The Nameless Day

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.

III

The Octave of the Annunciation

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

(Thursday 1st April 1378)

Rome waited uneasily for the election of the new pope. The Romans remained restive and distrustful: when they had left the Leonine City on the day of Gregory’s death they’d dismantled the gates and carried them away.

No cursed French cardinal was going to lock them out again.

Constantly shifting, murmuring groups of people—peasants in from the surrounding countryside, street traders, prostitutes, foreign pilgrims, elders, out of work mercenaries, lovers, thieves, wives, clerks, washerwomen, schoolmasters and their students—drifted through the precincts of St Peter’s.

The threat wasn’t even implied. The mob shouted it periodically through the windows of the buildings adjoining St Peter’s: elect a Roman pope, a good Italian, or we’ll storm the buildings and kill you.

The cardinals had caused a block and headsman’s axe to be placed in St Peter’s itself, a clear response to the mob: attack us and we’ll destroy you.

There was even a rumour that the cardinals had shifted the treasures of the papal apartments, and of St Peter’s itself, to fortified vaults in the Castel St Angelo. Certainly St Peter’s glittered with less gold and jewels than it once had.

Rome waited uneasily, the cardinals plotted defiantly, and Gregory’s corpse lay stinking before the shrine of St Peter.

Thomas, waiting as anxiously as anyone else, kept himself busy in the library of St Angelo’s friary. Gregory’s funeral mass would be held in a few days, and a few more days after that the cardinals would meet to elect their new master. Thomas imagined late at night when he lay unsleeping on his hard bunk in his cell, that he could hear the clatter of gold and silver coins being passed from hand to hand atop the Vatican hill where sprawled the Leonine City. The noise of the cardinals passing and accepting bribes, the normal procedure before the election of a pope. He even imagined he could hear the fevered rattle of horses’ hooves racing through the night, bearing ambassadors from the kings and emperors of Europe, who themselves bore in tight fists a variety of carefully couched threats and intimidations to ensure that their particular master’s man was elected to the Holy Throne.

A bad business indeed, Thomas thought. The higher clergy should be shining examples of piety and morality to the rest of Christendom. Instead the cardinals had opened their souls to corruption.

Evil?

Were the cardinals the enemy against whom he would lead the soldiers of Christ?

Thomas tossed and turned, but until the papal election—or until the blessed archangel Michael revealed more—there was nothing to do but wait, and listen, and watch.

And, during those daylight hours not spent in prayer, study the registers of St Angelo’s.

St Angelo’s had for generations been the centre of the Dominican effort to train the masters and teachers of the growing European universities, and this mission (the reason Thomas himself had been sent to the friary) was reflected in the registers. Thomas found himself curious as he saw the names of now-aged masters he’d studied under at Oxford, and the names of masters famed for their learning who currently taught, or had taught, at the universities of Paris, Bologna, Ferrara and Padua. They had all come to St Angelo’s, and Thomas traced their comings and goings: their arrival at the friary as young men, their long years spent moving from cell to chapel, to refectory, to library, to chapel and then back to cell again.

Thomas smiled to himself as his finger carefully traced over the black spidery writing in the registers. He could hear their footsteps as they trod the same corridors he trod every day. He could feel their excitement as they pored over the same books he did, and at night he imagined that he lay in the same cell that some learned and pious Master of Paris or Bologna or Oxford had once reposed in many years previously.

The records showed nothing but the same continuous, comforting pattern of piety and learning, and Thomas thought that was as all Christendom should be. Never changing, but keeping to the ancient and tested ways, the comforting rituals, all under the careful guardianship of the Church, the custodian and interpreter of the word of God.

Only thus could evil be kept at bay.

On this cold April day Thomas came back to the library after Vespers to continue his study until the bells rang for Compline. Few other brothers had come back: the library was too cold this late in the evening.

But Thomas was drawn back, not only by his need to continue his study, but by a compulsion he couldn’t name.

There was something in the registers he needed to read. He knew it. St Michael had not actually appeared and told him so, but Thomas knew the archangel was guiding his interest.

Thomas had been reading the registers for the 1330s, and, as he pored over the unwieldy parchment rolls under his sputtering lamp, he suddenly realised what had been making him uncomfortable for the past few days.

There was an inconsistency within the registers.

St Angelo’s brothers moved through the registers in regular patterns: arriving at the friary, staying months or sometimes years to study, and then departing. During their time at the friary their daily routines never varied: prayers, meals, study.

But there was one friar who did not fit the pattern at all. His name ran through the records like a nagging toothache; he was a part of St Angelo’s community, but an unsettling part. For months he would move through the registers as other friars did, not varying his routine from theirs in the slightest manner—although, Thomas noted, he took no part in the weekly debates.

Then, twice a year, he would vanish from the registers for some eight weeks, before his name reappeared within the comfortable routine.

There was no explanation for his absences, and these continuing absences were abnormal. Friars came to St Angelo’s, they stayed awhile, then they left. They didn’t keep coming and going in such a fashion. If they had business elsewhere, then they travelled to that elsewhere and stayed there. They did not spend years using St Angelo’s as some tavern in which to bide their time until they needed to return to their true business.

The first year that Thomas had encountered the friar’s unexplained comings and goings he had simply assumed that the friar had some pressing business to attend to in another friary—something that had reluctantly pulled him away. But then the same pattern was repeated the next year, and then the next, and continued in the years after. The friar’s departures and returns were consistent: he left the friary in late May of each year and returned in late July, then he left again in early December and returned by the end of January.

Why?

Further, there was another inconsistency. If a friar did have to leave the friary, for whatever matter, then he had to seek permission from the prior, and that permission, as the reason for the absence, was recorded. During the 1330s three other brothers had left briefly, and the reasons, along with the prior’s permission, had been recorded in the registers.

Not so for this man.

Troubled, Thomas checked back through the records for the 1320s, trying to find when the friar had first arrived…to his amazement and increasing unease, Thomas discovered that the friar had been moving in and out of St Angelo’s all through the 1320s.

All without apparent permission, and always twice each year at the same time.

In late 1327 the incumbent prior had died, and when, five months after the new prior had been elected, this troubling friar had again departed without explanation, there was a record that the new prior had requested an interview with the friar on his return, no doubt to demand an explanation.

And there, at Lammas in 1328, was the record showing the interview had taken place on the friar’s return. The only comment on the outcome of this interview was, to Thomas’ mind, an outrageous statement that the friar was to be allowed to come and go as he pleased.

No friar came and went as he pleased! His individual interests were always subordinated to those of the Order.

Thomas checked back yet further, scattering rolls of parchment about in such a haphazard manner that, had the brother librarian been present, Thomas surely would have earned an angry hiss.