Chapter 28: The Red Mantles Gather
The College of Cardinals assembled within the Apostolic Palace two mornings after Pope Alexander III first laid eyes on the Liber Throni Petri. They gathered not in the Lateran Cathedral, but in the cloistered hall beneath the library, where frescoes faded with age and the scent of beeswax clung to every velvet-draped surface.
Fourteen men in red sat at a long oak table, its surface polished smooth by centuries of elbows, candlesticks, and spilled ink. The Pope did not attend this session in person—he had commissioned debate, not dictated decree. Instead, his instructions were clear: study what had come from Jerusalem. Question it. Weigh it. Fear it, if necessary.
At the center of the table rested the book.
Liber Throni Petri.
The Book of Peter's Throne.
A single candle guttered beside it, casting flickering light on the brass filigree that framed the olivewood cover. The red hats watched it in silence for a time, as if expecting the book to whisper to them.
It was Cardinal Cosimo della Scala, the Florentine, who broke the silence.
"This was not copied by hand," he said. His voice was sand on stone.
"No," Cardinal Fulbert of Reims replied. "It was... printed. Stamped by iron, or so the letter says."
He tapped the parchment that had accompanied the book. Cardinal Odo di Castellari's personal report to the Pope. It lay unfolded beside the Bible, written in crisp Latin, scribed in a tight, practiced hand.