In spite of his desire to be impervious to the fires of ambition, Palombara felt a flutter of excitement inside himself. “Yes, Holy Father…”
“Begin with Florence,” Gregory said. “It is rich. There is a stirring of life and thought there that will reward us well, if we nurture it. They are loyal to us. Then I want you to seek out what support we have in Arezzo. That will be harder, I know. Their loyalties are to the Holy Roman Emperor. But you have proved your mettle in Byzantium.” He smiled bleakly. “I know what you have told me of Michael Palaeologus, Enrico, and I am not as blind as your tact imagines. I know what you have not told me, by virtue of your silences. Go, and report back to me by the middle of January.”
“Yes, Holy Father,” Palombara said with an enthusiasm he could not conceal. “Yes, I will.”
On the last night before leaving Florence, Palombara dined with his old friend Alighiero de Belincione and Lapa, the woman he had lived with since the death of his wife. They had two small children, Francesco and Gaetana, and Alighiero’s son Dante, from his previous marriage.
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.