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“When you told me your health was perfect….” said Jacopo.
“It was in the Nicaean sense,” confirmed Vincent – ‘If anyone enrolled among the clergy has castrated himself when in perfect health, it is good for him to leave the ministry’. “That does not mean you have permission to worry,” said Innocent.
So now Jacopo would have to confess to disobeying the supreme representative of God on Earth by worrying.
“I am six years younger than you,” said Vincent, and Jacopo sighed.
“Your Holiness…”
“Don’t call me that, please.”
“Vincent. You have lived a very different lifestyle to I – a most admirable lifestyle – and…” Jacopo trailed off, unsure how to say what he needed to without being demeaning or offending.
“I am not an ascetic, Jacopo.”
“No,” he acknowledged, “ascetic implies a choice.”
“Like you?” he queried.
Jacopo flinched away. “We can talk about me later,” he said. He would, if that was what his holiness wanted – if that was what it took to let him talk openly in turn with him.
“I may hold you to that, Jacopo,” he said, searching him. Jacopo nodded. Vincent exhaled though his nose, looking at one of his hands. “When I am not ministering to somebody, I do not know what to do with myself.” It was a virtue of a character flaw, typical as the cause of death of half a hundred saints Jacopo could name in an instant. It was something Vincent had in common with the last Pope before him. Jacopo remained silent, listening, waiting for his successor to go on.
Vincent sat in the silence for so long Jacopo started to worry about his immediate, short-term welfare; then he raised one arm, as though in benediction, and traced a line along his forearm, through his cassock. “There was a piece of metal in here,” he said. “Then when I fell, my torso was grazed… my people insisted that the doctor check me over, to look for internal bleeding. I do not think he found any, but the records were destroyed. That was over a year ago, and I yet live, so it can’t have been too serious.”
Jacopo was appalled. He was appalled by the Pope’s – by his friend’s – lack of concern for himself, and he was appalled that he was just now finding out. How had he not demanded to know more sooner – his own squeamishness, his repulsive bigotry to think of the Holy Father’s body as a secret to protect, not as the vessel of a most holy and precious soul – he had increased the danger Vincent still lived in by contributing to his lifetime of medical neglect.
“Vincent,” he said softly. “You would know from the records of your predecessor –” Vincent had assured him he had read them, that when he had the second time asked him to remain as Dean it was an informed decision – “that I was diagnosed with a cancer a few years ago.”
Instantly, the Holy Father’s eyes were full of simple compassion, the deep love he showed to anybody in pain, regardless of what he may have privately thought of them. “Of course. You were pronounced in remission.”
“I was. And that remission was achieved through prompt treatment.” He placed a small amount of emphasis on the word ‘prompt’.
“You want me to see another doctor,” said Vincent.
“Yes. I do.”
“The dear late Pope... had his own doctor, right next door.” It hadn’t kept him from his eternal home, he was meaning. But his Earthly ministry had been longer than it would have otherwise due to this medical care – Jacopo couldn’t say that. He could barely talk about the man without breaking down, still.
“Vincent,” he said, instead. Objectively, he recognised his own tone as begging.
Vincent took his hands. As so often seemed to occur, the Holy Father’s fingers were trembling. Jacopo slipped one of his hands free to close around one of Vincent’s.
“Alright,” said Vincent. To beggars, charity. “Choose someone well, and pray for me.” Of course he would. How could Jacopo not pray for him? He had prayed for him in every prayer since they had met, except a few small selfish ones. Vincent’s eyes creased, as though willing himself to smile, but it did not reach his mouth. “None of this is what I am used to, my friend.”
It was several doctors, in fact.
Jacopo, very efficiently, had arranged an entire collection of doctors with different specialities to examine – what a frightening word, with its implications of searching and of judgement – him in one place and at one time. Vincent had emerged from what he thought of as ‘unnecessary levels of fuss’ with hearing aids, reading glasses, a nutrition plan to give to the Albertine sisters who made his food, medications and more advice about all manner of things for himself (some of which would be entirely impossible to follow, like avoiding stress – he was the Pope), a recommendation to find a good trauma specialist psychologist, and having absolutely panicked poor Jacopo by daring to have a heart murmur when the dear holy father before him (may God and the holy angels watch over and protect his soul) had died of a heart attack.
But his teeth were excellent. He brushed two times a day, he'd said, and the doctor in the room when he'd said it had laughed.
Jacopo maintained his end of the assurance, too – they had a long conversation about the mortification of the flesh, and he had, to Vincent’s vast relief, agreed to put forth effort into no longer punishing himself with it.
Unfortunately, but entirely typically, not very long after that Vincent was shot. Not seriously, Vincent thought, but apparently for every other Roman Catholic on the planet, and a lot of other people who were not Roman Catholic, him being shot at all was serious.
Intimately familiar with gunfire, the moment he heard the sound he was ducking, knees hitting the ground. He should have been safe at that point – the guards knew what they were doing – but the frightened sounds from the crowd made him move back, raising one arm to reassure the worried faces and starting to ask if any of the pilgrims had been injured. The raised arm, apparently, was enough of a target from the high angle of the shooter; there was the sound of another shot, and almost immediately he saw the fresh red blood on his white sleeve. He tucked his arm against himself, angled upwards, wrapping his other around it, and called out again to ask if anybody had been hurt.
“Was anyone hurt?” he demanded, as the guards tried to pull him bodily away. “Somebody needs to make sure anybody else injured receives care,” he said, stamping deliberately on a guard’s foot for attention as he would only ever do when controlled by adrenaline – lives could be at stake, he would apologise later. “Let me walk, I’ll go with you now.” He fought his arm further up to give a last blessing as he went, and almost regretted it when it made the pain finally kick in.
The tailors will be most displeased, he thought grimly, then rapidly brushed the thought aside as being nonessential. He knew better than to try and bite back a whimper – there was absolutely no call to be blocking an airway by trying to clamp his mouth shut.
He did end up letting the guards carry him more than walk with him. He was shoved back into the armoured car while one of the guards kept pressure on his arm, lifting it up, and he repeated his questions about other causalities until he finally got an answer one minute from the hospital – a woman was hit in the shoulder, she would live. There was no point asking about his own injury before they reached the hospital, because that was imminent – he tried to focus on Jacopo, who had been panicking the entire time, but politely trying to do it quietly.
“I will be alright,” he told him. At this point he was very dizzy, but he was sitting, almost lying down, so that was okay. He pressed his free hand against Jacopo’s jaw. “So worried… this happens to me all the time.” It left a handprint of rapidly drying blood against his hints of stubble. “Do you know, I think the tailor might be annoyed with me.”
“I’ll manage the tailor,” said Jacopo. He was shaking, and Vincent thought that he might be crying, but at least he had gotten him to engage with the joke.
“It’s fine,” said Vincent, as he was handed over to the doctors. “Just pray. God will listen even if you can’t hear His reply.”
He talked politely with the doctors, answering questions, until someone told him, with all due reverence, to stop talking. He gave his best saintly – O Lord, forgive me for the blasphemy – smile in response, but obeyed.
When he came out of surgery, he was dismayed to hear he was being taken back to Rome before having finished his pastoral visit. At least it wasn’t immediate news – Jacopo was considerate enough to hold off on telling him until he couldn’t get away with stringing him further along. “You must go for me, then,” Innocent said, and Jacopo collapsed into helpless tears that Vincent tried in vain to soothe, begging him by his personal and papal names to let him at least see him back ‘home’ – home, as though Vincent’s home was not out in the world with his people.
“You must manage,” replied Innocent, though he despaired at having to say it, then he had forced a smile. “Let us continue to be friends. Pray with me?”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” said Jacopo, kneeling to pray.
“And when you return in just a few days, I will tell you ‘well done, good and faithful servant,’” Innocent promised him. “And you must eat,” Vincent added.