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The growl deepened.
“The saintly Bartolomo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, is our new Holy Father, Urban VI!”
The mob quietened, urgent voices whispering throughout its mass. Then a great cheer broke out. “An Italian! An Italian!”
Then the former Archbishop Prignano, the new Urban VI, stepped forward to take the crowd’s acclaim. He was a Neopolitan by birth, and enough of an Italian to sate the crowd’s anger and suspicion.
He raised his hands, and blessed the crowd, and then Urban said, “The papacy has returned to Rome, beloved countrymen, and it will never leave again! I swear this to you on the name of our beloved Lord, Jesus Christ, and his mother, the Holy Virgin. I swear to you that the papacy will not leave Rome again!”
Behind Urban, five or six of the cardinals shared concerned glances. Wasn’t Urban taking his pretence a little too seriously?
VI (#ulink_4c791c0c-9b4b-575e-8038-2b9cd1640054)
Wednesday in Holy Week
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(14th April 1378)
Thomas stood against the wall outside the closed door to Prior Bertrand’s cell. His back was straight, his hands clasped humbly before him, his head bowed. His back did not touch the stone.
Bertrand had kept him waiting six days since the election of Urban—claiming the preparations for Easter celebrations as reason enough—and Thomas was barely keeping under restraint an impatience that he knew would earn him another penance if he let it fly.
And that was one thing Thomas did not want. His previous penance had been more than humiliating, and he didn’t want to see what Bertrand could come up with next.
Since the day the whore had cursed him, Thomas had spent his time studying, or praying in the chapel and, during the long dark hours of the night, in his private cell. This prayer time Thomas spent imploring St Peter for the patience and humbleness which that saint had so admirably demonstrated in his struggle to establish Christianity.
Thomas wondered how, if he could not master humbleness, he could hope to fight the evil that St Michael told him walked the lands. But he knew that, doubts notwithstanding, he would have to do his best, so he also prayed to the archangel Michael for guidance, for a sign, for something to show him what to do, how best to fight the evil infiltrating Christendom.
But the archangel had remained silent.
Was it the whore’s fault? Thomas tried hard to forgive her, but it was difficult. All his life he’d regarded whores with contempt (although that contempt had never stopped him using them, whispered the voice of his conscience). After his humiliating penance, and the tongue-lashing by the young one, Thomas now loathed whores beyond all measure.
He prayed, but for once that did not bring peace of mind. Suddenly all he could think about was the young girl’s breasts, so firm and pointed beneath her tunic. He knew what they would feel like in his hands, and he knew how they would taste under his tongue once he had aroused the sweat of passion in her.
Saint Michael, aid me now! God help me, drive thoughts of this woman from my mind!
Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, his hands now trembling violently as he grasped them tightly together, his body rocking slowly back and forth. He struggled for control, knowing that any moment Bertrand was going to open that door and find Thomas lost in a maddened fit of anger and remembered lust.
Thomas knew he was being watched, knew that the Prior General of England wanted an excuse to throw him from the Order…and yet still he couldn’t bring himself under control…still he couldn’t forget the laughter…the breasts bared above his head…still he couldn’t forget his humiliation, and his overweening fury…
“Please…please, Saint Michael,” he whispered between clenched teeth.
Thomas.
Peace flooded Thomas’ being, and he almost wept.
Thomas, do not let the thoughts of women control you.
Thomas opened his eyes a fraction. A warm clear light illuminated the dim corridor. He lifted his head slowly.
Five or six feet from him stood a pillar of fire, the form of a man dimly discernible within it. A stern face stared at Thomas from the top of the pillar.
The fire did not sear Thomas, nor did it cause him any fear. He sank to his knees, and clasped his hands in adoration. The archangel had returned.
Women exist only for one reason, Thomas—to bear children. Otherwise they are to be used and discarded with as little thought as the daily sending of excreta on its journey into the cesspool. Use them, but do not let thoughts of them control your life. And never give your soul to one.
“Saint Michael,” Thomas whispered. “You are so good to me.”
You are a Beloved, Thomas.
“Blessed saint, I have found a name that—”
You have found the name of the man whom you must follow, in body as well as spirit.
“Wynkyn de Worde.”
Yes. He worked on behalf of God and His angels until the evil pestilence swallowed him before he could properly accomplish his task.
“And I must take up where he left off?”
You are his successor, although you will grow to be much greater than he.
Thomas’ heart swelled with pride. “What must I do?”
Learn all you can about him, learn what he did, and why. Discover what his purpose was, then take that purpose into your own hands. Follow your instincts, for they are the instincts of the angels.
“Can you not tell me what I need to know, blessed angel?”
The archangel’s anger seeped across the space towards Thomas.
“Forgive me! I did not think to—”
Learning is nothing unless it is experienced. If I tell you what you need to know then you will not have truly learned. Wynkyn de Worde died before he could train his successor personally, thus the successor, you, had to be bred and must now learn without the aid of the one gone before.
“I will learn, Saint Michael. I give you my oath on it.”
You will learn fast, Thomas. Wynkyn de Worde’s untimely death was a disaster. For thirty years the minions of Satan have mingled among God’s own. Now it is almost too late to prevent the final conflagration.
“Blessed angel, my duties keep me here at the friary. I doubt that—”
The archangel roared, and Thomas cringed in terror.
You work with God’s authority! The Church is crippled and useless! Listen only to God’s authority, Thomas, not the useless babbling of priests!
“Saint Michael—”
You are God’s Beloved, Thomas. You need no other authority than that to work what you must. Already you have allowed Prior Bertrand to deflect you from God’s purpose. Do not allow him to do so again.
Thomas began to speak, the questions bubbling to his lips, but the archangel had gone, and Thomas was once more alone in the corridor.
The door opened and there was the sound of a footstep. “Brother Thomas?”
Prior Bertrand.
Thomas unclasped his hands, then slowly rose from his knees and turned to face the prior.
As on the other times Thomas had come to his cell, Bertrand indicated that Thomas should sit on the stool. The prior stood before him, his arms folded and his hands slipped deep into his sleeves.
“Well, Thomas, have you learned humility?”
Thomas, who had been sitting with his own hands folded in his lap and his eyes cast down, now lifted his face.
“I have learned, Prior Bertrand, that I have a greater calling than that which places me under your discipline.”
“What?” Truly shocked, Bertrand actually forgot himself enough to rock slightly on his feet.
Thomas held the prior’s gaze. “I am Wynkyn de Worde’s successor in God’s and the angels’ eternal fight against evil.”
The prior’s face completely whitened. “By whose authority?” he whispered.
“By God’s authority, and by the authority of the blessed Saint Michael who has blessed me with his presence on several occasions.”
Bertrand jerked his eyes away from Thomas, backing up a step or two. He muttered a prayer under his breath, then shook his head frantically as Thomas rose to his feet.
“Tell me what you know of Wynkyn de Worde!” Thomas said.
Bertrand shook his head more vigorously. “No. De Worde is dead. Gone. I do not have to think of him any more.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Brother Thomas! You overstep your place! I will not—”
“You will tell me,” Thomas said in a low voice that was, nevertheless, laced with such venom that Bertrand quivered in fear.
Thomas reached out and seized one of Bertrand’s sleeves. The prior flinched, thinking he would be struck, but Thomas only pulled him about and pushed him down on the stool.
“I speak with the archangel Saint Michael’s voice,” Thomas said. “Tell me what you know of Wynkyn de Worde!”
Bertrand, staring up at Thomas, recognised the power and anger that flooded the man’s face. So Wynkyn had also looked when Bertrand had summoned him to an accounting when the prior had first taken his office.
And, as Bertrand had capitulated then, so he capitulated now.
After all, was not St Angelo’s dedicated to the archangel St Michael?
Bertrand suddenly understood that he wanted Thomas out of this friary and out of Rome as soon as possible. He was an old, old man, and he’d had enough.
The prior dropped his eyes, and sighed. St Michael’s will be done. His face was grey now, rather than pale, and the age-wrinkles in his skin had deepened until they resembled wounds.
“I came to this friary as a young man,” Bertrand began, “perhaps thirty or thirty-two—not much older than you are now—in 1345. I assumed the position of prior, although many, Brother Wynkyn among them, thought me too young for such duties.”
Thomas folded his hands and stood straight, regarding Bertrand silently.
Bertrand’s mouth twisted, remembering. “Within weeks of my arrival I realised that Brother Wynkyn was…different. As you have realised, he came and went without asking permission, and he hardly took any part in the life of the friary apart from attending prayers and meals. When he was in the friary he kept to his cell, studying an ancient book he had there.”
“Of what was it concerned?”
“I do not know.”
“But—”
“Listen, damn you, and keep your questions until I am done!”
Thomas bowed his head.
“Some three weeks after my arrival I summoned Brother Wynkyn to my cell. He sat on this stool and I stood before him. I asked him by what right he ignored his duties within the friary, and by what right he came and went as he pleased.
“He smiled, not a pleasant expression, and he drew a letter from one of his sleeves. ‘By this right,’ he said, and handed the letter to me.”
Bertrand stopped, and he crossed himself with a trembling hand. Thomas remained silent, and waited for Bertrand to continue.
“It was a letter from the holy Boniface of blessed memory—”
Thomas nodded. Boniface had been a great pope until his untimely death in 1303.
“—and it directed the reader to give Brother Wynkyn de Worde every assistance and freedom. It said…it said that Wynkyn de Worde was the hand of the archangel Saint Michael on earth, and that he worked the will of the angels. It said further that de Worde knew the face of evil, and if de Worde were not allowed his freedom then evil would roam unfettered.”
“You did not doubt it.”
“No. I could not. All know of Boniface’s piety, and of his judgement. He was a great pope, and I believed his words implicitly.”
Again Thomas understood, although he did not nod this time. Boniface had been dead some thirty years when Wynkyn had shown Bertrand the pope’s letter, but it would have carried the same degree of authority then as it had when it had been newly penned. After Boniface’s death, the French King Philip, whom many accused of Boniface’s murder (the king had tried an unsuccessful kidnap of the pope, which had prompted a fatal heart attack), had seized control of the papacy via his puppet, Pope Clement, and the popes had retired to Avignon to lead lives of corruption and sin.
Boniface had been the last of the true popes as far as much of Christendom was concerned. If Wynkyn had pulled out a letter from one of the Avignon popes, Bertrand would have been likely to throw it in the fire and laugh in the brother’s face.
“And that is all the letter said?” Thomas prompted softly.
“Yes. That was all the letter said. But, combined with the same light in Brother Wynkyn’s face that I now see shining from yours, it was enough.”
Bertrand heaved himself to his feet and paced slowly back and forth in the confined space between his bed and the door. “After that I let Wynkyn de Worde do as he willed. He was quiet enough, and nothing he did disturbed the peace of the friary. The other brothers left him well enough alone.”
“Where did he go when he left the friary?”
“He went to the friary in Nuremberg twice a year for the summer and winter solstices.”
Ah! The timing of de Worde’s departures and arrivals now made sense. The summer solstice occurred on the Vigil of St John the Baptist in late June, the winter on the night before the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“What he did there,” Bertrand continued, “I know not, although it had something to do with the evil that was Brother Wynkyn’s purpose.”
