “escaped” back to Rome at a critical juncture in John’s war with the English king, Edward III; the French king needed every diplomatic tool in his possession to raise the funds and manpower to repel Edward’s inevitable reinvasion of France.

The Roman mob didn’t give a whore’s tit about the French king’s plight—nor the English king’s, for that matter. They had their pope back, Rome was once more the heart of Christendom (with all the financial benefits that carried), and they damn well weren’t going to let any French prick steal their pope again.

Most of the French cardinals—and they were the vast majority within the College of Cardinals—were vastly irritated by Gregory’s apparent desire to remain in Rome (just as they were vastly irritated by, and terrified of, the Roman mob). Beneath the pope, the cardinals were the most powerful men in the Church, and thus in Christendom. They lived and acted as princes, but to ensure their continuing power they had to remain within the papal court at the side of the pope. Thus they were effectively trapped in Rome, although most of them tried to spend as many months of each year back in the civilised pleasures of Avignon as they could.

When in Rome, the cardinals spent hours carefully watching the pope. Was his face tinged just with the merest touch of grey at yesterday’s mass? Did his fingers tremble, just slightly, when he carved his meat at the banquet held in honour of the Holy Roman Emperor’s son? And how much of his food did he eat, anyway? They bribed the papal physician to learn details of the papal bowel movements and the particular stink of his urine. They frightened the papal chamberlain with threats of eternal damnation to learn if the pope’s sheets were stained with effluent in the mornings and, if so, what kind of effluent?

They spent their hours watching the pope’s health most carefully…and most carefully plotting. When the pope succumbed to his inevitable mortality (and, praise be to God, let it be soon!), the cardinals would elect his successor from among their number.

And when that came to pass, they swore on Christ’s holy foreskin, they would elect a man who would return them to Avignon and the comforts of glorious French civilisation.

Thomas spent most of his time—when not at prayers—within the library of St Angelo’s, as St Michael had instructed. The library was a large stone-vaulted chamber under the chapel; it was cold every day of the year, even during the hot humid Roman summers, but its position and construction meant it was safe from both intruders and fire, and in volatile Rome that was a precious luxury.

Here the records were kept of the Dominican friary stretching back over one hundred years, and before that the records of the Benedictine order that had inhabited the building. The records were kept on great vellum rolls stacked in neat order on racks lining many of the walls.

Desks and shelves stood against the other walls, and in rows across the floor of the chamber. Here sat the several hundred precious books the friary owned: laboriously copied out by hand, the books were wonders of art and of the intellect. Some dated back five hundred years, others were only freshly copied, all were priceless and beloved. They were heavy volumes, an arm’s length in height, and half that across and in depth, and not one of them ever left the chest-level shelf or desk that was its particular home. Instead, the reader travelled to each book in turn, moving slowly around the library over the months and years, from desk to desk, and shelf to shelf, carrying with him his own stool, candle (encased in a brass and glass case, lest the dripping wax should fall on the delicate pages being studied) and parchment and pen and ink for when he wished to copy down some particularly illuminating phrase.

Not all brothers were there to read and study. Some three or four were permanently engaged in recopying particularly fragile volumes, or volumes on loan from other friaries and monasteries within Rome or sometimes from further afield within northern Italy. They worked under the one large window in the library, their ink- and paint-stained hands carefully scratching across the ivory blankness of pages, creating works of art with their capital letters and the illustrations of daily life and devotion they placed in the margins of the pages.

Despite the coldness of the stone vault, and despite the presence of a fireplace, no fire ever burned there. The fear of a conflagration, combined with the lesser fear of the daily damage wrought by an overly smoky fire, meant the grate was never laid, and the fire never lit.

Brothers worked wrapped in blankets and their desire to learn.

The activities of the brothers who worked within the library, whether studying or copying, were supervised by an aged brother librarian who had, nonetheless, a keen vision that could spot the dripping pen or candle, or the careless elbow left to rub across a page, from a distance of twenty paces. His hiss of retribution could carry thirty paces, and brothers were known to have fallen off their stools in fright if they believed they’d earned the librarian’s displeasure.

Not so Thomas.

Thomas worked alone in every sense of that word. He did not speak to any of the other brothers, and he did not appear to notice the constant oppressive presence of the brother librarian.

On the other hand, the librarian had no need to bother Thomas. The man was as rigidly particular about his treatment of the books and records he studied as he was about the attending of his prayers.

Thomas existed within his own shell of piety and obsessiveness, and few people within the friary, or without it for that matter, could penetrate that shell.

Most left him well enough alone.

On the afternoon of the Saturday following the Annunciation, Thomas was, for once, working alone in the library. Most of the other brothers—wide-eyed with curiosity—had accepted an invitation from a neighbouring monastery to view their new statue of St Uncumber, a saint widely worshipped as one who could rid women of their obnoxious husbands. Thomas had not gone. He considered St Uncumber a saint of dubious merits, and believed that marriage was a sanctified union that no woman should seek to dissolve…by whatever saintly intervention. So Thomas, wrapped in righteousness, stayed behind to continue his studies.

Even the brother librarian had gone. Thomas was, after all, utterly trustworthy when it came to the safety of the manuscripts and records.

In the past weeks Thomas had begun a detailed study of the records of St Angelo’s friary. He had been turning over in his mind the archangel’s warning that evil walked unhindered among mankind, and he wondered if perhaps evil had infected some of the brothers within the friary. If so, Thomas hoped that the friary records would cast light on how and when evil had penetrated his fellow brothers. Already Thomas suspected several of his fellows: they were too jovial in refectory, perhaps, or skipped too many prayers, or spoke too wantonly at St Angelo’s weekly debates.

Thomas had just unrolled the records for the year 1334 when Daniel, the friary’s only novice, burst in the door.

The boy cast his eyes about, obviously looking for someone, but when he realised that the someone consisted only of Thomas, he edged back towards the door.

Too late. The commotion of his entrance had attracted Thomas’ attention.

“Daniel! What mean you, creating such noise and distraction within the walls of God’s house?”

Daniel’s mouth opened and closed uselessly, and he looked frantically for rescue.

There was none.

Thomas left his desk and advanced close enough to grab the boy by the arm. “Well?”

Daniel’s eyes were full of tears, but they had been there long before he had burst into the library.

“Brother Thomas…Brother Thomas…”

“Well?”

Daniel swallowed again. “Brother Thomas. The Holy Father…the Holy Father…”

“What is it, boy?”

“The Holy Father is dead!”

Thomas’ face blanched, but, even though Daniel struggled a little, he did not let the boy go.

“Dead?” Thomas whispered, then he stared narrow-eyed at Daniel. “How do you know this? How can you be sure?”

“The Brother Prior had sent me with messages to the Secretary of the Curia within the Leonine City, Brother. While I was with him, a Benedictine burst into the chamber and blurted out the news. Then both the secretary and the Benedictine rushed out, forgetting about me. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran down to the gates to tell Prior Bertrand. Where is he?”

Thomas ignored Daniel’s question, thinking fast. “They let you out the gates of the Leonine City?”

“Yes, although they slammed shut a moment or two after I’d run through. Where is Prior Bertrand, Brother? I must tell him!”

“No,” Thomas murmured, still thinking. What were the cardinals up to? Whether the pope had met a natural or unnatural death was now immaterial. But what the cardinals did would carry the fate of Christendom.

Were they even now meeting in conclave to elect a new and French-loyal pope? Like the Romans, but for different reasons, Thomas despised the French.

Daniel wriggled in Thomas’ grip. “Brother. I must find Prior Bertrand!”

“No. Prior Bertrand can do nothing—but you and I can.”

“Brother?”

“Daniel, the cardinals are even now likely to be meeting to elect another pope, one who will remove the papacy back to Avignon. They have shut the gates of the Leonine City so no word of Gregory’s death can reach the ears of the Roman mob. By the time the people discover the death, a new pope will have been installed, and the Romans will not be able to save their papacy.”

“But—”

“Daniel. Be as quick as you can—run to the lower marketplace and spread the word that Gregory is dead and that even now the cardinals seek to meet in secret. Do it! Now!”

“But—”

“Damn you, boy! Where are your wits? The only means to ensure the cardinals do not deliver the papacy into the French king’s hands again is the street mob. Now, run! Now!”

He let Daniel go, and the boy dashed out the door.

Thomas was directly behind him, urging him forward. Once they’d reached the street, Thomas paused only long enough to make sure that the boy was heading in the direction of the lower market before he ran, robes bunched about his knees, in the direction of the main market square.

“The pope has died! The pope has died!” he yelled whenever he came across a clump of people.

By the time Thomas reached the main square the news had been shouted ahead of him, and the square was already in furious turmoil.

The people of Rome needed no one to point out to them the implications of an immediate and secret papal election.

Within the half hour a mob ten thousand strong, and growing with each minute, besieged the gates of the Leonine City.

The guards, in dread of their lives, wasted no time in opening the gates.

The cardinals, already gathering in the Hall of Conclave, were not quick enough. Before they had even sat to cast their votes, the mob surged in the doors.

Faced with their imminent murder, the cardinals wisely agreed to defer the election until the saintly corpse of Gregory XI had been interred.

The mob, still surly, gradually dissipated once they were sure the cardinals truly meant what they had said.

Rome settled into an uneasy quiet until the conclave due in two weeks’ time. As far as the Romans were concerned, the cardinals either elected a good Italian onto the papal throne…or they died.