Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [186]
Will God bless me now? Joan wondered. Or will His just wrath strike me down the moment the papal crown is placed upon my head?
The Bishop of Ostia came forward bearing the crown on a cushion of white silk. Joan’s breath caught in her throat as he raised the crown above her. Then the weight of the gold circlet settled upon her head.
Nothing happened.
“Life to our illustrious Lord John Anglicus, by God decreed our chief Bishop and Universal Pope!” Eustathius cried.
The choir chanted Laudes as Joan faced the assembly.
EMERGING onto the steps of the basilica, she was greeted by a thunderous roar of welcome. Thousands of people had been standing for hours in the blistering sun to greet their newly consecrated Pope. It was their will that she should wear the crown. Now they spoke that will in one great chorus of joyous acclamation: “Pope John! Pope John! Pope John!”
Joan raised her arms to them, feeling her spirit begin to soar. The epiphany, which only yesterday she had striven in vain to achieve, now came unlooked for and unbidden. God had allowed this to happen, so it could not be against His will. All doubt and anxiety were dispelled, replaced by a glorious, glowing certainty: This is my destiny, and these my people.
She was hallowed by the love she bore them. She would serve them in the Lord’s name all the days of her life.
And perhaps in the end God would forgive her.
STANDING nearby, Gerold stared at Joan in wonderment. She was aglow, transformed by some unspeakable joy, her face a lovely shining lamp. He alone, who knew her so well, could guess at her inner hallowing of spirit, more important by far than the formal ceremony which had preceded it. As he watched her receive the acclamation of the crowd, his heart was torn by an unbearable truth: the woman he loved was lost to him forever, yet he had never loved her more.
27
JOAN’S first act as Pope was to undertake a walking tour of the city. Accompanied by an entourage of optimates and guards, she visited each of the seven ecclesiastical regions in turn, greeting the people and listening to their grievances and needs.
As she neared the end of her tour, Desiderius, the archdeacon, directed her up the Via Lata away from the river.
“What about the Campus Martius?” she said.
The others in the papal entourage looked at one another in consternation. The Campus Martius, the marshy, breezeless, low-lying region abutting the Tiber, was the poorest part of Rome. In the great days of the Roman Republic, it had been dedicated to the worship of the pagan god Mars. Now starving dogs, ragged beggars, and thieves wandered its once-proud streets.
“We daren’t venture in there, Holiness,” Desiderius pro tested. “The place is rife with typhus and cholera.”
But Joan was already striding toward the river, flanked by Gerold and the guards. Desiderius and the others had no choice but to follow.
Rows of insulae, the narrow tenements of the poor, crowded together along the filthy streets edging the riverbank, their rotting timbers bending alarmingly. Some of the insulae had collapsed; the heaps of rotten timber lay where they had fallen, blocking the narrow streets. Overhead stretched the ruined arches of the Marcian aqueduct, once one of the engineering wonders of the world. Now its broken walls dripped filthy water that collected underneath in black, stagnant pools, breeding grounds for disease.
Groups of beggars huddled over pots of foul-smelling food simmering on little fires made from twigs and dried dung. The streets were covered with a layer of slime left behind by repeated floodings of the Tiber. Refuse and excrement plugged the gutters; the stench rose unbearably in the summer heat, attracting swarms of flies, rats, and other vermin.
“God’s teeth,” Gerold muttered darkly beside her. “The place is a pesthole.”
Joan knew the face of poverty, but she had never seen anything to equal this appalling, brutish squalor.
Two small children crouched before a cooking fire. Their tunics were so threadbare