a Tale of Illyria
wherein the HANDSOME KNIGHT discovers true LONGING
Lyons, France
1 October, 1316
The banners were so red they might have been made of actual flame. They snaked out, unfurling with a hearty crack before whipping back under the fury of the mighty wind called the Mistral. The oarsmen swept back and heaved in rhythm with the choir that sang holy songs in both Latin and French – but not Italian. It was the gentlest hint of things to come.
The banks of the Rhone were teeming with men and women. Several fell in, pushed from behind by those who wanted a better view. When again in their lifetimes could they expect to lay eyes upon St. Peter’s heir? Especially as there were men pressing him to return to papacy to Rome, making Clement’s transplanting of the Holy See a temporary aberration, a hiccough in the history of the Church. So the French citizens of all the lands between Lyons and Avignon flocked to river’s edge, that when they prayed they could attach a face to their pleas.
Not that they could see his face. In the throne aboard ship, the figure was practically swallowed by his hat and gown, despite their being tailored to him. A gnome of a man, delicate and diminutive. Even the throne itself, high on the pedestal, was cleverly designed to hide the fact that his feet couldn’t reach the floor. Instead there was a step built into the front that pretended to be a footrest for the most mighty man in all of Christendom.
He had been Pope for less than two months, yet already his fellow cardinals were growing uneasy. Perhaps this was easily explained by the absence of a pope these last two years – they had grown used to life without an overlord. Or perhaps it was the unimpressive nature of the new Holy Father. For he seemed more suited to be a Fool than a Prince.
Several French girls on the shore, disappointed by the dwarf on the papal throne, cast their eyes about the massive barge for a sight more pleasing to their eyes. Almost at once they found a most deserving young man, tucked away on the lower level and far removed from His Holiness. The man had a naturally fair complexion that was tanned but not burned – active without being delicate. His black hair was a little longer than the old men around him. He was dressed in the finest cloth, the cut of his doublet so high as to be almost scandalous. There, just below the hem, a girl could see the faintest curve of his firm buttock. Scandalous, and delightful. He was the ideal of the modern French knight.
The fact that he passed for French would have gratified the young man, had he known. Nineteen years old now, married for over a year and still yet a virgin – a status which many a French maid had attempted to undo – Ser Mariotto Montecchio was the epitome of chivalry. And true chivalry, as everyone knew, began in France.
There was but one stain marring the perfection of his honor. Like Lancelot had Arthur, Mariotto had betrayed his closest friend, stealing his betrothed. But the love the girl had given Ser Montecchio was far more than the mere kindly affection she had felt for Ser Capulletto. And chivalry was all about the wishes of women – great deeds in their names, and making them supremely happy. Was that not what he had done? Make Gianozza happy?
In his heart, the argument rang false. Chivalry was about pining from afar, the idea of an unattainable woman. Dante had never wed his Beatrice, marrying instead a woman for whom he had felt nothing, siring four living children on her, including Mariotto’s good friend, Pietro. Yet it was the relationship between Beatrice and Dante that men
spoke of, the love that transcended the physical. For, ideally, love and marriage were not meant to be joined. Marriage soiled love’s perfection.So why did I marry? he wondered. The answer was simple, and shaming. He had wanted her.
He was unaware that the slight air of suffering about him made him all the more attractive. All he knew was that he had been forced to rebuff – sometimes physically – the attentions of dozens of girls over the last year and a half. But such was the certainty of his love that he was never tempted. And the men who broke bread with him each day thought him the greatest fool they had ever met.
Upon arriving in the summer of 1315, Mariotto had attached himself to the party of Cardinal Napoleone Orsini, and man who was both the lion and the bear, as his name indicated. He was rumored to be a favorite for the office of Pope, and as they spoke nearly the same language (Veronese Italian differed from Roman Italian only in dialect), it seemed a natural move. Mariotto had orders to lobby the new Pope in Verona’s favor – it would be well if he had a friendship with that new Pope before the office was granted.
His plan had failed, however, with the election of Jacques d’Euse. It had come as quite a shock, and not only to Mariotto. After two years without a Holy Father, the latest French king had bullied and bribed all the cardinals together and forced them into a castle to do their duty and choose a pontiff. It gave new meaning to the term conclave – con clave, literally, with key. While they held the key to God’s heir on earth, Philip V held the key to their freedom.
Mariotto had waited with so many others outside the castle, watching for the telltale smoke that would signify Orsini’s election. But, when the white smoke had come and the doors had opened, it was instead a cordwainer’s son who had mounted St. Peter’s throne.
The little man had taken them all by surprise, nominating himself. Trained in both the law and in medicine, his career in the clergy had been mostly spent presiding over the seaside See of Frejus, a pleasurable duty, and in Avignon, providing advice more legal than spiritual. How he had swung them around to vote for him, no one quite said. Certainly Orsini had been mute on the subject.
Now, standing beside Ser Montecchio, Cardinal Orsini looked out over the water. Softly he murmured, “Illyria, I am coming.”
“Pardon?” said Mariotto.
The Cardinal looked abashed. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, then said, “I have a cousin who is prince of a city on the coast of Anatolia. It’s called Dubrovnik, but he has renamed it ‘Illyria.’”
“Illyria?”“After Ilium, the fabled city of Helen and Paris.” Orsini smiled smugly. “For all that he’s a good prince, he is a fanciful fellow.”
“Fanciful how?”
“He is like you! He pines – oh, how he pines! He writes me of a wench – forgive me, a young maiden – for whom he would eat every apple in the world. Her father is a great man of the city, and her brother is one of the handsomest men in the land – by report, he would even rival you,” added the Cardinal, with a cheerful wink. “My cousin is quite young, and has talked himself into loving the lady from afar. For he is quite certain that with such men in her life already, he would pale in comparison.”
Mariotto frowned, a smile at the corners of his mouth. “That’s falling off the horse before you get to the rail.”
“I told you – fanciful. In that way he is not at all like you, who seized your moment. That is the difference between true love and this airy nonsense that people speak of by that name. True love demands action. Only in false love can a man wallow, peak, and pine.”
As pleasing as this idea was, ennobling as it did Mariotto’s one black deed, he found himself protesting. “But that’s contrary to what the poets –”
“Poets! Pfah! Poets are in love with words, not women. It is like the Church. There are men of the cloth who mouth the words of Christ, and those who live them. Love of Christ demands action. Misguided as many of the Crusades have been, one cannot fault the passion with which the Crusaders spurred off to fight. Christ himself was a man of action – his love of his Father made him perform miracles, and beat those craven money-lenders. I tell you, if I have been tempted to any violence in my life, it has been to emulate him in that act. For I swear to you, Mariotto, I detest even the smell of money!” He said this with a smile, but the steel in his voice underscored his vehemence.
Mariotto paused, then returned to his original query. “So why do you say you are coming to Illyria?”
Again the Cardinal looked abashed. “Because Illyria is desire. It is a mythical state. It is the thing one wants most in the world. And, therefore, it is the thing most often denied. For me, Illyria is Rome. As Rome has been denied us these many years. But at last, we are returning.”
Mariotto perked up at once. This was news! “He’s returning the Holy See to Rome?”
Orsini nodded. “There is no harm, I think, in speaking of it, now the election is past and he has been ordained. Our new Holy Father has sworn an oath to me, upon the consecrated Host and before all the entire conclave, that he will never again mount a horse or mule except in the direction of Rome.”
Mariotto frowned. He lacked a lawyer’s mind, but this seemed a convoluted oath to take. “Is that why –?”
“We float instead of ride? Yes,” answered the Cardinal. “He is keeping his word. Rightly, he points out that Avignon is the current site of his authority, and he must attend to matters there before he makes such a drastic change.”
“No disrespect, but he is very old, and quite frail,” observed Mariotto. “What if, God forbid, he does not live to see his promise carried out?”
“Then we shall elect another who will. But that will not be necessary. All I have ever known of him tells me he is a man of his word.”
They traveled on for hours, waving and smiling to the throngs on the river’s edges. Refreshments were served, and there was a great deal of merriment. Among the Italians of every Order the cheer was the greatest – word had slowly spread that they were at last to return home.
The sun was already low in the autumnal sky when Avignon came into view. The little Pope, with great decorum, lifted himself from his throne and crossed to the rail where Orsini and Ser Montecchio, along with many others of their nation, had congregated.
“Mon frere!” cried the wizened Pope to Orsini. “See how vibrant the heavens are above my beloved France!”
“Indeed,” agreed the Cardinal warmly. “I am certain it seems all the more lovely, as you contemplate leaving it behind. If death is indeed the mother of beauty, then exile is the father of patriotism.”
“What you say is profound, and true,” said the Pontiff. “I find in me no inch that is not filled with love for France. Therefore I have decided that I must delay preparations for a return to Rome.”
“For how long?” asked Orsini, his generous spirit devoid of the suspicion that Mariotto, listening intently, felt all too keenly.
As it happened, Mariotto’s suspicions were justified. “Indefinitely,” said the little Pope, his sorrowful expression not reaching his eyes.
For a suspende
d moment, Cardinal Orsini wrestled with the meaning of this word. Then, like a thunderclap, the Pontiff’s purpose was made clear, and Orsini felt a though his ribs had been levered open and his heart removed before the gaze of all the world. “You mean you do not intend to return the Holy See to Rome?”
The little man in the grand hat and gown blinked several times. “You wish me to leave my own country for all eternity, to lock myself away in that ruined country you call Love? Oh, bless me, no! Roma is not Amor for me.”
“But – it has been the home of the papacy since the first Pope, Peter himself, chose Rome as the finest and grandest city in all the world!”
“Is that still true today? The world has shifted away from Rome, mon frere, and we must follow the world’s lead.”
“As Holy Father, you are charged to lead, not to follow.”
“And so I am, by leading us away from blind adherence to tradition. But in one way you are mistaken. I must lead my flock, but I must follow God. God has led the papacy to Avignon. Where he leads, I must follow.”
By sheer force of will, Orsini kept his voice level. “The Lord, one of your titles is Bishop of Rome.”
“It is a title I can do without. My dear Orsini, the same Lord that gave the blessed Apostle Peter the power to bind and loose – he is everywhere, is he not? Certainly he is as present here in this lush and vibrant land as he is in the decayed maw of the seven hills. I am afraid this journey has quite determined me – I will stay in Avignon. No, I pray you, do no protest! Your Italy smiles to you, but for me it would only be a land of exile and despair.”
Struggling, Orsini’s obedience lost to his need to protest. “Your Grace – Rome is the capital of the Christian world.”
“The Christian world needs no capital, mon frere. The Lord our God is everywhere, ever present. And he will forgive the whims of an old man too tired to travel so very far.”
“Your Holiness, your promise – you vowed upon the sacred Host that you would restore the papacy to the Vatican hill!”
Jacques d’Euse sighed. “And my dear Cardinal, I promise you – I will not be forsworn.”
And indeed, Orsini could see the litter carried by servants that awaited the Pontiff on the quay. A litter that had already been arranged, did not have to be sent for. Mariotto watched as realization flooded Cardinal Orsini’s face. Jacques d’Euse, the son of a shoemaker, now Pope John XXII, had never intended to return to Rome. It had all been a ruse to gain immense – and irrevocable – power.
As Mariotto Montecchio joined the procession that followed the dwarfish Pontiff back onto French soil, the Cardinal lingered behind, as bereft of words as of recourse. Like his cousin and namesake in distant Illyria, all that remained in Cardinal Orsini was his longing.
