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suspected that the Bishop of Rome had been overjoyed at the news of Canterbury’s success over the Irish faction at Streoneshalh.
    Having parted company with Eadulf on arriving in Rome, Fidelma had been recommended to a small hostel in a side street off the Via Merulana next to the oratory erected by Pius I to the Blessed Prassede. The community in the hostel
was transitory for it consisted mainly of pilgrims whose periods of stay in the city varied. The household was run by a Gaulish priest, a deacon of the church, Arsenius, and his wife, the deaconess, Epiphania. They were an elderly couple without children but were as a father and mother to the foreign visitors, mainly Irish peregrinatio pro Christo , who sought lodging with them.
    For over a week now all Fidelma had seen of the great city of Rome was the modest house of Arsenius and Epiphania and the magnificence of the Lateran Palace with the varying poverty of the streets that separated them.
    ‘The Holy Father has treated us well,’ Eadulf confirmed.
    ‘We have been given excellent chambers in the Lateran Palace and have already been received in audience. Tomorrow there is going to be a formal exchange of gifts followed by a banquet. In fourteen days, the Holy Father will officially ordain Wighard as archbishop of Canterbury.’
    ‘And then you will commence the journey back to the kingdom of Kent?’
    Eadulf nodded. ‘And will you be returning to Ireland soon?’ he asked, quickly glancing sideways at her.
    Fidelma grimaced.
    ‘Just as soon as I can deliver the letters from Ultan of Armagh and have the rule of my house of Kildare blessed. I have been too long away from Ireland.’
    For a while they walked in silence. The street was hot and dusty in spite of the shelter of fragrant, resinous cypress trees under whose shade traders gathered to buy and sell their wares. The traffic up and down the thoroughfare, one of the main streets of the city, was continuous. Yet still, above the bustle of its traffic, Fidelma could hear the chirping noise of
the gryllus, the grasshoppers, as they tried to keep cool in the stifling heat. Only when a cloud passed across the sun did the strange noise abruptly cease. It had taken Fidelma some time to discover the meaning of the sounds.
    The slopes of the Esquiline beyond was a region of few inhabitants, an area of rich houses, vineyards and gardens. Servus Tullius had built his ornamental oak grove here, Fagutalis had planted a beech grove, it was home to the poet Virgil, Nero had built his ‘Golden House’ and Pompey had planned his campaign against Julius Caesar. Eadulf, in his two years of Rome, had come to know it well.
    ‘Have you seen much of Rome yet?’ Eadulf suddenly asked, breaking their companionable silence.
    ‘Since I am here I should try to understand why a church of the poor bedecks itself with such riches … no,’ she laughed as she saw his brows draw together, ‘no, I will not speak of that anymore. What would you have me see?’
    ‘Well, there is the basilica of Peter on the Vatican Hill, where the great fisherman himself is buried, the keyholder to the kingdom of heaven. Nearby lies the body of the Blessed Paul as well. But one has to approach the tombs in great penitence for it is said terrible things befall men and women who approach without humility.’
    ‘What terrible things?’ demanded Fidelma suspiciously.
    ‘It was said that when the Bishop Pelagius – not he of the heresy who was never a Bishop of Rome, but the second Holy Father to bear the name – wished to change the coverings of silver which are placed over the bodies of Peter and Paul, he received an apparition of considerable terror as he approached them. The foreman in charge of the improvements died on the spot, and all the monks and servants of the
church who saw the bodies died within ten days. They say it was because the Holy Father bore the name of a heretic and therefore it has been decreed that no pope will ever bear the name