“What do you mean?”
“Well, in this case, we see that Matilda and Gregory both recognized the connection, they both knew it instantaneously. Does it always happen that way, in these cases of predestined love? Or is there sometimes a partner who figures it out first?”
Bérenger didn’t need time to consider his answer. “I think that it often happens in such a way, where one person recognizes the connection before the other, maybe even long before. I think it becomes a matter of patience, perhaps even the greatest test of that love.”
They walked slowly through the narrow streets of the centro storico, engrossed in the conversation and all that it meant to them. Maureen responded, “It must be so hard for the partner who recognizes it when the other is in the dark. It’s as if one is awake, and the other is asleep.”
“No doubt. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. And it truly is, if you think about it. When we are ignorant, we can go through life blithely believing that we control our own destiny. But when we become enlightened, when we understand that our destiny is to surrender to God’s will, well then…it is not always so blissful, is it? And perhaps God’s will is for us to be terribly patient with our sleeping beloved, so that we can gently awaken her. Or him.”
Maureen stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Bérenger was immediately concerned that he had gone too far, made an allusion that was too personal. But that wasn’t what had stopped her. He breathed with relief as she began speaking in that excited way she had when elements of a puzzle began to come together for her.
“What you just said there. Gently awaken her. It’s like the fairy tales, isn’t it? Sleeping Beauty is awakened, Snow White is awakened, both from something called ‘the sleeping death.’ How are they awakened? How?”
“By a kiss.”
“By true love’s kiss. It is very specific in the oldest versions of these legends, that the princess is awakened by true love’s kiss. Not just any kiss. A sacred one. Perhaps one that blends the life forces of the beloveds together, one that represents the coming together of the souls. And the ‘sleeping death’? It represents the soul before it is enlightened.”
Bérenger was equally excited by this line of thinking and joined in. “Therefore, allegory. A sacred teaching that had to be hidden in plain sight, yet taught with great power so as never to be lost.”
Maureen nodded, considering before continuing. “And taught in a way that this most critical concept could be introduced to children. Do you think it’s possible? You’re the one who has taught me that the connections never stop, that there is no end to the places where we will find the truth hiding in plain sight if we open our eyes. Could it be that even our most beloved children’s stories were created to contain the secrets of the Book of Love? That every time we tell one of these stories we are honoring the original teachings of Jesus? Perhaps even dating all the way back, thousands of years, to the coming together of Solomon and Sheba?”
“You are a genius, my dear. This is an aspect that has certainly never occurred to me. And yet we know that the Cathar cultures began instructing their children very early in their development. We have seen where Isobel taught Matilda important concepts this way. Perhaps that was the original purpose of bedtime stories. To educate our children as much as to inspire their imaginations. Bedtime stories can be digested in the sleep, processed through the subconscious mind in the dream state. It’s really quite a fantastic concept.”
Maureen wasn’t finished with the train of thought. “And there are male versions of the legend, too. Like in the Frog Prince. The princess has faith that this is her beloved, despite the fact that he appears to be a wart-infested toad. She sees through the physical illusion, she recognizes him, and subsequently turns him physically into the prince that he has always had the potential to be. She transforms him into a real prince, with a kiss of true love. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle recognizes the prince beneath the monster and saves his life as he is dying for love—with her kiss. Of course.”
“Of course.” Bérenger was aching to tell her one of the great secrets that she was yet to discover. That there was a reason that the beloved was always a prince in these stories. But she was not ready to know everything yet. He was not going to rush her. He decided to lay the groundwork for future discussions.
“You’re onto something else, I think.”
“What’s that?”
“That there is a male version of the story, just as there is a female version. There is always balance where there is truth. If there is a legend or a prophecy about a woman, there is an equivalent about a man. That’s alchemy. It’s also physics. The coming together of opposites. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s as much Isaac Newton as it is Mary Magdalene. Cerebral and emotional, earth and water, masculine and feminine, conscious and subconscious.”
“Prince and frog.” She smiled at him now, in a way that he had seen very rarely—with an unguarded happiness and light, and perhaps something more. He was desperate to kiss her right there, in the middle of the Roman street, but restrained himself. They were coming to a new understanding regarding the sanctity of what had once been viewed as a simple action, a reflex meeting of the lips. There was no such thing as a basic kiss for them anymore. He would wait until the time was perfect, until they were both committed to what it would truly mean to find union in the sharing of life force and breath.
Until then, he would simply enjoy his time with her. He realized that, in spite of the emotional challenges that would confront them in their coming together, they were far more fortunate than many of the other preordained couples who preceded them in history.
At the very least, he wasn’t the pope. And she wasn’t married to a treacherous hunchback. It was, comparatively, a promising place to begin.
Vatican City
present day
FATHER GIROLAMO looked over the list. It was incomplete. He was missing a number of women who fit the criteria and he would have to go back through his notes. But he had to admit that his aging memory was beginning to fail him. There was a time when he could have rattled these off by rote, but with each day that was harder and harder to accomplish. It didn’t matter; they would all be in the records with necessary details, including their true birthdates and the often tragic ways that these women, many of them celebrated as saints and martyrs, had met their deaths.
He had reached an impasse in his work and was extremely frustrated. He made this list off the top of his head, hoping that it would help him determine what the next step would be. They were in chronological order:
Sarah-Tamar—first century, year of birth and death unknown (cause of death unknown)
Margaret of Antioch—birth year unknown, died 304 (tortured and beheaded)
Lucia—born 284, died 304 (defiled in a brothel, eyes torn out, and beheaded)
Catherine of Alexandria—born 287, died 305 (tortured and beheaded)
Modesta—fourth century (beheaded, then thrown in the well in Chartres)
Barbara—born and died early fourth century (beheaded). Apocryphal?
Ursula—born and died in fourth century. Massacred along with a thousand virgins. Apocryphal?
Godelieve of Flanders—born 1046? died 1070 (strangled, then drowned in well)
Matilda of Tuscany—born 1046, died 1115 (of complications from gout)
Catherine of Siena—born 1347, died 1380 (of a stroke at age 33)
Jeanne d’Arc—born 1412, died 1431 (raped and burned alive)
Lucrezia Donati—born 1455? died? (of natural causes)
Giovanna Albizzi—born 1465? died 1489? (of complications from childbirth)
Teresa of Ávila—born 1515, died 1582 (of unknown illness)
Germaine of Pibrac—born 1579, died 1601 (poisoned)
Margherita Luti (La Fornarina)—sixteenth century, exact dates unknown (poisoned?)
Lucia Santos—born 1907, died 1995 (of natural causes)
Satisfied that it at l
east gave him a place to start, he added the final name. This most recent woman was special, in that she had accomplished what none of the others had been able to do, and he hoped to understand how and why.
Maureen Paschal
Perhaps the past wasn’t the key after all. Maybe everything he needed was right here in Rome, right now.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rome
March 1075
Matilda was back in Rome, happier than she had ever been to be with her beloved. They had just completed the very successful second synod of Gregory’s papacy, where his Dictates of the Pope were introduced to the world. The dictates were the result of their days and nights together, a passion project of two souls who were determined to reform the Church and protect both its structure and spirit from its most dangerous enemies.
The document was unlike anything that had ever been released from the throne of Saint Peter. It was radical, bold, and brilliantly constructed. Essentially, Pope Gregory VII dared to liberate the Church and all its faithful from allegiance to any monarch or secular leader anywhere in the Christian world. The Church was declared to be the sole arbiter of justice on earth, and within that justice all people were created equal under God. The dictates specified that this law of equality as affirmed by Jesus Christ applied to everyone, including women and slaves, and even the king. No person was better or worse than another; no person had more or less value under God. It was the first document of its kind to ever express human equality across gender and economic boundaries. It was absolutely revolutionary.
Matilda’s influences within the dictates were blatantly obvious, for those with eyes to see.
In this new world of equality under God, feudalism, the social and economic structure that the entire European continent lived by, was essentially dead. The pope was now the sole authority of justice in the world. And to solidify the strength of the Church under its divinely selected defender, the dictates declared that the pope was infallible. Rome was the center of the civilized world and God was the only ruler. And in God’s name, the pope would carry out all justice, as well as the dispensation of wealth and power that emanated from the Church.
It was outrageous. The Dictates of the Pope constituted a revolution unlike any that had been witnessed in history. It separated Rome, as the sole representative of God’s will, from all secular influence and attempted to disempower the majority of European temporal rulers, Henry being chief among them. It put Rome and the papacy at the center of the universe as completely omnipotent.
But Gregory, who appeared to thrive on the controversy, wasn’t finished. There had been whisperings about his relationship with the exquisite countess of Canossa, and indeed she was greatly disliked by the chief families in Rome, who viewed her as an outsider of dangerous influence. Gregory and Matilda’s supporters condemned the rumors as political blackmail and jealousy, and for the moment this position was generally accepted by the Roman populace, who were still inclined to support the charismatic Gregory. However, the pope was determined to dispel these murmurings before they could develop into something more dangerous to him and his beloved. Utilizing the astute political perspective that the best defensive strategy is an offensive strategy, Gregory issued severe dictates concerning clerical sexuality as a supplement to original laws he had imposed under Nicholas II. He demanded that any priest who violated the laws of celibacy was to be immediately relieved of his duties, and he called upon his bishops to preach the necessity of celibacy and an unblemished body and soul for all members of the clergy. And he strengthened the laws that forbade any priest to find himself in a position that could even potentially leave him alone with a woman.
The issue of pristine behavior for priests was emphasized with such force that it became an impossibility for anyone to claim that the pope himself was anything but celibate. Surely no man was audacious enough to emphasize so strict a law with such zeal, and then violate it himself. All whisperings of inappropriate conduct with Matilda ceased abruptly under such dictates. Such a thing was simply not possible.
But what the people of Europe forgot in the face of these new laws was that Gregory VII was not just a man. Nor was he just any priest. He was the pope. And as such, he was no longer subject to any law except God’s. He was, by rule of his own dictates—and those of the woman he loved and shared his bed with—infallible.
“Henry’s vows mean nothing! He is a king without honor, which is no king at all.”
Matilda was pacing the halls of the Isola Tiberina, the fortified house and watchtower on the edge of the Tiber that had become her headquarters when she visited Gregory for prolonged periods in Rome. Her tirade was in response to word that Henry had proved traitorous in his sworn allegiance to Pope Gregory. He and his German troops, with no small amount of assistance from Lorraine, had defeated the Saxons on June 9, 1075, at the battle of Hohenberg, after years of war. The decisive victory and the subsequent support that the king was receiving in the northern territories emboldened his pride and ambition, and Henry took decisive action against Gregory. He had been seething for the three months since the papal dictates, as had his bishops in Germany and Lombardy. To their minds, this new pope was an upstart and a dangerous one. How dare any man claim supremacy over the king himself?
Henry had been forced to bide his time, but the winds of power were blowing back in the direction of Germany. To make his point, he reinstated the excommunicated bishops, who paid him huge tribute for doing so. Bishop Teobaldo, the most radically rebellious against Gregory’s reforms, was now installed as the archbishop of Milan, positioning Lombardy in complete opposition to the papacy. These were flagrant acts by Henry, of both simony and lay investiture, intentional violations of everything that Gregory stood for. War had been officially declared.
Conn watched Matilda pace but held his seat. They would need to return to Tuscany immediately under this new threat. He needed her to see that. Leaving Rome and Gregory was never an easy thing for her, but it was necessary.
“Matilda, Henry is not our only problem. Godfrey has sent another letter, demanding his rights as the duke of Tuscany, not only to his lands but also to his marital rights as your husband. Henry has offered to back him with military might if needed, to take both you and Tuscany. Your recent actions in Montecatini have driven the hunchback to the brink, it seems. Along with the other usual things.”
In the previous month, Matilda had deeded her prized property in Montecatini in the name of Anselmo of Lucca, as a gift to the Order. These were her lands, inherited from Bonifacio, and as far as she was concerned she was entitled to give them as freely as she pleased. However, in the eyes of the laws implemented by the German king, Godfrey had the sole right to administer the region of Tuscany. The pope, of course, had upheld Matilda’s rights to dispense with her lands as she wished and refused to entertain Godfrey’s protest.
Godfrey of Lorraine was not entirely stupid, for all his odious flaws. He was well aware of the rumors that surrounded his wife’s extremely close relationship with Gregory, and was unutterably tormented by them. Indeed, while on the Saxon campaign, even the king made lascivious comments concerning the demonic red-haired temptress who had corrupted no less than the pope himself. The recent outrage of Montecatini caused Godfrey’s sanity, always tightly stretched where his wife was concerned, to snap.
“I am not afraid of him, Conn. I shall take his letter to Gregory tonight and gain advice on how to handle him.”
Conn was exasperated. “There’s no time. We have to leave today. Now. If the hunchback arrives in Tuscany and you are not there to defend it, there is no telling what will happen.”
“Arduino is there, as is my mother.”
“They are not Tuscany. You are. Your people will need to see you among them as these rumors begin to spread.”
“What rumors? The usual? No one believes those anymore. Gregory put an end to that.”
The big man stood up now and took a deep breath. “Matilda, Godfrey and his evil spawn o
f a king are out to destroy you. You have to know that and understand it. They have begun a campaign against you and your reputation. I wished to spare you this, because I know you so well. And I know that in spite of all your apparent strength, such things wound you to your core.”
Matilda stopped pacing, steeling herself for the rest. “Go on.”
“There is a rumor out of Lorraine that you murdered your child. There are several, actually, as you know what occurs when rumors spread. They’re all ridiculous, of course—superstitious babble from the ignorant. But they’re also dangerous. One says that you sacrificed her on an altar to the devil in order to gain such extreme power and wealth. There’s more where that one came from, but suffice it to say that it has something to do with you and the devil having an indecent relationship, in quite graphic detail, no less. The other is that you suffocated her at her birth in front of your husband to frighten him into submission to you, also with the help of the devil. I believe that is the one that Godfrey himself is supporting to garner sympathy. The people of Lorraine are crying for your blood as a witch.”
She sat down slowly, sick with what she was hearing. Conn was right. Such hateful rumors did cut her to the core. She saw them for what they were, but they still hurt her terribly. Why had God given her such responsibility, even such skill as a warrior, but not more resistance to emotional pain? She would suffer in silence over these things all her life, long into the dark nights where sleep, more often than not, did not come for her.
Conn spoke with all his Celtic passion now, knowing how to rally her when she was feeling defeated—by taking the focus off her personal circumstances and causing her to embrace a greater cause of justice. “It is a war of propaganda, Matilda. And it has been the scourge of humanity for too long, to damage a woman’s name in order to diminish her. A dirty war. Powerful women have always threatened weak-willed men. You must fight this as Boudicca did. You must take up her war cry.”