The Psalter (34 page)

“The same, blessed be his name, although he would rather be known as a jurist and scholar and for the honor he brought our people. I bring my people only shame.”

“This is a cruel blow to you and to Christians also. Yet who can know the mind of God? He Who Cannot Be Named chose to deliver you into the hands of your enemy. But surrender yourself to His will, for I do not believe He would silence a man such as you forever.”

“I’m a prisoner, a slave. I have little choice,” Ahmad said bitterly.

Avraham smiled through his frizzy beard. “We can always choose.”

Elchanan joined them, and they sat around the large table in the kitchen eating cakes Avraham had baked, as was his daily custom—meditation, he called it—and sipping tea. The Rosh Yeshiva’s son took turns with Baraldus, frowning and glowering at the Saracen slave who was treated as a guest at his father’s table.

“This is wrong,” Ahmad said, pointing to the buckles on the collar. “They must be in such a place where they can be hitched to a plow or wagon. And the plow’s coulter has to be steel, not merely an iron strip over wood. It will break clearing new land.”

The corrections were sketched on paper and Elchanan and Baraldus discussed what changes would need to be made as Cardinal Johannes squirmed in his seat. “What’s wrong, young scholar?” Avraham asked. “You wish to add something?”

“I’m not sure how to say it. It’s not a plan, really, and I don’t know if such an enterprise could be accomplished. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Just tell us,” Avraham said.

Johannes pondered what he wanted to say for a moment. “Well, artisans can manufacture the collar and plow, but at considerable expense. Only the church and nobles possess money enough to buy them.”

“Yes?” Avraham replied, anxious for Johannes to make his point.

“I had hoped these inventions might help the lot of the poor who till the fields, slaves to their lord, to the land, and to their poverty. They will make their labor easier perhaps, but not their lives. However, if they owned a plow and a horse, they would be masters of their destiny.”

Baraldus gazed on Johannes as a world-wise father on an idealistic but impractical son. “Where would farmers get enough coins to buy horses and complicated plows? All they own is what’s on their backs, their paltry implements, and such beasts as they can breed. They have no money.”

Avraham, too, perceived no answer for Johannes’ munificent wish. “Gold and silver are now so rare, it would take two season’s harvest to pay such a price.”

“I don’t see the problem,” Ahmad said under his breath as though the answer was as plain as the cakes on the table.

Baraldus glared at the Saracen. “What do you know, pirate? These men are your betters, scholars and writers of books and have the world’s knowledge in their heads.”

Everyone turned to Ahmad.

“And you call us barbarians.” Ahmad shook his head. “My people were illuminating manuscripts when yours were drinking from skulls and painting your bodies blue, Lombard.”

Baraldus leapt from his seat, his ears red.

“Calm yourself, captain of the city’s defenses.” Avraham made a point of honoring the stout priest in front of Ahmad to sooth his rising bile. “We seek solutions, not quarrels.”

Ahmad reminded himself, feeling his bruised face and burning wrists, that he was no longer a Prince of Ifriqiya. He was a lowly slave in a hostile land. “Forgive my effrontery. I only meant to say…what baker would not desire to receive double payment for a loaf of bread?”

Everyone at the table shook their heads, not comprehending, and Baraldus seated himself, just as confused.

“It’s quite simple. Give the farmers a plow, a collar, and a horse. Then they pay with their crops as they can, but the price is double. If they triple their yield, they could repay the debt in a year. Two years would be easier and they would stockpile more food than they ever had, plus enough to give their lord as rent and still more to sell for cash. Allah forbids the charging of interest, but in his wisdom he did not mention what price may be demanded.”

All at the table
aahed
as the concept struck home.

“On my word,” Ahmad said. “Did you never hear of banking?”

31
Council of Laodicia

Johannes soon understood Leo’s desperate need for money. Theophylact and Benedict had returned but a portion of the church’s treasury, and only on threat of excommunication. However, had the whole sum been recovered, it would not have been nearly enough. Tithes flowed once again into the holy coffers, but they were a fraction of what was needed to finance Leo’s grandiose plans. Emperor Lothair contributed offerings from the imperial treasury to rebuild the devastated Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s and for the raising of a larger army to protect Rome. Yet still more was required, much more.

Pope Leo committed to the diocese, to the clergy, and to God that the most sacred site in Roman Catholicism, Saint Peter’s Basilica, would be grander and richer than ever. Moreover, he vowed that such a sacrilege would never happen again. Thus, he embarked upon a construction the likes of which Rome had not seen since the third century. Leo resolved to build a colossal wall to surround the rural Vatican and enclose it within the confines of the city.

Workers would have to be fed, artisans paid, and raw materials purchased. While all Christendom would contribute, a large portion of the monies had to come from the
patriarchum’s
farm colonies, from Johannes. Rome’s youngest cardinal priest felt the pressure. Planning daily with Elchanan, Baraldus, and Ahmad, it was clear that a virtual army of laborers would be needed and there was not nearly enough land under cultivation to feed them and their families.

Baraldus was a natural commander, and he viewed the farms as a battlefield to attack strategically. He divided the workers into two teams, with the stouter men clearing the woods and breaking virgin ground with the revolutionary plows drawn by stronger, albeit slower, oxen. The second team cultivated farmland with less powerful but faster horses, turning the soil with incredible speed and finishing in a third of the normal time. Then they joined the crew clearing and sowing yet more land. The work progressed at an ambitious pace, and Johannes had already planned a fall crop.

Elchanan managed the supply line, overseeing Jewish artisans in the production of the rigid horse collars and heavy plows on wheels. Ahmad adeptly controlled the money, disbursing payments to craftsmen and horse breeders. He also oversaw the distribution of equipment to unbelieving farmers who marveled that they were simply given a plow, a horse, and a collar. All they had to do in exchange was to make their mark on a piece of parchment with words they could neither read nor understand. They grasped, however, that upon a handshake and an oath, they would own their tools and become their own men.

After months of working around the clock, weary Johannes found himself missing his mentor and fellow bibliophile, Anastasius. May was already hot, yet just enough rain had fallen and the crops ripened. Hay cutting would begin in four or five weeks, and he would have no time at all until the harvest was finished and the wheat, barley, and oats stored in the granaries. So in the evening, at the hour between last light and dusk when the shadows were longest, he left his labors and crossed the Tiber on the Sant’Angelo Bridge, traveling near the river through Rome’s most populated quarter, the
campus martius
.

Since the barbarian invasions had cut the city’s aqueducts, many commoners were forced to move from the hills to the river’s edge. Artisans and merchants followed to serve the new residents. The
campus martius
swelled further with pilgrims longing to pray at Saint Peter’s, pilgrims who had brought money from the four corners of the earth. Poor shopkeepers and relic hawkers were only too happy to help them lighten their purses.

Bishop Arsenius had been shrewd in choosing San Marcello for his nephew. While the church’s governors in the
patriarchum
thought they were rid of the troublesome Emperor’s man, in reality, Cardinal Anastasius was now the pastor of Rome’s most populous parish and to its wealthiest citizens, voting citizens. Johannes turned north on the fashionable
via Lata
to visit his friend, an ancient scroll of the heretical
Gospel of Thomas
tucked under his arm.
A theological discussion is what I need to distract myself from this bone-tiring work
, he thought.

“I agree with you. Nothing in Matthew, Mark, or Luke says Jesus was anything but a mortal man,” Anastasius said as they sipped sweetened wine. They sat by the narrow window digesting their dinner, hoping for a breath of a breeze. The
Gospel of John
makes the difference.”

“But why was
John
added to the Bible and not the
Gospel of Thomas
?”

“Because Jesus would have been different.” Anastasius tapped on the open scroll for emphasis

“My point exactly.” Johannes leaned forward, his eyes bright, driving home his line of reasoning. “Not only were parts of the Bible forged or altered to promote a particular belief like the virgin birth chapters in
Matthew
, books were cobbled together for the same effect. Had
John
not been added, Jesus wouldn’t be God. If
Thomas
had been the fourth book, Jesus would have been only a man with a twin brother who God adopted.

“Yes, but
John
was chosen and not
Thomas
.”

“Obviously.” Johannes rolled his eyes. “And other books were rejected, and not because they didn’t deserve to be included?”

“But why do you keep mentioning
Thomas
?”

“Look at the handwriting. The book was written at the same time as
John
, after Jesus’ generation and yet another had passed. Both books must have been authored by someone other than the two apostles. One wanted Jesus to be a God and the other believed he was a mere man. My point is that neither Jesus nor the Apostles decided our beliefs; rather it was anonymous men propagandizing their own beliefs. Finally, Roman emperors used their power to decree our doctrines just as an Emperor and Theophylact now fight to impose their requirements on the church.”

Anastasius squirmed, uncomfortably. “Are you suggesting that our church isn’t legitimate because Jesus isn’t God?”

“No, I’m saying that the truth matters and I don’t know what the truth is. This I do know:
Thomas
and the suppressed books must be preserved until someone with more knowledge than you or I can understand them. Until then, we have to resist the efforts of the Empire or the nobility or even church leaders to use our faith for their own interests.”

The two cardinals leaned back in their chairs, pondering and perspiring as the still heat chafed. Johannes hiked his priestly frock above his knees to cool his slender legs. “I need to use the privy,” he announced, but took several moments to pull himself from the comfort of the chair.

Anastasius was grateful for his onetime protégé, a mind that matched his own even at his young age. An educated and cultured foreigner, the Englishman viewed everything from a different perspective. His Greek schooling had taught him to view historical events as clashes of opposing ideas rather than battles between good and evil. The pastor of San Marcello heard a table rattle. The legs scraped along the stone floor. “Light a candle, Johannes. It’s dark out there,” he called but received no reply. “Are you all—”

His words were silenced in mid-utterance as his voice was squeezed from his throat. He tried to slip a finger underneath the leather thong wrapped around his neck, but the attacker jerked tighter still. Frantic, Anastasius clawed at the garrote, standing and spinning, driving backward with all his dissipating might, crashing their bodies against tables and chairs and slamming into the wall. The thong loosened for an instant and he squeezed two fingers through and pulled the strap away from his constricted neck. Not enough; he was losing consciousness. With a last, desperate effort, he flung himself to the center of the room, tumbled over a toppled chair and crashed to the floor. The faceless killer held his grip, squeezing tighter as peace descended on the cardinal and he floated away.

Anastasius’ chest inflated in a sudden great heave and he gulped for breath like a baby’s first taste of air. Blood flowed once again to his brain, flooding in spurts that pounded in his temples. His unwilling eyes opened and a muffled distant sound grew louder, calling, “Oh come back. Come back to me.”

Johannes held Anastasius’ head in his lap, rocking back and forth and sobbing until he looked down at dazed eyes staring up. “Thank you God. Thank you.” He smothered the face with kisses.

“Oh my aching head.” Anastasius rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands. “What happened?”

“He tried to kill you,” Johannes said.

“Who?” He looked over at a body lying in a pool of blood, a dining knife thrust in the throat. Pulling himself up on trembling knees, Johannes supported him as they wobbled away from the corpse. “I need to lie down.”

“We can’t stay here. There might be more of them.” Johannes led him out the door, looking left and right and straining his eyes in the darkness.

“Where’re you taking me?”

“To the
schola cantorum
.”

“I don’t think I can make it,” Anastasius said.

“Lean on me. It’s downhill.”

The exertion and air revived Anastasius and after fifty paces, he walked under his own power although he had not completely regained his sense of balance and leaned on the
bibliothecarius’
shoulder. Each person they encountered in the narrow streets seemed suspicious, and Johannes followed their every move until they disappeared around a corner or moved to a safe distance.

They neared the
schola cantorum
and Anastasius began to tremble. Johannes wrapped his arm around his friend. “I need to get you into bed.” He pushed open the door to the
schola
and pulled his mentor through. Leading him to the bedroom, he laid Anastasius on his own pallet and covered him with a blanket.