The Sheen of the Silk

Twenty-six

BUT PALOMBARA’S CALLING WAS SHORT-LIVED. INNOCENT died in the middle of the year, after just five months in office. After a short conclave, Ottobono Fieschi had been chosen, and taken the title of Adrian V. Then, incredibly, after only five weeks this pope too was dead. He had not even had time to be consecrated! It was lunacy. How could it be attributed to God? Or was it God’s way of telling them that they had chosen the wrong man? It was descending into farce. Didn’t anyone hear the voice of divine prompting?

Or was it as Palombara had always feared in the darkness of his own soul, that there was no divine voice? If God had indeed made the world, then He had long since lost interest in its self-destructive indulgences, its frail dreams, and its incessant, pointless quarreling. Man was simply too busy looking after himself either to have noticed or to have understood.

It was hot outside, the smoldering heat of midsummer in Rome. And now the cardinals from all corners of Europe would have to come back to begin again. Some of them might not even be home yet from the last conclave. What absurdity.

Palombara walked slowly around the house he had once loved so much. He looked at the beautiful paintings he had collected over the years and saw the skill of the brushstrokes, the mastery of balance and line, but the fire in the artist’s soul failed to warm him.

He would go to Charles of Anjou himself, not wasting time and words with someone like Masari. He would see if his interest was still alive in the possibility of backing Palombara for the throne. He would decide before he got there exactly what he would offer the king of Naples and what he would not.

Thirteen days later, he was in Charles’s presence in his huge villa on the outskirts of Rome. He was a man of immense physical power, barrel-chested, pulsing with energy like the fires of a forge. He seemed unable to stand still, moving from one place to another in the room, from one pile of papers of his compulsive triplicate of orders to a scribe making notes, then on to another. On a table were his own pen and ink, where he corrected what he considered mistakes. His broad brow was sheened with sweat and his heavy face high-colored.

“Well?” he inquired. “What have you come to see me for, Your Grace?” There was amusement in his face and a penetrating intelligence. Palombara was sharply aware that he could not manipulate this man, and only a fool would try.

“As a senator of Rome, you will have a powerful vote to cast on the papal conclave, sire,” he replied.

“One vote,” Charles observed dryly.

“I think more than that, my lord,” Palombara answered him. “Many men care what your judgment might be.”

“For their ambition.” It was not a question but an answer.

“Of course. But also for the future of Christendom,” Palombara pointed out. “More hangs in the balance now than perhaps at any time since the days of Saint Peter.” He smiled, not hesitating. “And possibly hanging over it all, can we unite Byzantium with us in any sense that has value, not a source of constant strife?”

“Byzantium…” Charles repeated the word, rolling it on his tongue. “Indeed.”

The silence prickled in the room.

“You’ve been legate to Constantinople,” Charles observed, continuing again to walk around the room, his leather-clad feet slapping on the marble floor. He passed from shadow into the sunlight falling from the high windows and back into shadow again. “You told the Holy Father the Byzantines would not yield to Rome.” He swung around in time to catch the surprise in Palombara’s face before he could mask it. “Is that tide of resistance strong enough to last, shall we say, another three years or so?”

Palombara understood immediately. “That might depend upon the terms on which Rome insisted, sire.”

Charles breathed out softly. “As I assumed. And if you were pope, what sorts of conditions would you feel could not be abandoned, even to secure such a prize as the submission of the Orthodox Church and the uniting of Christendom?”

Palombara knew exactly what he meant. “We are speaking of political unity,” he said carefully, but his tone was light, as if it were well understood between them. “Unity of intent was never a possibility. Obedience, perhaps, but not belief.”

Charles waited, smiling slowly.

“I see no virtue in facilitating such a union if it means giving away any of the tenets of faith that have kept the loyalties we have elsewhere,” Palombara answered. It was a nicely sanctimonious speech, but he knew Charles would understand it. Charles needed a pope who would delay any act of unity by making demands to which he knew Byzantium would not yield. Who better to judge that precisely than Palombara, who had argued the case with Michael?

“Your understanding matches my own.” Charles relaxed and moved away, walking easily, the tension drained out of him. “I can see how it might very well be God’s will to have a pope with such perception of the true nature of people, rather than some ideal which does not conform to reality. I shall use such influence as I have to that end. Thank you for sparing me your time, and your knowledge, Your Grace.” His smile broadened. “We shall be able to be of service to each other-and to the Holy Mother Church, of course.”

Palombara excused himself and walked out through the shadow of the arches and into the blistering sun. Even the cypresses, like motionless flames in the still air, looked tired. There was no wind to stir them at all.

It was absurd to suppose that popes kept dying because they were not enacting the will of God, yet Palombara could not rid his mind of the thought. It kept dancing at the edge of his grasp all the time, a single reason that made sense of all of it.

He let his imagination roam, tasting ideas, soaking them in as a cat basks in the sun.

The conclave was divided into two great factions, the pro-Charles of Anjou Frenchmen and the anti-Charles Italians. They cast the first ballot, and Palombara was deliriously on the crest of the wave, only two votes short of being elected. His outstretched fingers all but touched the crown.

On September 13, the final vote was cast.

Palombara waited. He had hardly slept for days, lying awake, his mind in a turmoil of hope and self-mockery. He had even stood before the glass and imagined himself in the robes of office, looked at his strong, slender hand and seen the papal ring on it.

Now he waited, like everyone else, too tense to remain seated, too tired to pace more than a few moments. He lost count of time. He was hungry, and even more he was thirsty, but he could not bring himself to leave.

Then at last it was over. A fat cardinal in billowing robes, the sweat streaming down his face, announced that Christendom had a pope again.

Palombara’s heart nearly deafened him. The seventy-one-year-old Portuguese philosopher, theologian, and doctor of medicine, Peter Juliani Rebolo, was elected, as John XXI. Palombara was furious with himself for not having expected it. How could he have been such a fool? He stood in the beautiful hall with a fixed smile on his face as if there were no leaden weight of disappointment crushing inside him, as if he did not hurt intolerably. He smiled at men he hated, connivers and time servers he had courted only hours before. Was this Portuguese philosopher and ex-doctor really God’s choice for the throne of Saint Peter?

The people around him were cheering, voices too loud, filled with false joy, some, like his own, strident with disappointment and fear for their own positions. Everyone knew who had leaned which way openly, for or against. No one knew what deals had been done, bargains made, prices offered or taken in secret.

Within days, he was sent for by yet another new Holy Father, and once again he walked across the square and up the shallow steps through the great arches. Inside, he walked the familiar ornate passageways to the papal apartments.

He knelt and kissed the pope’s ring and repeated his faith and loyalty, his mind racing as to why he had been sent for. What miserable task would he be given to remove him from Rome to where his ambition could be nicely cooled? Where could he do no harm? Probably somewhere in northern Europe, where he would freeze all summer as well as all winter.

John was smiling when Palombara looked up. “My predecessor, God rest his soul in peace, wasted your talents in chasing support for the crusade here in Italy,” he said smoothly. “As did the good Innocent.”

Palombara waited for the blow.

John sighed. “You have both skill and experience regarding the schism between ourselves and the Greek Orthodox Church. I have studied your letters on the subject. You would best serve God and the cause of Christendom if you were to return to Constantinople, as legate to Byzantium, with a special responsibility to continue in the work of healing the differences between us and our brethren.”

Palombara drew in his breath slowly and let it out in silence. The sunlight in the room was so bright, it hurt his eyes.

“It is of the greatest importance,” John said gravely, his words chosen with care and only slightly accented with his native Portuguese. “You must work with all prayer and diligence to this end.” He smiled. “We need Byzantium not only to give lip service to its union with Rome, we need it to be real. We need to see the obedience and be able to prove it to the world. The days when we can afford leniency are past. Do you understand, Enrico?”

Palombara studied the new pope’s face. Was John XXI, under his bland exterior, far subtler than anyone had guessed, and willing to use whatever tool was to hand, turning its blade to suit his own purposes? Was this new office given in order to have Palombara safely out of Rome and in Constantinople, which he knew and loved as much as he loved anything? To whom did he owe this debt? Someone would seek to collect whatever favor he had given, but who?

“Yes, Holy Father,” he accepted. “I will do all I can to serve God, and the Church.”

John nodded again, still smiling.