Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [182]
With shaking hands, Joan prepared a strong emetic of mustard and elder-root, spooning the mixture through Leo’s tightened mouth. In a few moments, the cleansing spasm took him; his whole body heaved convulsively, but he brought up only a thin green bile.
Too late. The poison has left his stomach. Joan saw with distress that it had already begun its deadly work, tightening the muscles of Leo’s jaw and throat, strangling him.
Desperately she tried to think of something else to do.
GEROLD ordered a search of every room of the palace. Waldipert was nowhere to be found. Immediately he was declared criminal and fugitive, and an intensive hunt was instituted throughout the city and into the surrounding countryside. But they searched in vain; Waldipert had completely disappeared.
Just as they were about to give up the pursuit, they found him. He was floating in the Tiber, his throat slit from ear to ear, his face fixed in a grimace of surprise.
THE clergy and high officials of Rome were gathered in the papal bedchamber. They stood in a tight knot at the foot of the bed, as if to draw comfort from one another’s nearness.
The poppy oil lamps burned low in their silver cressets. With the first of the dawn light, the senior chamberlain came to extinguish them. Joan watched as the old man loosened the cables and lowered the rings with exceeding care so none of the precious substance would be wasted. The simple domestic gesture seemed oddly out of place in the room’s charged atmosphere.
Joan had not expected Leo to last the night. Long ago he had stopped responding to voice or touch. For hours his breathing had followed the same inexorable pattern, growing steadily noisier and more stertorous until it reached an alarming crescendo, then abruptly ceased. There was a pause during which no one in the room drew breath; then the terrifying cycle began again.
A flutter of cloth drew Joan’s attention. Across the room Eustathius, the archpriest, was weeping, pressing his sleeve across his mouth to muffle the sound.
Leo let out a long, loud, rattling exhalation, then fell quiet. The silence dragged on and on. Joan crossed to the bed. The life was gone from Leo’s face. She closed his eyes, then fell to her knees beside the bed.
Eustathius cried out in grief. The bishops and optimates knelt in prayer. Paschal, the primicerius, crossed himself, then left to carry the news to those waiting outside.
Leo, Pontifex Maximus, Servus Servorum Dei, Primate of the Bishops of the Church, and Lord Pope of the Apostolic See of Rome, was dead.
Outside the Patriarchium, the wailing began.
LEO was laid to rest in St. Peter’s, before the altar of a new oratory dedicated to him. Burials were performed quickly this time of year, for no matter how saintly the soul that had inhabited it, a body did not withstand corruption long in the heat of a Roman July.
Shortly after the funeral, the ruling triumvirate proclaimed that in three days’ time there would be a pontifical election. With Lothar to the north, the Saracens to the south, and Lombards and Byzantines between, Rome’s situation was too precarious to allow the Throne of St. Peter to remain vacant any longer.
TOO soon, Arsenius thought with chagrin as soon as he heard the news. The election is too soon. Anastasius cannot arrive before then. Waldipert, that bungling fool, had ruined things completely. He had been given explicit instructions on how to administer the poison gradually, in small doses; in that way, Leo would have lingered for a month or more—and his death would have aroused no suspicion.
But Waldipert had panicked and administered too large a dose, killing Leo at once. Then he’d had the gall to come cringing to Arsenius, asking for his protection. Well, he’s beyond reach of the law now, though not in the way he intended, Arsenius thought.
He had ordered men killed before; it was part of the price of power, and only the weak balked at paying it. But he had never had to strike down anyone he knew as well as Waldipert. Distasteful as that had been, it was unavoidable.