Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [162]
Help them, Sergius had pleaded. Prepare them.
But how?
Joan climbed the steps to the wall. Picking up the crucifix Sergius had dropped, she thrust it aloft for all to see. The sun caught its gems, sparking a golden rainbow of light.
“Hosanna in excelsis,” she began loudly. The high, clear notes of the holy canticle rang out over the crowd, strong and sweet and sure. The people nearest the wall raised tear-streaked faces toward the familiar sound. Priests and monks joined their voices in the song, kneeling on the cobbled stones beside masons and seamstresses. “Christus qui venit nomine Domini …”
There was another great crash, followed by the sound of splintering wood. The gates gave an inward heave. Light filtered through where a narrow crack had been opened.
Dear God, Joan thought. What if they break through? Until this moment such a possibility had seemed unthinkable.
Memory flooded her. She saw the Norsemen bursting through the doors of the cathedral at Dorstadt, swinging their axes. She heard the awful screams of the dying … saw John lying with his head crushed in … and Gisla … Gisla …
Her voice trembled into stillness. The people looked up in alarm. Go on, she told herself, go on, but her mind seemed frozen; she could not remember the words.
“Hosanna in excelsis.” A deep baritone sounded beside her. It was Leo, Cardinal Priest of the Church of the Sancti Quattro Coronati. He had climbed up beside her on the wall. The sound of his voice jolted her from her fear, and together they went on with the canticle.
“God and St. Peter!” A loud cry resounded from the east.
The guards on the walls were jumping up and down, cheering, shouting, “God be praised! We are saved!”
She looked over the wall. A great army was galloping toward the city, its fluttering banners emblazoned with the emblems of St. Peter and the cross.
The Saracens dropped their battering rams and ran for their mounts.
Joan squinted into the sun. As the troops drew nearer, she gave a sudden, sharp cry.
At the head of the vanguard, his lance already poised for the throw, tall and fierce and heroic as one of her mother’s ancient gods, rode Gerold.
THE ensuing battle was sharp and savage. The attack of the Beneventans had caught the Saracens off guard; they were driven back from the city walls and forced to retreat through the campagna all the way to the sea. At the coast, the infidels hauled their stolen treasure aboard their ships and set sail. In their haste to depart, they left great numbers of their brethren behind. For weeks Gerold and his men rode up and down the coast, hunting down scattered bands of the marauders.
Rome was saved. The Romans were torn between joy and despair—joy at their deliverance, despair at the destruction of St. Peter’s. For the sacred basilica had been plundered beyond recognition. The ancient gold cross on the tomb of the Apostle was gone, as was the great silver table with the relief of Byzantium, given by Emperor Karolus the Great. The infidels had torn silver entablatures from the doors and gold plates from the floor. They had even—God darken their eyes!—carried away the high altar itself. Unable to remove the bronze coffin containing the body of the Prince of the Apostles, they had broken it open, scattering and defiling the sacred ashes.
All Christendom was plunged into grief. The footprints of the ages were preserved within this sanctum sanctorum of the Christian faith. Generations of pilgrims, including kings and emperors, had prostrated themselves before its sacred doors. Venerated popes rested within its walls. Yet this oldest and greatest of Christian churches, which neither Goths nor Vandals had dared to defile, had fallen before a band of African pirates.
Sergius blamed himself