Again she observed the monastics in their rough stamyn, the friars, Benedictines, Cluniacs, Dominicans, some barefoot, even, on the stone flags, others, Cistercians mostly, shod in kid boots, fur lined, and doubts tormented her. What, she wondered, has this to do with our true purpose in life? Why are we here, offering respect to this man? While she waited she wondered what the other pope, the real one, elected according to rule but against the wishes of the French, was doing at this moment in his palace in Rome.

No doubt he was plotting with his allies, the Holy Roman Emperor, the German counts, the Dukes of Milan and Verona, the Signoria of Florence and the English and Flemish envoys. There seemed no end to their Schism. Neither one would give way to the other. The possibility of civil war in England would be nothing to a war between rival popes. They sat at the pinnacle of contention between the powers of Europe.

Despondently concluding that no women would be consulted on the constant desire of men for war, she idled her glance over the arrival of a group just now entering the hall.

Cistercians, she noted. Cowls pulled well over their faces. Hands hidden inside sleeves after a quick crossing of themselves. A modest pectoral cross glinted briefly on the chest of one of them as he turned to scan the crowd from under his hood.

Cressets did little to lighten the gloom. Outside it must have been a morning of black clouds and rain. The clerestory windows had darkened. Then more light was brought in as a sign that the pope was imminent. A shuffling followed as everyone pressed forward.

Quite a sea of people now, all looking upwards as if in rapture, an effect caused by the height of the dais, a small trick to create awe, she was thinking, like the priest with his chalice, his wine, his bread, his magnificence and his assumption of authority. Lollard thoughts. If anyone guessed what I am thinking the inquisition would have me burned in the market place.

Even in Bohemia, that land of free-thinkers, the followers of blessed Wyclif were having a hard time against the Church. Even Good Queen Anne would find it difficult to return home to Prague carrying her translation of the Bible should she ever wish to leave King Richard’s side. But he would never let her go. They were devoted to each other, love’s greatest emblem in an ocean of infidelity and greed.

Still Clement did not appear.

King Richard had been promised the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor if Anne’s elder brother, Emperor Wenceslas, died without an heir. Archbishop Neville had had a little sculpture installed in York minster showing Richard with the Emperor’s crown on his head. As a token of our love and fealty, he had told her. Much good it was doing now. She shuddered at Neville’s possible fate.

The crowd’s mood of excitement had subsided as the pope still failed to make his expected entrance.

After what seemed like an age the cressets began to be dowsed as the rising sun pierced the shadows. It lit up the walls opposite, giving them a pink, fleshy appearance, and it caused the glass high up in the clerestory near the roof beams to sparkle like cheap tinsel.

Do these people wait here like this every morning? she asked herself. For what? To see one ambitious churchman wielding his earthly powers? We’re all fools. Except that I have a deeper purpose and hope I shall never be dazzled by false light. Her thoughts strayed to Wyclif, the morning star as he was called, and how his death had been such a blow for freedom of belief in England.

A commotion at the main doors interrupted her thoughts. It heralded the arrival of Sir John Fitzjohn with a troop of followers. The Cistercians, still standing near the door as if not sure whether they’d be staying or not, moved aside to let them enter. One of the monks was forced right in among the group of Englishmen as they found a space against the wall. She noticed his companion’s cowl lift slightly though not enough to reveal the face of the man under it. Fitzjohn briskly made the sign of the cross, looking around as he did so to see if he was noticed, and she saw him nod to someone in the crowd.

Then, after this minor excitement, to her dismay a sleeping patience seemed to descend again. What was Clement doing? He must be in his bed, she decided, or maybe breaking his fast in as lavish a manner as her prioress had mentioned. One thing he was probably not doing and that was praying for the souls he had condemned to death at the siege of Cesena or, more recently, by burning here in the town of Avignon. She had passed the site of the public burnings in the market place and couldn’t get it out of her mind. It made her think acidly of the men who commanded such punishment of their fellow beings.

She pictured Cesena again with all the old feeling of horror.

**

The final cresset was dowsed. The vast, crowded space of the audience chamber was by now a blaze of sunlight. Still everyone hung on. Patience is a virtue. Hildegard was almost asleep on her feet when there was a sea-change among those nearest the dais.

Nothing much seemed to have happened. A cardinal appeared unobtrusively through the door at the back where Clement was expected. As they pinned their hopes on him he moved to the edge of the dais. Diffidently he began to address them. When he spoke it was in Latin so that everyone could understand.

The gist was that his holiness had been detained by an unholy event. He begged and prayed for their understanding. Soon he would appear before them when he would impart to them what had befallen.

Hildegard sighed with impatience and earned a look of reproof from the monk standing beside her. Suppositions cascaded through her mind. Was he sick? Had the war between England and France broken out again? Was that perhaps the message Fitzjohn had brought last night?

A glance across the bowed heads, already mouthing prayers, showed him say something to one of his pages with a scowl of annoyance. He bent his head to say something more and the page forced a path through the press towards the doors. One of the Cistercians also thought it a waste of time to hang about and followed in his wake.

Hildegard closed her eyes. The prioress, content in Swyne, had no idea what her nun had to endure in her service. The Alps had been nothing to the tedium of waiting for someone who could not or would not deign to appear.

**

It was almost on tierce, the third hour, when a piercing fanfare cut through the mumblings of people too devout to leave their places to go to mixtum now being served in the refectory. The horn players looked delighted at having something to do at last. Hildegard craned her neck to see over the heads in front of her towards the door at the back of the dais.

After another screech of the horns, the door inched open in the silence that followed. Then a dazzling, bejewelled figure appeared on the threshold. The silence lengthened.

The guards, squaring their shoulders, gazed more ferociously at the invisible enemy in front of them. A sound like the wind rising echoed around the auditorium as people began to cross themselves and fall to their knees in a cloud of fabric.

Clement, dark visaged, hook nosed, face as expressionless as a stump of wood, took several tottering paces towards his throne. His garments glittered in the sun light. Two silvery acolytes fussed in his wake and when he came to the steps leading up to his gilded throne they took an arm each to guide him onto it in his cumbersome robes. Before sitting, he turned and made a perfunctory sign over the heads of his flock.

Everyone, Hildegard realised, was on their knees. Even the Cistercians near the door. As unobtrusively as possible she slid down the pillar she had been leaning against until she was kneeling, albeit in a cramped and crouching posture, at its foot. A glance backwards showed that the Cistercian who had followed Fitzjohn’s page outside had returned and followed him back in. For a moment he glanced out over the bent heads towards the dais, then he too, sank down among the rest.