I would have preferred for Osric to have accompanied me but on Christmas morning he woke up feeling feverish and so it was with Abram beside me that I found myself cricking my neck to stare up at the gilded roof struts of the monumental church built over the spot where St Peter had been buried. The roof was at least a hundred feet above me, and the space inside the building was vast, by far the largest that I had known. Nevertheless, the chance to attend Christmas Mass with the pope was something ordinary people could only dream of so it was hardly surprising that the dragoman was crushed up against me by the throng of dignitaries, high officials and civic notables also invited to the event.
For the past two hours all of us had been waiting for the pope’s formal entry, very little was happening and I was now bored.
My attention wandered and I gazed at the many marble columns; I twisted around to get a better view of the area immediately around the saint’s shrine. Gold leaf had been applied lavishly to every free surface. On the wall of the apse was a vast mosaic. The figure of Christ was in the centre, handing a scroll to St Peter. On his left hand stood St Paul. Looming over the shrine itself was a silver arch. From its crossbeam hung a gigantic chandelier blazing with oil lamps, all of them lit despite the fact that it was daylight outside. The entire apse glittered and twinkled with thousands of points of light, reflecting gold and silver, enamel work and mosaic.
‘The lamp is known as the Pharos,’ murmured Abram, noting the direction of my glance. ‘There are said to be more than one thousand lights on it. Both the lamp and the solid silver arch of triumph are the gift of Pope Adrian.’
I was about to comment that the pope must have amassed huge wealth to afford such an ostentatious gift when a flourish of trumpets announced the imminent arrival of the man himself.
The entire crowd turned to face towards the basilica’s entrance and a hidden choir which had until now been keeping up a muted chanting in the background, suddenly burst into full-throated song.
All I could see over the heads of the throng was a three-foot-high silver-and-gold cross studded with jewels. Mounted on a gilded pole it was being held up in the air, swaying slightly as it advanced slowly up the nave and towards the saint’s shrine. From time to time it disappeared from my view, hidden behind the purple and gold draperies hung between the marble columns on each side of the nave. I squeezed forward and stepped up onto one of the plinths at the base of a column in order to get a better view.
A choir dressed in long robes of white and gold headed the procession. They were singing away lustily in concert with the hidden choir. Behind them came the cross-bearer, and then another man holding up a similar pole topped with a smaller gold cross. Below it hung a large square of purple velvet, tasselled with gold and edged with a band of gems. Embroidered in pearls and gold thread on the velvet were two intertwined symbols that I recognized as chi and rho, the first two letters of ‘Christ’ in the alphabet of the Greeks that had been drummed into my head by the renegade priest who was my childhood teacher.
‘The Laburum,’ said Abram who had climbed up on the plinth behind me. ‘Banner and symbol of the Holy Roman Empire.’
The church dignitaries solemnly pacing up the aisle behind the banner were gorgeously attired. Their flowing tunics of lustrous white silk had gold and purple borders. Long cloaks of richly embellished material were pinned at the shoulder with gem-studded brooches. A few were bare headed and had tonsures, but most wore square, four-cornered caps, black and crimson. They processed through the smoke curling up from the censers that some of them swung from gold chains. Others held velvet cushions on which were displayed various sacred items – a set of keys, holy books, chalices and vases.
‘Adrian favours the veneration of images,’ muttered Abram in a disapproving tone as one of the priests in the procession extended his arms and briefly raised up the picture of a saint he was carrying, turning it to left and right so that the crowd could see. More gold and enamel shimmered in the light of the oil lamps that hung the length of the nave.
Then came a short gap in the line, and I recognized Paul the Nomenculator. He was walking with a more soberly dressed group. These wore dark gowns, their hands clasped in front of them, faces fixed in solemn expressions. They had the appearance of notaries and scribes rather than bishops.
‘The papal ministers,’ explained Abram out of the side of his mouth.
The singing of the choirs rose to a crescendo, and at last I caught a brief glimpse of Pope Adrian. He was halfway up the aisle and looking straight ahead, his long aristocratic face composed and serene. His only concession to the winter chill was a short cloak of bright scarlet with a collar and trimmings of white fur. Under it, like the others, he was in a long tunic, though he was the only person in the procession to be wearing a long, gold-banded stole. Adrian might have been ninety years old but he walked with a firm step and it was clear that he had been a handsome man. On either side a senior official in dark ministerial dress was leading him by the hand in a gesture of formal support. The pope was half a head taller than they were, and the ridged cap accentuated a high forehead and strong features. He reminded me of an ageing and pitiless bird of prey.