The Psalter (23 page)

Johannes wrapped his arms around his former mentor’s waist and held him tight. Anastasius returned the embrace and kissed to top of his tonsured head. Catching himself, he pushed away. “I…I don’t know what overcame me,” Anastasius stammered, staring at the floor. “I swear Brother, such a thing has never happened before.”

“The fault is mine, Father. I promise it won’t happen again.” Red blotches on Johannes’ pale face told all.

“I claim my portion of blame and beg your forgiveness.” Anastasius stared at the pavement, then turned on his heels and fled, leaving a dumbfounded Johannes watching him disappear.

Baraldus fairly ran his legs off, moving scrolls and codices from the
schola cantorum
back to the subterranean grotto under Saint Peter’s, He worked tirelessly, and Johannes was certain his plump
secundarius
had lost weight. Muscles bulged in his forearms and his double chin had disappeared, showing traces of a square jaw. His robe hung loose around a sturdy frame that had once been a captain in the army.

Sergius lent the use of his prized Saracen slave boy, his main concern being his music. They commandeered a bier from the cemetery grotto to use like a litter, hauling fifty at a time instead of a few. Still with only three, the going was slow and they worked late into the night when the other priests had gone to their beds.

Ragged refugees brought news daily as they sought shelter behind the twelve miles of brick-faced walls built by Emperor Aurelian. The Saracens had indeed landed at the mouth of the Tiber and overwhelmed the fortress city of Gregoriopolis in a matter of hours. The men were slaughtered along with the elderly and infirm, while women and children were seized for slavery. Everything of value was looted. Church altars were ripped from their foundations and toppled. Every cross was smashed, and the city put to the torch.

Nobles from nearby Porto took flight with their squires, attendants, and men at arms, leaving those who counted on their protection to fend for themselves. Defenseless commoners followed in a panicked exodus, abandoning the city except for a tiny force of soldiers from the foreign
scholae
, foreigners who banded together into guilds. They refused to leave and vowed to protect what they could.

A bitter Spanish captain who had lost his wife and children during the Arab’s recapture of the Castilian city of Léon commanded the outnumbered force. He stood fiercely in front of his troops as they met the Saracens’ first attack, a crushing cavalry charge that smashed through the city gate. The small band repelled them, standing their ground in spite of overwhelming odds.

It seemed the momentum of battle had turned to favor the few
scholae
troops as they inflicted heavy, unexpected casualties on the invaders. Battling in the passage through the city’s wall, the tiny militia forced the Saracen knights back as they slashed at their snorting horses and toppled riders, which infuriated the turbaned emir who fumed from a safe distance.

The next morning after an eerie wail of Muslim prayers, the Saracen infantry took up the attack, rushing past the broken gate into the passage, fighting more effectively in the narrow confines than the less mobile horsemen. Hacking with axes and slicing with single-edged scimitars, they formed a wedge in the defenses that pushed inch by bloody inch through the portal toward the vulnerable city.

Just when the ragged remnants of defenders resolved that all was lost, muttering their last prayers between thrusts and parries of blood-stained weapons, a battle horn sounded in the distance. The stunned Saracens beat a hasty retreat to the protection of their own encampment. A centuria of eighty soldiers from the Emperor’s local garrison arrived in the nick of time to save what was left of the dogged defenders.

Their jubilation was short-lived, however. The commander of the Emperor’s troops convinced the steadfast Spaniard that outnumbered ten to one, their only military options were to fight and die in a city which no longer held strategic value, or fall back to the defenses of Rome. The Spanish captain wished to stay and meet his death, killing as many hated Saracens as possible. His spent but loyal men would have fought to the end at his side had he asked. But surveying their haggard, bloodied faces, he could not bring himself to require any more of their deaths.

News of the heroic battle of Porto preceded the gallant soldiers from the foreign
scholae
, and all of Rome cheered as they marched through Saint Paul’s gate and past the pyramid of Cestius. The commander of the Emperor’s troops allowed the Spaniard and his militia to lead the Empire’s soldiers so they might receive the praise of the people. Rome’s grateful citizens threw garlands of flowers to the brave men who had not cut and run like the city’s nobility. The celebration, however, turned to terror as the Emperor’s commander reported that the Saracen force followed and was not far behind.

Baraldus and the brown slave boy ran up and down stone steps through the
Door of Death
to the papal cemetery beneath Saint Peter’s, delivering books to Johannes, who arranged them in piles by subject between the silent tombs of past popes. Then Anastasius appeared, carrying an armload of heavy scrolls. “Can you use my help, Brother?” He smiled sheepishly.

Johannes had not seen him since their humiliating embrace days before. “Should you not be at the
patriarchum
preparing for battle?”

“All that can be done has been. I find myself without a task and thought I’d help if you would have me.”

“I should like nothing better.” He regretted using those particular words as soon as they left his lips, but his heart knew that the nearer the threat drew to Rome, the closer he wanted his mentor about him. Anastasius’ mere presence made him feel safer as they worked in an uneasy silence, stashing books on their appropriate piles.

The sun climbed toward its apogee, nearing the hour for the prayers of Sext. Baraldus dropped his latest load and looked sidelong at his master, eyebrows arched. “Yes, I know,” Johannes answered his unspoken question. “It’s near midday. You must be hungry. Go say your prayers and take the boy with you.” He turned to the master of the
scrinium
and added, “I’m going to work through Sext and dinner as well. Don’t worry, I’ll be alright.”

“I would prefer to stay.” Anastasius said.

Johannes smiled inwardly. “As you will.”

Baraldus called from the floor above, “Master, you have visitors.”

The two librarians bounded up the stairs to find Avraham HaKodesh accompanied by his son Elchanan, who looked more like a legendary warrior than a humble tanner. He wore a leather hauberk over a short tunic, with a tarnished helm on his head and old metal greaves. A sword hung at his side.

Avraham flashed a white smile through his frizzy beard. “The Saracens have been sighted and make for Rome. It’s time for you to leave.”

“This is my place. I’m not leaving.”

The rabbi shook his head. “This fight is not for such as you. Will you defend what you cannot?” Anastasius, who was frustrated by his friend’s pig-headedness nodded in agreement.

“Our books must be protected and someone has to bar the grotto door from the inside. I’m the
bibliothecarius
. The responsibility falls to me.”

“Books can be rewritten. Great minds are rare,” Avraham said.

“The writings of the Apostles and their followers and the history of the church are here. They could never be replaced. But you should go inside the walls with your people, for the
Trastevere
is as exposed as the Vatican.”

“Many of my people flee, but I’ll stay with my son. I suppose I’m as foolish as you. At least we have a militia. Our armor may be decrepit, but the sting of rusty swords is as deadly. Alas, we’re few, just enough to protect the temple. If you need an escape, seek the synagogue. There we will be.”

“I’m grateful to you, but I must safeguard what is the church’s. I know I cannot do this alone and pray that God and our saints, with the assistance of a stout beam against the door, will thwart these barbarians.”

“Don’t mistake Saracens for Philistines. They’re neither godless nor stupid. I’ve received intelligence that their army is commanded by none other than Prince Ahmad ibn Muhammad, the Emir of Ifriqiya’s nephew. He comes from a long line of lawyers and theologians and is a scholar like yourself.”

Elchanan added, “Ahmad taught religious law in a college for Islamic jurisprudence. He’s known to have a brilliant mind. And on the battlefield, he’s an ingenious tactician. He can do with a thousand troops what others cannot with ten times that.”

“Thank you for your counsel, but I won’t be dissuaded.”

Elchanan shrugged his shoulders.

“And you, Anastasius?” Avraham addressed his onetime conspirator. “Will you not seek the walls of Rome or at least come with us?”

Anastasius looked at Johannes, who avoided his glance. “I’m a librarian like my young brother. My place is with our books.”

“Then I shall pray that He Who Cannot Be Named protect you both.” Avraham kissed Johannes on the cheek and took Anastasius’ hand, then he and his armored son were gone, leaving the librarians alone.

“You need not stay,” Johannes said to Anastasius. “It takes but one to bar the door.”

“I could be the one, but I know you wouldn’t leave even if I asked. Neither shall I go. We’ll do this thing together.”

22
Prince Ahmad

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Al-Aghlab, the Crown Prince of Ifriqiya, which now included the recent conquest of Sicily and a foothold on the Italian mainland, anchored at the port of Ostia with a fleet of galleys that had transported horses, troops, and war materiel. Accompanying the transports were fustas, shallow-draft miniature galleys with fewer oars and a single mast with a lanteen. The ingenious fustas were favorites of North African raiding parties and invaluable for an attack on Rome. Not only could they ferry men up river, but in a hasty retreat, they could easily outrun pursuing armies.

After the fall of Porto, Prince Ahmad left the supply ships in the bay. He headed up the Tiber at the head of his cavalry while the infantry rowed upriver in the fustas. They anchored outside the Aurelian walls, offloading troops and weapons while Ahmad studied the massive ramparts and compared them with drawings in his outstretched hands. “The walls must be thirty feet high and at least twelve feet thick,” he said to himself.

“What is it, my lord?” a captain asked, not hearing his words.

“This won’t be like Gregoriopolis or Porto, Captain. Look at the fortifications. They have covered pathways on top, with arrow slits for archers. There are fortified towers every hundred feet, and the gates are narrow. Were we to attack the wall, we’d be showered with arrows and missiles. If we did breach a gate, even a small force could keep us at bay for weeks or months, plenty of time for Lothair to send reinforcements.”

The captain pointed with his dagger at the western part of the city. “There’re no defenses there.”

“That’s the river. Are you suggesting we row past the battlements?”

“Why stop here when we can put our men inside Rome?” the captain said.

“With archers shooting from the towers and infantry lining the banks? And did you notice that we can’t get our cavalry inside to flank the enemy while our men disembark? Not one man would reach shore alive.”

“With all due respect, Sire, we can’t go home empty handed. We’d be disgraced and we can barely control the soldiers as it is. Berbers chafe against Turks, and a Shiite wounded a Sunni with his dagger last night over some insult. They must get their reward, and soon, or you and I will be the ones fleeing for our lives.”

“Straight to the point as usual. We need plunder for the troops. They have families to feed and I have an army to pay.” Ahmad looked closer at the map. “I’ve heard that much of Rome’s riches adorn the churches. Saint Peter’s and Paul’s lie in this rural area called the Vatican, where no wall protects them. Send scouts to reconnoiter what army remains.”

Johannes trotted with one last armload of codices and two scrolls up the dusty road from the
schola cantorum
. Anastasius had begged him not to, but to no avail. He had forgotten some important writings, which included the mysterious Gospel of Thomas. The quarter was empty and silent. Even the chirping birds seemed to have abandoned the Vatican. He had the atrium of Saint Peter’s in sight and slowed to a fast walk.

I’ll deliver this last load, then try to convince Anastasius to make his way to Rome’s walls
, he thought when three horsemen cantered into the road, blocking his path. They reined in their mounts. The sun flashed off steel plates riveted to their leather cuirasses. Time stood still as the
bibliothecarius
watched the sweat-dampened horses prance in place.

He spun on his toes, hugging his precious cargo, and ran toward the
schola cantorum
. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” came from behind, and hooves at full gallop thundered. The pursuers devoured the distance between them, but Johannes made his final dash to the
schola
door. He leapt for the steps, too late. A charging horse rammed its withers into the priest and launched him into the air. He crashed on compacted dirt, skidding on his side and losing skin from a forearm and cheek yet still hugging the books.

Johannes rolled to his knees, jumped up and started again for the door. One of the Saracens spurred his mount forward and Johannes collided into its flank. A kick from a boot caught him in the shoulder and drove him back down. He staggered up and ran the other way, but the riders herded him to the middle of their circling ring. One grabbed his collar, lifting him off his feet, and dropped him to the ground. Johannes watched the rider dismount. He tried to rise, but a powerful hand yanked his short hair and pulled him to his knees.

The priest’s head was jerked backward by his red hair, stretching his scrawny neck. The Arab smiled, baring teeth through a black beard. He drew a curved scimitar from a scabbard slung on his back and raised the blade high. Johannes wanted to pray, but could only whisper, “God forgive me.” The Saracen loosed his grip and collapsed in a heap.