Dentro le Mura

[Gunnland]

Capitoline City, Tibur. Keep out of the way, or the workmen will bump into you. They are removing the priceless Renaissance paintings from the walls of the Capitoline City's many buildings, for fear of a Solaris attack. You have been wondering, I'm sure, why the august and respectable camerlengo tolerates the overblown Oswald Cardinal Millbank or the lecherous Gaspar Cardinal Puopolo. Well, truth is that Cardinal Von Haaksbergen shares a terrible secret with them. It all began last November, a week after Pope Stephanus angered the conservative cardinals with his pastoral letter to Eiffelland condoning homosexual intercourse...

Last November.​

"Has the deed been done?" croaked Middelhuis reedily, pale as a marble statue. The camerlengo was obviously trying to ignore the completely nude brunette girl, perhaps nineteen, holding the towel for Cardinal Puopolo to wipe his face. Middelhuis was not pleased to appear before the younger cardinal in the bathtub, either, even if his oversize gut covered his penis amply. Even if the Vangalan sandalwood soap did have a pleasant aroma.

"Zenobia! My statue of living stone," smiled Gaspar, chuckling. "She is a girl at least, right?" Seeing the camerlengo's serious look, Gaspar's face soured. "Please, Middelhuis! Where's the nerve you had last week? Remember that the Eiffelland letter is a capitulation to the secular liberals? Remember! A betrayal of seven centuries of Catholic sexual ethics? Remember Stephanus must be pushed aside, and all of the Dominici with him? Remember that!" Taken aback, Middelhuis stretched his closed eyes with his eyebrows and stiffened his neck. "I don't want to be here any longer than I need to be, Gaspar. Unlike you, I find this whole business repugnant. Now tell me, what happened with Joannes Cardinal Von Grass?"

A cruel smile curled over Cardinal Puopolo's lips as he stood up slowly, his corpulent frame dripping as his maidservant rushed to dry beneath his armpits. "Didn't Oswald tell you? No? Let us say then, Middelhuis, that the Wieser Cardinal Secretary has drunk the liquor of succession."

"The Holy Father is far healthier, but a similar dose should confine him to bedrest for several months, at least. Time enough."

 

[Gunnland]

Capitoline City, Tibur. Please excuse me for whispering. It is said that the walls of Tibur have ears, and the winds of the Long Sea can carry voices as far as Valmy and Augsburg. You will have to listen closely. And don't pity the camerlengo! Cardinal Von Haaksbergen knew the risks of ricin, that Cardinal Von Grass might not simply fall ill, but die. But the camerlengo does not know that Cardinal Puopolo was an old hand at murderous intrigue. That he had killed not only a brother bishop before, but the greatest among all bishops.

March 2010.​

"You have read

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Monsignor Frison?" The secret chamberlain to Marcus Clemens II nodded sadly. The pope's unexpected full-throated endorsement of democracy, he knew without Gaspar Cardinal Puopolo needing to remind him, was a betrayal of the sacred mission of the Church to lead the region as a teacher and guide.

Several weeks later, when the letter was finally ready to be sent to distant New Mercoburg, Marcus Clemens looked concernedly at his secret secretary, almost wistfully, and said, "I know you are distressed, Monsignore. More is at stake than the politics of this world. Remember, Hippolyte, our sacred mission is so much more."

Once, Hippolyte had almost told Lucrezia about the sad, plain blue eyes on the pope's broad Slavic face. Another time, spying Judas's half-turned face on the great mural of the Last Supper in the papal apartments, it occurred to him that Marcus Clemens must have known just by looking at his distress. He wanted to confide this, too, in Lucrezia. And tell her Gaspar had never rescued her from criminal kidnappers, that all of that was a design of the cardinal orchestrated by Hippolyte. And that that was before he realized he had fallen in love with her.

Hippolyte Frison's memories of the months previous were in still-life. The teacup with the papal insignia. The thallium, fragile-looking in its glass vial. The golden teaspoon on the saucer.

Everyone had thought they saw it coming. A practiced Frison told the media the pope's condition appeared unchanged. Then suddenly, flashing lights in his face, he was moved to tell a yarn about the how the stone Virgin in the papal apartments appeared teary as the pope lay dying. Was it a yarn? The funny thing was that every night for the next several months, Hippolyte tortured himself trying to remember if the stone Virgin hadn't been crying that morning after all.

In the end, only the doctors in Eiffelland were left to be baffled at the sudden demise of the pope they thought they had healed, and at the rumors that His Holiness had succumbed to cancer (which was not, they knew, a side-effect of the Slavic flu) because of the hair loss. The doctors, that is, and Lucrezia Puopolo, who had her own suspicions why her lover, the secret secretary, now wept so often after their love-making.

 

[Gunnland]

Capitoline City, Tibur. By now, surely, you do not believe that the illness of Stephanus is any accident. I am not spoiling our story, correct? You must have guessed. Every day the camerlengo, Cardinal Von Haaksbergen, administers low doses of radionuclide polonium-210 to the Holy Father. He receives the vile stuff from Cardinal Puopolo. It is enough, as their in-house toxicologist Monsignor Hippolyte Frison correctly guessed, to keep His Holiness nauseous, vulnerable to disease, bedridden. During this time, the conservatives have taken over the Holy See once more, led by the ambitious Cardinal Puopolo, of course. One hears poor Stephanus vomiting at all hours of the night, pleading with God to use this trial to purify his heart. But perhaps no longer...

One week ago.​

"I cannot do this any longer, Gaspar. It is a sin." The camerlengo looked away from the black night beyond the cliffs of his modest and neat quarters. His angry and puzzled expression opened contours of soft light that resisted being swallowed by the darkness of the sea. Although Cardinal Puopolo heard only what he had expected to hear, he winced nonetheless at how pathetic the once fearsome camerlengo sounded.

Thirty miles away in a spacious villa on the cliffs beyond the walls of Tibur, his cousin Lucrezia had Zenobia knead the undersoles of her feet as she combed her long black hair. Hippolyte was away on secret business. So was Gaspar that evening. She lived in a world of men always away on secret business, and she despised it. But tonight she had secret business of her own.

The envelope from Torrence had arrived with film negatives, apparently in lieu of a love note from Hippolyte, which showed Cardinal Puopolo receiving glass vials with a metallic substance through the window of his FMW limousine from a man in sunglasses with a close-trimmed beard. There were six, all the same, all on what could be any narrow street in Tibur. And the briefest note from the monsignor: "Darling, A friend sent these to me. With love, Hippo."

Many questions swirled darkly around Lucrezia's mind. Who was trying to destroy her cousin -- She had immediately recognized it was some criminal exchange. -- and why? Lucrezia could not know she was completely mistaking her lover's purpose. But she did know she would have to be more mindful of her cousin in the coming days.

Suddenly she was tense. "Harder, Zena, much harder."

 

[Gunnland]

Capitollium City, Tibur. Our story cannot come to an end while all of its characters, thank God Stephanus included, are still alive. But we might find an 'end' at the beginning of it all, and better understand what goes on dentro le mura.

Two years ago.​

"Hippolyte, my cousin Miss Lucrezia Maria Puopolo. Lucrezia, Monsignor Hippolyte Frison." The secret papal secretary wore an expression that Cardinal Puopolo knew immediately. Frison was a powerful insider who controlled access to the pope and, it was rumored, got rid of the pope's enemies. But some whispered that Frison was bored with the priestly life. Apparently so, thought Gaspar, as he watched Hippolyte steal a glance at his cousin's low neckline.

What a night! The party was thrown by Oswald Cardinal Millbank in honor of the elevation of his prize student, Gaspar himself, to the cardinalate. Gaspar had come home to Tibur after years studying in Engellex with Millbank. All of the powerful conservatives were on the decks of the yacht Miranda, the gargantuan 282-foot gaff rigged three-masted schooner bobbing in Tibur's harbor. Some minor scandal loomed when the camerlengo, Middelhuis Cardinal von Haaksbergen, left in a huff after some of the girls took off their dresses revealing bikinis underneath. The snootier cousins could have seen this coming; these Puopolos may once have been wealthy shipping magnates, but now they were known chiefly as debtors, and (in the case of Lucrezia's father) incarcerated criminals. But Cardinal Puopolo was not thinking about his guests or his stained reputation. As a skimpily-clad Zenobia poured him another glass of champagne, Gaspar watched the secret secretary Frison swirl around his cousin Lucrezia. Smiling, laughing, and flattering her.

A week later, Hippolyte Frison received a strange note from Gaspar. For the first time, the secret secretary realized the newest cardinal was insane. Cardinal Puopolo had ordered thugs to kidnap Lucrezia to prevent her from marrying, but offered to allow Frison to "rescue" his gorgeous cousin. Insane though it was, the lonely Frison could not refuse. It would not be the first time.


So Gaspar used Lucrezia from the start to get access to Hippolyte. Did Hippolyte know Gaspar was using Lucrezia to get to him? Did Lucrezia know that her rescue by Hippolyte was all part of Gaspar's plan? Perhaps the lovers knew they were being manipulated by Gaspar, and played along out of love for each other. Or perhaps Lucrezia always knew Gaspar's plan, and ruthlessly aided him by seducing Hippolyte. Who can know these things? They are opaque even to the wise.