Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [86]
Palombara agreed, wondering what Innocent really meant. He looked at his calm face, completely unreadable. He could see nothing changed in him except his clothes and the confidence in his manner, a kind of benign glow; but every now and again he glanced around the room, as if to make certain he was really here.
“There are matters of reform within our own numbers,” Innocent said, “that we cannot pursue for the time being.” That was a flat contradiction of Gregory’s view, and he had felt strongly about it, certain that it was God’s will. Had he been wrong? Or was Innocent not listening to the whisper of the spirit now?
The void was there again at Palombara’s feet, the fear that there was no revelation at all, simply human ambition and chaos, fed by the desperate need for meaning.
“I have been giving both thought and prayer to the situation in Byzantium,” Innocent continued. “It seems to me that you have a feeling for the people….”
“I have come to know them far better than at first,” Palombara answered what he took to be a question. He felt the need to justify himself and not allow the implication of disloyalty, however slight, to go uncorrected. “I do not think they will be easily persuaded from their beliefs, especially those who have placed themselves in a position from which there is no retreat.”
Innocent pursed his lips. “It is a pity we ever allowed it to become such. We should have begun negotiations long ago. But whenever it is done, as you say, it will not be without loss. No war for the cause of the Mother Church was ever fought without casualties.” He shook his head fractionally. “Give me your report on your findings in Tuscany, then I wish you to go to other cities here in Italy and encourage their support.” He smiled. “Perhaps in time to Naples, even to Palermo. We shall see.”
Palombara felt a sudden coldness seize him. Did Innocent know that Masari had approached him and that he had been tempted, even if only for a moment? There would be an exquisite irony in sending Palombara to the court of Charles of Anjou to raise support for a new crusade.
“Yes, Holy Father,” he said, keeping his voice level with an effort. “I shall give you the report on Tuscany tomorrow, then leave for whatever city you judge best.”
“Thank you, Enrico,” Innocent said mildly. “Perhaps you could begin with Urbino. And then perhaps Ferrara?”
Palombara accepted and looked into Innocent’s face with a new awareness of his power and a certain foreboding. Would it be possible to mount a crusade that would not ravage Constantinople again?
Was his new mission a beginning of undoing all that his last had sought to achieve? Any certainty of faith eluded him.
Twenty-six
BUT PALOMBARA’S CALLING WAS SHORT-LIVED. INNOCENT died in the middle of the year, after just five months in office. After a short conclave, Ottobono Fieschi had been chosen, and taken the title of Adrian V. Then, incredibly, after only five weeks this pope too was dead. He had not even had time to be consecrated! It was lunacy. How could it be attributed to God? Or was it God’s way of telling them that they had chosen the wrong man? It was descending into farce. Didn’t anyone hear the voice of divine prompting?
Or was it as Palombara had always feared in the darkness of his own soul, that there was no divine voice? If God had indeed made the world, then He had long since lost interest in its self-destructive indulgences, its frail dreams, and its incessant, pointless quarreling. Man was simply too busy looking after himself either to have noticed or to have understood.
It was hot outside, the smoldering heat of midsummer in Rome. And now the cardinals from all corners of Europe would have to come back to begin again. Some of them might not even be home yet from the last conclave. What absurdity.
Palombara walked slowly around the house he had once loved so much. He looked at the beautiful paintings he had collected over the years and saw the skill of the brushstrokes, the mastery