lay before St Peter’s: they would have to enter the papal presence via the Basilica itself. The steps were as crowded as the streets, and Thomas was appalled to see that the court itself was packed with the stalls of moneylenders and relic merchants.
“How can the pope allow this?” he said, waving a hand at the frenetic activity. “It is like the scene before the Temple of Jerusalem!”
“Money can make even popes tolerant of many evils,” said Bertrand, and hurried Thomas forward before the man thought to emulate Christ himself and start to overturn tables. Bertrand just wanted to get this over and done with and, whatever the result of the interview, to then hurry Thomas out of Rome with as much speed as he could.
Bertrand cared not that Thomas spoke with the authority of angels. Wynkyn de Worde had as well, and Bertrand had never stopped counting his blessings that the demented man had not returned from Nuremberg.
St Peter’s was relatively quiet after the hustle of the outer court and streets. The nave of the Basilica was crowded with pilgrims and penitents, but it was quiet save for the mumble of prayers, and most knelt in orderly ranks facing the altar of St Peter, or before one of the shrines that lined the aisles.
Bertrand and Thomas genuflected towards St Peter’s shrine, then moved up the right-hand aisle towards a small door two-thirds of the way along the north wall of the Basilica. It was well guarded, but Bertrand whispered his name and that of Thomas, and the guards allowed them through.
They found themselves in a small corridor, blessedly quiet after the turbulence of street and court, and Bertrand indicated a door at its end. “Through there. We’ll find ourselves at the rear of the chapel. Bow towards the pope, although he probably won’t see you, and then come to stand with me to the side. The papal secretaries have your name, and if the pope has time then he will—”
“If he has time?”
“Thomas, you are an unimportant man within the hierarchy of the Church. There will be others, many others, and of far more important rank, before you.”
“But not of more important mission,” Thomas mumbled.
“Do you think yourself Christ?” Bertrand hissed. “Do you think yourself to be announced as the saviour of Christendom?”
“I speak with the voice of—”
“You are still a humble man,” Bertrand said. “Do not forget that!”
The chamber was packed, but with a far more richly clothed and bejewelled crowd than that which thronged the streets.
Bertrand and Thomas entered silently and bowed to the figure of Urban seated—stiff in his robes and jewels—on the papal throne set on a small dais before the altar of the chapel.
He did not notice their entrance.
The two friars whispered their names to a clerk seated just inside the door, who wrote them down and then passed the paper to a messenger boy who took it to two richly-robed secretaries seated at a table to the pope’s left. Bertrand and Thomas then stood with a group of Benedictine monks halfway up the chapel by a shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. From this vantage point both men could see and hear well.
There were three cardinals seated on the pope’s right. The remaining three, Thomas realised, and wondered why they had stayed when all the others had departed for Avignon. Urban, a bear-like man in his late fifties who wore his robes of office with obvious discomfort, sat fidgeting impatiently while one of the cardinals whispered earnestly to him.
“Ah! Bah!” Urban suddenly pronounced and, leaning back in his chair, spat a gob of phlegm to one side of his chair.
“I give that for King John’s proposition!” he said, and farted.
The shock in the chapel was palpable. Bodies stiffened and faces blanched.
Grinning, Urban reached for a jewelled goblet of wine on a side table. He downed it in four loud gulps, red wine running down one side of his chin, then slammed the goblet down.
“But, Holy Father,” the cardinal said, “the French king has proposed what is only just—”
“What your partners in intrigue have told him is just,” Urban said. “I doubt the old man could tell the difference between a woman’s breast and a donkey’s teat, let alone between what is just and what is not.”
The cardinal sat back, glancing at the other two. His fingers drummed on the arm of his chair, then stilled.
“No one doubts that our conclave was under undue influence,” he said.
Urban roared and leapt to his feet. “I will not resign!” he yelled.
Bertrand leaned towards Thomas and whispered in his ear: “I fear we have arrived at a most inopportune moment.”
Thomas said nothing, but his face was tight with anger. The cardinals had elected this peasant’s arse as pope?
Urban stepped down from the dais, strode over to a guard, wrenched a spear from the startled man’s grasp and stalked back to the three cardinals.
He threw the spear down at the feet of the cardinal who had been speaking to him.
The man’s face did not change expression.
“Even if the cardinals point a thousand spears at my throat I will not resign!” Urban shouted. “I am rightful pope, and I will not resign!”
“Then we have no choice,” the cardinal said, his face impassive. “The cardinals will meet in conclave in Avignon and they will declare the election held here in Rome to be null and void. They will then elect a rightful pope. You are—”
“Don’t think that you and your companions here,” Urban gestured towards the other two cardinals, “will be joining them. Instead I think you shall spend the next few months in sackcloth in some isolated monastery, living on bread and water and spending the hours of the day in prayer for the salvation of your souls.”
And still the expression on the cardinal’s face did not alter. “Your orders carry no weight. You can force myself and my colleagues into whatever prison you like, but know that you only stain your soul further by doing so. You are only a parody. A jest.”
Urban’s fists clenched, and Thomas could see that he was struggling for control. On the one hand, Thomas was furious that the cardinals had, indeed, been plotting to elect another Frenchman to the papal throne; on the other, he was appalled that God’s cause should be championed by this pig.
“A parody, my lord cardinal. How many of the princes of Europe will believe me a parody? How many would support another puppet of the French king taking the papal throne?”
All about the chapel men were turning to their neighbours and whispering furiously.
“Lord Christ Saviour!” Bertrand said softly. “If neither backs down, then both Urban and the rogue cardinals are going to turn this into a European war!”
The impassive cardinal suddenly lost all control. He stood up and made a foul gesture towards Urban.
“There!” he shouted, his face now red. “That’s the only kind of language you understand, isn’t it, you Italian rustic. Let me go or imprison me, I don’t care, but your day is over!”
He stared one breath longer in the pope’s face, then stalked away.
His two colleagues joined him, their faces stiff with affront.
Urban let them go.
He sat back on his throne and regarded the audience. “Those traitors will tear Europe apart,” he said, “and damn their own souls in the doing. I am the true elected pope. A Roman pope. If they go ahead with their devil-inspired election, then few but the French will support them.”
His face worked, and his hands clenched and unclenched about the armrests of his throne.