“I value it more than wealth or favors,” he answered with total solemnity. “But I think it does not come cheaply.”

“Little that is good comes cheaply, Your Grace,” Masari agreed. “We look toward a pope who is uniquely fitted to be leader of the Christian world.”

“We?” Palombara kept walking, but now unmindful of the wind, the puddles gathering in the stones, or the passersby.

“Such men as His Majesty of the Two Sicilies and lord of Anjou,” Masari answered. “But of more import to this issue, of course, he is also senator of Rome.”

Palombara knew precisely what he meant-someone with a powerful influence over who would become pope. The implication and the offer were both plain. Temptation roared through his mind like a great wind, scattering everything else. Already? A serious chance to become pope! He was young for it, not yet fifty, but there had been far younger. In 955, John XII had been eighteen, ordained, made bishop, and crowned pope all in a day, so it was said. His reign had been short and disastrous.

Masari was waiting, watching not only for the words, but for all the unspoken patterns and betrayals in his face.

Palombara said what he believed was probably true, but also what he knew Charles would want to hear. “I doubt Christendom will be wholly united by anything except conquest of the old Orthodox patriarchies,” he said, hearing his own voice as if it were someone else’s. “I have recently returned from Constantinople, and the resistance there, and in the surrounding countryside especially, is still strong. A man who has given his career to one faith does not easily sacrifice his identity. If he loses that, what else has he?”

“His life?” Masari suggested, but there was no seriousness in his voice, only satisfaction and a passing regret, as for the inevitable.

“That is the stuff martyrs are made of,” Palombara retorted a trifle sharply. The triple crown was closer to his grasp than it had ever been, perhaps than he had ever seriously believed possible. But what would he have to pay for such a favor from Charles of Anjou and whoever else was in his debt?

If he hesitated now, Charles would never back him. A man fit to be pope did not need time to weigh his courage. Did he have that clarity of mind so that he would understand the voice of God telling him how to lead the world, or what was true and what was false? Did he have the fire of soul that could bear it? Did such a thing even exist?

He thought again of the strange, effeminate eunuch Anastasius and his plea for gentleness and the humility to learn, to crush the appetite for exclusivity, and to tolerate the different.

“You hesitate,” Masari observed. The withdrawal was already in his voice.

Palombara was angry with himself for his equivocation, his cowardice. A year ago, he would have accepted and considered the cost, even the morality, afterward.

“No,” Palombara denied it. “I have not the stomach to rule a Rome that starts another war with Byzantium. We will lose more than we gain.”

“Is that what God tells you?” Masari asked with a smile.

“It is what my common sense tells me,” Palombara answered him. “God speaks only to the pope.”

Masari shrugged and with a little salute turned and walked away.

The decision came remarkably quickly. It was eleven days later, January 21, a dark, windy day, when Palombara’s servant came running across the courtyard, his feet splashing in the puddles. He barely knocked on the carved wooden door before entering the study, his face flushed with exertion.

“They have chosen Pierre de Tarentaise, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia,” he said breathlessly. “He has taken the name of Innocent the Fifth, Your Grace.”

Palombara was stunned. His immediate thought was that Charles of Anjou had supported him all along, and Palombara had been ridiculous to imagine that Masari had been offering him anything except a chance to declare his loyalties. He was a pawn, no more.

“Thank you, Filippo,” Palombara said absently. “I am obliged you came so hastily.”

Filippo withdrew.

Palombara sat at his desk, his body frozen, his mind whirling. Pierre de Tarentaise. Palombara knew him, at least to speak to. They had both been at the Council of Lyons; Tarentaise had actually read the sermon.

Then another thought came to him: Apparently he was taking the name of Innocent V. It was Innocent III who had been pope when Enrico Dandolo had set off on the crusade whose soldiers had sacked and burned Constantinople in 1204. Choosing the name of Innocent was a statement of intent, as such choices always were. Palombara must think carefully indeed where his own path lay.

He entered the familiar high-windowed rooms, his heart pounding with anticipation, already hardening himself against failure, as though bracing himself would make the pain less.

It was only now that he realized how keenly he wanted to return to Constantinople. He longed for the complexity of the East and to be part of the struggle he had seen begin there. He wanted to persuade at least some of those clerics to bend and save what was good of their belief so it was not lost to the wider faith. He wanted to explore their different concept of wisdom; it intrigued him, promising a more rounded explanation of thought, less didactic and in the end more tolerant.

He was finally ushered into the Holy Father’s presence and entered with all the appropriate humility. Innocent was already over fifty, a fair, mild-faced man, nearly bald, and now dressed in the magnificent regalia of his new office.

Palombara knelt and kissed his ring, making the usual formal protestations of his loyalty. Then on Innocent’s invitation, he rose to his feet again.

“I am familiar with your opinions on Byzantium and the Greek Church in general,” Innocent began. “Your work has been excellent.”

“Thank you, Holy Father,” Palombara said humbly.

“His Holiness Pope Gregory informed me that he had sent you to Tuscany to see what support you could raise for the crusade,” Innocent continued. “It will take time, of course, possibly five or six years. Success cannot be hurried.”

Palombara agreed, wondering what Innocent really meant. He looked at his calm face, completely unreadable. He could see nothing changed in him except his clothes and the confidence in his manner, a kind of benign glow; but every now and again he glanced around the room, as if to make certain he was really here.

“There are matters of reform within our own numbers,” Innocent said, “that we cannot pursue for the time being.” That was a flat contradiction of Gregory’s view, and he had felt strongly about it, certain that it was God’s will. Had he been wrong? Or was Innocent not listening to the whisper of the spirit now?

The void was there again at Palombara’s feet, the fear that there was no revelation at all, simply human ambition and chaos, fed by the desperate need for meaning.

“I have been giving both thought and prayer to the situation in Byzantium,” Innocent continued. “It seems to me that you have a feeling for the people…”

“I have come to know them far better than at first,” Palombara answered what he took to be a question. He felt the need to justify himself and not allow the implication of disloyalty, however slight, to go uncorrected. “I do not think they will be easily persuaded from their beliefs, especially those who have placed themselves in a position from which there is no retreat.”

Innocent pursed his lips. “It is a pity we ever allowed it to become such. We should have begun negotiations long ago. But whenever it is done, as you say, it will not be without loss. No war for the cause of the Mother Church was ever fought without casualties.” He shook his head fractionally. “Give me your report on your findings in Tuscany, then I wish you to go to other cities here in Italy and encourage their support.” He smiled. “Perhaps in time to Naples, even to Palermo. We shall see.”