Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [161]
“Deo, juva nos,” one of the priests said tremblingly.
Sergius raised a small, gem-encrusted crucifix and cried, “Christ is our Savior and our Shield.”
The city gates opened, and the papal militia marched out bravely to meet the enemy. “Death to the infidel!” they shouted, waving their swords and spears.
The opposing armies collided with a great noise of clashing steel, louder than the din of a thousand smiths. In minutes, it became evident the battle was hopelessly unequal; the Saracen cavalry rode straight over the front ranks of the Roman foot soldiers, cutting and slashing with their curved scimitars.
The militia in the rear could not see the slaughter up front. Still convinced of victory, they thronged forward, pushing against the backs of those before them. Line after line of men were driven relentlessly onto the Saracens’ swords and fell, their bodies creating a treacherous stumbling ground for those who came after.
It was a massacre. Broken and terrified, the militia retreated in desperate disorder. “Run!” they screamed as they scattered across the field like seeds of grain before a wind. “Run for your lives!”
The Saracens did not trouble to pursue them, for their victory had gained them a much greater prize: the unprotected basilica of St. Peter. They surrounded it in a dark swarm. They did not dismount but rode their horses straight up the steps and through the doors in a great flying wedge.
Behind the walls, the Romans waited breathlessly. A minute passed. Then another. No thunderclap split the sky, no sea of flame poured from the heavens. Instead, the unmistakable noise of rending wood and metal issued from the basilica. The Saracens were pillaging the sacred altar.
“It cannot be,” Sergius whispered. “Dear God, it cannot be.”
A band of Saracens emerged from the basilica, waving the golden cross of Constantine. Men had died, it was said, simply for daring to touch it. Yet now the Saracens tossed it about mockingly, laughing as they pumped it up and down between their legs in obscene and beastly parody.
With a muted groan, Sergius dropped the crucifix and sank to his knees.
“Holiness!” Joan rushed to him.
He grimaced in pain, pressing one hand to his chest.
A seizure of the heart, Joan thought in alarm. “Take him up,” she commanded. Arighis and several of the guards lifted the stricken Pope, cradling him in their arms, and carried him into a nearby house, where they laid him down on a thick straw mattress.
Sergius’s breath was coming in labored gasps. Joan prepared an infusion of willow bark and hawthorn berries and gave it to him. It seemed to ease him, for his color improved and he began to breathe more easily.
“They’re at the gates!” People were screaming outside. “Christ aid! They’re at the gates!”
Sergius tried to raise himself from the bed, but Joan eased him back. “You must not move.”
The effort had cost him; he pressed his lips together tightly. “Speak for me,” he pleaded. “Turn their minds toward God…. Help them … Prepare them …” His mouth worked agitatedly, but no words came.
“Yes, Holiness, yes,” Joan agreed. Clearly nothing else would pacify him. “I will do as you say. But now you must rest.”
He nodded and lay back. His eyelids fluttered and closed as the medicine began to take effect. There was nothing to do now but let him sleep and hope the medicine would do its work.
Joan left him under the solicitous eye of Arighis and went out onto the street.
A rending noise, loud as a thunderclap, sounded close by. Joan started in fear.
“What’s happening?” she called to a passing group of guards.
“The idolatrous swine are battering at the gate!” a guard called back as they marched past.
She returned to the piazza. Terror had driven the crowd into a frenzy. Men yanked the hairs violently from their beards; women shrieked and tore their cheeks with their nails till the blood ran. The monks of the Abbey of St. John knelt together in a solid clump, black cowls fallen from their