Inkling_2026_Digital - Flipbook - Page 10
No Pope is
Formosus
by Mya V.
Inspired by Historical Events
Lambert II of Spoleto.
My name no longer.
In this moment, I know it to be true—this
moment is the climax of my fame. I will go
down in the chronicles, on the coins, in the
very histories as Lambert of Italy.
But not in reverence. My name will never
be spoken in reverence.
Lambert of Italy is a fool, a joke, and
unforgettably, the epithet murderer has
never been far. Crowned at fourteen, a
boy-king. Now only seventeen, I stand
here in my throne room before the
stricken faces of the churchmen and far
too many of my noblemen, commanding
a trial—but the man on the throne
facing the charges is, frankly, dead. And
no simple dead man is he—no, I throw
charges upon the corpse of the Pope
Formosus.
A shiver races down my spine as I shift my
gaze from the rotting corpse to the faces
of the men crowding my throne room. In
their expressions, they call me murderer
without ever having spoken.
Not the murderer of the Pope. Never so
simple.
Many of my own men meet my gaze
de昀椀antly, remembering the days of my
father, Guy of Spoleto. Days of peace. Days
of faith. Days when the Papal States were
in close relations with the Romans. Now
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they watch Guy’s son, me, carrying out a
trial on a papal corpse.
They call it adolescent outrage.
Just as they called my father’s sudden,
inexplicable death murder—never in
words, only in a horrible, silent consensus.
Is that why Formosus wanted Arnulf as king?
Did even the Pope himself believe me to
have committed patricide?
At least Pope Stephen VI supports me.
The trial was his idea, after all—his dark,
symbolic idea.
Why did I let him drag me into this?
Stephen prods me expectantly. I take
one last glance at Formosus, stripped
of his papal vestments, trying to ignore
the awful stench of an eight-month-old
cadaver slumped on my throne.
Then, I turn back to the crowd, spreading
my arms in a gesture for silence.
The command is accepted almost
immediately. Despite their ill-disguised
hatred for me, there’s nothing like a
pope’s decomposing remains to capture a
crowd’s attention.
“Noblemen, churchmen, Romans—you
all know the crimes of Formosus.” I
deliberately leave out his title, Pope.
“Crimes of treason, perjury, simony...” I
bring my arm out in an accusatory gesture
toward Formosus’ reeking body. “Upon
the death of my father—” Immediately, I
