Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [167]
The crowd cheered its approval.
Anastasius forced his lips into a smile as the bitter taste of defeat settled like dry ashes in his mouth.
“MAGNUS Dominus et laudibilis nimis.” The notes of the introit filtered through the window of the small room where Joan kept her medicaments. Because St. Peter’s lay in ruins, the ceremony of consecration was being held in the Lateran Basilica.
Joan should have been in church with the rest of the clergy, witnessing the joyous coronation of a new Pope. But there was much to do here, hanging the new-picked herbs to dry, refilling jars and bottles with their appropriate medicines, setting things in order. When she was done, she scanned the shelves with their neatly stacked rows of potions, herbs, and simples—tangible testimony to all she had learned of the healing art. With a twinge of regret, she realized she would miss this little workshop.
“I thought I might find you here.” Gerold’s voice sounded behind her. Joan’s heart gave a sudden leap of joy. She turned toward him, and their eyes met.
“Tu,” Gerold said softly.
“Tu.”
They beamed at each other with the warmth of reestablished intimacy.
“Strange,” he said, “I almost forgot.”
“Forgot?”
“Each time I see you I … discover you all over again.”
She went to him, and they held each other tenderly, gently.
“The things I said the last time we were together …,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean—”
Gerold put a finger to her lips. “Let me speak first. What happened was my fault. I was wrong to ask you to leave; I see that now. I didn’t understand what you have accomplished here … what you have become. You were right, Joan—nothing I can offer you could possibly compare.”
Except love, Joan thought. But she didn’t say it. She said simply, “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t,” Gerold said. “I’m not returning to Benevento. Leo has asked me to remain in Rome—as superista.”
Superista! It was an extraordinary honor, the highest military position in Rome: commander in chief of the papal militia.
“There’s work to do here—important work. The treasure the Saracens plundered from St. Peter’s will only encourage them to try again.”
“You think they will come back?”
“Yes.” To any other woman Gerold would have lied reassuringly. But Joan was not like any other woman. “Leo is going to need our help, Joan—yours and mine.”
“Mine? I don’t see what I can do.”
Gerold said slowly, “You mean no one has told you?”
“Told me what?”
“That you are to be nomenclator.”
“What?” She could not have heard aright. The nomenclator was one of the seven optimates, or highest officials, of Rome—the minister of charity, protector of wards, widows, and orphans.
“But … I’m a foreigner!”
“That doesn’t matter to Leo. He’s not a man to be bound by senseless tradition.”
She was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime. But accepting it would also mean the end of any hope of a life with Gerold. Torn by opposing desires, Joan did not trust herself to speak.
Misinterpreting her silence, Gerold said, “Don’t worry, Joan. I’ll not trouble you again with proposals of marriage. I know now we can never be together in that way. But it will be good to work together again, as we once used to. We were always a good team, weren’t we?”
Joan’s mind was whirling; everything was coming out so differently from the way she had imagined. Her voice, when she answered, was a whisper. “Yes. We were.”
“Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.” The words of the sacred hymn reached their ears through the open window. The ceremony of consecration had concluded; the Canon of the Mass was about to begin.
“Come.” Gerold held out his hand. “Let us go together to greet our new Lord Pope.”
25
THE new Pontiff took up his duties with a youthful vigor that caught everyone by surprise. Overnight, it seemed, the Patriarchium was transformed from a dusty monastic palace into a bustling hive. Notaries and secretaries