Pope Joan_ A Novel - Donna Woolfolk Cross [200]
But the bodies of Ss. Marcellinus and Peter had not been sold; they had been stolen, dragged ignominiously from their graves at night and smuggled out of the city. Furta sacra—the theft of sacred things—such crimes were called. They had to be stopped, for they robbed the city of its greatest treasures.
“After this disgraceful theft,” his father wrote, “we asked Pope John to double the number of guards posted in the churchyards and cemeteries. But he refuses. He says men are better employed in the service of the living than the dead.”
Anastasius knew that John had put great numbers of the papal militia to work building schools, hospices, and houses of refuge. He had devoted his time and attention—and the greater part of the papal finances—to such secular projects, while the city’s churches were left to languish. His own father’s church had not received so much as a single golden lamp or silver candelabrum since John had taken office. Yet Rome’s innumerable cathedrals, oratories, baptisteries, and chapels were her claim to glory. If they were not constantly embellished and improved, Rome could not hope to compete with the splendor of her eastern rival, Constantinople, which now brazenly called itself New Rome.
If—no, Anastasius corrected himself—when he was Pope, things would be different. He would lead Rome back to the days of her greatness. Under his solicitous patronage, her churches would once again gleam with fabulous riches, more resplendent than even the finest palaces of Byzantium. This, he knew, was the great work that God had put him on this earth to do.
He returned to reading his father’s letter, but with diminishing interest, for the last part was taken up with items of minor importance: the list of names of those to be ordained at the coming Easter ceremonies had finally been published; his cousin Cosmas had married again, this time to a widowed deaconess; a certain Daniel, magister militum, was greatly aggrieved because his son had been passed over for a bishopric in favor of a Greek.
Anastasius sat up. A Greek to be bishop! His father seemed to regard the move as just another example of Pope John’s regrettable lack of romanità. Was it possible that he had completely overlooked the possibilities of the situation?
This, Anastasius thought with mounting excitement, is the chance for which I’ve been waiting. At long last, fortune had delivered opportunity into his hands.
He rose quickly and went to his desk. Taking up a quill, he began to write. “Dear Father. Waste no time upon receiving this letter, but send the magister militum Daniel here to me at once.”
JOAN paced the floor of the papal bedroom. How, she asked herself, could I have been so blind? It had simply not occurred to her that she could be pregnant. After all, she was over forty-one, well past the normal time for childbearing.
But Mama was older still when she quickened with child for the last time.
And died in the birthing.
Never give yourself to a man.
Fear, cold and unreasoning, gripped Joan’s heart. She struggled to calm herself. After all, what had happened to Mama might not happen to her. She was strong and healthy; she had a good chance of surviving childbirth. But even if she did, what then? In the watchful beehive that was the Patriarchium, there was no way to keep her labor and delivery secret, no way to hide the child when it came. Her womanhood would surely be discovered.
What kind of death would be considered sufficient punishment for such a crime? It was certain to be terrible. They might put her eyes out with red-hot irons and flay her to the bone. Or she might be slowly dismembered, then burned while still alive. Some such hideous end was inevitable when this child came.
If it came …
She put both hands on her abdomen; there was no hint of movement from the babe growing within. The thread of life was as yet wound very thin; it would not take much to break it.
She went to the locked chest where she kept her medicaments. She had transferred them from her herbarium soon after her consecration; they were easier