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Were the cardinals the enemy against whom he would lead the soldiers of Christ?
Thomas tossed and turned, but until the papal election—or until the blessed archangel Michael revealed more—there was nothing to do but wait, and listen, and watch.
And, during those daylight hours not spent in prayer, study the registers of St Angelo’s.
St Angelo’s had for generations been the centre of the Dominican effort to train the masters and teachers of the growing European universities, and this mission (the reason Thomas himself had been sent to the friary) was reflected in the registers. Thomas found himself curious as he saw the names of now-aged masters he’d studied under at Oxford, and the names of masters famed for their learning who currently taught, or had taught, at the universities of Paris, Bologna, Ferrara and Padua. They had all come to St Angelo’s, and Thomas traced their comings and goings: their arrival at the friary as young men, their long years spent moving from cell to chapel, to refectory, to library, to chapel and then back to cell again.
Thomas smiled to himself as his finger carefully traced over the black spidery writing in the registers. He could hear their footsteps as they trod the same corridors he trod every day. He could feel their excitement as they pored over the same books he did, and at night he imagined that he lay in the same cell that some learned and pious Master of Paris or Bologna or Oxford had once reposed in many years previously.
The records showed nothing but the same continuous, comforting pattern of piety and learning, and Thomas thought that was as all Christendom should be. Never changing, but keeping to the ancient and tested ways, the comforting rituals, all under the careful guardianship of the Church, the custodian and interpreter of the word of God.
Only thus could evil be kept at bay.
On this cold April day Thomas came back to the library after Vespers to continue his study until the bells rang for Compline. Few other brothers had come back: the library was too cold this late in the evening.
But Thomas was drawn back, not only by his need to continue his study, but by a compulsion he couldn’t name.
There was something in the registers he needed to read. He knew it. St Michael had not actually appeared and told him so, but Thomas knew the archangel was guiding his interest.
Thomas had been reading the registers for the 1330s, and, as he pored over the unwieldy parchment rolls under his sputtering lamp, he suddenly realised what had been making him uncomfortable for the past few days.
There was an inconsistency within the registers.
St Angelo’s brothers moved through the registers in regular patterns: arriving at the friary, staying months or sometimes years to study, and then departing. During their time at the friary their daily routines never varied: prayers, meals, study.
But there was one friar who did not fit the pattern at all. His name ran through the records like a nagging toothache; he was a part of St Angelo’s community, but an unsettling part. For months he would move through the registers as other friars did, not varying his routine from theirs in the slightest manner—although, Thomas noted, he took no part in the weekly debates.
Then, twice a year, he would vanish from the registers for some eight weeks, before his name reappeared within the comfortable routine.
There was no explanation for his absences, and these continuing absences were abnormal. Friars came to St Angelo’s, they stayed awhile, then they left. They didn’t keep coming and going in such a fashion. If they had business elsewhere, then they travelled to that elsewhere and stayed there. They did not spend years using St Angelo’s as some tavern in which to bide their time until they needed to return to their true business.
The first year that Thomas had encountered the friar’s unexplained comings and goings he had simply assumed that the friar had some pressing business to attend to in another friary—something that had reluctantly pulled him away. But then the same pattern was repeated the next year, and then the next, and continued in the years after. The friar’s departures and returns were consistent: he left the friary in late May of each year and returned in late July, then he left again in early December and returned by the end of January.
Why?
Further, there was another inconsistency. If a friar did have to leave the friary, for whatever matter, then he had to seek permission from the prior, and that permission, as the reason for the absence, was recorded. During the 1330s three other brothers had left briefly, and the reasons, along with the prior’s permission, had been recorded in the registers.
Not so for this man.
Troubled, Thomas checked back through the records for the 1320s, trying to find when the friar had first arrived…to his amazement and increasing unease, Thomas discovered that the friar had been moving in and out of St Angelo’s all through the 1320s.
All without apparent permission, and always twice each year at the same time.
In late 1327 the incumbent prior had died, and when, five months after the new prior had been elected, this troubling friar had again departed without explanation, there was a record that the new prior had requested an interview with the friar on his return, no doubt to demand an explanation.
And there, at Lammas in 1328, was the record showing the interview had taken place on the friar’s return. The only comment on the outcome of this interview was, to Thomas’ mind, an outrageous statement that the friar was to be allowed to come and go as he pleased.
No friar came and went as he pleased! His individual interests were always subordinated to those of the Order.
Thomas checked back yet further, scattering rolls of parchment about in such a haphazard manner that, had the brother librarian been present, Thomas surely would have earned an angry hiss.
The friar had arrived at St Angelo’s in late 1295.
Scattering more rolls, Thomas searched forward until he found the last reference to the friar.
1348. The man had presumably died in the pestilence which had swept Christendom that year.
Thomas sat back, thinking over what he’d learned.
For some fifty-three years this friar had come and gone from St Angelo’s twice yearly with no explanation and no permission from his prior.
During those fifty-three years five priors had died, and each incoming prior—the last being Prior Bertrand in 1345—had called the friar into their private cell to ask for explanations and, presumably, to mete out discipline.
In all five cases the results of the interview were much the same: the friar was to be allowed to come and go as he pleased, no matter the inconvenience to the friary.
Thomas wondered what threats had been made in those five meetings.
Eventually, after carefully rolling up the parchments and placing them back in their slots, Thomas went to see Prior Bertrand.
He felt both curious and nauseous in equal degrees, and Thomas knew that he’d stumbled upon something of great import.
Prior Bertrand was again sinking down to his knees before the cross in his cell when the tap sounded at the door.
Sighing, Bertrand rose stiffly, one hand on his bed for support. “Come.”
Brother Thomas entered, bowing slightly as he caught Bertrand’s eye.
“Brother Thomas, what can I do for you this late at night?”
“I have come to ask a favour of you, Brother Prior.”
“Yes?”
“I would like to ask about Brother Wynkyn de Worde.”
Bertrand stared, unable for the moment to act or speak.
Wynkyn de Worde! He’d prayed never to have that name spoken in his hearing again!
In return, Thomas watched the old man before him with narrowed, speculative eyes.
“Brother Prior? Are you well?”
“Yes…yes. Ah, Brother Thomas, perhaps you will sit down.”
Thomas took the stool, as he had on the night of his arrival, and Bertrand again took the bed. “May I ask, Brother Thomas, why you ask about Brother Wynkyn?”
Thomas hesitated and Bertrand shifted uncomfortably.
“I have been reading through Saint Angelo’s registers, Brother Prior, and it appears to me that Brother Wynkyn must have been a considerably disruptive influence to the peace of the friary. I am curious as to why the brother was allowed to continue such behaviour for over fifty years without a single act of discipline from the prior. I—”
“Are you here to examine me, Brother Thomas?”
“Of course not, Brother Prior, but—”
“Are you here to demand explanations of me, Brother Thomas?”
“No! I merely wished to—”
“Do you think that I exist to satisfy your every curiosity, Brother Thomas?”
“Brother Prior, I apologise if I—”
“Your tone carries no nuance of apology or regret, Brother Thomas. I am deeply shocked that you think you have a right to demand explanations! Brother Thomas, you are no longer the man you once were! How dare you bludgeon your way into my—”
“I did not bludgeon!”
“—private devotions to order me to satisfy your curiosity.”
“It is not curiosity, Brother Prior,” Thomas was now leaning forward on his stool, his eyes angry, “but a desire to understand why such an extraordinary breach of discipline was allowed for so long!”
Bertrand paused. “I think Prior General Thorseby was right to be concerned about you, Thomas. Perhaps you are not suited to the rigorous discipline of the Order after all.”
Thomas sat back, shocked and bitter at the threat. About to speak a furious retort, he suddenly caught himself, and bowed his head in contrition.
“I apologise deeply, Brother Prior. My behaviour has been unpardonable. I do beg your forgiveness, and ask of you suitable penance.”
Bertrand watched the man carefully. His contrition did seem genuine—although it was a trifle hasty—and perhaps it was not surprising that such a man as Thomas should still lapse into the habits of his old life from time to time.
“You must learn more discipline, Brother Thomas.”
“Yes, Brother Prior.”
“Blessed Gregory’s funeral mass is in five days’ time. I would that until that day you spend the hours from Prime until Nones in penitential prayer in the chapel. After dinner and until Vespers you will take yourself down to the streets about the marketplace and offer to wash the feet of every whore you can find.”
Thomas’ head flew back up, his brown eyes once more furious.
Bertrand held his stare.
Thomas finally dropped his gaze. “Forgive me, Brother Prior,” he whispered.
“You must learn humility, Brother Thomas.”
“I know it, I know it.”
“Then learn it!”
Thomas’ head and shoulders jerked. “Yes, Brother Prior.”
“You will attend Gregory’s funeral mass with the rest of our community,” the prior continued, “and then you will continue your penance until the day of the conclave.”
Thomas stiffened, but did not speak.
“You may leave, Brother Thomas.”
Thomas nodded. “Thank you, Brother Prior.” He rose, and walked towards the door.
Just as he opened it, Bertrand spoke again. “Brother Thomas?”
Thomas turned back.
“Brother Thomas…it has been many a year since I spoke of Brother Wynkyn. Now I am an old man, and I should hesitate no longer. Once our new Holy Father is elected, and when you have completed your penance—and this penance you must complete—you may seek audience with me, and I will speak to you again. You may go.”
Thomas bowed, and closed the door behind him.
Later in the night, when the brothers were in their cells, either sleeping or praying, Bertrand walked quietly down to the library, lifted out all of the friary’s records from the 1290s until the time of the pestilence, and carried them one by one up to the deserted kitchens.
There, he threw them on the fire.
He stood and watched until they had burned to ash, then he lifted a poker and stirred the coals about, fearful that a single word should have survived.
Finally, bent and tired, he shuffled back to his own bed.
IV (#ulink_7ade859a-69d5-51f5-9555-7ca69e3d7a8e)
Wednesday in Passion Week
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(7th April 1378)
The hours Thomas spent prone before the altar in chapel were the most blessed he could imagine. The cold of the stone flooring did not perturb him: he did not even notice it. During the set hours of prayer the passing feet of his fellow brothers, as the passing of their eyes, did not bother him: he deserved such humiliation, and he revelled in it. He lay, face pressed against stone, arms extended, and prayed for sweet mercy, for greater humbleness, and for the strength which he would need to be of service to the holy St Michael, messenger of God Himself.
The hours that Thomas spent in the filthy streets of Rome washing the feet of the even filthier whores, were hours spent in hell wiping the stained skin of the Devil’s handmaidens.
He dreaded the tolling of the bells for Nones, and the inevitable hand of Prior Bertrand on his shoulder, silently asking him to rise. He would hobble after the prior, wracked with cramps after so many chill hours prone on the chapel floor, praying for God’s mercy in order to survive the afternoon.
Today would be his last day of penance: Thomas had wept when he felt the prior’s hand on his shoulder, for he would no longer be allowed to spend so long in silent penitential prayer, but his face had gone as chill and stony as the floor he had recently lain on when he thought of the afternoon’s activities before him.
Thomas loathed whores with a vehemence he knew he should probably do penance for. To have to bow before them every afternoon and take their outstretched feet between his hands…
“This will be your last day,” Bertrand said unnecessarily as Thomas rose from the refectory table. “Tomorrow the cardinals will meet in conclave…and the streets will not be safe. Once the election is concluded then I will send for you. You know of what we must speak.”
Thomas nodded, and took his leave. He could not think beyond this afternoon, and he wondered if he would be able to bear it.
In the courtyard he lifted a wooden pail and several cloths from a small alcove, then half filled the pail from a large barrel of rainwater standing to one side. He walked to the gate, hesitated, then opened it and walked into the streets of Rome.
If there was one commodity Rome did not lack, it was whores. They catered for pilgrims, traders and the odd diplomat as well as the large number of young men who had yet to take wives. Of course, many husbands numbered among their clientele as well. Some said there were more whores in Rome than wives and, after his previous days in the streets, Thomas did not doubt it.
