Chapter 22: Cloaks and Crosses
The legate from Rome arrived under an overcast sky, his party of fifteen riders cutting a clean line through the Jaffa Gate as the city watched in silence. Their cloaks bore the sigil of the Papal Keys embroidered in red and gold, the white banner of the Holy See fluttering behind them. They carried no weapons, only ceremonial staves and an air of sanctified suspicion.
They had taken nearly two weeks to reach Jerusalem from Acre, slowed not by road or weather, but by deliberation. The man at their center—Cardinal Odo di Castellari, Bishop of Tivoli and personal envoy of His Holiness Alexander III—was no stranger to diplomacy. A canon lawyer by training, he had served during the schism years, argued before kings, and once presided over the burning of a heretical monk outside Toulouse.
He had seen many kinds of kings. He had not seen one who printed books.
The receiving hall had been emptied of courtiers by Ethan's order. Only Balian, Gerard, and Anselm stood behind the throne, each dressed formally but plainly. The air held the smell of olive oil and warm iron—the byproduct of presswork carried up from the lower halls. The banners of Jerusalem, the Templars, and the Holy Sepulchre hung from the rafters.
Ethan sat on the throne beneath a high-arched window, his silver mask polished to a dull gleam. He wore a deep blue mantle lined with Tyrian purple—both to echo imperial dignity and hide his trembling hands. His arm still ached from the mold scab, now a sealed patch under bandage and resin. He had fasted the night before, not from piety, but to clear his mind.
As the cardinal entered, Ethan rose with effort, placing one gloved hand on the arm of the throne for balance.
"Your Eminence," he rasped. "Jerusalem welcomes you."
Cardinal Odo bowed low—lower than expected.
"Your Grace. Rome watches with interest and, we hope, understanding."
The meeting began not with politics, but liturgy.
Ethan had arranged for a sung Vespers in the Latin rite, held in the restored chapel of St. Anne. The choir was composed of local monks, trained in Roman chant, and the service included a reading from Matthew—the same Gospel Ethan had prepared as the first printed offering.
When the cantor recited the Beatitudes in slow, careful Latin, Cardinal Odo closed his eyes.