Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [197]
SINCE their parting on the day of the flood, Gerold had not seen Joan. The remaining work on the aqueduct was not within the city but at Tivoli, some twenty miles distant. Gerold was closely involved with every aspect of the construction, from overseeing the design of the repair to supervising the work crews. Frequently he bent his own back to the work, helping lift the heavy stones and cover them with new mortar. The men were surprised to see the lord superista stoop to such menial work, but Gerold welcomed it, for only in hard physical labor did he find momentary respite from the aching sadness inside.
Better, he thought, far better if we had never lain together like man and wife. Perhaps then he could have gone on as before. But now …
It was as if he had lived all the years before in blindness. All the roads he had traveled, all the risks he had taken, all he had ever done or been had led to one person: Joan.
When the aqueduct was finished, she would expect him to resume his position as leader of the papal guard. To be near her again every day, to see her and know that she was hopelessly out of reach … it would be unendurable.
I’ll leave Rome, he thought, as soon as the work on the aqueduct is complete. I’ll return to Benevento and resume command of Siconulf’s army. There was an appealing simplicity to a soldier’s life, with its definable enemies and clear objectives.
He drove himself and his men relentlessly. Within three months’ time, the work was completed.
THE restored aqueduct was formally dedicated on the Feast of the Annunciation. Led by Joan, the entire clergy—acolytes, porters, lectors, exorcists, priests, deacons, and bishops—circled the massive peperino arches in solemn procession, sprinkling the stones with holy water while chanting litanies, psalms, and hymns. The procession halted, and Joan spoke a few words of solemn blessing. She looked up to where Gerold stood waiting atop the foremost of the arches, lean, long legged, taller by a head than the others around him.
She nodded to him, and he pulled a lever, opening the sluice gates. The cheers of the people rang out as the cold, pure, healthful waters of the springs of Subiaco, which lay some forty-five miles outside the city walls, flowed within the Campus Martius for the first time in over three hundred years.
CRAFTED in the imperial style, the papal throne was a massive, high-backed piece of richly carved oak studded with rubies, pearls, sapphires, and other precious gems, as comfortless as it was impressive. Joan had been ensconced in it for over five hours, granting audience to a stream of petitioners. Now she shifted restlessly, trying to ease the growing discomfort in her back.
Juvianus, the head steward, announced the next petitioner. “Magister Militum Daniel.”
Joan frowned. Daniel was a difficult man, thorny and irascible— and he was a close associate of Bishop Arsenius. His presence here could only mean trouble.
Daniel entered briskly, nodding greeting at several of the notaries and other papal officials.
“Holiness.” He saluted Joan with the most minimal of bows, then began with rude abruptness. “Is it true that at the March ordinations, you intend to install Nicephorus as Bishop of Trevi?”
“It is.”
“The man’s a Greek!” Daniel protested.
“Why should that matter?”
“So important a position must go to a Roman.”
Joan sighed inwardly. It was true that her predecessors had used the episcopacy as a political tool, distributing bishoprics among the noble Roman families like so many choice plums. Joan disagreed with this practice, for it had resulted in a great number of episcopi agraphici—illiterate bishops, who had spawned all kinds of ignorance and superstition. How, after all, could a bishop correctly interpret the word of God to his flock if he could not even read it?
“So important a position,” she replied equably, “should go to the person best qualified. Nicephorus is a man of learning and piety. He will make a fine bishop.”
“You would think so, being yourself a foreigner.” Daniel deliberately used the insulting term barbarus