Chapter Text
Aldo is sat at his desk in the Vatican. As Secretary of State he has plenty of paperwork on his desk, or at least sitting in his inbox. Even more so, seeing as it’s only about four months into Pope Leo’s papacy, and they’re still dealing with the fallout of the sudden departure of Pope Innocent. And that’s the thing that’s stopping Aldo from concentrating on the mounting emails clambering for his attention. The end of Pope Innocent’s papacy. The speed of it. And how inexplicable it was.
It just didn’t make any sense.
Aldo picks up his coffee and leans back in his chair to run it through his mind again for the hundredth time. Pope Innocent had been feeling nauseous, he’d been to see a doctor. Then the next morning, he was handing in the Papal equivalent of his notice, his Papal renunciation. Popes aren’t supposed to do that, especially the youngest Pope in hundreds of years. Only one Pope had done this, and that was a dignified retirement. Completely understandable in the circumstances. Pope Innocent had given them a written note explaining he was no longer fit to lead the church, then retired to his apartments, seeing no one and fulfilling no services. Then, three days later, he’d managed to sneak out and book a cab to pick him up, who dropped him on a random street in Rome, and that was the last that was seen or heard of him. By anyone. Anyone including Thomas Lawrence, his best friend and his closest confidant.
The Swiss Guard & Gendarmerie had tried to search through surrounding security footage of the streets, of major railway stations, and had contacted airports for whether he’d left the country. But to no avail. He’d disappeared into the crowd. The trail had run cold. It suggested he’d had help. But Aldo had failed to identify who that might have been.
Pope Innocent’s ‘notice’ hadn’t expanded on the note of being unfit for office, which Aldo had also found odd. Considering the closeness to His Holiness’s medical appointment, he’d assumed they’d been related. But when he’d gone to confirm that, he could find nothing but a note about some generalised diagnostic health tests, flagging an anomalous reading and requiring further tests.The doctors note alongside the anomalous reading was ‘findings possibly related to recent influenza vaccination received three weeks prior’. So no huge health scare that could warrant his actions. Only one other note about a migraine in his second week as Pontiff. And strangely that was the full extent of his Holiness’s medical file, which had made Aldo frown. He was sure he’d been to see the doctors about a pain in his side earlier in the year, but there was no note of that at all.
With such little information to go on, the Dicastery for Communication had led with a ‘mental breakdown due to underlying PTSD from his previous service’ and called for privacy for His Holiness. Aldo had to admit it was as likely a truthful answer as there was, but it annoyed him that he couldn’t confirm that this was true. And it annoyed him that His Holiness had managed to pull off such a scheme under his very eyes without being caught. And what annoyed him the most is that, if he had felt in such mental distress, he hadn’t felt he could reach out to Aldo for assistance. Either to relieve some of the burden, or to assist with his escape plan. They might not have been as close as His Holiness and Thomas had been, but he must have known Aldo would have helped, if it had got to that point.
A wild rumour had spread of his Holiness running away with a nun, but Aldo had checked, and the only Sister to have left even around the same time was Sister Agnes, who had retired to a small monastery in England. He had tried to run the scenario through in his head and it would not play. There was no flirtation between the two, only Sister Agnes’s relentless campaign to tackle His Holiness’s hoarding habits, and His Holiness’s determination to retain shoes long past the point that the sole was falling off, much to her chargrain. She’d sent Thomas and himself post cards, wishing them the best, informing them of her address, and bemoaning how cold and damp England was. The only mystery there was why she would choose England, of all places.
No, Aldo was convinced that there was more to this than it appeared. His Holiness hadn’t seemed nervous or struggling in the weeks before his disappearance, if anything his confidence in what he could and couldn’t do, how to lead, were growing. He’d almost seemed to shine as he’d stood and given his homilies. A conviction growing in him as he’d felt more secure in the course he felt the Lord was calling them on, and more assured how and with whom he could plot that course. Confident with every visitor, every diplomat, every situation. He’d faced bomb threats and life and death worries in the past, why now was this suddenly what pushed him over? A breakdown just didn’t sit right.
Aldo had tried to raise the subject to Thomas, but it had been difficult. Firstly, he had been struck by Pope Innocent’s renunciation so hard that Aldo was sure he hadn’t had any more prior knowledge of it than he had. Then he’d had to organise another conclave, which had been harder than the previous, coming so soon after it. Then it had only been a couple of weeks after it, in the usual flurry of administration in getting the new Pope set up, that he’d handed in his request to retire to a monastery. That had been readily accepted, and Thomas had left a week after that. In that time, Aldo had only felt able to raise the subject a couple of times, and each had shown that Thomas knew nothing, nor had the heart to go searching for answers. Pope Innocent had been his guiding light back to his faith, and that had been all but extinguished in one go. No notice, no explanation. Aldo’s only consolation was that whilst Thomas was effectively in mourning, he didn’t have the weight of the Curia to deal with, and was only a short drive from Rome, so that Aldo could pop in and check on him. He tried not to worry that he knew Pope Innocent’s photo sat on his bedside table, a continual reminder of the abandonment.
So, the situation as it lay was this. They had an AWOL Pope who had abandoned his position and his closest friends without a word and disappeared like some kind of prison break. He had shown no previous signs of distress or clear symptoms, yet claimed ‘unfitness’, and had run away from some of the best doctors in the world. There wasn’t one part of this situation that Aldo could make sense of. He put his coffee down and thought. He’d tried everything, pulling every thread, asking everyone he could think of if they knew anything. But then his eye caught his notice board. The small, very English postcard. He got up and unpinned Sister Agnes’s postcard from his little cork board. On the front it read “Greetings from Attleborough” with some vintage pictures in black and white. On the back it read.
Hello your Eminence.
I pray that you’re well. Greetings from cold, damp England. I hope Rome is lovely and warm for you and his Eminence, Cardinal Lawrence. I’m surprised that his Eminence didn’t also come to England, as there is a monastery here I know he had considered. And he has a brother here I believe? I hope His Holiness is settling in, and that you and the other Cardinals and Monsignors are helping him and praying for him. I pray for him daily, as I pray for His Holiness Emeritus Pope Innocent, in his obvious distress. I pray that you find him, and that he is surrounded with love.
Sister Agnes
Quindenham Abbey
Norfolk
England.
07…..
They’d never really been that close, and yet, after moving randomly to England only a month after the Holy father’s disappearance, she’d since felt the need to send a post card. And note her contact details. And “I pray that you find him”. He was probably grasping at straws, English isn’t Sister Agnes’s first language. But seeing as that was all that he had to grasp at, he got his mobile out and started dialling
“Hello, Sister Agnes?”
—
Aldo meets Sister Agnes outside of a slightly austere, red-bricked building in England. He’s had a lot of time to think about whether he’s going mad or whether he’s ‘barking up the wrong tree’ as Thomas would have put it, and he’s decided he probably is, but the thread needs pulling, so pull it he will. When he’d called, Sister Agnes had seemed more keen than he had ever heard her to invite him to come and visit her in England. This had seemed odd both with regards to their previous relationship, and to her being a Nun and the propriety of the request. Yes, he was a Cardinal and Secretary of State, but it was still odd to be asked to visit a sister. Especially one you weren't actually related to. Not only that, Sister Agnes had refused to speak of much else on the call, which had seemed so out of character that Aldo had all but agreed out of curiosity.
As he’s standing here, he’s already mentally writing a list of all the things that don’t add up. He should probably write a list once he’s settled in. It’s getting quite long, and the last line of it will be, why is Sister Agnes, formerly a nun of the Sisters of Charity, who had served in the hub and bustle of the Vatican, now wearing the brown habit of Carmelite? She doesn’t seem very comfortable in it as she comes out to meet him. She gives him a slight nod, her arms held slightly stiffly in front of her.
“Eminenza.”
“Sister Agnes,” he says, nodding in return. “How are you finding sunny England?” The sister’s return look is enough to convince him that Sister Agnes is not here for the weather.
“I am finding a lot more time for prayer, although I have a particular charge which takes me away from the monastery daily.”
“Oh. Might that charge relate…” starts Aldo, but Sister Agnes cuts in as another sister walks by.
“I can fill you in on all the details after we’ve got you settled into the hermitage. Then maybe we’ll go for a walk around the grounds.”
Aldo nods and follows her in.
—
Later they were walking away from the main monastery, a quiet, squat, boarding school-looking building in Aldo’s eyes. Sister Agnes was walking, hands behind her back, almost school teacher-like, not helping Aldo’s mental imagery. He shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand.
“Sister, I was not as direct, when I called you, as I wanted to be. I… I am trying to locate the former Holy Father.”
“As, I’m sure, are many. Hoping and praying,” says Sister Agnes.
“Sister, I am hoping and praying that you have more information than you’ve told me so far.”
“Why do you think that I might?” she says, watching him carefully.
“For many small, insignificant reasons that by themselves don’t mean much. But together they seem to point to you. You sending me a post card, when we weren’t particularly close in Rome. You coming to England, with which you have no ties. Your becoming a Carmelite? Sister, you are practical. A doer. A Sister of Mercy! These sisters are trying to be like hermits ‘out in the desert’.”
“I think they chose the wrong climate,” quips Sister Agnes, her eyes darting suspiciously to the grey clouds in the sky.
“Sister, please tell me, why are you really here?”
“Eminenza, before I tell you, I must ask you to swear before almighty God that you will not speak of this to anyone. I believe that you are the best to help me now, with this. But I need your oath before the Lord that you will either help, or at least keep your peace.”
Aldo can’t fault Sister Agnes for her wariness. They’ve both worked in the Holy City long enough to know what things are like.
“Sister Agnes, I swear on the Holy Word itself that I am not here to cause any trouble. I am here out of worry. His Holiness’s note didn’t make sense to me. He seemed fine, mentally, before this all happened, and then suddenly he was gone. I’d like to know he’s ok, at the least. And, assuming he is, and that you and he are okay with it, I’d like to pass that on to Brother Lawrence, who I know prays and worries about him constantly. But only with both of your consent.”
Sister Agnes turns away, and there’s a hint of a frown for a moment. But then she’s turning back to face him.
“He is here. Not at the monastery. In a house a short drive away. I came here because I have corresponded with the mother superior for over a decade, after I met her when she visited Rome. She knows some of what’s happened, but not all. That he is here, but not why. I have a helper, Sister Clare, who found out by accident on my second day. But she has sworn not to speak of it, and to assist me in assisting him. The others only know that I have a relative in the area that I must leave to care for daily, and that Sister Clare often helps me.”
“Daily? He is really unwell then. But we have the world's best doctors in Rome!”
“V… His Holiness’s predicament was… is … I cannot tell you many details, it is not my place. But it is very complicated. Not just medically. You know what Rome is like.”
Aldo frowns, about to speak again.
“I must go to see him today. In about an hour. Will you come to see him? I told him you were looking for him, that you were coming.”
“Of course!”
“Good. And I pray you will see that what he needs most now is grace.”
“As do we all, sister.” Aldo wholeheartedly agrees.