King Hereafter (86 page)

The attraction, of course, was not only spectacle. Largesse was required by Rome of her visiting children, and the greater their standing, the greater Rome’s claims on their charity. A Pope could expect to dispense five thousand pounds in alms at his inaugural procession: an Emperor probably more.

As with everything else, Thorfinn had made it his business to find out about that beforehand; and if he had not, there were Adalbero and Hildebrand ready to tell him, and the money-lenders passing the time of day at every corner. The honour of a ceremonial entry carried a penalty-clause all of its own.

The thought of it could sour, a trifle, a newcomer’s appreciation of the colour, the scent, and the music. At St John’s, it was said, they would consume two hundred pounds of balm at one Easter evening of baptism. The chandeliers here at St Peter’s each required thirteen hundred wax candles to fill them. Candles and oil were for sale in the markets beside the platea. The candles, once bought, did not always burn.

Thorfinn dismounted at the steps of St Peter’s, climbed them, and, passing into the forecourt, knelt between the pale, painted pillars.

The doors before which he paid homage were of deeply worked silver. They shot strange lights into the shadows beneath his bent knee, and the fall of his cloak, and the formal tent of his supplicant’s hands. The mosaics on either side of the door stamped their myriad hatches on the Deity’s luminous Greek face and dress, and on his long hand of blessing, thumb and third finger joined. Below, the Emperor Otto slept in his borrowed sarcophagus of figured white marble.

Thorfinn rose, and the silver doors opened, followed by the rays of the sun, which Constantine chose to admit into all his basilicas, built for the worship of God and the celebration of Sunday,
the great and venerable day of the sun
.

Inside, Thorfinn knelt again with the Cardinal on the
Rota Porphyretica
, the single red stone in the patterned black-and-white glaze of the flooring. Then, led by the priests and the choristers, he moved up the long nave between the eighty-six marble columns under the silvery blaze of the lights, and towards the gold of the High Altar and the Confessio. The voices rose, and fresco and mosaic gave them back. Gold sparkled and winked through the mists of burned spices. Above the baldaquin of the altar, above Thorfinn’s head, a crown hung, made of jewels like flowers.

The Cardinal spoke; and Thorfinn answered.

Below the liquid eyes of the Prophets, among the clear peacock wings of the angels, his men stood behind in the aisles and forgot who they were and where they came from.

Later, returned to the same basilica steps, Leofwine opened the satchel at his side and took from it a bag, from which he filled the silver cup Cormac held.

Neither remarked on the fact that Leofwine’s hand was shaking. Neither, in fact, spoke at all. Then the King took the cup and emptied it, in a drift of
bright, spinning coins, into the crowd packed below him.

The procession re-formed.

At Nero’s bridge, where the Prefect and senators awaited them, Kineth of Angus at last found his voice and spoke softly. ‘How can Thorfinn do that when he doesn’t believe?’

Isleifr turned round. ‘What do you mean, he doesn’t believe? Constantine, who brought Christ to Rome, must have believed. But he had a statue made of himself as Apollo the Sun God just the same, with pieces of the True Cross and the Nails of the Passion built into it. When they talk of Christ in Iceland, in England, in Saxony, they are thinking of Christ the young leader, the Odin … 
Stripped himself then the young hero that was God Almighty, strong and brave … Mighty King of Rome, who sits in the south at the Well of Urd, and rules over lands of the mountain kings
 … What of it? If all paths lead the same way, does it matter if they are made differently?’

‘We are moving,’ said Odalric. ‘Be calm. Save it for later.’

Before they stepped from the bridge into the city of Rome, the news of their coming, of their style, and of what they had laid on the altars was known to the Pontiff’s most skilful advisor, the sub-deacon Hildebrand at the Lateran palace.

Pagan princes were encouraged to come at Easter, since this was the time of baptism and the Pope would assuredly be in the city.

Unbaptised princes now were rare. Kings and envoys were pagan only in the original sense: that they came from remote lands outside the city, and city customs were unknown to them.

One did not, however, make the error of underrating them. Did those barbarians who adored Sidonius Appollinarius adore him still when they heard his verses bewailing their attachment?

No. The merchant who knew the wood-and-wattle markets of Dublin and Birku and the Dnieper had usually paid his respects in his time to the sweating pillar in Constantinople, and in Rome would encounter Domitian’s
meta sudans
with no sense of wonder. As the Saracen knew Leptis Magna and the Greek columns of Paestum and Taormina, so the Frank came from the amphitheatre of Autun to the Flavian Colosseum without trepidation, as the Wend leaving his marshes saw the Forum and walls of Colonia and, travelling, learned from the milestones.

Nevertheless, crossing the bridge, they would experience wonder. The avenues were still broad, although meaner buildings encroached on the symmetry and wadded the dancing arches, the white, fractured temples, as if prescribed by some physician whose herbs mended marble.

Despite the fortress and the Ghetto beside it, the Campo dei Fiori was still imposing, and the church of St Mark kept its beauty two hundred years after its last restoration. No man could fail to be moved by the ruins of the Imperial Forum, and the Tullianum, where St Peter, it was said, had been imprisoned and where Caesar, it was certain, had left Vercingetorix to die. There was the Senate House of Rome, converted to the church of St Adrian. There, they would be told, were the columns of the Curia Pompeii, where Caesar was murdered. There was the Roman Forum, and the triple arch of Septimus Severus celebrating the Conquest of the East with, close by it, the site of the Golden Milestone, the column from which once led all the roads of the empire.

From there, pagans followed the Sacred Way. From the Arch of Titus and its story of the capture of Jerusalem to the mighty, dismembered cylinder of the Colosseum. Then past the basilica of St Clement to the first glimpse of the octagon and dome of the Baptistry and the huddle of booths, and then the quadrangles, opening up with their tiered roofs, and the long north wall of the basilica showing behind them.

And then, lined with people, its basalt blocks swept for the procession, would appear the platea, the space before the eastern front door of the Lateran with its graveyard of monuments, brought here to proclaim that this spot, before the Mother of Churches, bore witness to the greatness of Rome past as well as Rome present.

Blocking the sun, its shadow striping the square, would stand the bronze equestrian statue of Constantine, wearing the tight-curled hair and long beard of Marcus Aurelius, his right hand outstretched. Below its plinth, Romans themselves stood to marvel at the other memorials. The vast bronze hand holding a globe; the gleaming face with its curled nostrils that might belong to the tyrant Nero or to the Sun God, or to both. The pig-like wolf with open mouth and inscribed Assyrian coat, giving suck to the founders of Rome against the painted wall of the Patriarchium.

The great square, then, to cross. And then before the visiting pagans, the portico of Constantine’s basilica, made and remade but still essentially that built seven hundred years ago on the tract of land owned by the Emperor’s wife, where once the Laterani family had had their palace and cavalry school.

The procession was coming. Hildebrand could hear the noise from where he stood among the archives close to the Holy Staircase.

The windows here were of oiled linen, so that he could not look out, but he knew what to expect. This amicable roar was occasioned by the throwing of small money by the chancellors of the visiting monarch, and reflected the fact that the money had been efficiently dispensed and was not yet exhausted.

He was not surprised. The conflict that had already taken place between himself and the King of Alba at Adalbero’s house in the Borgo had given him an idea of the man’s capacity; and he had advised the Pope accordingly. Alert and sharp-minded himself, Leo was, he thought, not displeased to be having this encounter. Unlike poor John Gratian, Hildebrand’s last master, Pope Leo was not so deeply embedded in the toils of the spirit that he did not perceive
that spiritual armies must be led and manoeuvred like any other. He, Hildebrand, was lucky at thirty to be permitted to stand beside these great princes, the Emperor Henry and Pope Leo from Alsace, and learn from their mistakes.

Meanwhile, there was no hurry. The Pope had already left to walk down to the basilica from his apartments on the second floor of the Patriarchium, along with three of the cardinals, Halinard of Lyons, and Humbert of Marmoutier. Whatever self-control still remained to their guests from the country after the pitiless trial of a Roman welcome would now meet a greater opponent by far: the power of the Mass, the Word of the Lord, to steal the soul and cow the spirit.

Of course, much had been lost to the basilica. Beyond the cedarwood doors, these worshippers would not look down the nave and see the great ciborium of beaten silver with a silver Christ, onyx-eyed, seated among his Apostles. The golden lamp with its eighty dolphins no longer burned oil of spikenard in front of the altar. The coloured glass windows, bought with Charlemagne’s money to rival those of Haghia Sophia, had also long gone.

But not everything could be carried away. Christ in mosaic looked down from the deep golden shell of the apse, and the arcades were still encrusted with Pope Sergius’s silver; the brass columns of the presbyterium had been dressed with veils of wild silk embroidered with glittering crosses, and the altar wore cloth of gold all covered with jewels, flanked by curtains of Byzantian purple woven with eagles and basilisks.

Down there, stunned by the glory, the voice of God speaking from caverns of unimaginable beauty, none would make an accounting.

Except, perhaps, the chieftain. The extremely ill-favoured man who called himself King and indeed, by whatever means, had come to rule a collection of lands large enough and well enough placed to attract the Empire’s attention.

It would be interesting, thought Hildebrand, to see what change St John might have wrought in that rumbling voice and unmoving presence.

If the answer was none, then he would be even more interested. For you cannot lead your men into battle unless you have spotted the enemy.

The King of Alba, whose only enemy was a prophecy, rose when the Pope rose, and waited while the Pope left the basilica and the basilica emptied; and, without even looking, was aware of the resentment in the eyes of the men of Alba grouped in silence about him. Resentment that all life was transformed save for the rumbling voice and unmoved presence of their leader.

Then came the summons to the papal chamber, and he walked out of the north door before them, and up the marble steps to the Leonine wing and a long room lined with bright windowed alcoves. In the centre, water sparkled and whispered in a great porphyry basin, and columns of porphyry and white sculptured marble attended the doorways, their heads and bases fashioned with lilies.

At the end, before a heavy white table, was set a canopied throne upon which the Pope had seated himself. Behind, the ranks of his cardinals and
advisors, in red and white, black and brown, glinting with bullion, repeated the curve of the apse.

Nine Roman palms tall, the Pope who had been Bruno of Toul was straight-backed and vigorous, with raw cheeks and a long, stalking nose and strong eyebrows. The red hair of his beard met the red furze circling his head, on which was bedded the tall cone of the papal tiara, encircled with gold. The pallium with its submissive crosses wandered across strong thighs and knees on which were planted swordsman’s hands, handed down from generations of counts of Nordgau. Jewels boxed in gold hemmed the robe at his sandal, the cuffs, close and wide, of his sleeves, and flamed in pastilles of colour at his muscular neck.

The party from Alba, halted two-thirds of the way along the room, began one by one to be presented. Moving forward, first of them all, under the uniform Latinising voice of the Chancellor Peter, Thorfinn could feel on his back the distraught gaze—the hatred, even—of his followers.

He knew without looking that Hlodver and Gillocher had been weeping, and he had been prepared for the withdrawn silence of the three priests who would now sustain with him the burden of this interview. The thickened voice of Cormac of Atholl had taken him by surprise, on the way up the stairs. ‘You will be asked to prostrate yourself,’ Cormac said. ‘I take it you will?’

He had not replied. He waited now until the very end of the Cardinal’s introduction before he moved. Then, managing his height and the weight of his robes in the only way possible, he laid himself flat before the throne, brushed the gilded slipper with his lips, and rose, as swiftly and silently as did the churchmen. The man he had spoken to at Adalbero’s house, the sub-deacon Hildebrand, came forward a little and said, ‘The Pope bids you welcome, my son. You will remain, with your priests, after your companions have been presented?’

Which was as expected. He stood and watched critically while the material embodiment of Buchan and Strathearn, Moray and Angus and the rest, performed, with varying success, the same movement. Otkel of the iron nerves stood on his cloak-end on rising and only just caught his great brooch as it ripped from its moorings. Eochaid looked ill, which was a pity, as he would be needed before very long. As Thorfinn had felt their distrust, so he felt their anger and foreboding as one by one they bowed themselves out of the room, leaving him alone with Eochaid, Tuathal, and Isleifr. The Pope spoke, and Hildebrand said, ‘His Holiness knows that you speak several tongues. He asks if you wish an interpreter.’