Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [84]
Masari appeared to consider. “Intelligence rather than passion,” he replied at length as they continued up a flight of steps. It was starting to rain harder. “A gift for diplomacy rather than a tangle of family connections,” he went on. “It is most awkward to owe one’s relations for the favor of their support. Debts have a way of requiring payment at most inconvenient times.”
Palombara was amused and interested in spite of himself. He felt the quickening of his pulse. “But how is one to gain any level of support without obligation, probably of several kinds? Cardinals do not cast their ballots without a reason.” He did not say “unless they are bought,” but Masari knew the sense behind his words.
“Regrettably not.” Masari bent forward, shielding his dark face from a spout of water off a high roof guttering. “But there are many sorts of reasons. One of the best might be the belief that the new pope, whoever he is, would succeed in unifying the whole Christian faith, while not yielding any holy doctrine to the false teaching of the Greek Church. That would surely be most displeasing to God.”
“I do not know the mind of God,” Palombara said acerbically.
“Of course,” Masari agreed. “Only the Holy Father himself knows that beyond doubt. We must pray, and hope, and seek after wisdom.”
Palombara had a fleeting memory of standing in the Hagia Sophia and the beginning of his understanding of how much subtler a thing the wisdom of Byzantium was than that of Rome. For a start, it incorporated the feminine element: gentler, more elusive, harder to define. Perhaps it was also more open to variance and alteration, more nurturing to the infinite spirit of humanity.
“I hope we don’t have to wait until we find it,” he said aloud. “Or we might not elect a new pope in our lifetime.”
“You jest, Your Grace,” Masari said softly, his black eyes steady on Palombara’s face for a moment, then moving swiftly away again. “But I think perhaps you understand wisdom more than most men.”
Again the stab of surprise jolted Palombara, and the racing of his heart. Masari was testing him, even courting him?
“I value it more than wealth or favors,” he answered with total solemnity. “But I think it does not come cheaply.”
“Little that is good comes cheaply, Your Grace,” Masari agreed. “We look toward a pope who is uniquely fitted to be leader of the Christian world.”
“We?” Palombara kept walking, but now unmindful of the wind, the puddles gathering in the stones, or the passersby.
“Such men as His Majesty of the Two Sicilies and lord of Anjou,” Masari answered. “But of more import to this issue, of course, he is also senator of Rome.”
Palombara knew precisely what he meant—someone with a powerful influence over who would become pope. The implication and the offer were both plain. Temptation roared through his mind like a great wind, scattering everything else. Already? A serious chance to become pope! He was young for it, not yet fifty, but there had been far younger. In 955, John XII had been eighteen, ordained, made bishop, and crowned pope all in a day, so it was said. His reign had been short and disastrous.
Masari was waiting, watching not only for the words, but for all the unspoken patterns and betrayals in his face.
Palombara said what he believed was probably true, but also what he knew Charles would want to hear. “I doubt Christendom will be wholly united by anything except conquest of the old Orthodox patriarchies,” he said, hearing his own voice as if it were someone else’s. “I have recently returned from Constantinople, and the resistance there, and in the surrounding countryside especially, is still strong. A man who has given his career to one faith does not easily sacrifice his identity. If he loses that, what else has he?”
“His life?” Masari suggested, but there was no seriousness in his voice, only satisfaction and a passing regret, as for the inevitable.
“That is the stuff martyrs are made of,” Palombara retorted a trifle sharply. The triple crown was