In an elevated platform garden they sat in a bower sipping their after-dinner wine. Beyond answering questions Conrad said little. He was too greatly astonished. He had expected a saint, and he had found himself quietly talking politics and scandal with an Italian Prince. The Holy Father's face was placid. His lips moved. Now and then a word or two escaped him. Yet he seemed to be listening to something else.
That which he looked at was an excavation over which thousands of men crawled, thick as ants about a mound when you thrust your stick among their piled pine-needles on Isle Rugen. Already at more than one point massive walls began to rise. Architects with parchment rolls in their hands went to and fro talking to overseers and foremen. These were clad in black coats reaching below the waist, which made inky blots on the white earth-glare and contrasted with the striped blouses of the overseers and the naked bodies and red loin-cloths of the workmen.
Conrad blessed his former sojourns in Italy which enabled him to follow the fast-running river of the Pontiff's half-unconscious meditation, which was couched not in crabbed monkish Latin, but in the free Italic to which as a boy the Head of the Church had been accustomed.
"So your brother is dead!—(Yes, yes, he told me so before.) And a blessing of God, too. I never liked my brothers. Nephews and nieces are better, so be they are handsome. What, you have none? Then you are the heir to the kingdom—you must marry—you must marry!"
Conrad suddenly flushed fiery red.
"Holy Father," he said nervously, his eyes on the Alban Hills, "it was concerning this that I made pilgrimage to Rome—that I might consult your Holiness!"
The Pontiff nodded amicably and looked about him. At the far end of the garden, in a second creeper-enclosed arbour similar to that in which they sat, the Pope's personal attendants congregated. These were mostly gay young men in parti-coloured raiment, who jested and laughed without much regard for appearances, or at all fearing the displeasure of the Church's Head. As Conrad looked, one of them stood up and tossed over the wall a delicately folded missive, winged like a dart and tied with a ribbon of fluttering blue. Then, the moment afterwards, from beneath came the sound of girlish laughter, whereat all the young men, save one, craned their necks over the wall and shouted jests down to the unseen ladies on the balcony below.
All save one—and he, a tall stern-faced dark young man in a plain black soutane, walked up and down in the sun, with his eyes on the ground and his hands knotting themselves behind his back. The fingers were twisting nervously, and he pursed his lips in meditation. He did not waste even one contemptuous glance on the riotous crew in the arbour.
"Aha—you came to consult me about your marriage," chuckled the Holy Father. "Well, what have you been doing? Young blood—young blood! Once I was young myself. But young blood must pay. I am your father confessor. Now, proceed. (This may be useful—better, better, better!)"
And with a wholly different air of interest, the Pope poured himself a glass of the rich wine and leaned back, contemplating the young man now with a sort of paternal kindliness. The thought that he had certain peccadillos to confess was a relish to the rich Sicilian vintage, and created, as it were, a common interest between them. For the first time Pope Sixtus felt thoroughly at ease with his guest.