BOOKS BY
Cecelia Holland
Until the Sun Falls
The Kings in Winter
Rakóssy
The Firedrake
FOR JON AND DICK
I am the lizard king;
I can do anything.
Note
Even before his birth at Iesi in the March of Ancona, on December 26, 1194, legends surrounded the only child of the Emperor Henry VI and the Empress-Queen Constance, of the royal Norman house of Sicily. Joachim de Flora pronounced him Antichrist; other prophets saw in him the long-expected child who would usher in the Golden Age. Such high expectations are rarely even halfway met. In the case of Frederick II, the prophecies were only the start.
From a glorious infancy, election as King of the Romans in his cradle and coronation as King of Sicily at three, he passed into a childhood full of kidnappings, near assassinations, intrigue and obscurity. His mother, dying, had made Sicily a papal fief and put her child into the care of the Pope, who promptly made the Hohenstaufens’ worst enemy the Emperor. The people of Palermo sometimes had to feed their boy King to keep him from starving, and the long Regency reduced his kingdom to anarchy. When Frederick declared himself of age at fourteen, he was a powerless minor prince. Suddenly the Pope declared the Emperor Otto deposed, and Frederick was elected Emperor in his place. After a fairy-tale journey through hostile armies and pirate fleets, the seventeen-year-old “Apulian Boy” reached Germany to immediate acclamation. He never fought a battle against Otto; King Philip Augustus of France took care of that for him at Bouvines, in 1214, and Frederick was crowned Emperor. After a long stay in Germany, where he won the enduring support of the nobility and the people, he returned to Sicily.
The great kingdom of the south was in chaos. Always a jurist, Frederick established his control by resurrecting two old Norman laws and giving them new applications, and he destroyed the power of the baronage by playing off the nobles against each other. He wasn’t satisfied with making himself a feudal king: what Frederick had in mind—what he, in fact, established—was the kind of state that, when we find it two centuries later, we call absolutist. Nobody had an army except the King. Nobody made laws except the King. Nobody minted money except the King. In short, nobody had any power except the King, who was limited only by his imagination and ability and ambition.
Frederick had all three in abundance. He founded a university to train jurists for his bureaucracy, headed by Piero della Vigne. He dabbled in state monopolies of staple commodities. He built a Sicilian fleet and made a former pirate, Henry of Malta, High Admiral. He minted the finest gold coins in Europe. He forced all the barons out of their drafty castles and made them live in palaces. He fostered philosophy and wrote poetry that Dante praised as the first good verse in the Italian vernacular. He exhibited a strange tendency to move entire populations back and forth over the countryside—switching all the people of the town of Celano from the mainland to the island, transporting thousands of Sicilian Saracens from the island to the mainland (where they built the walled city Lucera and provided Frederick with bodyguards and servants). He kept an exotic menagerie. He built fortresses according to one uniform plan and garrisoned them only in time of war. He spoke six languages, corresponded with learned men on philosophy and mathematics, and wrote a book on falconry that is still a pleasure to read; in it he proved himself an excellent naturalist. Admiring contemporaries called him stupor mundi, the wonder of the world.
Others of his contemporaries called him a heretic and a tyrant and a libertine. The Popes spent a good deal of their time and energy trying to destroy or at least contain his ambition, just as he spent a good part of his life trying to woo, conquer, or cow Lombardy and thus contain the Papacy and unite his kingdom and his empire. A passionate astrologist, he was charged with calling Christ, Moses and Mohammed frauds, and once, while riding past a wheat field, he asked how many gods grew there. Raised in the liberal, skeptical atmosphere of polyglot Sicily, he was always tolerant toward non-Christians, but heretics he persecuted as harshly as any Pope; His sensuality and licentious appetites were legendary: according to rumor, he kept a harem, and his mistresses were legion. He loved falcons more than he loved most of his women.
Frederick makes the most objective historians partisan, and what one makes of the evidence depends almost entirely on what one thinks of Frederick. I have been under his spell for years.
Most of the book is based on fact, but the facts are flexible. Frederick’s reasons for going on crusade after his third excommunication and the events on shipboard during the voyage to Cyprus are my surmise. The quarrel with John of Ibelin on Cyprus has never been explained to my satisfaction; yet even Sir Steven Runciman, a fan of the Ibelins, admits that there is no record of John’s having been appointed bailli of Cyprus; and given Frederick’s experience during his own minority, he might well have reacted harshly to what he would have considered a usurping of power during a regency. There is no evidence that the Templars tried to kill the Emperor in Acre, but they did suggest to the Sultan that he have Frederick murdered during his side trip to the Jordan River. The Templars may not have been Satanist in Acre; they were beyond doubt Satanist in France, as the records of their trial under Philip the Fair show very clearly. The rebuilding of Jaffa was probably not as extensive as I have made it. How Frederick managed to talk al-Kamil into handing over Jerusalem is obscure, and he might have done this as I’ve indicated. The coronation in Saint Sepulcher did happen. If Frederick crowned himself King of Jerusalem, it seems odd that his son Conrad should wear the crown and use the title while Frederick was still robust and ruling; but Frederick was an odd man.
Finally, Theophano may well be the Syrian girl who is buried in Sicily next to one of Frederick’s Empresses. And she may have been the mother of the bastard Frederick of Antioch. On the other hand, she may not. But she, like nearly everyone else in this book, is based on a real person.
As for Frederick himself, the liberties I have taken with the way a man born in 1194 might think and act are justified, I hope, by this: Frederick was an outrage and an amazement to his own century, but is only an anachronism to ours. “The wildest dreams of Kew,” as the man said, “are the facts of Khatmandu.” To recreate his impact on his world, and at the same time to make him understandable, I would stoop to every liberty on earth.
I Frederick. I, Frederick. I, Frederick.
Black shadow drowned the gallery with its wide archways; the sunlight laid its bright edge along the nearest rail. In the courtyard below, a hammer rang on metal, a soft beat, a sharp one, even and monotonous. The wisteria growing up the wall to the gallery archways was blooming, its scent like a fruit in the air. For three days he had been at Barletta, waiting for the news from Rome.
He rose and went into the sunlight by the railing, leaned on the wall, and looked out. From this distance he couldn’t see what the man in the courtyard was hammering on. He thought of calling down to Hasan to find out, but Hasan, leaning up against the side of the door directly below him, was too obviously dozing. Over the slanting tile roofs of the town he could just see the glitter of the sun on water.
He drew a deep breath of the perfumed air. His strength delighted him. Even at Gaeta, fourteen days before, he’d spent the mornings weak, so that he’d had to pay attention to keep his hands from trembling. Like an old man. Behind him the wind rustled the charters on the table, and he thought of going back to put a weight on them but did not. If they blew away, Michele would simply have to recopy them.
Charters. His throat tensed to spit. For six months he’d forced himself mild. Being sick had helped. Now his rage darkened the sunlight before his eyes and his hands wound violently into fists. He noticed that and carefully spread his fingers.
There was nothing to do but wait. Everything necessary and possible he’d already done, for six months working steadily and patiently to make what he knew was coming profit him, not his enemy. The letters—“Royal cousin, in the name of God I beg that you give me impartial hearing”—all the letters carefully composed, carefully sent to all the princes of Europe. He had shown no one his rage, not even Piero. He wondered if Piero guessed. When it comes I will let myself be angry for exactly long enough to upset Piero.
But already the corked-up fury was draining away. He began to wonder why his temper was so short. He’d been courting this for years: it was his own fault, after all. Putting off the Crusade from season to season—Not now, Papa, I have other things to do. He thought, Maybe I’m afraid of the ban. He tested that—his reactions to the idea—and decided he was. But in September, when Gregory had stood on the balcony at Rieti and first declared him excommunicate, he’d been more afraid.
He was angry mostly because, after all the flagrant excuses he’d given three Popes, Gregory had picked on the fact he’d had no control over getting sick. After some thought and rereading of the charges pouring like a stinking flux from Rome, he was satisfied that, even to Gregory, his failure to go piously off to Jerusalem, shaking with chill and parched with fever, was only an excuse. A matter of polity.
Good. He watched two pages saunter across the courtyard, their heads bent together in conversation. One saw him and jerked to a halt and bowed, and the other wheeled, blushing to the hairline, swept off his cap, and bent double. He lifted one hand and they raced off.
Excommunicated. Yet it could serve him. It divided them up, the Pope on one side and the Emperor on the other, which was only proper, after all. I am the Emperor. The world belongs to me. Let him take heaven. Do I involve myself in the judgment of souls?
His eyes narrowed; he stared over Barletta’s red roofs to the sea. It was unkind of Gregory to use the weapons of religion in a purely terrene conflict. He spread his hands out so that the sun could warm them. All Winter he had pointed out to the princes of Europe how unnatural and impious were the Pope’s uses of his office. Now again he felt what he hoped the kings and dukes would feel: ruffled indignation. It isn’t fair. How dare he. This time he did spit, and he grinned.
“Sire.”
“Yes.”
Piero came out onto the gallery and started toward him. In his hand he held a letter covered with seals. Frederick swung toward him, and his back muscles clenched. It had come. All the uncertainty and the last faint hope balled up like ice in his stomach.
“Read it.”
Piero opened the letter, turned it right way around, and began to read, with his fingers smoothing out the ribbons stuck to the page. After the first few phrases, when he knew what the letter said, Frederick leaned up against the wall and let his muscles slacken. He drew one of the long brushes of the wisteria into his hands and pulled off the lavender trumpets. Pollen clung to the ball of his thumb and the creases in his fingers. He did not listen to Piero, which made it easy to keep his face untroubled.
The third time. He was cast out, damned and doomed, and nobody could consort with him without earning the grave disfavor of Holy Church. They’d made up a new bundle of charges: he had robbed the Sicilian clergy, mocked the Templars and the Hospital, plundered his own kingdom. Piero stopped reading and folded the letter in his long Greek hands.
“Oh, Gregory,” Frederick said. He smiled at Piero; his hands were full of wisteria blossoms.
“He is most intransigent,” Piero said.
“That’s a word for it. And I’ve been so penitent, so accommodating, so very Christian. Call a council here for the end of April.”
“Shall I tell them what it’s for, Sire?”
“That I’m going on crusade, of course.”
Piero turned his face away slightly, but his stare remained on Frederick “I thought we’d discussed that and decided it was unwise.”
“I’ve changed my mind. Why, don’t you think the idea attractive? This unseemly Pope has placed me under the ban, and in penitence and true devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ I make pilgrimage to . . .” He eyed Piero.
“You’re excommunicated. I’ve never heard of—”
“Neither have I. When the Archbishop comes back from Cairo I’ll make up my mind. When you send the summonses tell them. I’m just considering it. After all, we’ve got the ships and the men—what a pity to waste all that money. Find out what they think.”
“It’s incautious.”
“Where did he announce it? I didn’t hear.”
Piero looked down at the letter. “The Lateran.”
“Good. He’s afraid to go into Saint Peter’s. The crowds, the noise. You’d better send for the Grand Master.”
“As you wish, Sire.”
“Here, give me that.”
Piero handed him the letter and went to the table for the charters Frederick had signed in the morning. “You don’t think another letter is necessary.”
“I’ve sent too many letters.”
He read through the bull, and suddenly his black fury swept over him again. His fingers tightened around the heavy vellum. He thought of tearing it to shreds, of balling it up in his fist. He said, “This man is arrogant beyond all telling.” His voice shook.
Piero said, “He’s frightened. He expected them all to turn against you at the first breath of it, and they did not.”
“Take it.” Frederick thrust the letter at him. “Keep it somewhere. In the small chest.” His eye caught the formula: Gregory, servant of the servants of God. “Whose servant? If Jesus appeared before him this Pope would offer him his shoe to kiss.”
“Perhaps another letter.” Piero was arranging the charters in his hands. He laid the bull on top.
“No. They must all see now that he—how Christian he is. He steals money from the Crusade to raise an army against me, he bribes my subjects—” He kept his voice low, so that no one would overhear, but the words jarred in his ears as if he were shouting. “Is he a priest? He’s a baron, he fights me like a baron, with all his fiefs and money. Am I to fight him like a priest?”
“Sire, no man of sense could support him.”
“The world’s full of senseless men.” He drove his fist against the stone of the gallery arch. His skin split, and the sharp pain widened his eyes. He looked thoughtfully at his bleeding knuckles. Piero was immobile, watching him, heavy-lidded. Frederick grinned.
“Maybe let him kiss my shoe, hah?”
“Your Majesty, let me advise—”
“I won’t attack him. I’m not that stupid. Go away.”
He turned his back on Piero, and after a moment footsteps marched away. The door opened and closed. His breath whistled through his teeth. If he attacked he’d lose everything, all the winter’s careful work, all the work of his whole life. He ground his lacerated knuckles against the stone. The gritty pain shot up his forearm to his elbow, and he spread out his hands on the rail. O God, isn’t it mine? Isn’t it mine alone? He watched his blood dribble slowly down over the uneven stone.
The earliest thing he could remember clearly was his coronation in the great cathedral in Palermo. He remembered the weight of the vestments, the slippery cold of the golden throne, and the height of the nave. All those heads, bobbing, and the voices, and the peppery smell of incense mixed with the stench of sweat and dirt. In all that crowd he had recognized not one face. Finally, after a torrent of words he hadn’t understood, the Archbishop dropped the crown on his head, the people shouted, “Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.”
“And I burst into tears.”
“Kings don’t cry.”
“I was only three.” Frederick cut up a peach and gave half of it to the child beside him. “Can’t you make allowances for kings of extreme youth?”
Enzio devoured the peach and threw the pit out the window. “Wasn’t your mother there?”
“She must have been. I don’t remember.”
&nb
sp; Enzio smoothed the embroidered silk of the bedcover. “So there was one person there you knew.”
“I doubt it. I’d only seen her once or twice before that.” The first time he’d seen her, he’d cried; the Duchess of Foligno had told him so. His mother he recalled best from the wild days in Castellamare, where the sick old woman had roamed the corridors at night—the swish of her gowns, the terrible shuffling of her feet, like a ghost past his nursery door, women with lamps lighting her way. Adelaide came in, throwing back her long yellow hair.
“Mama is naked,” Enzio said. He was leaning around Frederick to see her.
“Far better than Mama clothed.”
Enzio giggled and pressed his face against Frederick’s back. “She’s not your mother, she’s mine.”
“Just a manner of speaking.” He pinned Enzio down with one arm, still watching Adelaide, who was walking around the room. She paused in front of a gold mirror and admired herself. Two of her maids peeked in the door froth the alcove; and Frederick waved them away. “My mother was old and wrinkled, and her breath smelled bad.”
Enzio squirmed, and Frederick let him go. Red-faced, the boy sat up, his shirt bunched under his armpits. “Was she a queen?”
“She was the Empress.” He tugged Enzio’s clothes straight. Adelaide’s breath was sweet, and her skin always yearning, soft. She stopped, across the room, and looked at him through the corners of her eyes. One narrow foot reached out to stroke the carpet.
“Enzio, maybe—”
“Tell me another story.”
“Two knights met in a forest, rushed together, and died on the spot, one of heart failure, the other of the heat. Kiss your mother and go outside and play.”
“That wasn’t a—”
“By imperial decree I declare that a full and valid story. Go out and play, and you can ride on the elephant when it comes.”
Antichrist Page 1
