As always, they made Palombara feel welcome, gave him excellent food, and afterward sat around the fire and brought him up-to-date on all the latest news and gossip.
They were fascinated by Palombara’s experiences in Constantinople. Lapa wished to hear all about the court of Michael, particularly the fashions and the food. Alighiero was more interested in the spices and silks in the market and the artifacts to be purchased from the fabled cities farther east along the old Silk Road.
They were discussing the life of those who traveled it when a boy came into the room, tentatively at first, knowing he was interrupting. He was about ten years old, slender, almost thin; the bones of his shoulders were visible even through his winter jerkin. But it was his face that held Palombara’s attention. He was pale and his features were already losing the softness of the child, and his eyes burned with a passion that seemed almost to consume him.
Lapa looked at him with anxiety. “Dante, you missed supper. Let me get you something now.” She half rose to her feet.
Alighiero put out his hand to restrain her. “He’ll eat when he’s hungry. Don’t worry so much.”
She brushed him away. “He needs to eat every day. Dante, let me present you to Bishop Palombara, from Rome, then I’ll make you something.”
Alighiero sat back again, probably in deference to Palombara, rather than have a disagreement in front of him, which would have been embarrassing.
“Welcome to Florence, Your Grace,” the boy said politely.
Palombara looked into his eyes and saw in them an emotion so powerful that it seemed to light him from within, and Palombara had a sudden conviction that he himself scarcely impinged upon the boy’s world. He wanted to make some mark on this extraordinary child.
“Thank you, Dante,” he replied. “I have already been given the hospitality of friends, and there is no greater gift of welcome than that.”
Now Dante looked at him, then he smiled. For an instant Palombara was real to him, it was there in his eyes.
“Come,” Lapa said, standing. “I will make you something to eat. I have a little of your favorite caramel.” She led the way out of the room, and with a brief glance at Palombara, the boy followed her obediently.
“I apologize for him,” Alighiero said with a smile to cover his embarrassment. “Ten years old and he believes he has seen heaven in a girl’s face. Portinari’s daughter, Bice, Beatrice. He barely saw her. It was last year, and he still can’t get over it.” His eyes were puzzled. “He lives in another world. I don’t know what to do with him.” He shrugged slightly. “I suppose it will pass. But at the moment poor Lapa’s worrying about him.” He picked up the jug of wine. “Have some more?”
Palombara accepted, and they spent the rest of the evening in agreeable conversation. For once, Palombara was able to indulge in friendship and forget about the moral ambiguities of the crusade.
When he left to ride to Arezzo the following morning, he could not rid his mind of the solemn, passionate face of the boy who was convinced he had seen the face of the girl he would love all his life. The fire had consumed the boy, had lit him from within. Ahead of him were both heaven and hell, but never the corrosion of doubt or the yawning wasteland of indifference. Yes, Palombara envied the boy, and whether he dared to grasp at it or not, he needed to know that heaven existed.
Palombara rode through the winter rain, feeling it on his face, smelling the wet earth, the tangle of fallen leaves rotted beneath the trees. It was a clean, living odor. The day would be short and dark, night crowding in from the east, closing the colors across the sky into hot reds on the horizon. Tomorrow he would be back in Rome.
Palombara sought out old friends in Arezzo and put to them the same questions he had to others in Florence. By January 10 in the new year of 1276, he was back in Rome, to report to Gregory.
He was crossing the square toward the broad steps up to the Vatican Palace, aware of a certain hush in the gray winter air, like a presage of rain. It was late afternoon, and it looked as if darkness were going to come early.
He saw a cardinal he was acquainted with walking toward him with a heavy tread, his face pinched.
“Good evening, Your Eminence,” Palombara said courteously.
The cardinal stopped, shaking his head from side to side. “Too soon,” he said sadly. “Too soon. We don’t need change at the moment.”
Palombara was seized with a presentiment of loss. “The Holy Father?”
“Just today,” the cardinal replied, looking Palombara up and down, seeing the marks of travel on his clothes. “You’re too late.”
Palombara should not have been surprised. Gregory had looked exhausted both in body and in spirit when he had last seen him. Palombara was touched with a grief greater than his disappointment at his own loss of office or the confusion of the future, everything plunged into uncertainty again. There was an emptiness where he had had a friend, a mentor, someone whose judgments he understood.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I did not know.” He crossed himself. “May he rest in peace.”
It rained all day, and he stayed at home, supposedly writing a report on his work in Tuscany to give to the new pope, should he want it. Actually he paced the floor, deep in thought, turning over all the decisions he would have to make. There was everything to win… or lose.
He had been in high office several years now and earned both friends and enemies. Most important, perhaps, he had earned favors, and chief among his many enemies was Niccolo Vicenze.
Over the next few weeks, if he was to retain any power, he would need more than skill, he would need luck. He should have been better prepared for Gregory’s death. The signs of it had been there in the hollows around his eyes, the constant cough, the pain and weariness in him.
Palombara stopped at the window and stared out at the rain. The new crusade had been a passion with Gregory, but what about his successor?
He was surprised how much Constantinople dominated his thoughts. Would the new pope care about the Eastern Church, try to bridge the differences between them and treat them with respect as fellow Christians? Would he begin a real healing of the schism?
During the following days, tension mounted, speculation was rampant, but for the most part concealed by the decencies of mourning and of Gregory’s burial in Arezzo. Above all, of course, was expediency. No one wished to wear his ambition naked. People said one thing and meant another.
Palombara listened and considered which faction he should be seen to back. This was much on his mind when a Neapolitan priest named Masari fell into step with him, crossing the square toward the Vatican Palace in the feeble light of the January sun only a week after Gregory’s death.
“A dangerous time,” Masari observed conversationally, avoiding the puddles with his exquisite boots.
Palombara smiled. “You fear the cardinals will choose other than by the will of God?” he said with only the barest suggestion of humor in his voice. He knew Masari, but not well enough to trust him.
“I fear that without a little help they may be fallible, like all men,” Masari replied, an answering gleam in his eyes. “It is a fine thing to be pope, and great power is destructive of all manner of qualities, regrettably, sometimes most of all of wisdom.”
“But far from ending with it,” Palombara said dryly. “Give me the benefit of your knowledge, brother. What, in your opinion, would wisdom dictate?”
Masari appeared to consider. “Intelligence rather than passion,” he replied at length as they continued up a flight of steps. It was starting to rain harder. “A gift for diplomacy rather than a tangle of family connections,” he went on. “It is most awkward to owe one’s relations for the favor of their support. Debts have a way of requiring payment at most inconvenient times.”