Shroud for the Archbishop Read Free

who had been running?’
    Again the monk shook his head emphatically.
    ‘None before you called on me to identify myself.’
    ‘Then forgive me, brother, and be about your business.’
    The rotund monk paused only a moment to bow his head in gratitude before scurrying away across the courtyard, the leather of his sandals slapping as he made his way through the arched entrance to the streets of the city beyond.
    One of the guards from the main gate, a decurion, had crossed the courtyard to see what the disturbance was about.
    ‘Ah, Licinius! It’s you. What is happening?’
    The tesserarius grimaced in his annoyance.
    ‘Someone was skulking up in the small courtyard yonder, Marcus. I challenged him and chased him down here. Now he seems to have eluded me.’
    The decurion named Marcus chuckled softly.
    ‘Why should you be pursuing anyone, Licinius? What’s so improper about anyone being in the small courtyard at this hour or any hour?’
    Licinius looked sourly at his colleague, feeling bitter at the world and, in particular, the guard duty he had landed that night.

    ‘Don’t you know? The domus hospitale, the guest chambers, are situated there. And His Holiness has special guests; bishops and abbots from the outlandish Saxon kingdoms. I was told to mount a special guard on them, for the Saxons are said to have enemies in Rome. I have been told to question anyone behaving suspiciously in the vicinity of the guest chambers.’
    The other custos gave a dismissive sniff.
    ‘I thought the Saxons were still pagans?’ He paused and then nodded in the direction in which the monk had vanished. ‘Who were you questioning just now if that was not your suspicious character?’
    ‘An Irish monk. Brother “Ayn-dina”, he called himself. He happened to come out of his office there and I thought he might have been the man whom I was pursuing. Anyway, he hadn’t seen anyone.’
    The decurion grinned crookedly.
    ‘That door leads to no office but to the storehouse of the sacellarius, His Holiness’ treasurer. It has been padlocked for years, certainly ever since I have been a guard here.’
    With a startled look at his comrade, Licinius grabbed the nearby brand torch from its metal holder and took it to the door from which the monk had claimed to emerge. The rusted bolts and padlock confirmed the decurion ’s statement. The tesserarius Licinius swore in a language totally unfitted for a member of His Holiness’ palace guard.
     
    The man sat hunched over the wooden table, head bent over a sheet of vellum, his mouth compressed in a thin line of concentration. In spite of the position of his body, it was obvious that he was a tall man. His head was uncovered showing the distinctive tonsure of the religious on the crown
of his head, surrounded by tufts of jet-black hair which balanced his swarthy skin and dark eyes. His features spoke of a life lived constantly in a warm climate. They were thin, the nose aquiline and prominent; the nose of a Roman patrician. The cheekbones were conspicuous under the sunken flesh. The face was scarred somewhat, perhaps from the ravages of smallpox contracted in his childhood. The narrow lips were red almost as if their colour was artificially heightened.
    He was quiet and still as he bent to his task.
    Even if the tonsure had not marked his religious calling, his clothing did so for he wore the mappula, a white fringed cloth, the campagi, flat, black slippers and udones, white stockings, all inherited from the imperial magistrature of the Roman Senate, which now marked him as a senior member of the Roman clergy. Even more distinctive was the thin scarlet silk tunica and the ornate crucifix of gold inlaid with precious stones which also proclaimed him to be more than a simple cleric.
    The soft tinkle of a bell interrupted his concentration and he glanced up with an expression of irritation.
    A door opened at one end of the large cool marble hall to allow a young monk in a rough brown homespun