After Reynevan recovered his wits, little changed in the tower. Every evening they sat down and conversed, usually near Reynevan’s pallet, who was still too weak to get up and was being fed on chicken soup specially supplied by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre. Thus, Urban Horn fed Reynevan and Scharley fed Martin the rat. Bonaventure scratched his ulcers and Koppirnig, the Institor, the Camaldolite and Isaiah listened. Tomasz Alpha ranted. And the topics—inspired by the rat—were the popes, popery and the famous Prophecy of the Popes of Saint Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh.

“You must admit,” said Tomasz Alpha, “that the prophecy is very accurate, so accurate its veracity cannot be called into question. Malachy must have had a revelation, God himself must have spoken to him, revealing the fate of Christianity, including the names of the popes, from his contemporary Celestyn II to Peter the Roman, the one whose papacy would allegedly end in the destruction of Rome, the papacy, and the entire Christian faith. And so far, Malachy’s prophecy has come true to the letter.”

“Only when stretched,” Scharley said, shoving a scrap of bread under Martin’s whiskered snout. “You can put on tight boots using the same principle. You just can’t walk in them.”

“You’re showing your ignorance. Malachy’s prophecy correctly describes all the popes convincingly. Just take the recent Schisms: why, the one whom the prophecy calls the ‘Cosmedine moon’ is the recently deceased Pedro de Luna, once cardinal deacon at Santa Maria’s in Cosmedine who called himself Benedict XIII. After him, in Malachy’s writings comes the cubus de mixtione, the ‘Cube of mixture’—and who’s that if not the Roman Boniface IX, Pietro Tomacelli, who had a chequered band in his arms?”

“And the one called ‘Of a better star,’” interrupted Bonaventure, scratching an ulcer on his calf, “is of course Innocent VII, Cosimo de’ Migliorati, who has a comet in his coat of arms. Isn’t it?”

“Indeed, it is! And the next pope, called by Malachy the ‘Mariner of the black bridge,’ is clearly Gregory XII, Angelo Corraro, a Venetian. And the ‘Lash of the Sun’? Why, it’s none other than the Cretan Peter Phillarges, Alexander V, made pope by the Council of Pisa, with the sun in his coat of arms. And the one called the ‘Stag of the Syren’ in Malachy’s prophecy—”

“Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For shall waters break out—”

“Quiet, Isaiah! For that stag is, is it not—”