THOMAS SPENT most of his time—when not at prayers or in the herb garden—
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 traveled 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, save, occasionally, for young Daniel, could penetrate that shell.
Thomas would allow no thing and no one to deflect him from God’s purpose. It was the only way, he believed, to save himself.
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 neighboring 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 burst in the door.
The boy cast his eyes about, spotting Thomas with some relief.
“Daniel!” said Thomas, irritated by the intrusion despite his liking for Daniel. “You must have more respect for the peace and quiet of this library. Now, what is it, that you have burst in here in so unruly a manner?”
He walked over to the boy and put a hand on his arm. “Daniel?”
“Brother Thomas … Brother Thomas …”
Thomas had to bite down his irritation, wishing the boy would just spit it out.
“Brother Thomas. The Holy Father … the Holy Father …”
“What is it, Daniel?”
“The Holy Father is dead!”
Thomas’ face blanched. “Dead?” he whispered, then he looked searchingly 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 here. Should we tell Prior Bertrand, Brother Thomas?”
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. Should we tell Prior Bertrand, Brother Thomas?”
“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? As an Englishman, Thomas hated the French almost as much as the Romans.
He’d fought against them during several campaigns in his youth; his hatred for the French was almost as ingrained as his piety for God.
Daniel wriggled a little, clearly desperate now to impart his news to others.
“Brother?”
“Shouldn’t we find Prior Bertrand!”
“No. Prior Bertrand can do nothing—but you and I can do enough to save the future of the papacy.”
“Brother?”
“Daniel, the cardinals are even now likely 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 they do discover the death, a new pope will have been installed, and they can do nothing.”
“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—”
“Daniel, no more questions! Do as I say, please! The only people who can 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.