Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [157]
“Do so, then!” Joan retorted hotly. “I’ll not stop you!”
A knot of bewilderment appeared between Gerold’s brows. He asked gently, “Joan, what has happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I’ve changed, that’s all. I’m no longer the naive, lovesick girl you knew in Dorstadt. I’m my own master now. And I won’t give that up—not for you, not for any man!”
“Have I asked you to?” Gerold responded reasonably.
But Joan did not want to hear reason. Gerold’s nearness and her strong physical attraction to him were a torment. Savagely she tried to break its hold. “You cannot accept it, can you? The idea that I’m not willing to give up my life for you? That I’m one woman who’s actually immune to your masculine charms?”
She had sought to wound, and she had succeeded.
Gerold stared at her as though he saw something new written upon her face. “I thought you loved me,” he said stiffly. “I see I was mistaken. Forgive me; I’ll not trouble you again.” He went to the portal, hesitated, turned back. “This means we will never see each other again. Is that really what you want?”
No! Joan felt like crying. It’s not what I want! It’s not what I want at all! But another part of her cautioned her to hold back. “That’s what I want,” she said. Her voice sounded curiously distant in her own ears.
One more word of love and need from him, and she would have broken and run to his arms. Instead he wheeled abruptly and went through the portal. She heard him racing down the temple steps.
In another moment he would be gone forever.
Joan’s heart rose like a cup filled to overbrimming. Then the cup tilted, spilling forth all her pent-up emotion.
She ran to the door. “Gerold!” she cried. “Wait!”
The loud clatter of hooves against stones drowned out her cry. Gerold rode swiftly down the road. A moment later he rounded a corner and was gone.
24
THE Roman summer arrived with a vengeance. The sun beat down relentlessly; by midday, the cobblestones were hot enough to blister a man’s feet. The stench of rotting garbage and manure, intensified by the heat, rose into the still air and hung over the city like a suffocating pall. Pestilential fevers raged among the poor who lived in the damp and decaying tenements lining the low-lying banks of the Tiber.
Fearful of contagion, Lothar and his army quit the city. The Romans rejoiced at their departure, for the burden of maintaining so large a host had strained the city’s resources to the limit.
Sergius was hailed as a hero. The adulation of the people helped soften his grief over Benedict’s death. Buoyed by newfound health and energy—gained in large measure from the spartan diet Joan had imposed in penance—Sergius was a man transformed. True to his promise, he began rebuilding the Orphanotrophium. The crumbling walls were reinforced, a new roof added. Tiles of fine travertine marble were stripped from the pagan Temple of Minerva and used to line the floor of the great hall. A new chapel was constructed and dedicated to St. Stephen.
Where previously Sergius had frequently been too tired or ill to say Mass, he now celebrated the holy service every morning. In addition, he was often to be found praying in his private chapel. He threw himself into his faith with the same fervor with which he had once pursued the pleasures of the table—for he was not a man to do things by halves.
Two years of mild winters and plentiful harvests resulted in a time of general prosperity. Even the legions of poor who crowded the streets of the city seemed a little less wretched, as the pockets of their more prosperous brethren loosened and almsgiving increased. The Romans offered prayers of thanksgiving at the altars of their churches, well content with their city and their Lord Pope.
They did not suspect—how could they?—the catastrophe that was about to descend upon them.
JOAN was with Sergius during one of his regular meetings with the princes of the city when a messenger burst in upon them.
“What’s this?” Sergius inquired sternly.