Tales from the Vatican Vaults: 28 extraordinary stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Garry Kilworth, Mary Gentle, KJ Parker, Storm Constantine and many more Read online

  Whether this account is fact or fiction, history or myth, it has immense historical significance. If it is fiction, its very existence as a contemporary attempt to explain Pope Joan gives credence to her legend; it pre-dates by two centuries what had been the earliest known reference to the female Pope.

  If the story is true, it explains at last the legend of Pope Joan, which some have accepted for a thousand years, though to others it has always seemed unbelievable that a woman could have become Pope. But it is even more unbelievable that another sentient race, a race of shapeshifters, has throughout history co-existed, undetected, alongside humanity – though if true this would certainly account for much mythology, folklore and tales of witchcraft.

  1032–1048

  The Catholic Church is the first to accept that there have been ‘Bad Popes’ over the centuries. One of the most notorious, Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, has been the subject of many films and TV series. But more than four centuries before him there was a pope of whom even the Catholic Encyclopedia says, ‘He was a disgrace to the Chair of Peter.’ For Pope Benedict IX the papacy was a family business, with two uncles, two great-uncles and a further two before them having been Pope. Benedict IX was Pope three times, and at one point sold the papacy to his successor for a large sum. He was accused of holding orgies in the Lateran Palace, and a slightly later pope mentioned ‘his rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts’ and said, ‘His life as a pope was so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it.’

  This account found in the Vatican Vaults might appear unbelievable, but it certainly provides an explanation for this most ungodly man occupying the throne of St Peter.

  No Peace for the Wicked

  K. J. Parker

  Enough is enough. I stood up. They all stopped talking and stared at me.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ I said.

  That’s not how you address a roomful of cardinals, even if you’re a cardinal yourself. It’s an example of the subtle art of being politely rude, at which I excel. A Roman general once quelled a mutiny with that one word, gentlemen, used in precisely that way; he was addressing the mutineers, and the idea was that a general would never be polite to his soldiers, he’d say listen, you horrible lot or something of the sort; the implication being, they’d behaved so badly that he no longer regarded them as soldiers of Rome, and that was enough to shame them back to their duty. Neatly done. Now I come to think of it, that general was me.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ I repeated. ‘This simply won’t do. We’ve been here – what, three days? Four? – and we’re still no further forward. This has to stop.’

  They looked at me. I grinned at them.

  Someone pointed out that the only reason we were all still there was because of my intransigence. ‘It’s all your fault,’ he said. ‘We’re all agreed on Paul of Calabria, but you keep on about that appalling young thug of yours, and we aren’t getting anywhere. Be reasonable,’ he added, with a poor attempt at a conciliatory smile. ‘We’re never going to let that evil little shit get his arse on Peter’s chair, not in a million years.’

  ‘The vote needn’t be unanimous,’ I said. ‘If you really want Paul—’

  I let the sentence hang in the air. They shuffled and looked uncomfortable. Poor fools.

  ‘We respect you,’ someone said awkwardly. ‘Obviously. We need you to agree. Otherwise—’

  I smiled. ‘I agree to Theophylact,’ I said. ‘Now, you do the same, and then we can all go home.’

  They all started bitching at once. I cleared my throat. They subsided. Quiet as little mice.

  *

  I should explain. I can do that. It’s one of the powers vested in me. I still have a large proportion of the Authority I used to have in the old days, before the ‘Unfortunate Event’. I can command silence and attention, to a certain extent I can impose my will just by looking at people. If I choose to do so, I can imbue my words with divine eloquence – which means I could read out two pages at random from someone’s household accounts or a shipping manifest and thereby win any debate I choose. I try not to, because it’s cheating and an abuse of privilege. You see how conscientious I am. I have to be, in my position. Divine appointment is more of a responsibility than a privilege, believe me.

  *

  ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘you’re well aware that our decision here will have far-reaching consequences. It’s our job to choose Christ’s next vicar on Earth, and what could be more important than that? It’s our job to entrust, to one frail, fallible mortal, the terrestrial power of Almighty God. Under normal circumstances, this would be a staggeringly momentous decision. But these . . .’ Short pause, for effect. ‘These are not normal circumstances. Now, you have no way of knowing this, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, but I happen to know that the Pope we choose here today will be the most important, the most influential Pope in the history of the Church. It’s essential that we choose the right man, the man God wants us to choose. Which is why you have no other choice but to elect Theophylact of Tusculum.’

  *

  A brief history of Theophylact of Tusculum.

  He was a nasty piece of work, no doubt about it. In an age when the Vicars of Christ didn’t even pretend to any degree of moral superiority over the aristocratic savages from whose ranks they were largely recruited, he was by universal consensus in a class of his own. His two immediate predecessors were both his uncles, the brothers of Theophylact’s father, Count Alberic; the papacy ran in that family, like red hair or haemophilia. Twenty years old when the Count bought him the Fisherman’s Chair, which he ascended as Benedict IX in October of the Lord’s Year 1032, Theophylact’s bizarre sexual practices and some singularly ineptly concealed murders soon made it impossible for him to continue in office – the Roman mob is notoriously broad-minded, but sooner or later even they will eventually draw the line – and so he fled. Later, regretting his decision, he raised an army, stormed Rome and took back Peter’s crown by force. Subsequently deposed by the soldiers of the German emperor, he hired every thug in Italy and stormed his way back in for another year until he was finally driven out. He sold the papacy to his godfather for a large amount of money, to end his life in a haze of unparalleled dissipation. The most dreadful creature imaginable, in fact, and just the man we needed at that precise moment in time.

  Note, incidentally, the pronoun.

  *

  I had their undivided attention.

  ‘Brother cardinals,’ I went on, ‘you don’t need me to tell you, we’re living on the fulcrum of history, and the sharp edge, the razor on which history balances, is of course our beloved mother Church. Never before – trust me on this – never before have we faced greater challenges or more enthralling opportunities. To the east, we face the schismatics of Byzantium, and beyond them, the apparently invincible power of Islam. To the west, we see the furious energy of the Normans, a dammed river of strength and savagery waiting to burst. From my unique perspective, I can see the road ahead of us dividing. Follow one fork, and what do we find? A strong pope, universally loved and respected, heals the breach with our eastern brothers, unites the empires of East and West, diverts the Norman fury to drive the mills of holy war; to our banner comes Michael of Constantinople – a sinner, yes, but one who has sincerely repented, who only waits for a chance to make good his redemption in wonderful deeds; already he has driven the Arabs from their Sicilian strongholds, his heart burns for the cause. Together – German, Greek, French, Italian and Norman side by side – what could prevent us from sweeping across North Africa, liberating the holy places, cornering the great enemy in his lair and crushing him for ever?’

  I paused for breath. Having to breathe limits one’s eloquence so. ‘That is one path. If we follow the other, if we elect a weak, vicious, worthless creature to the Fisherman’s Chair, what will happen? Let me tell you. The schism will continue to fester and bleed, to the point where it will never heal. Michael will win his great victory, but not against the Arabs. Go
d will prove his redemption against the half-human savages of the Balkans, and Michael will die, to be succeeded by his ridiculous brother. Meanwhile, the Normans will sweep across half of Europe. Great swathes of Italy will fall to their swords, including much – too much – of Peter’s own patrimony. They will snatch Sicily from Greek and Arab alike; what is more, what is worse, they will sit down with them in peace, building a mighty kingdom that is half Christian and half Moor, and their strength will become so great that the two Christian emperors will beat against them like bare hands against solid rock, bruising themselves and making no mark. The moment will have been lost. Normans will sack Jerusalem, coming not as liberators but as conquerors and looters, and thereafter there will be no chance of peace between West and East this side of Judgement Day. Alienated from the people of the West, the Church will sink into decadence and irrelevance, its temporal power frittered away in pointless wars, its spiritual authority corroded into rust and rubbish, until new schisms and new heresies shatter Christendom like glass into a hundred thousand sharp, useless fragments. From that place there will be no way back. The future history of the Church will be a long, agonising record of schism, heresy, bloodshed and hate.’ I paused again. I was exhausted, as though I’d just run a mile. ‘That, brother cardinals, is what we must decide today; victory or defeat, the triumph of the Church or its long, slow collapse into fratricide. No choice has ever been more vital. And for that reason, it is no choice. You have no options. What you must do is elect Theophylact of Tusculum to be the new Bishop of Rome.’

  They were gazing at me like sheep at market. Finally, one of them shook off the spell enough to open his mouth. ‘So Theophylact will reform?’ he said. ‘He’ll stop all this nonsense and become this good and strong pope who’ll do all these wonderful things.’

  I smiled.

  *

  I had, of course, been to both places. I’m there now (in two places at the same time; don’t try this at home), and I can see two completely different worlds. One of them will be all too familiar to you, and the other – well. You really wouldn’t want to go there.

  *

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ someone said eventually.

  I gave him my Authoritative smile. I don’t use it often. In theory, you should only see it through smoked glass, darkly. ‘Never more so,’ I said. ‘Theophylact will be the weak, vicious, useless pope. I’m inviting you to plunge the Church into an irreversible division. It’s what has to be done. It’s your duty.’

  Silence. Then someone said, ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’

  Suddenly, I felt tired. I didn’t need all this. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You know me. You know what I stand for. You know better than anyone that there’s no more loyal and dedicated servant of our Lord anywhere on Earth. You trust me. Now, shall we move to a show of hands?’

  *

  Virtute officii; by virtue of one’s office. Excuse me; private joke.

  *

  Every story has a narrator; there is no such thing as a third-person narrative. You’ll deny this, of course, because you’ve read a bucketful of the things. Reconsider. The storyteller may be anonymous and invisible, but he’s there all right. He tells you what everyone did and said, he can even tell you what was going on inside everyone’s head. He’s everywhere, this universal narrator. With a simple meanwhile, a thousand miles away, under the towering ramparts of Bari he can cross turbulent seas and impassable mountains, straight in through the ear of the next protagonist, so he can eavesdrop on the poor devil thinking.

  Omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Remind you of someone?

  The conceit: that the world is a story told by God. Crude, but actually not so wide of the mark. The good storyteller creates his characters but doesn’t micromanage them; he allows them the luxuries of internal consistency and their own personal brand of logic; what we in the trade call enough rope. The storyteller knows the story, of course, unless he’s confident enough in his own capacities (omniscient, omnipotent) to make it up as he goes along. To a large extent, this great storyteller is content to observe and record; to be an eavesdropper, a witness . . .

  The Greek word for witness is martyros: martyr. Consider the one and only martyr, the narrator Himself transferred by His own compassionate will to the pages of the story He’s telling. It’s a rare and dedicated author who allows his characters to nail him to a plank and leave him in the blistering sun to die. Great, therefore, must be the value this author places on recording, witnessing, eavesdropping. The author made flesh – the author made word; in the beginning was the word, and the word was God – this author, however, did rather more than that. He intervened, as a character in his own story. He participated. That was His right.

  We, being mere extensions of His will, aren’t authorised to go that far. We’re here to observe and advise; which is why I couldn’t force those red-gowned halfwits to elect the evil Theophylact, I could only make speeches. Very good speeches, of course.

  I have been a member of the college of cardinals, virtute officii, since long before they were called cardinals. Mostly, I keep my mouth shut; I observe, I witness. Only rarely do I advise. The rest of them are scared to death of me, needless to say, even though most of them don’t actually believe I’m the same individual who sat at the Fisherman’s left hand, when we were so poor we couldn’t afford oil lamps. They don’t believe the sacrament truly becomes blood and human flesh, either. More fools they.

  *

  But on this occasion, the eloquence was enough. We had a vote, and we were unanimous. Theophylact of Tusculum. Habeamus – God help us all – Papam.

  Not surprisingly, I was delegated to take His newly-minted Holiness the good news. Nobody else wanted that honour – not, as one of my brother cardinals put it, with a ten-foot pole. Well, it saved me having to insist.

  I eventually tracked him down in that small, rather cramped wine shop on the east side of the Colosseum (a favourite of mine, incidentally; I don’t actually eat or drink, naturally, but the idea of the coarse house red is really rather pleasant after a hard day). He’d reached the stage in his usual monstrous procedure where they’d propped him respectfully in a corner until his sedan chair arrived to cart him home. The front of his tunic told me that at some stage he’d been eating sardines, in a mushroom and pepper sauce. I guess they didn’t agree with him.

  I can sober men up with a click of my fingers. That clears the head, though you still feel like death. ‘Theophylact,’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’

  He opened his eyes and screwed them up, as if the rain was blowing in his face. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘I’ve got some good news,’ I said. ‘You’re the Pope.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, and tried to go to sleep.

  ‘You’re the new Pope,’ I said, ‘and I need you to listen to me very carefully. This is extremely important, and for reasons that needn’t concern you, I have to tell you now. So I’d like you to sit up and open your eyes, and try and keep up. All right?’

  ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘My head hurts.’

  ‘All right?’

  He sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said, and slid his back five inches or so up the wall. ‘Well?’

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘do you know who I am?’

  He frowned. ‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘You’re dad’s friend, the cardinal, Whatsisname. You’re always hanging round the house.’

  We have a rule in our business; show, don’t tell. For a brief moment – about as long as it takes to sneeze – I let him see me as I really am. It was a dangerously long exposure, but with all that alcohol in him to relax his muscles and cushion his system, I figured he could take it.

  His mouth had fallen open, and it took him a lot of effort to speak. ‘You’re—’

  ‘Your dad’s friend the cardinal,’ I said, ‘who’s always hanging round the house. That’s exactly right. Blessed are those who have seen and yet have believed.’

  He swallowed a couple of
times. ‘So there really is—’

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ I said. ‘Your Holiness,’ I added. ‘Now I’m afraid you’re going to have to forget all that in a minute or so, but right now I need to have your undivided attention. Now, then. Do you believe in good and evil?’

  The innkeeper went by with a tray of empty cups. ‘Yes. I suppose so. I mean, it’s – well, it just is, I guess.’

  I took the purse from his pocket and shook out a coin. ‘Heads.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I flipped it over. ‘Tails.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On one side, the Holy Virgin enthroned. On the other, a rather hideous depiction of the King of the Greeks. Two distinctly different pictures. How many coins?’

  In retrospect, not the best question to ask a man in his condition. Fortunately he answered, ‘One.’

  I absent-mindedly dropped the coin in my sleeve. ‘Very good,’ I said. ‘Now, I’ll ask you to cast your mind back to when you were learning your catechism. In the beginning there was the void. He said, Let there be light. And there was—?’

  He paused, sensing a trick question. ‘Light?’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  He shrugged. ‘What?’

  ‘Darkness,’ I said. ‘You can’t have one without the other. Light presupposes darkness; without it, it wouldn’t be light. And the other way around, of course. So, when He said, Let there be light, He was also saying, Let there be darkness. He created it.’ I shrugged. ‘He created all things. Yes?’

  ‘Well, of course. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘Indeed they do. Now, I want you to think. He created everything. Every single thing. That means,’ I said, smiling, ‘He created evil.’