Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

“He dies in 1216. Honorius III follows, also an energetic and determined man. He prosecutes the war on the Albigenses and plays a role in much politics elsewhere, but does seem to reach a settlement with Frederick. However, that agreement is breaking down when Honorius dies in 1227.

“Gregory IX should have succeeded him, reigning till 1241. Celestine IV should then be elected but die the same year, before he can be consecrated. Innocent IV should thereupon become the next Pope, who carries on the struggle against Frederick.

“Instead, we have no Gregory. Celestine follows Honorius directly. He is weak, leadership falters among the anti-Imperialists, and at last Frederick triumphs. The following Pope is his puppet.”

Volstrup moistened his gullet again. The wind sobbed.

“I see,” Tamberly murmured. “Yes, that gives me a little perspective on what I’ve learned. So Pope Gregory is the missing element?”

“Evidently,” Everard said. “He didn’t finish the feud with Frederick, in our history; but he waged it for fourteen years, never letting up, and that made the difference. A hard old son of a bitch. He founded the Inquisition.”

“Regularized it, at least,” Volstrup added in his professorish fashion. Habit took over; he likewise fell into the past tense. “The thirteenth century was the century in which medieval society lost its earlier measures of freedom, tolerance, and social mobility. Heretics were burned, Jews were herded into ghettos when they were not massacred or expelled, peasants who dared to claim some rights suffered a similar fate. And yet … that is our history.”

“Which led to the Renaissance,” Everard interjected brusquely. “I doubt we’d prefer the world that’s now ahead of us. But you—you’ve tracked down what’s happened—what will happen—to Pope Gregory?”

“I have only some hints and some thoughts,” Volstrup demurred.

“Well, spit ‘em out!”

Volstrup looked toward Tamberly. She’s a lot more ornamental than I am, Everard reflected. As much to her as to the man, Volstrup said:

“The chronicles tell us little about his origins. They describe him as already old when he assumed the tiara, and living on to a great age, active until the end. But they give no birth date. Later authorities made estimates differing by some twenty-five years. Hitherto, with all else it had to do, the Patrol saw no reason to ascertain the facts. It probably never occurred to anyone—myself included, of course.

“We have known merely that he was christened Ugolino Conti de Segni and was a nobleman in the city of Anagni, probably a kinsman of Innocent III.”

Conti! speared through Everard. Anagni!

“What is it, Manse?” asked Tamberly.

“A notion,” the Patrolman mumbled. “Go on, please.”

Volstrup shrugged. “Well,” he said, “my idea was that we might begin by finding his origins, and for that purpose I instituted inquiries. Nobody could identify any such birth. Therefore, in this world, it most likely never took place. I did turn up a fact, buried in an incidental memory of something that one of our agents happened once to have heard. This agent is to be active during Gregory’s reign. He chanced to be taking a holiday in the farther past and—At any rate, with the help of mnemotechnics, he retrieved the year of Gregory’s birth, and the parentage. It was as far downtime as certain historians later assigned it, in 1147 in Anagni. Therefore this Pope lived well into his nineties. His father’s name was Bartolommeo and his mother was Ilaria, of the Gaetano family.” He paused. “That is what I have to offer. I fear you have come to me for very little gain.”

Everard stared before him, into shadows. Rain hissed down the walls. Chill sneaked beneath clothing. “No,” he breathed, “you may have hit on the exact thing we need.”

He shook himself. “We have to learn more. Just what went on. That needs an operative or two who can work themselves into the scene. I expected this, and thought of you, though I didn’t know till now exactly where and when we’d want to send our scouts. They should be able to carry it off without getting into trouble. They should. I think”— I’m afraid, Wanda —“the pair of you are the logical choice.”

“I beg your pardon?” choked Volstrup.

Tamberly sprang to her feet. “Manse, you mean it, you really do!” she jubilated.

He rose also, heavily. “I figure two will have a better chance of learning something than one, especially if they go at it from both the male and the female sides.”

“But what about you?”

“With luck, you’ll find us some necessary evidence, but it won’t be sufficient. A negative can’t be. Gregory was never born, or he died young, or whatever it was. That’s for you to discover. To understand what came of that—whether it was the unique factor—I aim to work uptime of you, when Frederick’s breaking the Church to his will.”

To Anagni came a hired courier from Rome early in September. He bore a letter for Cencio de Conti or, if the gentleman be deceased or absent, whoever now headed that noble house in those parts. Albeit age was telling somewhat upon him, Cencio was there for a cleric to read the message aloud. He followed the Latin readily enough: It was not so very remote from his native dialect; and, besides religious services, men of his family rather frequently listened to recitals of the warlike or lyrical classics.

A Flemish gentleman and his lady, homebound from pilgrimage to the Holy Land, sent respects. They were kinfolk. True, the relationship was distant. Some fifty years ago a knight visiting Rome had become acquainted, asked for the hand of a daughter of the Conti, wedded her and taken her home to Flanders. (The profit was small but mutual. She was a younger child who might well otherwise have gone into a convent, thus her dowry need not be large. On either side there was some prestige in having a connection across a great distance, and there might prove to be some advantage, now when politics and commerce were beginning to move in earnest across Europe. The story went that it had, moreover, been a love match.) Little if any word had since crossed the Alps in either direction. Chancing to get this opportunity, the travelers felt it behooved them to offer to bring what scanty news they could. They prayed pardon in advance for their unimpressiveness, should they be invited. All their attendants had been lost along the way, to disease, affray, and at last desertion; belike tales of libertine Sicily had lured that rogue from them. Perhaps the Conti could, of their kindness, help them engage reliable servants for the rest of the journey.

Cencio dictated an immediate reply—in vernacular, which the priest Latinized. The strangers would be welcome indeed. They must for their part forgive a certain uproar. His son, Sir Lorenzo, was soon to marry Ilaria di Gaetani, and preparations for the festivities were especially chaotic in these difficult times. Nevertheless he urged them to come at once and remain for the wedding. He dispatched the letter with several lackeys and two men-at-arms, in order that his guests might fare in such style as would shame neither them nor him.

It was quite a natural thing for him to do. About his Flemish cousins, or whatever they were, his curiosity was, at best, idle. However, these persons had just been in the Holy Land. They should have much to tell of the troubles there. Lorenzo, especially, was eager to hear. He would be going on crusade.

And so, a few days later, the strangers appeared at the great house.

Ushered into a brightly frescoed room, Wanda Tamberly forgot surroundings whose foreignness had amazed and bewildered her. Suddenly everything focused on a single face. It did not belong to the elderly man but to the one beside him. I’d pay attention to looks like that anytime in the universe, flashed through her—Apollo lineaments, dark-amber eyes— and this is hung on Lorenzo. Got to be Lorenzo , who’d have changed history nine years ago at Rignano if Manse hadn’t—Hey, quite a bod, too.