The Pope's Assassin

by Tim Severin

  ‘How will I know him?’

  The archbishop gave a grim smile. ‘He’s got a freshly broken nose. He’s chamberlain to Pope Leo, and took a clout in the face from a cudgel, trying to defend his master.’

  ‘Then I take it that Pope Leo himself is amongst the travellers.’

  The archbishop nodded. ‘After what happened, Leo is frightened for his life. My informants tell me that he is coming here to meet Carolus and seek his protection. The Duke of Spoleto, one of Carolus’s most loyal vassals, is accompanying him with an escort of soldiers.’

  ‘Should I interview the Pope as well?’

  Arno made a gesture as if brushing off a fly. ‘Leo’s version of events is not to be trusted. He’ll try to implicate his enemies, not tell the truth.’

  ‘What about this man Albinus? He could be a liar too.’

  Shrewd eyes held my gaze. ‘Alcuin says in his letter that you’re no fool. I expect you to know a lie when you meet it.’

  The archbishop was already reaching for another document on his table. ‘Send me a preliminary report of whatever you manage to learn from his man Albinus,’ he grunted. ‘My secretary will provide you with money for travel expenses and essential costs. Keep any bribes to a minimum.’

  I made my way out of the office, silently cursing Alcuin for landing me in this predicament. Rome was more than two thousand miles away and the troubles of Pope Leo did not concern me. I was perfectly happy to go on spending my days in the undemanding routine of a miles. It meant little more than showing up for the occasional muster of the household troops, some arms drill on horseback while being shouted at by a sergeant-instructor, and generally pottering about on the fringes of the king’s retinue. It allowed me plenty of spare time to help out the keepers of the royal menagerie at feeding times. I had no wish to be the archbishop’s spy.

  *

  Arno’s staff provided me with credentials as a missi, an envoy travelling on royal business, so I would be able to commandeer horses as I rode to Ratisbon and beyond. On the fifth day, I came across Pope Leo’s entourage resting up in a monastery in the Alpine foothills after they had trudged through the mountain passes. The monastery was a modest enough establishment situated on a spur of high ground that overlooked the road. Its chapel was the only stone-built structure. All the other buildings were made of local timber and roofed with wooden tiles that had weathered to a sombre grey that blended with the drab, rocky countryside. I arrived shortly before noon and the guesthouse was already full to bursting, but royal edict obliged the hosteller to provide food and shelter to a missi. Muttering under his breath, the harassed monk found me a corner where I could sleep on a straw palliasse. Then he brought me into the refectory building, explaining that, with so many members in the papal party, he had been forced to arrange two sittings for every meal. Entering the long narrow room with its low ceiling, I quickly recognized Albinus with his broken nose and a face that was covered in large greenish-yellow bruises. He and his companions had already taken their places at table. Apologizing for my late arrival, I made for a gap on the bench beside him, and sat down.

  ‘Some for you?’ I asked, reaching for the loaf of rye bread on the table and tearing off a chunk.

  ‘Thank you, no. I have some recently broken teeth and the crust is somewhat hard,’ he answered, before sucking gingerly at his spoonful of turnip soup.

  ‘How did that happen?’ I enquired cheerfully, as if to make conversation. Albinus was of ordinary height, stoop shouldered and diffident. In company he was the sort of person who would be easily overlooked.

  ‘You’ll have heard about the attack on the Holy Father, I suppose,’ he mumbled between sips.

  ‘Only rumours. I’ve been away in the Northlands,’ I lied. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘It was monstrous. A crowd of villains burst out from the spectators on the Via Lata, right in front of the Church of Saints Stephen and Sylvester. In full view they knocked down His Holiness just as he was about to take his place in the procession of the Great Litany. Quite appalling.’

  In telling his story, Albinus had become much more animated. He sat up straight and looked me in the eye. I guessed that he had told the story many times before.

  ‘Is that when you got injured?’ I asked him.

  ‘It was.’ He paused. ‘But not so dreadfully as His Holiness. The attackers gouged out his eyes and cut out his tongue. He was lucky to escape with his life.’ Albinus’s battered face registered horror with almost theatrical exaggeration. By contrast his voice, though it had become stronger, remained strangely flat and unemotional, as if he was describing something at second-hand.

  ‘You saw all this? It must have been a nightmare,’ I said, coaxing him to continue.

  ‘No. I was half-unconscious and driven away by those brutes.’

  ‘What happened to the Holy Father?’

  ‘He disappeared. When I came back with the papal guards, there was no sign of him. Just smears of blood on the pavement where he had been so savagely mutilated.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I was frantic. I made inquiries, and the next day there came word that the Pope was not dead but being held prisoner in a monastery up on the Caelian Hill.’

  This was something I had not heard about from Arno, and the information would have a direct bearing on my investigation. ‘How did he get there?’

  Albinus turned down the corners of his mouth and simultaneously raised his shoulders in a gesture that I recalled was how the Romans expressed bafflement. ‘His attackers must have taken him there. Naturally, as soon as we knew where he was, we organized a rescue. I went there with a party of papal guards and several of my colleagues.’

  He looked around us as if to encourage those sitting nearby to listen to his tale.

  ‘We got word into the monastery, to someone there who was as appalled as we were by what had happened. Late that evening, Pope Leo was lowered from a window on a rope. We were waiting in the street below, and brought him back to safety.’

  ‘A miracle,’ I said fervently. ‘The angels must have been watching over the Holy Father. To lower a blind man, with no tongue, out of a window must have been near impossible.’

  Albinus had laid down his spoon. Now he leaned across and gripped me by the wrist. ‘But that was not the only miracle. When the Holy Father was incarcerated within the blackness of his prison, the angels came to him. They replaced his eyes and his tongue grew again.’

  I sat absolutely still, waiting for him to go on.

  ‘When we received the Pope, he was bruised and sorely wounded, but he could see and speak!’ the chamberlain added dramatically.

  ‘Is he here now in this monastery?’ I asked, hoping that I sounded suitably astonished.

  Albinus let go my wrist. ‘He dines with the Duke of Spoleto in the abbot’s private quarters. His Holiness prefers seclusion. He prays that his enemies may be forgiven.’

  ‘A truly amazing tale,’ I said fervently. A monastery servant had placed a bowl of soup on the table in front of me while Albinus was talking. I put my face down towards my meal to hide from the chamberlain the doubt in my eyes.

  *

  Later that evening I wrote a full account of Albinus’s story and left it with the Duke of Spoleto’s staff. I gave instructions for it to be handed to Archbishop Arno when the papal party reached Paderborn. Doubtless, the duke’s people would open and read my report, but that would do no harm. I repeated the tale exactly as I had heard it from Albinus and I relied on the worldly and sceptical archbishop to wonder at the truth in the recital.

  Chapter Three

  ROME – FIRST WEEK OF JULY

  I entered Rome exactly five weeks after leaving Paderborn and having had a trouble-free journey. Posing as a well-to-do pilgrim, I rented a comfortable room in a recently built hostel a short walk from St Peter’s. My fellow guests were eager to gossip about the attack on Pope Leo, but no one could offer an opinion about who might have been responsible. All they
wanted to talk about was the miracle that his eyes and tongue had been restored. The only useful information I gleaned came from a chance remark the landlord let drop. He mentioned that the noble families of Rome resented having Leo as the head of the Church. When I pressed him to explain, he would only say that Leo came from a humble family background and that many of the Roman aristocracy thought his elevation to the papacy demeaned the office. I thought it was a poor excuse to have a man half beaten to death but, rather than appear nosey, I decided to wait until I met Paul the Nomenculator to ask what lay behind the landlord’s comment.

  It was the perfect season to visit the Eternal City. The weather was delightful – cool enough at night to make sleeping comfortable, yet warm enough for me to leave my woollen Frankish clothing in my room the next morning and wear light cotton garments as I strolled down the gentle slope from St Peter’s and into the city. I was on my way to inspect the spot where Leo had been attacked. I passed the bulk of Castel St Angelo, crossed the stone bridge over the dingy waters of the Tiber, and cut through the warren of narrow alleys and backstreets where most ordinary Romans lived in mean apartment blocks so closely packed that their balconies almost touched, and the sunshine rarely penetrated into the muddy lanes smelling of ordure. The city was much as I remembered – filthy, run-down and semi-derelict, the monuments of its past glory in ruins or being plundered for building materials. Many churches and monasteries had been remodelled from far older pagan buildings, and the newer commercial construction mostly catered to the burgeoning pilgrim trade. I passed souvenir shops, cheap eating-houses, taverns and money changers. The Via Lata, despite its name, was not broad, but a little more than ten yards wide. Arrow straight, it was paved with the original road surface, the slabs now worn and grooved. When I reached the basilica of Saints Stephen and Sylvester in front of which the attack had occurred, I discovered it was part of a much larger complex. A cluster of dilapidated classical buildings had been turned into the sprawling residence that the locals called a palazzo.

  The chamberlain, Albinus, had said that the assault on the Pope had been very public and in full view. Then Leo had disappeared. The basilica was the nearest place where the attackers could have removed their victim, so I crossed the road, pushed open the door and went inside.

  The complex was even larger than it appeared from the street. I was standing in the original marble-floored atrium, its centre open to the sky. Columns of dark red granite held up the surrounding red-tiled roof. Beyond them to left and right were several closed doors, while directly in front of me was the entrance to the church itself. Painted on the nearest doorpost was an inscription in red and gold lettering. I went forward and read down a list of names: it was a roll-call of saints and martyrs, more than twenty of them. At the top were Stephen and Sylvester. Many of the names below them were unknown to me and the name at the very bottom – Maximus – had been freshly added.

  I was puzzling over the list when a man in a threadbare priest’s gown emerged from the interior of the church. His face had once been round and plump, but now the cheeks had fallen in and he looked weary, almost haggard. He suggested that, for a small donation, he could show me the vial of holy water by which Saint Sylvester had cured the emperor Constantine of leprosy.

  The priest’s Latin was slow and careful. He had recognized me as a foreign visitor and must have thought that all foreigners struggled with the language.

  ‘I’m afraid I have very little money with me, just a few coins,’ I answered smoothly. I had learned Latin as a youngster and had used it often when at Carolus’s court. ‘I was warned to beware of cutpurses and pickpockets in the city.’

  ‘But that is not all there is to see,’ the priest coaxed. A bony finger pointed at the names on the doorpost beside us. ‘Those are the holy martyrs whose relics have been recovered from their tombs and brought within our oratory. They, too, are on display. Only last month we received the bones of blessed Maximus who refused to worship the emperor’s effigy and was stoned to death for his faith.’

  It was worth investigating inside the church, so I dropped a couple of the local copper coins into the priest’s outstretched palm. His slight grimace managed to convey that he was disappointed by the size of my contribution. Nevertheless, he led me inside. After the brightness of the atrium, it took my eyes several moments to adjust to the gloomy interior. My guide – I presumed he was the verger – was economizing on the cost of candles. Very few were lit. I followed him to the furthest end of the nave, up some steps and into an oratory. There, at eye level, a line of niches had been sunk in the wall. Each was about four feet wide and two feet high and protected by an iron grille. He stopped in front of the fourth niche. The thick bars were spaced far enough apart for me to see inside. Two small oil lamps of clay flickered on either side of a small crystal phial containing a clear liquid.

  Laid out in front of the vial were some thin strips of leather.

  ‘The bridle of the saint’s horse,’ said the priest in a complacent tone.

  I stared at him blankly, and he felt obliged to explain. ‘In gratitude for his cure, the emperor Constantine offered to serve as the saint’s groom, and he went on foot, leading Sylvester’s palfrey by those very same reins.’ There was a significant pause. ‘For a small additional sum you can handle them for yourself.’

  ‘Will that also allow me to see around the rest of the building?’ I asked.

  The verger was coming to the conclusion that I was too much of a skinflint to be worth further attention. ‘The building is private property,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’ve come far to see the sights . . .’ I half turned.

  The verger cut me off rudely. ‘The basilica is cared for by the adjacent monastery – to which I belong – and my brothers do not receive casual visitors. If you wish to see the rest of the building, you need an invitation from the family.’

  ‘The family?’

  ‘This palazzo,’ he explained curtly, ‘has been owned for generations by the same noble family that has given us two popes: Stephen, the third of that name, and also his brother, Pope Paul. It was the latter, in his wisdom, who generously dedicated this wing to Saints Stephen and Sylvester.’

  It was obvious that he was not going to let me nose around the building. ‘Then, perhaps you could help me on another matter,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me where I might find the Nomenculator Paul who served Pope Adrian?’

  My question brought a sharp glance from the old priest. ‘As far as I know, he still lives where he has always done.’ Suspicious eyes scanned my face. ‘But if you are going to him, seeking favours, I have to tell you that Paul retired as Nomenculator on the accession of our current Pope Leo.’

  ‘Thank you. Then I know where to find him,’ I said as I turned and walked back down the street. Behind me I could feel the old verger’s eyes boring into my back. He was wondering how I, an obvious stranger, should be acquainted with such a senior former member of the papal staff.

  *

  Back in the bright sunshine of the Via Lata, I directed my steps towards the familiar outline of the Colosseum. I had spent a winter there, lodged with the ice bears and other animals on my way to Baghdad. After a couple of hundred yards I turned up a side street that led me into the area that the locals knew as the ‘disabitato’ – ‘the uninhabited’. Here large tracts of the ancient city had been abandoned as its population drained away, moving to live closer to the city centre. Amongst the derelict houses I noted one or two quarries and a brickworks, but, for the most part, the people had gone back to scratching a living from the land. I passed small plots of land for growing vegetables, chicken runs, gardens converted into vineyards with bunches of unripe berries tight on the vines, and orchards where goats balanced on the branches of neglected fig trees to crop the leaves. In the midst of this decline an occasional building was in excellent repair. One of them was home to my friend, the former Nomenculator, and I recognized it immediately. It was a substantial square building of rust-red brick
s and would once have been the villa of an important Roman family. A colonnaded porch ran the full width of the facade, from which a couple of Paul’s house servants watched me approach along a broad, carefully tended gravel path lined with salvaged fragments of ancient statuary. Marble torsos without arms or legs, detached heads with blank eyes and battered noses, a plinth that supported only a pair of huge sandalled feet, and a cracked panel from a sarcophagus carved with a hunting scene were all reminders of my friend’s passion for the history of his city.

  One of the house servants brought me into the villa and to the side room where the former Nomenculator kept his personal archives.

  ‘Sigwulf! A very pleasant surprise to see you back in Rome!’ Paul cried, laying down the scroll he had been reading. The scroll curled itself up on the table as he heaved himself to his feet and came forward to greet me.

  Paul had changed little. Short and heavy-set, his hair had turned white and had thinned now that he must have reached his mid-fifties. His complexion was as blotchy and veined as I remembered it. The great bags under his eyes and a bulbous nose still made it look as if he drank too heavily. But his eyes were alert with curiosity and held a gleam of good humour. Also, he still displayed the involuntary convulsion that I recalled so vividly: a sudden twitch of the side of his face every few minutes. It looked as if he was delivering a huge, conspiratorial wink.

  ‘How are you?’ he exclaimed, shaking me by the hand vigorously. I noted that, though he was retired, he still dressed as a priest.

  He stood back and looked me up and down. ‘My friend, you’re beginning to go grey, just a little, but you look fit and well.’

  ‘You’ve not changed much either,’ I told him, ‘and how is it that you still occupy this splendid villa?’ I looked around the room in admiration. Its walls were painted with the original frescoes, idealized scenes of the countryside with fields, cattle and harvest. ‘When I was last in Rome, you told me you only had the temporary use of this grand house because the previous owner had donated it to the Church and it was due to be turned into a monastery.’