‘It has often been mooted, sire, that an imperial force kept close to Rome would serve to keep the most troublesome elements of the slums in check.’
‘Not something any pope in my memory would countenance.’ The man who spoke, Robert of Lorraine and Count of Milan, maternal uncle to the emperor, was the most powerful imperial vassal present; certainly potent enough to speak without permission, though he observed the conventions. ‘Forgive me, sire, for speaking out, but popes in the past have seen that as even more excessive imperial interference.’
Ascletin replied before the young Henry could. ‘Then it may require a pope to be elected who does not object to such a presence.’
There are, in certain exchanges, times when words are superfluous and this was one. No one spoke to underline that which was evident in what Ascletin had said and in the steady gaze which accompanied it: that he was putting himself forward for such a role. Elected to the Holy See he would not object to an imperial garrison close to Rome. Henry might be young, but he was as quick as any to see the point.
‘Perhaps we may speak in private, Cardinal Ascletin, with my most intimate counsellors, and ponder on the whole problem.’
Robert de Hauteville and Alberada were generally comfortable in each other’s company, it could even be said they were friends, despite their often barbed public banter. What was rare was for Robert to talk with her on matters pertaining to his title and it was clear, in the way he was doing so, he was moving towards some telling point which made him uncomfortable, so much so that he was being irascible with Bohemund — unusual since he doted on the boy — who was busily crawling around upsetting whatever he could.
‘Damn the child,’ he barked, as the toddler dragged a cloth from a table, taking with it a fruit bowl and a pewter jug half full of wine. ‘Get his nurse in here, I am trying to talk with you.’
Alberada raised her head from her embroidery. ‘Singular in itself, husband; I am more accustomed to your shouting.’
There was truth in that, for he was given to bellowing, indeed to have Robert in her private apartment when it was daylight outside, was abnormaclass="underline" he was a nocturnal visitor and one, though she would never admit it, she had come to dread. The child crawling around was a delight and a true rascal, but had been far from that on arrival. Physical relations with Robert might produce another child of the same size and she was sure such a thing would kill her.
She called for the nurse and observed the way she picked the boy up, straining to do so: at only a year and a half he was the size of a four-year-old and strong in his resistance. Once alone, her husband recommenced his grousing, now damning Lombards as the most fractious of his subjects, then cursing a string of lesser Norman barons who took Argyrus’s gold, men who would be eating their harness if it were not for his generosity. Alberada was only half listening, that was until he alluded to the fact they were second cousins. The way he did so obliged her to concentrate, as she began to see the drift of his remarks.
‘The consanguinity troubles you, husband?’
‘Of course it troubles me, woman. It could be seen as impious, given it falls within the prohibited degree. I wonder if I am cursed because of it.’
‘Not a thing that has hitherto raised any concern.’
That was sharply delivered and recalled the way they had come to be married. Robert de Hauteville was not one to woo a potential bride: instead, having decided the time had come that he should have one, he had browbeaten her nephew, Girard, into acquiescence. She was indeed a second cousin to the de Hautevilles through Tancred’s second wife, while her nephew was a mercenary who had been granted his title and fief by William Iron Arm, to whom he had been a faithful captain.
It was Drogo who had arranged the nuptials, seeking to both endow his brother and calm his unruly behaviour by marriage. Wealthy Girard of Buonalbergo had been left in no doubt that if he wanted to keep his fief he had best surrender his aunt — nephew Girard was older and her guardian, such was the confusion of generations — this, of course, accompanied by a demand for the proper dowry. In short, it had been a marriage for money, not affection and, as was common, having been accepted by both parties as such, they had set about making the best they could of the arrangement.
‘Perhaps if Girard had not been so wealthy this concern would have surfaced sooner.’
Slightly embarrassed, Robert took refuge in loud bluster. ‘It has come to me now!’
‘Why?’
His wife found herself now looking into a face suffused with anxiety, which she suspected was false. ‘Such a marriage risks our souls, Alberada. We could pay in the fires of hell for what we have done here on earth, do you not realise that?’
She did not look up, lest, in her eyes, Robert observed she knew his claim to piety to be a convenience: it always was with the race to which she belonged; this she knew, being the daughter of a Norman knight. Her father had been no exception and neither was the nephew who had given her away: Norman men would invoke God to suit their purpose and forget his existence for the same reason. Certainly her husband attended Mass daily and confessed, but he was not truly constrained by the tenets of Christ, he was driven by the need to succeed as a warrior, the craving to extend his power and the necessity of being seen in the eyes of his men as a great leader.
Robert stood up suddenly. ‘I must tell you again it troubles me greatly and I must think upon it.’
‘If there is a special part of hell for apostates and double-dealers then surely Ascletin will end up there.’
‘You cannot be sure what you are being told is true, Hildebrand.’
The deacon looked at Pope Victor as though he had lost his senses, wondering why it was that feeble men seemed to fill the office more than those of purpose. The truth was, of course, that strong candidates to the papacy tended to have powerful enemies. God knew, even if he had never aimed for elevation himself, he had enough of them: priests, bishops, cardinals and the aristocrats of Rome, to name just a few. He doubted the child-emperor Henry would accept that he had the utmost respect for the office he held. Hildebrand just could not agree that the election of a pontiff was anybody’s business but that of those ordained in the faith: the laity, however powerful, had no business to interfere.
‘Hildebrand is right, Your Holiness, I’m afraid,’ said Desiderius, the other advisor present. ‘Ascletin can only have reversed his position for his own ambition. If it is a sin to be that way, it is not one in which he is alone in transgressing.’
The abbot said that in his habitual calm manner — he being a man who rarely, if ever, raised his voice — which also irritated Hildebrand, who was as likely to be short with the saintly as with the ineffectual, and that was made doubly so by the way Desiderius smiled at him, able to see his mood and be amused by it.
‘You can stop grinning like some gargoyle,’ he snapped.
That produced a laugh, which was not likely to lighten Hildebrand’s mood, given he had just used the soubriquet by which he was known to those who hated him and, it had to be said, by some who esteemed his sagacity. Squat, ugly and beetle-browed, his face too often reflected his passions which, given it was not of surpassing comeliness, only served to underline his lack of physical beauty.
Pope Victor spoke again. ‘The question is this. Will Ascletin contrive to succeed me, and if he does, will he be a tool of the emperor or a true son of the Church and hold to his commitment to end imperial interference?’
It was unbecoming to shout at a pope, even more so to ask him if he was a fool, but Hildebrand was not constrained by that. If Ascletin was to be elected because of imperial support then there must be a price to pay and that would rebound to the detriment of Holy Church. This tirade led not only to a moody silence and, on Victor’s part, to his own questioning whether he should seek the advice of others, but also a deep desire to change the subject.