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. “Christendom will have two popes,” he said, his voice now a near whisper. “What have we done to so earn God’s displeasure? What evil stalks among us?”
Thomas stared at the pope, trying to reconcile his disgust at the man’s revolting habits with the thought that he might be a true ally he could rely upon. Any pope elected in Avignon would be a tool of the French king…and that left only Urban who might swing the forces of the Church behind the effort to battle the forces of evil which were even now—
“Ah! Enough of them,” Urban said. “What do we have next?”
One of his secretaries handed him a piece of paper.
“What?” Urban yelled as he read. “Some half-crazed friar thinks he speaks for archangel Saint Michael? Heaven aid us all from such dimwitted asses! Where is he? Where? Lord God above, why must I be pestered with such fools! If I were to believe every man, woman and child who solemnly swears they’ve been granted an audience with this saint, or that angel, I’d have to believe half of Christendom sits down to dinner with the Virgin herself!”
Urban crumpled the paper and threw it to one side. “Lord Christ, save me from the addled,” he said. “I’ve too much to do without being bothered with the deranged as well.”
Thomas and Bertrand backed unobtrusively away, Thomas cold with anger, Bertrand with shock.
“I had no thought the man would be so…so…so…” Bertrand said as they finally gained the bustling court outside St Peter’s.
“So repellent,” Thomas finished for him. “He is unworthy to replace the meanest parish priest, let alone act as God’s mouthpiece on earth! And yet he is the rightfully elected pope.”
“That’s your English blood talking,” Bertrand said. “All the Frenchmen, Spaniards and Scots in this crowd would agree with the cardinals. Now, let us see if we can return to the friary in one piece.”
“No.” Thomas pulled away from him. “I shall not return yet. I need to consider what to do.”
“Thomas—”
But Thomas was gone, and Bertrand was left to seethe in solitude.
Lord Christ Saviour, but he would be gladdened when he could rid himself of this arrogant priest!
Wednesday in Easter Week
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(21st April 1378)
—ii—
Thomas wandered aimlessly through the crowds, pushed this way and that, trying to sort out his thoughts.
He had taken holy orders because he had wanted to be part of the Church, part of the great institution which spoke with Christ’s voice and guided man’s footsteps towards salvation.
In doing so, Thomas had hoped to atone for the sins of his past and achieve his own salvation.
But what he’d just witnessed dismayed him, although it confirmed what St Michael had said regarding the Church. How could the Church, as represented by Urban, rally to ward off the evil which the archangel told him walked freely among mankind? And what if the cardinals in Avignon went ahead and elected a new pope? Would Urban resign? No, of course not. He was too ambitious to do that.
That would leave Christendom headed by two popes. Thomas shuddered as he thought through the consequences. Two rival popes, two rival Church organisations, two sets of Church courts, two hierarchies of clerics…Sweet Jesu! The Church would be torn in two!
It would become the laughing stock of Europe.
If evil walked the world, then, by all the saints, it had surely taken a stroll through the papal palace in the past few weeks.
Well, there was nothing for it but to proceed without the papal blessing, and without the papal aid and information that he had sought.
“Saint Michael,” Thomas whispered into the crowd, “guide my steps, I pray you!”
A hand grabbed his sleeve, and Thomas almost fell over.
He swore—instantly regretting the lapse—and twisted around amid the throng of close-pressed bodies to stare at the man who still had his sleeve in a tight clasp.
“Sweet
