The African was still camerlengo. He could envision the bastard standing over him, gently tapping his forehead with a silver hammer and asking three times if he was dead.
He believed that if he was alive tomorrow, Ngovi would bring charges. Though there was no precedent for removing a pope, once he was implicated in murder he would never be allowed to remain in office.
Which raised his greatest concern.
Doing what Ngovi and Michener asked would mean he’d be soon answering for his sins. What would he say?
Proof that God existed meant there was also an immeasurable force of evil that misled the human spirit. Life seemed a perpetual tug between those two extremes. How would he explain his sins? Would there be forgiveness or only punishment? He still believed, even in the face of all he knew, that priests should be men. God’s Church was started by men and, over two millennia, male blood had been spilled to preserve that institution. The interjection of women into something so decidedly male seemed sacrilegious. Spouses and children were nothing but distractions. And to slaughter an unborn child seemed unthinkable. A woman’s duty was to bring forth life, no matter how it was conceived, whether wanted or unwanted. How could God have gotten everything so wrong?
He shifted the pills on the desk.
The Church was going to change. Nothing would ever be the same. Ngovi would make sure extremism prevailed. And that thought turned his stomach.
He knew what awaited him. There’d be an accounting, but he was not going to shrink from the challenge. He’d face the Lord and tell Him that he’d done what he believed was right. If he be damned to hell, then there would be some pretty austere company. He was not the first pope to defy heaven.
He reached out and arranged the capsules in groups of seven. He scooped up one set and balanced them in the palm of his hand.
A certain perspective truly did come in the final moments of life.
His legacy among men was safe. He was Peter II, pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and no one could ever take that from him. Even Ngovi and Michener would have to publicly venerate his memory.
And that prospect gave him solace.
Along with a burst of courage.
He tossed the pills into his mouth and reached for the tumbler of water. He grabbed up another seven and swallowed them. While his fortitude was there, he gathered the remaining pills and let the remaining water send them to his stomach.
Screw you, Michener.
He stepped across the room to a gilded prie-dieu facing a portrait of Christ. He knelt, crossed himself, and asked the Lord to forgive him. He stayed on his knees for ten minutes, until his head started spinning. It should add to his legacy that he was called to God during prayer.
The drowsiness became seductive and for a while he fought the urge to surrender. A part of him was relieved he would not be associated with a Church that was contrary to everything he believed. Perhaps it was better to rest beneath the basilica as the last pope of the way things used to be. He imagined Romans flooding into the piazza tomorrow, distraught over the loss of the their beloved
His muscles craved sleep and he could no longer fight the urge, so he surrendered to the inevitable and collapsed to the floor.
He stared at the ceiling and finally let the pills take hold. The room winked in and out. He no longer fought the descent.
Instead he allowed his mind to drift away, hoping that God was indeed merciful.
SEVENTY-ONE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3
1:00 P.M.
Michener and katerina followed the crowd into St. Peter’s Square. Around them, men and women openly wept. Many clutched rosaries. The basilica’s bells tolled solemnly.
The announcement had come two hours ago, a curt statement in the usual Vatican rhetoric that the Holy Father had passed during the night. The camerlengo, Maurice Cardinal Ngovi, had been summoned and the papal physician had confirmed that a massive coronary claimed the life of Alberto Valendrea. The appropriate ceremony with the silver hammer occurred, and the Holy See was declared vacant. Cardinals were once again being summoned to Rome.
Michener had not told Katerina about yesterday. It was better that way. In a sense he was a murderer, though he did not feel like one. Instead he felt a great sense of retribution. Especially for Father Tibor. One wrong had been righted by another in a perverted sense of balance that only the odd circumstances of the past few weeks could have created.
In fifteen days another conclave would convene and another pope would be elected. The 269th since Peter and one beyond the list of St. Malachy. The dreadful judge had judged. The sinners had been punished. Now it would be up to Maurice Ngovi to see heaven’s will be done. Little doubt existed he would be the next pope. Yesterday, as they left the palace, Ngovi had asked him to stay on in Rome and be a part of what was coming. But he’d declined. He was going to Romania with Katerina. He wanted to share his life with her and Ngovi understood, wishing him well and telling him Vatican doors would always be open.
People continued to surge forward, filling the piazza between Bernini’s colonnades. He wasn’t sure why he’d come, but something seemed to summon him, and he sensed a peace within himself that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“These people have no idea about Valendrea,” Katerina whispered.
“To them, he was their pope. An Italian. And we could never convince them otherwise. His memory will have to stand as it is.”
“You’re never going to tell me what happened yesterday, are you?”
He’d caught her studying him last evening. She realized something significant had occurred with Valendrea, but he hadn’t allowed the subject to be explored and she did not press.
Before he could answer her, an older woman, near one of the fountains, collapsed in a fit of grief. Several people came to her aid as she lamented that God had taken so good a pope. Michener watched as the woman sobbed uncontrollably and two men helped her toward the shade.
News crews were fanning across the square interviewing people. Soon the world press would return to ponder what the Sacred College might do within the Sistine Chapel.
“I guess Tom Kealy will be back,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing. The man with all the answers.” She threw him a smile he understood.
They approached the basilica and stopped with the rest of the mourners before the barricades. The church was closed, its interior, he knew, being readied for another funeral. The balcony was draped in black. Michener glanced to his right. The shutters of the papal bedroom were closed. Behind them, a few hours ago, the body of Alberto Valendrea had been found. According to the press he’d been praying when his heart gave out, the corpse discovered on the floor beneath a portrait of Christ. He smiled at Valendrea’s last audacity.
Somebody grabbed his arm.
He turned.
The man standing before him was bearded with a crooked nose and bushy reddish hair. “Tell me, Padre, what are we to do? Why has the Lord taken our Holy Father? What is the meaning of this?”
Michener assumed his black cassock had drawn the inquiry and the answer formed quickly in his mind. “Why must there always be meaning? Can you not accept what the Lord has done without question?”
“Peter was to be a great pope. An Italian finally back on the throne. We had such hopes.”
