“But—”
“Listen, damn you, and keep your questions until I am done!”
Thomas bowed his head.
“Some three weeks after my arrival I summoned Brother Wynkyn to my cell. He sat on this stool and I stood before him. I asked him by what right he ignored his duties within the friary, and by what right he came and went as he pleased.”
“He smiled, not a pleasant expression, and he drew a letter from one of his sleeves. ‘By this right,’ he said, and handed the letter to me.”
Bertrand stopped, and he crossed himself with a trembling hand. Thomas remained silent, and waited for Bertrand to continue.
“It was a letter from the holy Boniface of blessed memory—”
Thomas nodded. Boniface had been a great pope until his untimely death in 1303.
“—and it directed the reader to give Brother Wynkyn de Worde every assistance and freedom. It said… it said that Wynkyn de Worde was the hand of the archangel
Saint Michael on earth, and that he worked the will of the angels. It said further that de Worde knew the face of evil, and if de Worde were not allowed his freedom then evil would roam unfettered.”
“You did not doubt it.”
“No. I could not. All know of Boniface’s piety, and of his judgment. He was a great pope, and I believed his words implicitly.”
Again Thomas understood, although he did not nod this time. Boniface had been dead some thirty years when Wynkyn had shown Bertrand the pope’s letter, but it would have carried the same degree of authority then as it had when it had been newly penned. After Boniface’s death, the French King Philip, whom many accused of Boniface’s murder (the king had tried an unsuccessful kidnap of the pope, which had prompted a fatal heart attack), had seized control of the papacy via his puppet, Pope Clement, and the popes had retired to Avignon to lead lives of corruption and sin.
Boniface had been the last of the true popes as far as much of Christendom was concerned. If Wynkyn had pulled out a letter from one of the Avignon popes, Bertrand would have been likely to throw it in the fire and laugh in the brother’s face.
“And that is all the letter said?” Thomas prompted softly.
“Yes. That was all the letter said. But, combined with the same light in Brother Wynkyn’s face that I now see shining from yours, it was enough.”
Bertrand heaved himself to his feet and paced slowly back and forth in the confined space between his bed and the door. “After that I let Wynkyn de Worde do as he willed. He was quiet enough, and nothing he did disturbed the peace of the friary. The other brothers left him well enough alone.”
“Where did he go when he left the friary?”
“He went to the friary in Nuremberg twice a year for the summer and winter solstices.”
Ah! The timing of de Worde’s departures and arrivals now made sense. The summer solstice occurred on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist in late June, the winter on the night before the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“What he did there,” Bertrand continued, “I know not, although it had something to do with the evil that was Brother Wynkyn’s purpose.”
“And the significance of the solstices?”
Bertrand merely shrugged.
Thomas lapsed into thought, pacing slowly before Bertrand hunched miserably on his stool.
“What of this ancient book that Brother Wynkyn consulted? What did it contain?”
“I do not know.”
“Does it remain in the friary?”
“No. Wynkyn took it with him on his final journey north.”
“In Advent of the first year of pestilence.”
“Yes.” Bertrand hunched even further on the stool. Why hadn’t he destroyed those records earlier?
“And Wynkyn did not return from Nuremberg?”
“No. I presume he died of the pestilence.”
“And the book?”
“Wynkyn took it with him encased in an oaken casket. I presume it lies wherever Wynkyn bubbled out his last breath. Either that or it has been stolen.” There were books of good and of evil, Bertrand believed, and he had wondered for years if that book Wynkyn de Worde had carried about him had been of the latter persuasion.
Bertrand did not know what had become of that book, but he hoped it had been lost forever.
Thomas stopped his pacing, thinking deeply. In the past hour he’d found a solidity of purpose that had before been only a vague hope and yearning. Now he knew exactly what he had to do.
All thought of whores and naked flesh had fled his mind.
“I must retrace Wynkyn de Worde’s last route north,” Thomas said, and Bertrand blinked as if he were a prisoner suddenly and most unexpectedly given his freedom.
He would rid himself of this troublesome brother once and for all!
“I must find that casket,” Thomas said, “but I will need your aid.”
“Ask what you will,” said Bertrand, silently wishing that Thomas would just leave.
“I seek an audience with the pope.”
“What!”
Thomas looked Bertrand in the eye. “Boniface obviously knew something of what Brother Wynkyn did. What if his secret had also been shared with his successors? I must ask the Holy Father, and perhaps even enlist his aid.”
Thomas was prepared to work without it, but the backing of the pope would open many doors for him.
He knew that Bertrand would perceive his demand for an audience with the pope as evidence of an overweening pride on Thomas’ part, but Thomas himself knew it was not the case. His life was given over entirely to the archangel and to God; this was as much St. Michael’s request as it was Thomas’. It was God’s demand, and Thomas had every expectation that it would be heeded.
“Sweet Jesu, brother,” Bertrand said, “an audience with Urban? But—”
“Can it be arranged?”
Bertrand played with the frayed end of his belt, trying to purchase some time.
Arrange an audience with the pope? Lord Christ Savior! It could mean the end of his career!
“Brother Prior?”
Bertrand gave up, spreading his hands helplessly. “It will take some time, Brother Thomas, and even then it might prove impossible. Urban has only sat his throne some five days … and some say he may not sit it much longer.”
“What do you mean?” Thomas had spent so much time in prayer the past week that he’d not had the time or inclination to listen to gossip.
“You have not heard? Two days after the election, thirteen of the sixteen cardinals put themselves back on the road to Avignon.”
“Why?”
“When the cardinals met in conclave they were terrified that if they voted in a
non-Roman the mob would slaughter them. Well, we all know that for the truth. But there are rumors of more. They say that the cardinals decided to elect Urban as pope on the clear understanding that he would resign within a month or so when the majority of the cardinals were safely back in Avignon. Once safe, the cardinals will declare the Roman conclave void because of interference from the mob and have a new election.”
Thomas fought the urge to swear. The college of cardinals had long had a law that if a papal election came under undue interference then it could be declared null and void.
And Urban’s election had indisputably come under “undue interference.”
This rumor had the smell of truth.
“That evil walks among us cannot be questioned,” Thomas said, “when the cardinals plot such treachery against the Church of Rome!”
“Do you still seek an audience with Urban?”
Thomas nodded. “It will do no harm.”
Bertrand folded his hands in resignation. “I will do what I can.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wednesday in Easter Week
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(21st April 1378)
— I —
DURING THE SEVENTY YEARS that the popes had resided in Avignon, the papal palace adjoining St. Peter’s Basilica had fallen into a state of disrepair. Gregory had not done much to restore it in the year he’d spent in Rome before his death—and many said that that was a clear indication he had not meant to remain permanently in Rome at all—and had only made the building habitable.
Thus Urban did not meet petitioners in the great audience hall—half demolished over the past fifty years by Romans seeking foundation stones for their homes—but in a large chapel that ran between St. Peter’s and the papal palace. It had taken Prior Bertrand a great deal of time and had caused him to call in a great many favors to engineer a place at the Thursday papal audience for himself and Brother Thomas, and even then he did not know if they would get a chance to actually address the pope.
But this was the best he could do, and so, after their noon meal, he and Brother Thomas made their way into the Leonine City.