Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [140]
She lay still in the dark. She had done all she could for the moment. Now she must rest and guard her strength until the time Sergius would send for her.
21
IT WAS the Feast of the Ascension, and the day’s stational service was to be at the titular Church of St. Prassede. Though the sun had only just risen, spectators were already gathering, livening the street outside the Patriarchium with movement and color and chatter.
Soon the great bronze doors to the Patriarchium opened. The first to appear were the acolytes and others in minor clerical orders, walking humbly on foot. These were followed by a group of mounted guards, their sharp eyes raking the crowd for potential troublemakers. Behind them rode the seven regionary deacons and the seven regionary notaries, each preceded by a cleric bearing the banner with the signa of their ecclesiastical region. Then came the archpriest and the primicerius of the defensores, followed by their brethren. Finally Pope Sergius appeared, magnificently attired in a robe of gold and silver, astride a tall roan mare trapped in white silk. Immediately behind rode the optimates, the chief dignitaries of the papal administration, in order of importance: Arighis, the vicedominus, and then the vestiarius, the sacellarius, the arcarius, and the nomenclator.
The long procession crossed the open expanse of the Lateran courtyard and moved out with stately dignity, passing the great bronze statue of a she-wolf, mater romanorum, or mother of the Romans, believed by the ancients to have suckled Romulus and Remus. The statue had occasioned considerable controversy, for there were those who said it was blasphemy for a piece of pagan idolatry to stand before the walls of the papal palace, but others defended it with equal passion, praising its beauty and the excellence of its craftsmanship.
Just beyond the she-wolf, the procession turned north, passing beneath the great arch of the Claudian aqueduct, with its lofty, finely proportioned brickwork, onto the ancient Via Sacra, the sacred road that Popes had traversed for time beyond memory.
Sergius blinked back the piercing rays of the sun. His head ached, and the rhythmic swaying of his horse was making him dizzy; he gripped the reins to steady himself. This, he thought penitently, is the price I pay for gluttony. He had sinned again, gorging himself on rich food and wine. Despising his weakness, Sergius resolved, for the twentieth time that week, to reform.
With a pang of regret, he thought of John Anglicus. He had felt so much better when the foreign priest had been physicking him. But of course there could be no question of having him back, not after what he had done. John Anglicus was a detestable sinner, a priest who had broken the holiest of his vows.
“God bless the Lord Pope!” The cheering crowd brought Sergius’s thoughts back to the present. He made the sign of the cross in blessing, fighting down nausea as the procession moved with stately dignity down the narrow line of the Via Sacra.
They had just passed the monastery of Honorius when the crowd scattered in sudden confusion as a mounted man rode in upon them. Horse and rider had been driven hard; the bay’s mouth was lathered, its sides heaving. The rider’s clothes were torn, his face blackened like a Saracen’s with the mud of the road. He reined in and leapt to the