The elderly man was overjoyed at having Lotario under his roof during the waiting time. Celestine had been dieing for months and it had been absolutely necessary for Trasimund to have the young outcast Cardinal-deacon nearby so he could execute his political intrigues. Even so, it hadn't been easy. While his son was there physically, Lotario had been frustratingly uncooperative. It made the manipulation of votes unbearably tedious because Lotario was absolutely averse to making any advance arrangements. In fact, Lotario would not even entertain discussion on such matters despite the fact that his father had been down this very road before with his wife's brother, negotiating every possible point of power months before Paulino assumed the tiara and called himself Clement. Count Trasimund knew, with as much certainty as he had when he contracted for deliveries of leatherwork or salt, that there is a price for loyalty and good will. If his son was to be named the next Pope, he knew precisely how much bribery his wife's influential Scotti clan would have to provide but Lotario would never realize just how difficult it was to buy support from any of the Cardinals, suppressed or otherwise. It took masterful manipulation and the concerted dedication of scores of relatives willing to invest in the family project. His wife's brother, Ottiavano, was the Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals. He participated by personally funding a network of paid informers to lurk among each Cardinal's staff. Those priestly vermin had to be paid weekly, the execution of which was in itself a complex subterfuge. Trasimund's son, the spurned Cardinal-deacon with his naive beliefs in God's will, was unaware of any of it.

"Ottiavano called the Orsini," he said softly, pushing his palm down on Lotario's bony shoulder. "It's finally happening. Get up!" He added a gentle shake. "I've already sent the messenger back to your uncle telling him to stall, but he can't do that for long. The Cardinals will want to bar the door once the bells are rung. Get up!"

Lotario slowly opened his eyes. He knew he couldn't have been sleeping for long. The flames in the hearth were still high. Because smoke had plumed into his room when the fire was stoked only an hour or two before, he'd opened the window shutters to the January chill and he could feel the cold air sliding into the bedchamber over his bare feet. He forced himself upright and arched his back with a groan. Fine white sand, a dusting he'd made to set the last lines inked on his manuscript, formed a crust on his stubbled cheek where his head had been resting on the table.

Trasimund brushed at the grains impatiently, flicking the sand away. "Will you ever change?"

Lotario smiled sheepishly, allowing his father a moment of affection. In the dim light afforded by dripping tapers, the dark room was a tableau of moving shadows. Within the flickering, an elderly servant had quietly entered holding his arms in front of him to support heavy draped layers of rich vestments. He carefully laid them down on the bed, and then separated each garment into the order Lotario would don them. He had a self-satisfied smile. It was a simple task but had been something he'd been practicing. Once the garments were placed, he began to tug out folds from each of the vestments in turn. He paid particular attention to a sleeveless chasuble made of white silk that had been embroidered with intricate stitches of gold and crimson silk thread into a bas-relief pattern of crosses. The servant reverently stretched that fabric, gingerly running his callused fingers over the folds so as not to snag the threads. He picked at an errant gray hair that had found its way from his pate to the garment and with serious care squinted to be certain it truly was a hair and that all he removed was the unwelcome part of himself. Then he retreated three steps, waiting for Lotario.

After a quick glance at the servant and what he'd placed on the bed, the Cardinal-deacon pushed his father's hand away with an angry swipe and shook his head. The frown he made was a deeply creased sign of displeasure.

Count Trasimund brought his palms together beneath his nose in a placating attempt at supplication, though it was not an apology. Nothing would have made him happier than for Lotario to wear what was arrayed before them. The raiment's had been stored carefully in a locked chest for nearly seven years. "If not the chausable, would you wear his amice and alb? Beneath your stole? Only we would know," he asked.

Lotario glowered and shook his head again. He had no love for Pope Celestine, but he harbored no hatred either despite the treatment he'd been given. He'd studied in Paris under the tutelage of Peter of Corbeil and Peter the Chanter, the most accomplished theologians in Europe, and after that at the university in Bologna. He'd become a competent, if not gifted theologian himself. Pope Gregory VIII made him a sub deacon when he was just 27 and his uncle, the blessed Pope Clement III, elevated him to Cardinal-deacon just two years later. He served in the papal curia for several years, though Clement failed to assign him any commissions or significant duties. Then Celestine was crowned. His attachments to the predecessor pope made Celestine uneasy enough to banish the young man from the papal court and Lotario had languished in that gray world of papal disfavor for years. Still, he held no grudges, and wearing his uncle's garb seemed too much like a sign of celebration. It was unseemly. "Get my vestments, Guiseppe," he ordered.

The servant didn't move. Lotario looked to his father. "I won't wear Clement's vestments."

"It was his blessing to your assumption," Lotario's father muttered sadly with a slump of his shoulders. "It was your uncle's last request of me. At least wear his cincture?"

Lotario looked at his father's pitifully drawn face and finally nodded. "The cincture but no more."

Guiseppe passed the cord.

Lotario finished swiping sand from his face as he spoke. "You hope too much, father."

The Count snorted and kissed the stitched cross, sewn in gold thread at the end of the cincture. "Celestine weakened the Church. It needs Conti blood I say." Trasimund turned to Guiseppe and snapped his fingers. "Water," he ordered abruptly.

"The pot first," Lotario added.

Guiseppe hastened into the darkness. Once he had disappeared, Lotario turned. "Don't discredit Celestine in front of him. Simple minds are cut too easy."

The Count sighed heavily.

"And don't talk as if it were already decided. That dulls his faith."

"Guiseppe knows the way of it," the Count replied. "He dressed your uncle too, or have you forgotten?" Lotario's father moved a lit taper from the writing table and used it to ignite the wicks of several more candles on either side of the bedroom door. In their glow, he scanned his son's face. "They've been counting the Orsini's death. You said so yourself."

"I can't believe you've hid these things all this time." Lotario's voice was angry.

"I told you. It was Paulino's request. What would you have me do? Tear them to pieces? Of course I kept them."

"This is all a waste of my time. None of the Cardinals will call for me. I've no experience in the administration of the Church, papa. I'm a humble servant not a king."

"Not so!" His father shook his head. "You're a great thinker. This is what the Church needs now. Some clear thinking. Besides, Ottiavano has planned this too well."

Lotario finished swiping sand from his face. "I'm too young I tell you. When have we known a pope of my age? I'm not even a priest!"

The Count kissed the cincture and then scanned his son's face. "We've all been counting. You're no different."

"When he dies is God's will."

"Then your assumption tonight is God's will too."

Lotario pulled his loose fitting robe over his head, exposing white skin. Just 37, taut muscle formed the contours of his short body.

"What have you been writing?" Trasimund moved to the desk and leaned over the parchment where Lotario had been resting his head. He tried to read in the shadows but couldn't. During his forced retirement, Lotario had authored three tracts. Lotario's name had become most popular with the first book, De miseria condicionis humane. He'd written about the mysteries of the mass and a treatise on marriage too. With fatherly pride, Trasimund had read each of them, though once on a visit to Ostia confided his lack of understanding to his wife's Cardinal brother. Ottiavano had assured him that Lotario was "as brilliant as Bernard de Cluny" which Trasimund accepted as good.

Lotario hugged himself in the chilly air. "I've been considering the Christian plight of guilt for joy," he said, answering his father's question.

Trasimund blinked and shook his head.

"If I'm chosen," Lotario said, staring into the hearth's flames, "I don't know if I should lament or be happy."

"You make no sense."

"It will be a miracle for me to be called. I don't know if receiving Christ's mantle is a debt to heaven or a privilege on earth. Should I feel guilty for stealing the privilege from others or joyous to have a burden of service that must be assigned by God Himself?"

His father chuckled. "God works his miracles in many ways. You already think like a Pope so I say be joyful because the ring will be yours. Your uncle knows how to shape things his way. I wish he was a partner with me in business!" He sighed wistfully. Like Pope Clement III, Ottiavano di Segni, the bishop of Ostia and Velletri and dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, was another of his wife's brothers who had turned away from the family fortunes and joined the priesthood. When Paulino died and his successor banished Lotario, Ottiavano had managed only through devious political manoeuvres to hold his own place. He'd been secretly plotting Lotario's return and advising Trasimund on what wheels to grease for all those years since.

"What about Giovanni di Colonna?" Lotario turned from the flames to face his father. "Celestine blessed him and uncle says there were inducements."

The Count was shaking his head as Guiseppe reappeared with the chamber pot and a basin of steaming water. He took the basin from the servant, and they both turned away as Lotario relieved his bladder. "Ottiavano will let him argue for a bit. He has to grant at least that, but in the end you'll be chosen. And just so you know, I've made some inducements myself."

Guiseppe dipped a corner of a linen cloth into the steaming washbasin, swiveled back towards Lotario and traded it for the pot. "I hope it's not too hot for your Holiness," he said with a timid smile. "Guiseppe!" Lotario shook his head as though he was chastising a child and at the harsh reprimand the servant knelt low over the bowl of piss. "But I have prayed for this."

Lotario leaned over Guiseppe's balding head. "You should have prayed for your Pope's long life instead. God decides who is to be the next Pope, churl! Don't be fooled by my father's empty talk. You should be mourning, not counting new blessings." He swiped his face with the cloth. "Now dress me. I have to get to the Conclave before the door is barred."

Lotario whispered St. Anselm's prayer softly in Latin as if the chilly wind might steal the words' power from his lips. His donkey plodded through the darkness up the Palatine Hill, undirected by its rider, carefully picking over the broken cobbles.
Angel of God,
My guardian dear,
To whom his love commits me here;
Ever this night be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide.
Amen.

Lotario urged the beast on with gentle kicks to its belly. His toes were almost scraping the stone-littered road as they slowly advanced the final switchback towards the crest of the 'Hill of the Emperors'. He could have made more speed walking, but that would have meant risking a stumble in the lacy erosion of ruts and gouges. Of all nights, this was not the time to tempt fate.

The ancient Septizonium loomed as a crown of crumbling stone on the hilltop and when the beast and its rider finally reached their destination, Lotario could see all of Rome. It was a carpet of flickering torchlights in the blackness, a city sleeping and unaware. He found his elderly uncle in the shadows outside the fortress wall, nervously tapping the ground with his staff and bouncing on the balls of his feet. The Dean of the College of Cardinals' thick cloak protected him from the January chill on this near moonless night, but even so he was shivering. As Lotario slid to the ground, the old man poked the crook of his staff to the donkey's rump. "What took you so long?"

Lotario shrugged and made a weak smile. "Is he...?"

Ottiavano di Paoli answered with an impatient nod. "Everyone else got here this morning. Where have you been?" "Writing."

"Dearest God, you'll always be the same." Ottiavano Di Paoli snorted and shook his head in disbelief. "Are you worried? Wipe that look or everything we've done will fall to pieces, do you hear?"

Lotario nodded.

"Doubt is fine but..."

"I am not afraid."

"Give them any reason to postpone and they'll seize it, do you understand? I have them now but there are more than a few who'd be willing to use di Colonna's years as an easy excuse." Di Paoli turned towards the fortress. "Your answers must be sharp. He'll argue for his place so cut his arguments with short replies. Avoid sparring in his rhetoric. He has too much history and he'll win them to his camp if given a chance. He'll question their faith." Di Paoli pushed his nephew forward. "Even though that is the greatest insult he could make to them they might bend. He doesn't care about the Church. Only himself and the throne! I know! I've put up with his little intrigues for years, so harbour no pity for him and offer him no target, do you hear? And hold that tongue of yours. The less we remind them of Celestine's opinions of you, the better."

"You're one to talk of intrigues."

"Just get inside!" Di Paoli waved towards a doorway into the Septizonium that was bleeding faint yellow light.

Lotario took a deep breath and reluctantly moved. A gate in the fortress wall accessing the ancient fortress was swung wide and as he walked through it he whispered the prayer again. A single man, guarding a curved stairway that banked downwards into the ancient building, watched Lotario pause and held his pike tight to his chest in salute.

"Go on!" Ottiavano di Paoli pushed Lotario forward, his command a harsh whisper.

Lotario knew the guard would bar anyone else from entering or leaving until after the Conclave. This was his last chance to turn away. He stood frozen, staring.

"What's wrong with you?" Di Paoli pushed him again. "They're waiting!"

"I need to pray."

"The time for that's over!" Di Paoli shook his head. "You've had nine years to pray." This time he roughly shoved his nephew toward the stairs and kept a hand on Lotario's shoulder as they navigated the steps downward.

The staircase curled twice before it opened to a cavernous room with an arched ceiling buttressed by a central colonnade of sturdy stone columns.

Inside, twenty-six bishops and cardinals sat along one wall. Their conversations abruptly stopped as the two men came into view. They didn't have to search di Paoli's face for clues. The fact he'd arrived with the outcast was proof enough Celestine was dead.

Lotario, persona non grata in the papal court, had been accorded no beneficence from the man who'd worn the tiara after his uncle Paulino Scolari, the most blessed Pope Clement III, had died. For many this was the first time they'd seen Lotario in years. Ottiavano di Paoli pointed to an empty space on the benches and waited until Lotario took his place before moving to the center of the room himself.

He scanned the face of each man in turn and then bowed his head. "The Holy Father failed to answer," he said at last. His voice was deep and the words crawled from his throat with reverence. "I called to him once." He looked up at the cardinals, pursed his lips, and slowly raised his staff. He let the rod drop through his swollen knuckles so its fall echoed with a hollow clink on the stone floor. "I called to him twice." He tapped again. "Three times I went unanswered."

In unison the men made the sign of the cross from forehead to sternum and breast to breast. Ottiavano di Paoli mirrored them and then, from the folds of his robe, extracted a large stone ring. He held it for all to see and with exaggerated slowness placed the seal on the ground in front of him. "Three times he failed to answer me," di Paoli repeated. "Non nuto ut sit mortuus," he said. He raised his staff into the air and then plunged it down with vicious force. "We must now choose." The Dean of the College brushed the shards of stone with his foot and then took his own place in a large padded chair. "This Conclave now begins."

Giovanni di Colonna, an octogenarian Cardinal, inched forward to the centre of the room with a slow careful shuffle. Celestine had made his preference as successor known to them all in his final days. "The Holy Father prepared my way," Giovanni di Colonna said as he stood, his regal tone assumptive.

Before di Colonna could say more, the Dean of the College shook his capped head.

Di Colonna glared. "This is a vile disobedience."

"The Church faces desperate times," Ottiavano said. "We need younger blood."

"We need to respect the Holy Father's will!" Di Colonna cleared his throat. "Have you forgotten your oaths to Heaven?" He pointed a bony finger in a sweeping gesture that took in all the men seated along the wall and stopped at Ottiavano. "You have a duty to ensure that the oath to serve Him and His voice on earth is kept by all of us."

"The College has already chosen another," Ottiavano said with impatience. "Make it known with a show of hands," he ordered the group.

All the Cardinals and Bishops but di Colonna and Lotario signified their agreement.

"Deceivers," di Colonna shouted, spittle erupting from his lips. "Even as the Holy Father took his last breaths he named me and you all agreed to abide..."

Lotario stood up. "I did not agree."

"You?" Di Colonna stepped forward to face him. "What service have you made to deserve a moment with him these last nine years? Not once did you come to him and bend your knee."

"The choice has been made," di Paoli interrupted.

Lotario shook his head. "Your choice. Not mine."

"He does not even desire the honor," di Colonna scoffed. "You see?"

Ottiavano separated the men with his staff. "The College has decided for youth, brother. You don't have the strength for the tiara. Would you have us gather here again in a year's time? With the threat to our very survival worsening daily even as you wither like Celestine did?"

The old Cardinal fumed. "So you've chosen to ignore the will of the Holy Father and its place turn to one he abandoned?" He slowly paced before the seated men. "Did you forget Celestine spoke for God?"

"I've chosen to reject his advice," Ottiavano said, looking from di Colonna towards his nephew. "I nominate our youngest member, the Cardinal-Deacon Lotario dei Conti di Segni."

"But I was the one chosen," di Colonna answered angrily.

"This is our decision, not his."

"The Holy Father has blessed this succession. It was his will," di Colonna replied.

Ottiavano di Paoli softly clucked his tongue. "The Church has suffered that will too long." He pointed to Lotario. "Celestine banished the youngest among us for nine years only because he was Segni. Celestine ignored any benefit the Cardinal-Deacon's training in the guild of scholars at Bologna might have given the Church. You've all read his tracts. You know my nephew is a man of rare quality. Was banishing him evidence of a clear mind? Celestine let Henry rape Tusculum without as much as a complaint. And wasn't di Colonna at his side advising him all the while? Is that kind of advisor the shadow we choose to marry with our Church?" Di Paoli shook his head vigorously. "I witnessed Celestine slipping to death. He was consumed by his pox! Blinded by it. Screaming of demon pains in his head even as he faced God."

"Outrage!" Di Colonna was shaking.

"Truth," Ottiavano said, his voice dropping. "No physician could mistake the stench of his youth. I tell you as a witness."

"Celestine acted with God's grace!" Di Colonna crossed his chest.

"He moved out of fear more than out of heavenly account," di Paoli answered coldly. "Because of his cowardice our Church sits between the hammer and anvil as my nephew has so plainly argued. Our Holy Church stands undefended before lusts without and within!" Di Paoli swung his staff in the air. "The German nobles are hacking at each other for now but how much longer will that go on before one is chosen their Emperor? How long before he is lapping more blood and comes to claim the Two Sicilies again? Look on di Colonna and then on youth! Who should we ask to sit on our throne? One with nature that is hot and fearless or another so old he'll have to be carried?"

"I've have no such need!" Di Colonna hit his chest with a fist.

"Then examine wisdom!" Di Paoli pointed at the older man with his staff. "How would you broker safety for the Holy See?"

Di Colonna looked to the seated men and back at the scowling Dean of the College. He knew his answer was unassailable. "With His guidance." Di Colonna smiled as he paced along the benches. "Does Ottiavano di Segni suggest the Church rely on something other than our faith in these times?"

"Is that your answer?"

Di Colonna stopped at Lotario and then reeled to face Ottiavano. "Is there another worthy of a Pontiff? Ask the outcast."

Lotario, seated again, stared at a spot of ground behind di Colonna as if he was seeing through the older man's robes. "In times such as these," he said softly, "it's best to recall there have always been times as these."

Di Colonna shook his head derisively. "The writer offers a twist of the tongue!" He marched back to his place on the benches. "I rest in the Blessed Christ's will. That is where the only answer will be found." He sat down slowly, to the nods of several Cardinals.

Di Paoli's face flushed. "What do you mean speaking in riddles? Rise and explain yourself!"

Lotario shrugged. "Remove the hammer. There is no other course to be taken. Untie Henry's knots on the noose."

"Nooses! Hammers and anvils! Will either of them speak clearly?" Di Colonna chuckled.

Lotario's reply was not one di Paoli had expected. He moved to face his nephew.

"The College will choose the next Pontiff on the weight of your words. Explain yourself."

"I mean the Germans should not be permitted to choose their next king. The Pope, Christ's voice on earth, is the only one to choose."

The Cardinals erupted. In only a few words, Lotario had hit upon the essence of their fear about the looming conflict in the Holy Roman Empire as German lords fought to fill the void left by Henry VI's drowning. The arguments lasted for hours with di Paoli barely maintaining decorum. Through it all, Lotario said nothing more. Following his uncle's advice, he betrayed no confidences and refused with his silence to support or confound. True to his father's predictions, the Frangipani, the Annibaldi and even the Caetani, all of whom counted Cardinals in their clans, eventually settled on his name and di Paoli finally felt confident to call for a vote. He stared down at Giovanni di Colonna. "Do you still demand a choice by hand raised?"

"All of you heard Celestine speak my name. I want to see who would betray him."

"I, for one." Di Paoli raised his hand.

"When I am Pope your power will end," di Colonna warned.

"If you are made Pope, I would expect it." Di Paoli counted the raised arms. Lotario had all but five votes.

"The College has chosen," di Paoli said.

Lotario stood and walked along the benches to di Colonna. "I will not accept the tiara without complete support."

"But the choice has been made," di Paoli said with frustration.

Lotario shook his head.

"Knowing now that almost all stand with my nephew, will those who stood with di Colonna join us? Raise hands all who choose him."

The Cardinals whispered a moment and then each of the dissenters signified, except di Colonna.

"There," di Paoli said with relief. "The support is clear."

"For the second time I will have to decline." Lotario pointed. "So long as the Cardinal thinks himself more worthy, I cannot accept."

"Di Colonna, put an end to this charade. We are all decided in his favor."

The old Cardinal frowned.

"I would reckon myself more worthy with the advice of a faithful at residence in the Lateran as my confessor," Lotario said.

His bold offer drew smiles from the Cardinals and reluctantly di Colonna raised one hand at his lap.

"Do you now accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?"

Lotario finally nodded.

His uncle rushed forward to kneel. The others immediately followed suit. "What name will you choose?"

Lotario backed away. He heard their chorus of whispers and shuddered. Servant of the Servants of God, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Bishop of Rome, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.

"What name will you choose for your coronation?" his uncle gently asked again.

Lotario took a deep breath. "Innocent," he said softly, "and may God bless my choice."