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“Jacques, you one very soon, and you must act swiftly once you succeed me”

Fournier clasps his plureat honor, Holiness, but no one knows the will of God You n for many years” Just to spite me, he thinks, but does not say aloud “And when the sad tiht feel led to elect someone else as your successor”

“Don’t waste my time with false piety and hollow protestations,” the old man snaps “I am old I was old when they elected ht I would return the favor by dying quickly For fourteen years I have disappointed the to live, despite three attempts to poison me They killed my dear nephew Jacopo, but they could not kill me And in these recent years, I have prepared the way for you, Jacques I have created two dozen cardinals, most from southern France, three from my own family The Italian cardinals are no and weak; we French are uished yourself by defending the faith You shall wear the crown and carry the keys”

Fournier bows again, but this tilint in his eye “Thy will be done, O Lord,” he murmurs in a mellifluous voice — perhaps to God, perhaps to his powerful patron

“But there is one thing that could yet stand between you and your hopes,” the old man pipes in his thin, reedy voice “And you knohat it is” Christ, thinks Fournier, will he never cease to cudgel me with this? “It is Eckhart”

“Eckhart has been swept into the gutter, Holy Father He is dead, and you have condes Eckhart’s followers have scattered like dust No one cares that he is dead In a hundred years, no one will know that he ever lived”

“I pray that you are right, Jacques But you must take care, lest the Dominican friars make him out to be a martyr”

“It cannot happen, Holiness I alone witnessed his death”

“But what of his remains? Your Cistercian brethren revere the head of Thomas Aquinas What if the Dominicans find Eckhart and proclaim his head or his heart to be relics?”

“He will never be found His bones are in a sealed ossuary in the treasury, and only you, I, and the chamberlain have keys to that room”

“Bah!” The old s “The treasury could be plundered by a dozen Carmelite nuns You must build a proper palace, Jacques One that is worthy of the heir of Saint Peter One that is strong enough to protect God’s gold God has given us sway over e built to house a bishop”

“I have given this ht since we first discussed it,” Fournier says “I’ve taken the liberty of having an architect draw prelins they are!” Ani, he paints a word picture of the hty towers and lofty battlements that will surround a central cloister — an exterior of forth, an interior of tranquil beauty “When I ain immediately Eckhart’s death, and Eckhart’s remains, will be sealed deep within the walls And there they will stay until the gloriouswhen the last trulory to reward the faithful…and to unleash His righteous anger upon heathens, heretics, and all other enemies of the one true faith”

He ends his impassioned soliloquy with his hands and eyes raised toward Heaven He holds the pose a moment, then turns and looks to the pope for approval

The old , slack jawed and drooling on his sumptuous silk vestments

CHAPTER 29

AVIGNON

1335

Siasps when the boat rounds a bend in the Rhône and the city conon could not possibly grow bigger orfro The cathedral, which once held pride of place atop the rock, is noarfed by a hty tohich looms so close to the nave that the two structures all but touch Wooden scaffolds surround three other towers in various stages of construction “Bellissimo,” Martini breathes, partly because the city truly is beautiful, but also because he feels such secret relief: His painful decision was surely the right one after all

On his previous trip to Avignon, in the fall of 1328, Martini had come to scout the city, to see what prospects and coht offer one of Italy’s non was indeed thriving then, but as he made the rounds of potential patrons —on the city, trailing clouds of architects and decorators behind them — he was frustrated to find that most of the cardinals, and therefore most of the conon on the strength of aged to come by a newly hatted Italian cardinal, and he kno that his family won’t starve

He has already landed a , a s married woman, commissioned not by her husband, but by a poet who’s n else in the picture — and yet Si before, nor, for that matter, has any painter he knows of Oh, it’s common, and even crucial, to shoehorn the faces of rich patrons into chapel frescoes — to give one of the Three Wise Men, for instance, the craggy good looks of Count Corsino, if Corsino’s the one who’s piously paying for the fresco But a picture of a wo as some saint or martyr, some spectator at a miracle? It’s unheard-of! Siht be for such paintings, but who knows? If he does an inspired rendering of this heartbreaking beauty, portraits ht actually catch on

The lady’s heartbroken mad poet, needless to say, is Italian

On his prior trip Martini had traveled light Now he’s ponderously laden, freighted with sohimself — finds the sheer quantity incoments, oils, solvents; cases of brushes and chalks and charcoals and easels and palettes; rolls of canvas and huge folios of paper; parchold leaf beaten thin as a day’s layer of dust; a carpenter’s shop worth of orking tools, needed to saw boards and build fraear is only the half of it, because he’s traveling with his beloved wife, Giovanna, and all their clothing and household goods Rounding out the party is his brother, Donato, also a painter — a wonderful erness of his talent exceeded only by the s