'Ah, now, please make yourselves comfortable, the pair of you. You'll find that's a good chair, Master Anvil, and Hubert lad, you settle yourself down next to us. Our excuses for receiving you thus meanly apparelled: we're so often required to appear swaddled like a babe that we've come to take advantage of every private moment. Rome will be so hot in these months. Sometimes we feel we'd give our throne for a few breaths of a North Sea breeze. Well, tell us, what do you think of our city? You'll have been here before, no doubt, master.'
If challenged, Hubert would have said that of course he had known that Pope John XXIV was an Englishman, was a Yorkshireman; but knowledge was different from being faced with the fact. He willed himself to believe that this pleasant, homely-looking person was indeed God's representative on earth and also the most powerful man alive. His father was answering the question.
'A number of times, Your Holiness. It still fills me with extreme awe. So much to be aware of. Republican Rome, Imperial Rome, medieval Rome, modern Rome, and above all-'
'Ay, there is that. For us, there's almost too much. It's more than eight years since our coronation and we still couldn't truly say we knew the place. And it's not like home. Take our church, for instance.' The Pope moved his dark head to one side, presumably to indicate St Peter's. 'You must have remarked the outside of it on your way here, Hubert. How did it impress you?'
'We saw the inside of it too, Your Holiness,' said Hubert, surprised by how easy it was to sound natural. 'It impressed me very greatly.'
'So it should, lad, so it should, considering in whose sanctified name it stands. We meant in what way did it impress you as a piece of architecture. Did it match your expectations?'
'Not quite, Your Holiness.' Hubert heard his father inhale sharply. 'I thought it rather... bare.'
'Austere, as you might say? We agree. We and you look to St George's for a notion of a cathedral basilica, a place rich with holy images testifying to the glory of God, eh? That was what St Peter's was first designed to be, but old Martin wouldn't have it so. No, Germanian I was a very severe and sober kind of customer; God's first house on earth must not be a temple of luxury, he said. He tore up the plans at last and dismissed the Italian master-builders and masons. One of them was so mortified he committed the unforgivable sin—Boonarotty or some such name. A fair number of the others had the craft to go to Coverley and settle down to their trade. There were places for them in plenty, for old Martin had sent after English artificers along with men from Almaigne and the Netherlands to make St Peter's according to his will. Out of the common, that. But enough of lessons. Now you're settled, forgive us if we show you our little cloister. We're a mite proud of it, we're afraid.'
A moment later, the three stood on the tessellated pavement of an arcade that ran all the way round the open space, which occupied perhaps half an acre. The roof was supported by slender pillars, none seemingly like another in detail. In the centre, a fountain was playing; Hubert remembered that the one in the garden below had not been. Flowers, flowering shrubs and dwarf trees of species unknown to him grew in beds of exact geometrical shapes. Between them, the turf was no less level and smooth than would be seen at a premier club-ball field in England. Three gardeners in white overalls were hard at work under the strong sun.
'A beautiful sight, Your Holiness,' said Tobias as they moved slowly round the arcade, 'and a wonderful stroke of engineering.'
'It is that, master. There are we don't know how many thousands of tons of soil up here. You wouldn't credit that it was a Frenchie who began it, would you? Old Sylvan II back in the eighteenth century. And since then every Holy Father has added a shred of his own. We brought those roses, look. Now you'll be wanting to know, the pair of you, why we asked you to pay us a visit. Well, we see it like this. Rome is the centre of Christendom.' The Pope said this with some force and nodded his head several times, as if he had recently heard the point disputed. 'So Rome should be the greatest city in the world, with the foremost and the finest of everything and everybody, a city fit to make Byzantium look like a mill-town. Ee, we don't speak of mere temporal glory, magnificence for its own secular sake. To follow after that would be a sin, and if there's one thing we can't abide at any price it's sin. We think we can safely say that.' After a reflective pause, he added, 'Yes, we think we can safely say that. What we design is all in God's praise and in the adoration of His Holy Name.
'To this end, we fetch here the best architects, the best sculptors, the best inventors, the best physicians, the best furniture-makers, the best arborists, the best masons, the best tailors on earth, wherever they might have been born. And the best singers besides. Now, we ourselves can hold no view in this province, as we have the misfortune to be tone-deaf, but we have access to prime advice. Your voice has no equal in memory and your skill is pretty fine too is what we're told.' (By the two altered men at the Chapel, thought Hubert.) 'We called you to Rome, Hubert, on purpose to offer you a post as principal, uh, soprano in the choir of our church here. Do you consent?'
Tobias Anvil checked his stride. 'Your Holiness! What an honour! I'm overwhelmed—I can think of nothing more—'
'We thought you'd be pleased, master; we assumed so. We ask what Hubert has to say.'
'I can't tell you all I have to say, Your Holiness, because I never dreamed of such a thing before. But oh yes, of course, of course I consent. But I must live in Rome, I see I must, and everyone I know is in England. But...'
'Consider that London is merely seven hours away, and we hear it's soon to be five and a half. You'll often be at leisure, your family and friends may visit you—everybody comes to Rome at last, not always to pay homage to us. You won't be lonely.'
Hubert hesitated. He saw the Pope, who had turned slightly to face the room they had left, make a curious small signal with his forefinger, a motion like that of jerking or pushing aside. When he looked in that direction himself, there was nobody to be seen. He squared his shoulders and said, 'I humbly beg Your Holiness' leave to ask a question.'
'Ask away, lad; have no fear.'
'Your Holiness called me to Rome and has just invited me to take this post. But I'm only a child and you're... Your Holiness. All that was needed was to instruct me, or instruct my father to send me. So I...'
The Pope chuckled, shook his head to and fro, rested his hand on Hubert's shoulder and resumed progress round the arcade. 'Here's an acute one, eh, master? We can see we'll have to admit you both to our counsel. Mind this, now. We can indeed do as we please throughout Christendom. We are the Holy Father.' Again there was emphasis, almost enough to suggest the undisclosed existence of a rival claimant. 'But we're not omnipotent. We can't direct men's minds. Not that we wish to, or at any rate... But just here and there, there's been some—some reluctance to accede to our wishes. Folk of this nation or that have shown themselves obstinately and perversely wishful to keep their gifted sons at home. Last year—take a case—there was some stir over a Portuguee bridge-builder whom we required here in our city. The talk in Lisbon, and not only in Lisbon, said that his care was the Tagus, not the Tiber. We were obliged to take urgent steps to remind the laical rulers there of their duty to God. Now, that sort of thing doesn't conduce to right feeling among our flock. How much better if the lad had declared that he came here freely and joyfully. He did say so after a while, of course, but after a while wasn't soon enough for our liking. After a while made it sound as if words had been put into his mouth. We must avoid that this time. So we command your help, Master Anvil.'