In the dark of the southern transept, beneath the purple coloured moonlight cast from the south rose window of Notre Dame, two figures met, one bent with age, the other tall and gaunt beneath his robes.
“Cardinal Bishop Monteria?” the tall gaunt man asked in a hushed whisper, stepping closer to catch sight of the man’s face.
“Cardinal Poré,” Monteria replied, with a courteous bow of his head. “Well met, at last. I have heard much about you.”
“And I of you,” Poré replied, “of your quiet resolution to the path you have chosen to follow, of your dedication to Francis of Assisi.”
A light seemed to catch within Monteria’s face at the mention of his favoured saint. “And how your conviction drives you,” he countered, watching for any sign of the anger Poré was reputed to carry.
“Such things do not need to concern you, or our alliance,” he replied calmly, his unmoving eyes holding Monteria’s. He bowed his head, as if in subservience to the older man “We come together for one thing.”
“Indeed, our shared purpose. I thought I was alone in feeling such things.”
“Not alone. Many share our beliefs. Just lack the conviction to act. They are weak. Like our new Pope.”
“Such talk is treason.”
“Then let me be found guilty.”
Monteria chuckled gently. “No. Not yet,” he said, the trace of a determined smile on his lips. “Let me share my plan with you for this Mass for Peace and let us see then if we be found guilty before God.”
Poré craned his neck upwards to peer at the line of sixteen tall stained glass windows beneath the large magnificence of the south rose window. “Perhaps we should see if we are guilty before them first?” he asked, indicating the painted figures held within each of the windows.
“Ah! The heavenly court of the sixteen prophets,” Monteria replied and he turned his eyes heavenwards towards the windows and spoke in a louder, clear voice, quoting Bertrand, the Bishop of Chartres from the thirteenth century, “We are all dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants. We see more than they do, not because our vision is clearer there or because we are taller, but because we are lifted up due to their giant scale.”
“Well said,” replied Poré, his dark eyes glistening. “So, let us hear this plan and let us pray to God that we be not found guilty until it has been put into action.”