The Sheen on the Silk by Anne Perry Page A

Charles of Anjou, king of the Two Sicilies, which in effect meant all Italy from Naples southward. Charles was as unsaintly as possible, yet it could be he who would lead the crusade that the pope so badly wanted. It was an interesting contrast in the holy and practical, one that Palombara was contemplating with some indecision.
    That evening, he attended the Mass in the Cathedral of Saint Jean. Work on the building had begun nearly a century ago and was still far from finished. Even so it looked magnificent, severe and elegantly Romanesque.
    The sweet perfume of incense filled his head, and it all swelled in a complex rhythm, carrying him along toward that exquisite moment when the sacrament of bread and wine would become the body and blood of Christ, and in some mystical way they would be united, cleansed of sin and renewed in spirit.
    Was there such a thing as communication with God? Did these men around him experience it? Or was it just the music and the incense, the hunger to believe, creating the longed-for illusion?
    Or was it the lies and the doubts Palombara allowed to poison his soul that rendered his ears deaf to the voices of angels? Memory returned with a jolt of sensual pleasure and emotional guilt. As a young priest, he had counseled a woman whose husband was distant and humorless, not unlike Vicenze. Palombara had been gentle with her and made her laugh. She had fallen in love with him. He saw it happening and enjoyed it. She was warm and lovely. He had lain with her. Even as he stood here in this cathedral, while some cardinal offered up the Mass, the incense in his nose and throat was gone for a moment and he could smell the fragrance of her hair, feel the warmth of her flesh, and see her smile.
    She became with child, Palombara’s child, and they had agreed to let her husband believe it was his. Was that wrong? Wise or not, it was a coward’s lie.
    Palombara had confessed to his bishop, chosen his penance, and received absolution. Better for the Church, and so the welfare of the people, if it was never known. But was penance enough? There was no peace inside him, no sense of having been forgiven.
    Standing here with the music, the color and light, the rapt faces of men whose minds could be as far from God as his own, he had a sense of not having tasted the fullness of life, and the beginning of a terrible fear came to him that maybe there was no more than this. Maybe real hell was the fact that there was no heaven?
    The embassy of Michael Palaeologus finally arrived in Lyons on June 24. They had been delayed by bad weather at sea and were too late for much of the discussion. They presented a letter from the emperor, signed by fifty archbishops and five hundred bishops or synods. Their good faith could not be denied. It seemed victory for Rome had come easily.
    On June 29, Gregory celebrated the Mass in the Cathedral of St. Jean again. The Epistle, Gospel, and Creed were sung both in Latin and in Greek.
    On July 6, the emperor’s letter was read aloud and the Byzantine ambassadors promised fidelity to the Latin Church and abjured all the propositions it denied.
    Gregory held the world in his hands. It was all accomplished; unworthy bishops had been deposed, certain mendicant orders suppressed, and the orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic warmly approved. The cardinals would no longer be able to dither and delay the election of a new pope. Rudolph of Hapsburg was recognized as the future monarch of the Holy Roman Empire.
    In spite of the death of Thomas Aquinas on his way to Lyons, and of St. Bonaventure in Lyons itself, Gregory’s cup of triumph ran over.
    Palombara felt as if there was nothing left for him to do.
    Still, Gregory wished both Palombara and Vicenze to return briefly to Rome and then prepare to sail to Constantinople. If they met with the same weather the Byzantine envoys had, this could take as long as six weeks. They would not arrive until October. But they had something priceless to