Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [143]
She remembered how the great theologian Boethius, similarly imprisoned, had found strength and consolation in prayer. For hours she knelt on the cold stone floor of the dungeon, trying to pray. But at the core of her being, she felt nothing but emptiness. The seed of doubt, planted in her childhood by her mother, had taken deep root within her soul. She tried to weed it out, to rise up into the solacing light of grace, but she could not. Was God listening? Was He even there? As day after day passed with no word from Sergius, hope gradually slipped away.
The loud clank of metal jolted her as the bar on the door was lifted. A moment later the door swung wide, pouring dazzling light into the blackness. Shielding her eyes against the glare, Joan squinted toward the opening. A man stood silhouetted against the light. “John Anglicus?” he called uncertainly into the darkness.
The voice was instantly familiar. “Arighis!” Joan swayed light-headedly as she rose and made her way through the stagnant water toward the papal vicedominus. “Have you come from Sergius?”
Arighis shook his head. “His Holiness does not wish to see you.”
“Then why—?”
“He is gravely ill. Once before you gave him medicine that helped him; have you any with you now?”
“I have.” Joan took a packet of powder of colchicum from her scrip. Arighis reached for it, but Joan quickly drew it back.
“What?” said Arighis. “Do you hate him so much? Beware, John Anglicus, for to wish harm upon Christ’s chosen Vicar is to place your immortal soul in the gravest peril.”
“I do not hate him,” Joan said, and meant it. Sergius was not a bad man, she knew, only weak and overtrusting of his venal brother. “But I will not give this medicine into untrained hands. Its powers are very great, and the wrong dose could be lethal.” This was not entirely true, for the powdered root was not as potent as she pretended; it would take a very large dose to do any real harm. But this was her chance at freedom; she would not let the door close upon it again. “Besides,” she added, “how do I know Sergius is suffering from the same ailment as before? To cure His Holiness, I first must see him.”
Arighis hesitated. To free the prisoner would be an act of insubordination, a direct countermanding of the Lord Pope’s order. But if Sergius died with the Frankish Emperor at the gates, the papacy, and Rome itself, might be forfeit.
“Come,” he said, abruptly arriving at a decision. “I will take you to His Holiness.”
SERGIUS lay against the soft silken pillows of the papal bed. The worst of the pain had passed, but it had left him drained and weak as a newborn kitten.
The door to the chamber opened, and Arighis entered, followed by John Anglicus.
Sergius started violently. “What is this sinner doing here?”
Arighis said, “He comes with a powerful medicine that will restore you to health.”
Sergius shook his head. “All true physicking comes from God. His healing grace will not be transmitted through so impure a vessel.”
“I am not impure,” Joan protested. “Benedict lied to you, Holiness.”
“You were in the harlot’s bed,” Sergius replied accusingly. “The guards saw you there.”
“They saw what they expected to see, what they had been told to observe,” Joan retorted. Quickly she explained how Benedict had contrived to trap her. “I did not want to go there,” she said, “but Arighis insisted.”
“That is true, Holiness,” Arighis confirmed. “John Anglicus asked if I would not send one of the other physicians. But Benedict insisted that John Anglicus and no other should go.”
For a long while, Sergius did not speak. Finally he said in a cracked voice, “If this is true, you have been grievously wronged.” He burst out in despair, “Lothar’s coming is God’s just judgment against me for all my sins!”
“If God wanted to punish you, there are easier ways to do it,” Joan pointed out. “Why sacrifice the lives of thousands of innocents when he could smite you with