The HORRIFYING Trial of Pope Formosus (Yes, They Dug Him Up)

Hey guys . tonight we slip quietly into a story that history itself seems a little embarrassed about, a story whispered in stone corridors and half-lit chapels, a story so strange that even the past might ask you to lower your voice.
you probably won’t survive this.

Not because of swords or plagues or collapsing empires—but because your sense of normalcy gently unravels the moment you realize what you are about to witness. You feel it already, don’t you. That soft tightening in your chest. The way curiosity nudges sleep aside just a little. You are safe, of course. You are warm. You are listening. But the story itself? It is… unsettling.

You notice the light first. Flickering. Unsteady. Torchlight licking the edges of stone walls like nervous fingers. Shadows stretch and retreat, stretching again, never quite still. You imagine standing barefoot on cool marble tiles, the chill seeping gently upward, reminding you to shift your weight, to tuck your toes beneath a fold of wool. The air smells faintly of smoke and old incense—frankincense, myrrh, something herbal, maybe rosemary tucked into a pocket to mask less pleasant scents. You inhale slowly through your nose, and the smell grounds you.

And just like that, it’s the year 897, and you wake up in Rome.

Not the Rome of postcards and fountains, not the Rome of sunlit ruins and gelato. This Rome breathes differently at night. You hear it. Wind rattling shutters. A distant dog barking once, then stopping abruptly. Somewhere nearby, water drips rhythmically—plip… plip… plip—echoing through stone like a heartbeat trying to fall asleep and failing. You pull your cloak tighter around your shoulders. Linen against your skin. Wool on top. Fur at the collar, warm and faintly animal-sweet. Layering matters here. Survival is quiet, practical, habitual.

You imagine reaching down to touch the wall beside you. The stone is rough, cool, slightly damp. It holds the day’s cold the way a memory holds regret. You flex your fingers, feeling warmth return slowly. Perhaps you’ve placed a hot stone nearby—heated earlier, wrapped in cloth—tucked against your side like a patient, glowing companion. People here know how to make comfort out of very little. You learn that quickly.

Before we go any further, before you sink deeper into this medieval night, take a small, modern pause with me. So, before you get comfortable, take a moment to like the video and subscribe—but only if you genuinely enjoy what I do here. No pressure. Just a quiet nod, if it feels right. And if you’d like, share where you’re listening from and what time it is there. Somewhere in the world, someone else is listening too, wrapped in blankets, eyes heavy, curiosity awake.

Now, gently return your attention to the room.

You notice movement. Not yours—someone else’s. Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Leather soles brushing stone. A soft clink of metal, maybe keys, maybe a ring against a staff. Voices murmur beyond a door, hushed but urgent, like people trying to keep a secret from the walls themselves. You don’t catch words yet, just tone. Tight. Careful. Uneasy.

You taste something faintly bitter on your tongue. Wine, perhaps, watered down and spiced with herbs to keep the chill away. Or maybe it’s just the memory of roasted bread and garlic from earlier, lingering, comforting. Food here is grounding. Warmth from the inside out. You swallow and feel it settle.

You adjust your position, maybe lowering yourself onto a wooden bench worn smooth by generations of waiting bodies. The wood creaks softly under your weight, then settles. You drape your cloak more carefully now, creating a little pocket of warmth. Microclimates matter. You angle yourself away from the draft, closer to the wall where heat lingers just a fraction longer. Somewhere nearby, a cat shifts in its sleep, fur brushing stone, a quiet reminder that even in places of power and fear, life curls up wherever it can.

You are not here by accident.

Something has happened. Something so strange that even for a time known for strange decisions, this one stands out like a candle burning blue. A man has died. That is not unusual. Power changes hands. Popes rise and fall. Bodies are buried. Earth covers bones. End of story.

Except… not this time.

You feel it in the air, a tension that doesn’t belong to the living alone. The kind of tension that makes people glance over their shoulders even when no one is there. The kind that seeps into dreams and turns them restless. Rome has seen corruption, ambition, betrayal—but tonight, it feels as though the boundary between the living and the dead has thinned, just enough to let something very uncomfortable through.

You imagine a church nearby. Heavy doors. Iron hinges. Inside, the smell deepens—wax, smoke, old fabric, stone that has absorbed centuries of prayer. Tapestries hang along the walls, their colors muted in low light, saints watching with expressions that never change no matter what humans do beneath them. You reach out, almost without thinking, and brush your fingers along one of those tapestries. The fabric is thick, dusty, surprisingly warm from the candles burning nearby.

Take a slow breath now. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Notice how your shoulders drop just a little.

Because the story we are about to unfold is horrifying, yes—but you are not in danger. You are an observer. A quiet presence drifting along the edges of history, wrapped in layers, protected by distance and time. You can step closer or farther away whenever you like. That’s the beauty of listening.

Somewhere deeper in Rome, beneath stone and soil, a body rests—or rather, it used to rest. And soon, very soon, it will be asked to do something no body should ever be asked to do again.

You sense the absurdity before you fully understand it. A whisper of irony. A flicker of dark humor. Humans, you realize, have always been capable of incredible faith and astonishing pettiness at the same time. The two often share a room.

You shift again, settling in. Maybe you pull a blanket higher, or imagine one being pulled over you—thick, heavy, smelling faintly of clean straw and lavender. Someone nearby has hung herbs from a beam, not just for scent but for comfort, for the belief that certain smells keep bad dreams away. You let yourself believe that too, just for tonight.

The wind outside sighs against stone. Embers pop softly in a brazier. A distant bell tolls once—not for the hour, but for something else. Something that refuses to stay buried.

Now, dim the lights. Let your breathing slow. Let the medieval night gather around you, calm and curious and strange. You are about to witness one of history’s most bizarre moments, and you get to do it lying down, warm, safe, and drifting gently toward sleep.

Stay with me. We’re just getting started.

You step out into Rome after dark, and the city feels like it’s holding its breath.

The night presses close here. Buildings lean inward, as if conspiring, their upper stories nearly touching across narrow streets. Torchlight glows in uneven pools, leaving long stretches of shadow where your eyes take a moment to adjust. You move slowly, instinctively, your footsteps soft against packed earth and worn stone. The air is cool now, but not bitter. It carries the faint warmth of the day, trapped between walls, mixed with smoke and dampness and the unmistakable scent of humanity living very close together.

You notice how sound behaves differently at night. Every noise feels personal. A cough echoes from an open window. Somewhere above you, a shutter creaks, then settles. You hear the low murmur of voices behind a door, quickly hushed when footsteps pass. Rome is awake, but quietly, like someone pretending to sleep while listening carefully.

You pull your cloak tighter, fingers curling into the wool. The fabric is thick, comforting, slightly scratchy in a way that reminds you you’re alive. Beneath it, linen rests cool against your skin, absorbing warmth slowly. Layering is second nature here. People don’t just dress; they engineer warmth. You imagine tucking the edge of your cloak just right, sealing in heat, creating a tiny personal climate that moves with you.

As you walk, you become aware of eyes. Not hostile—just alert. A city like this survives on awareness. Vendors, clergy, soldiers, servants, beggars, all sharing the same streets but never quite the same reality. Power lives here, but so does hunger. Faith, too, heavy and omnipresent, woven into daily life like thread in cloth.

You pass a church, its doors closed now, but not silent. From within comes the faint smell of incense lingering long after prayers have ended. Frankincense and myrrh drift through cracks in the wood, sweet and smoky, clinging to your senses. You breathe it in and feel something ease in your chest. Even people who doubt still find comfort in ritual. Especially at night.

You imagine stepping inside for a moment, just to warm yourself. Stone floors would be cold beneath your feet, but the candles—oh, the candles—would offer pockets of gentle heat. You’d stand near one, hands outstretched, palms tingling as warmth pools there. Maybe there’s a bench warmed earlier by bodies sitting close together, sharing heat without comment. Survival here is communal, quiet, unspoken.

Outside again, the street slopes gently downward. Water trickles along a shallow channel, reflecting torchlight like liquid gold. You hear it gurgle softly, steady and patient. Rome is old, older than anyone walking these streets, and it shows in how the city breathes, how it moves water and people and secrets through itself.

You pass a group huddled near a doorway. A woman wraps a child tighter in a worn blanket, the fabric patched and repatched, fur lining peeking through at the edges. Someone has tucked straw along the threshold to block the draft. A dog curls beside them, sharing warmth, its slow breathing syncing unconsciously with the humans nearby. You notice how animals are everywhere here—not pets, exactly, but companions in survival. Cats for vermin, dogs for warmth and protection, birds roosting wherever they can.

As you continue, the mood subtly shifts.

The closer you get to the heart of power—the palaces, the Lateran, the places where decisions are made—the quieter it becomes. Fewer voices. Fewer open windows. The stone here is cleaner, smoother, colder. Guards stand at intervals, their silhouettes rigid against torchlight. You hear the soft clink of armor when one shifts his weight, metal whispering against leather.

You keep your head down, posture relaxed but respectful. You know this body language instinctively. Don’t invite attention. Don’t appear afraid. Just… belong.

Inside these walls, tension hums like a low note held too long. You feel it in your stomach, a faint tightening. Something is wrong. Or rather, something is about to be done that many people already regret, even if they won’t admit it yet.

You catch fragments of conversation now. A name spoken, then swallowed. A nervous laugh cut short. The word “synod” murmured like a warning rather than an explanation. You don’t need all the details yet. Your body understands before your mind does. This is not a night for celebration. This is a night for consequences.

You pause near a corner, letting others pass. A pair of clergy move by, robes brushing stone. The fabric smells of old parchment, candle wax, and something faintly sour—stress, perhaps, or fear. One of them rubs his hands together as he walks, as if trying to warm them, though the night isn’t that cold. Anxiety chills more effectively than weather ever could.

You imagine warming rituals people rely on when sleep refuses to come. Hot stones wrapped in cloth placed at the feet. Cups of warm wine infused with herbs—mint for the stomach, rosemary for the mind. A hand resting on a cat’s warm flank. Simple things. Anchors.

Rome doesn’t feel anchored tonight.

You sense it in the way doors stay shut longer than usual. In how bells remain silent when they might otherwise toll. In the way even the wind seems cautious, threading carefully through alleys, rattling nothing too loudly. Superstition thrives in moments like this. People believe the city listens, that walls remember, that the dead sometimes hear their names spoken.

And tonight, one name carries more weight than most.

You don’t speak it yet. There’s time for that. For now, you simply feel its presence, like a shadow stretching beneath closed doors.

You move again, slower now, allowing your breath to match your pace. In through your nose—cool air, smoke, stone. Out through your mouth—warmth, fogging briefly in the torchlight. You notice how your shoulders relax when you do this, how your steps grow quieter. Your body knows how to prepare for listening.

A cart rattles past, wheels complaining softly. The smell of straw and animal fur follows it, earthy and reassuring. Somewhere nearby, bread cools for morning, its faint yeasty sweetness barely noticeable but comforting all the same. Life continues, even when history prepares something absurd and grim.

You reach a small square and stop.

From here, you can feel it clearly now—the pull of the place where everything is about to happen. Not excitement. Not anticipation. Something heavier. Like standing too close to a grave you weren’t meant to open.

You adjust your cloak one more time, tucking it securely, creating that small bubble of warmth and safety. You imagine sitting down somewhere sheltered soon, maybe against a wall that still holds a whisper of the day’s heat. Maybe you’ll rest your back against it, feel the stone steady and unmoving. Stone outlasts people. It sees things and says nothing.

You let that thought settle.

Because Rome has seen emperors crowned and murdered, saints celebrated and forgotten, faith weaponized and comforted with equal skill. And tonight, it is about to see something so strange that even centuries later, people will lower their voices when they talk about it.

You are here now. Walking these streets. Feeling the tension. Breathing in the smoke and history and unease.

And ahead of you, behind thick walls and heavy doors, preparations are underway that will challenge everything you think you know about justice, authority, and what it means to let the dead rest.

Take one more slow breath. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Feel the warmth you’ve carefully preserved around your body.

You’re going to need it.

You begin to hear his name more clearly now, spoken in careful tones, as if saying it too loudly might wake something that should remain asleep.

Formosus.

You let the name settle on your tongue without speaking it. It feels old, formal, slightly sharp at the edges. You imagine how it would echo in a stone hall, how it would sound carried by incense and candle smoke. This is not just a name; it is a weight, a reputation, a collection of decisions that refuse to stay neatly folded in the past.

You picture him first as a living man, because that feels easier. A pope who walked, breathed, ate, worried. A man who adjusted his robes against drafts just like you do now, who felt cold stone underfoot, who noticed the smell of wax and parchment clinging to his sleeves. He was not born into holiness. He was shaped by it, slowly, imperfectly.

You imagine waking up as Formosus once did, long before this night. The bed is narrow, layered with linen and wool, maybe fur at the edges for warmth. The room smells faintly of lavender and old wood. Outside, bells call you awake before the sun has fully decided to rise. You sit up, feeling the stiffness in your joints, the quiet ache of responsibility settling into your bones. Power does that. It ages you from the inside.

Formosus is ambitious. You sense that immediately. Not in a cartoonish way, not with twirling mustaches and grand speeches, but in the quieter, more dangerous way. He believes he knows what is right. He believes the church should move in a certain direction, that alliances matter, that crowns and miters are not as separate as people pretend. You feel that conviction in your chest as if it were your own—steady, stubborn, occasionally blinding.

You move through his life as if leafing through a manuscript by candlelight. Page after page. He is a bishop first, respected, capable, visible. Visibility is never neutral. People notice. They talk. They remember. You hear whispers follow him through corridors, admiration tangled with suspicion. You smell ink and vellum, the administrative scent of power. Decisions leave traces long after they’re made.

Politics creep in quietly, like a draft under a door.

You notice how Formosus navigates alliances, how he chooses words carefully, how silence becomes a tool as sharp as speech. Kings want his favor. Nobles want his blessing. Everyone wants something. You feel the constant low hum of expectation pressing against your temples. Even at rest, the mind does not rest. It replays conversations, imagines outcomes, weighs risks.

You imagine him warming his hands over a brazier late at night, firelight flickering across his face, casting shadows that make him look older, more severe. He drinks warm wine infused with herbs, not for pleasure but for steadiness. His breath fogs slightly in cooler rooms. He pulls his cloak closer. Even popes get cold.

Formosus becomes pope eventually, and with that title comes a narrowing of options. Every choice now echoes. You feel the walls close in—not physically, but socially. Allies expect loyalty. Enemies wait patiently. The city watches. The church remembers.

You sense that some decisions feel right in the moment. Necessary. Even brave. But history is unkind to context. It strips moments of their urgency and judges them in clean, well-lit rooms centuries later. You feel that tension now, the uncomfortable awareness that the future is already sharpening its knives.

You notice something else too. Formosus is not universally loved.

Some see him as clever. Others as manipulative. Some think he overreaches. Some think he threatens the delicate balance between Rome and foreign powers. You feel the instability beneath the surface, like standing on a floor that creaks just a bit too loudly. Every step feels measured.

When Formosus dies, you imagine it is almost a relief.

Not for Rome—Rome never relaxes—but for him. The body finally stops carrying the mind’s burdens. Breath slows. Muscles soften. The chill comes gently, inevitable. He is washed, wrapped, laid to rest. Stone closes over him. Darkness. Silence.

You let yourself believe, for a moment, that this is the end.

You imagine the tomb. Cool, dry, still. The smell of earth and stone. No torches. No whispers. Just rest. The kind of rest everyone expects death to bring. You imagine time passing unnoticed—days, weeks, months. The city above continues. Bread bakes. Bells ring. Cats hunt. Politics churn. But here, beneath it all, there is quiet.

You feel a strange comfort in that image. Finality is soothing.

And that is exactly why what comes next feels so wrong.

You notice how quickly peace becomes inconvenient. How unresolved grudges itch even after their owner is gone. How power hates loose ends. You feel it like a subtle itch between your shoulders, an awareness that something is stirring where it shouldn’t.

Formosus, you realize, is useful even in death.

Not to himself, of course. But to others. To those who want to rewrite narratives, to cleanse reputations, to settle scores without resistance. A dead man cannot argue. He cannot explain. He cannot defend himself. His silence is convenient.

You shift where you’re sitting now, maybe pulling a blanket closer, instinctively seeking comfort. Your body reacts before your mind fully does. You feel the chill of the idea seep in. Not physical cold—moral cold. The kind that makes you want to wrap yourself in something warm and familiar.

You notice the smell of herbs again—mint, rosemary—someone nearby has crushed them between their fingers. The scent sharpens your focus, clears your thoughts. Grounding rituals matter, especially when the story turns unsettling.

You think about memory. How fragile it is. How easily shaped. You imagine how, in a world without recordings or photographs, reputation lives in mouths and minds alone. Change the story, and you change the man. Even after death.

You hear footsteps again, closer now. Purposeful. This is no longer idle conversation. Decisions have been made. Orders whispered. You sense the machinery of power turning, slow and inexorable.

Formosus is no longer just a former pope. He is becoming a symbol. A scapegoat. A lesson. Whatever those in charge need him to be.

You feel a flicker of dark humor surface, uninvited but persistent. Humans will go to extraordinary lengths to feel justified. Even digging up the dead. Especially digging up the dead.

You imagine someone pausing before the tomb, hand hovering over stone, feeling a brief hesitation. A thought: Is this too much? Then the thought is pushed aside. There is always a reason. There is always an explanation.

You inhale slowly. The air feels heavier now.

You know, deep down, that whatever Formosus did in life is almost irrelevant at this point. The trial that awaits him will not be about truth. It will be about control. About spectacle. About making a statement so loud that no one dares question it—at least not yet.

You settle back, allowing the warmth you’ve carefully built around yourself to hold. Linen. Wool. Fur. Stone at your back, steady and indifferent. You remind yourself where you are. Safe. Listening. Witnessing.

Formosus’s story is no longer his own.

And in the next moments, you will see just how far the living are willing to go to prove a point to someone who can no longer hear them.

You begin to understand that in Rome, holiness and politics share the same air.

You feel it the moment you step closer to the centers of power, where incense thickens not just with prayer but with intention. The smell changes subtly here—less comforting, more deliberate. Frankincense burns longer than necessary. Candles are replaced before they fade. Everything is curated, controlled, watched. You notice how even warmth feels managed, benches placed where bodies are meant to gather, drafts redirected not for comfort but for ceremony.

You imagine yourself standing along the edge of a long chamber, stone walls rising like cliffs on either side. Tapestries hang heavy, their threads depicting saints, battles, miracles—stories chosen carefully. History edited in fabric. You reach out and touch one, feeling the dense weave beneath your fingers, dust clinging softly to your skin. The saints stare ahead, eternally calm, as if they’ve seen worse than what’s about to happen.

Politics here does not shout. It murmurs.

You hear it in pauses between words, in glances exchanged and quickly withdrawn. A raised eyebrow can carry more weight than a decree. You sense alliances shifting like sand beneath polished sandals. No one stands completely still—not socially, not spiritually. Everyone adjusts, constantly, measuring risk.

You picture the men who shape these decisions. Robes layered over linen and wool, rings heavy on fingers, each one a symbol of authority or allegiance. Their hands are warm from wine cups and braziers, yet their palms sweat faintly when conversation turns delicate. You feel that tension now, a subtle tightening in your own chest, as if your body is mirroring theirs.

You listen as names surface—not loudly, never loudly—but enough to be heard. Kings. Dukes. Regions far beyond Rome’s walls. Francia. Spoleto. Germany. Borders are not lines on maps here; they are loyalties that breathe, fracture, heal, and fracture again. The pope is not just a spiritual leader. He is a pivot point. A hinge. A problem.

You begin to understand why Formosus mattered so much.

You imagine conversations unfolding late at night, voices low, lamps turned down. Someone leans in, breath smelling faintly of spiced wine. Another shifts uncomfortably, fur collar brushing against stone. They speak of precedent. Of legitimacy. Of the danger of letting certain actions stand uncontested. Words like order and purity float through the air, heavy and vague, useful precisely because they mean different things to different people.

You feel the irony settle in. A religion built on forgiveness now sharpening arguments like knives.

You picture yourself sitting on a warming bench along the wall, stone beneath you slowly absorbing heat from your body, then returning it in a steady, patient exchange. This is how comfort works here—slowly, reciprocally. You breathe in. You breathe out. You listen.

Someone mentions the past, and the room stiffens.

Formosus’s decisions as pope weren’t just theological. They were geopolitical. He supported certain rulers, opposed others, and in doing so, tilted the balance of power. You sense how deeply personal this has become for some. Pride and humiliation are far more motivating than doctrine. You taste bitterness at the back of your throat—not from wine, but from the memory of old slights being reheated and served again.

You imagine one man pacing, the hem of his robe whispering against the floor. Another sits perfectly still, hands folded, expression serene, already rehearsing the moral justification he will present. You notice how silence stretches longer than it needs to. Silence here is never empty. It’s a tool.

You think about how survival strategies extend beyond warmth and shelter. Psychological survival matters too. People convince themselves they are righteous because the alternative—admitting pettiness, fear, or revenge—is too uncomfortable. You feel a strange sympathy rise in you, even as unease deepens. Humans are remarkably good at building stories that let them sleep at night.

You adjust your position again, instinctively pulling your cloak tighter, even though the room is warm enough. The warmth doesn’t quite reach the center of you now. Some chills come from ideas, not weather.

You hear a soft laugh, quick and brittle. Humor appears unexpectedly, like a reflex. Someone jokes about procedures, about legality, about how technically certain things can be undone. The laughter fades quickly, replaced by nods. Agreement forms. Momentum builds.

You feel it then—the point of no return sliding quietly past.

Once the idea is spoken aloud, once it’s repeated without protest, it gains weight. Digging up a former pope. Trying him. Posthumously. The absurdity doesn’t repel them; it attracts them. It promises finality. It promises control over a narrative that slipped away once before.

You imagine someone glancing toward the door, as if expecting divine interruption. None comes. Candles burn steadily. The air remains still. Silence, again, does not object.

You notice the practical considerations being discussed now, and that somehow makes it worse. Logistics. Timing. Witnesses. Ritual garments. You feel your stomach turn slightly—not dramatically, just enough to register. You swallow, grounding yourself in sensation. The bench beneath you. The smell of wax. The gentle warmth at your back.

You remind yourself to breathe.

In this world, ceremony legitimizes everything. If it looks official enough, if it follows enough familiar steps, it becomes real. A trial requires a defendant. A pope requires dignity. Therefore, the body must be dressed. Seated. Addressed.

You feel the strange blend of reverence and mockery this creates. A corpse in papal robes. Sacred words spoken to unhearing ears. You sense how some people find this disturbing—and how others find it deeply satisfying. Power loves theater.

You imagine the night growing deeper outside, the city settling uneasily into sleep. Somewhere, a family huddles together under layered blankets, sharing warmth, unaware of the spectacle being prepared nearby. Somewhere else, a monk stirs herbs into hot water, believing it will calm his thoughts. Cats curl tighter. Dogs shift and sigh.

Life continues, unaware.

Inside, though, the decision is sealed.

You feel the emotional temperature drop, despite the candles. The conversation turns efficient now, stripped of doubt. Orders will be given. Hands will move. The dead will be disturbed.

You sense a flicker of fear—not of divine punishment, but of public reaction. Will people accept this? Will they laugh? Will they riot? Someone shrugs. If there is outrage, it can be managed. If there is fear, even better. Fear is easier to guide.

You notice how no one mentions mercy.

You sit with that for a moment.

You imagine the tomb again. Quiet. Dark. Undisturbed. You imagine the body inside, long past concern, past ambition, past regret. And you feel the uncomfortable truth settle in: this is not about Formosus anymore. This is about the living needing something to point at, something to undo, something to blame.

You adjust your cloak one last time, sealing warmth around yourself, creating a barrier against the creeping chill of the idea. You picture hot stones near your feet, radiating steady comfort. You focus on small, grounding details. The texture of wool. The faint herbal scent in the air. The solid certainty of stone beneath you.

Because once politics dresses itself in holy robes, it becomes very difficult to tell where belief ends and manipulation begins.

And tonight, that confusion is about to be put on full display—under torchlight, before witnesses, with a man who cannot object.

You stay quiet. You stay warm. You stay present.

The machinery is in motion now.

You feel the night thicken as you approach the place where endings are supposed to stay ended.

The tomb is not dramatic. That’s what surprises you most. No thunder. No chanting. Just stone, patient and unassuming, doing what stone has always done—keeping things in and keeping things quiet. You stand nearby, wrapped in your layers, and notice how the air feels cooler here, heavier somehow, as if sound itself has learned to walk softly out of respect.

You imagine kneeling for a moment, not in prayer exactly, but in acknowledgment. The ground beneath you is cold through wool and linen, sending a gentle reminder up your knees. You shift slightly, adjusting your weight, instinctively preserving warmth. Survival habits don’t switch off just because the moment is symbolic.

This is where Formosus rests. Or rested.

You picture the tomb sealed months ago, the stone set carefully in place, hands brushing dust away, murmured prayers sealing the transition from presence to memory. The smell back then would have been earth and wax and fresh-cut stone. Final. Clean. An ending.

Death, you realize, is supposed to simplify things.

The body stops arguing. The mouth stops explaining. The hands stop reaching for influence. There is a quiet dignity in that stillness. You imagine it now—the body wrapped, laid flat, the chill slowly equalizing everything. No warmth to protect. No microclimate to manage. Just rest.

You feel a strange calm thinking about it.

And that calm is precisely what makes the decision to disturb it feel so unnatural.

You notice the people gathered nearby don’t speak at first. They stand with hands clasped, sleeves hanging heavy, faces half-lit by torches that hiss softly as resin burns. The light flickers against stone, making shadows sway like uncertain witnesses. Someone clears their throat. The sound feels too loud.

You inhale slowly. The smell here is different. Less incense, more raw stone. Dampness. A hint of old earth seeping through cracks. It reminds you of cellars and caves, places where time moves differently. You imagine placing a hot stone near your feet, even here, even now, because your body wants comfort when your mind encounters something it doesn’t like.

You hear the scrape of metal on stone.

Tools are brought out with practical efficiency. No one announces them. No one explains. They are simply there, as if summoned by consensus. You feel your shoulders tense, then deliberately relax them. You remind yourself to breathe. In. Out. Slow.

The first touch of the tomb feels invasive, even from where you stand. A hand presses against the stone, testing. Another follows. Pressure builds. There’s a low groan as something shifts that hasn’t moved in months. Dust trickles down, catching torchlight like falling stars.

You notice how everyone averts their eyes at first. Not out of respect, exactly—more like instinct. There’s a line humans hesitate to cross, even when ordered to. But hesitation is brief. Habit takes over. The stone moves.

Sound changes when a tomb opens. It’s subtle, but you feel it. The air exhales. Cool, stale, carrying the quiet of sealed time. You smell it now—earthy, dry, not yet unpleasant, but unmistakably final. You swallow, your throat tightening just a little.

You imagine what it must feel like to be the one closest, to lean in, to see what remains of a man who once commanded kings and crowds. The body is smaller now. Everything is smaller. Death has a way of returning people to their most basic proportions.

You notice how carefully they work. That surprises you too. Hands move slowly, deliberately, as if gentleness might undo what’s being done. Someone murmurs a prayer—not loud enough to sanctify the act, but enough to soothe themselves. You catch the words and let them drift past. The prayer feels more like a shield than an offering.

You imagine the body being lifted, the weight unexpected, uneven. Human bodies don’t distribute mass politely. There’s a slight struggle, quickly masked. Fabric shifts. A faint, dry sound as wrappings brush stone. You focus on a small detail—the way torchlight reflects off a ring still on a finger, dulled but intact. Symbols persist longer than flesh.

You feel a flicker of something like embarrassment ripple through the group. Not guilt. Not regret. Something closer to awkwardness. This is not how things are supposed to be done, and everyone knows it.

You adjust your cloak again, tugging it tighter around your shoulders. Even with the torches, even with bodies clustered close, a chill settles in your bones. This kind of cold doesn’t come from weather. It comes from witnessing a boundary crossed.

The body is brought into the open now, laid carefully on a surface meant for the living. You notice how someone smooths the fabric reflexively, as if tidiness still matters. Old habits die hard. You feel a strange pull between reverence and absurdity tightening in your chest.

You imagine the thoughts running through each person’s mind. We have to do this. This is necessary. This is justified. Each phrase wraps itself around discomfort like wool around linen, insulating conscience from consequence.

You think about the phrase rest in peace. How absolute it sounds. How easily revoked.

Someone steps back, nods. The deed is done. The tomb stands open now, empty in a way it was never meant to be. You notice how no one looks directly into it anymore. It has fulfilled its purpose and lost it at the same time.

You imagine the city outside, still sleeping. Somewhere, someone turns over in bed, adjusting blankets, unaware that a pope has been exhumed in the night. The contrast feels almost cruel. Ordinary comfort coexisting with extraordinary violation.

You breathe in slowly, grounding yourself again. The smell of smoke. The faint herbal note lingering on someone’s sleeve. The solid reassurance of wool against your skin. You remind yourself that you are an observer, not a participant. You are allowed to feel unsettled without needing to fix it.

The body is prepared for transport now. Covered, not to protect dignity so much as to manage appearances. You notice how efficiency has replaced hesitation. Once a taboo is crossed, the rest comes easier. This, too, feels familiar in an uncomfortable way.

You think about death as a boundary humans insist on respecting—until it becomes inconvenient. Then it turns into just another obstacle to move, another rule to reinterpret.

You imagine placing your hand flat against the stone wall beside you, feeling its cold steadiness. Stone doesn’t judge. It remembers. You let that thought anchor you.

Because this is only the beginning.

The dead man has been brought back into the world of the living, not to be mourned, but to be used. And whatever calm death once offered him has been replaced with torchlight, whispers, and plans.

You pull your cloak tighter one more time, sealing in warmth, bracing gently for what comes next.

The trial has not begun yet.

But the silence of the grave has already been broken.

You feel the shift the moment the body is no longer still.

Not moving on its own, of course—nothing like that—but repositioned, redirected, reclaimed by the living. There’s a difference between resting and being handled, and your body recognizes it instinctively. Your shoulders tighten. Your jaw sets. Somewhere deep inside, a quiet alarm rings, then fades into uneasy acceptance.

This is the decision point.

You imagine standing in a corridor just outside the chamber, torchlight wavering across uneven stone. The air here smells sharper now—less earth, more smoke, more oil from burning wicks. Someone has crushed herbs underfoot without realizing it. Rosemary and sage rise faintly, green and medicinal, an attempt—conscious or not—to counterbalance what’s happening. You breathe it in slowly. It helps, just a little.

The order has been given.

You don’t hear it announced formally. No scroll unfurled. No dramatic declaration. It arrives the way most dangerous decisions do—quietly, through nods and murmured confirmations. One person looks to another. Another inclines his head. A chain of agreement forms without ever being spoken aloud.

You sense relief ripple through the group, and that surprises you. Relief, not dread. The discomfort of indecision has ended. Action, however grotesque, feels easier than doubt. You feel that truth settle uncomfortably in your chest.

You imagine the pope who ordered this—Stephen VI—somewhere nearby. Younger. Tense. His authority still fragile, still questioned. You don’t see him clearly yet, but you feel his presence like a pressure change in the air. This trial is not about justice. It’s about erasure. About undoing the past so thoroughly that it cannot argue back.

You notice how logistics take over now, dulling the edges of horror. The body must be transported discreetly. Guards repositioned. Witnesses selected. Everything wrapped in ritual to give it shape and legitimacy. Humans are very good at disguising intent with structure.

You follow the procession in your mind as it moves through the building. Slow steps. Careful turns. The sound of fabric brushing stone. A muffled clink as a ring knocks gently against wood. You focus on those small sounds. They make it bearable.

You imagine the body placed in a private chamber, away from public view. Candles are arranged—not for reverence, but for visibility. You notice how light pools around the form, illuminating details no one really wants to see. Someone averts their gaze again. Someone else stares too long, then blinks hard.

You feel the temperature in the room drop slightly. Or maybe that’s just you.

The next task begins: preparation.

This part feels especially surreal. You watch as garments are brought in—papal vestments, heavy with embroidery and symbolism. They smell of incense and storage, of ceremony waiting its turn. These robes were meant to be worn by the living, adjusted for posture, breath, presence. Now they are being prepared for a body that cannot stand.

You imagine the awkwardness of it. Sleeves guided over stiffened arms. Fabric arranged to suggest dignity. Someone straightens the collar out of habit, then hesitates, hand hovering briefly before pulling away. The absurdity hums beneath the surface, but no one acknowledges it. Acknowledgment would break the spell.

You feel your stomach tighten, then settle again as you consciously slow your breathing. In. Out. The stone beneath your feet is solid. Your cloak is warm. You are grounded.

You think about how much effort goes into appearances here. How deeply humans believe that looking right can make something right. The corpse, dressed as pope, becomes a prop in a story being carefully rewritten.

You imagine a chair being brought in next. Not just any chair—a throne. Solid. Ornate. Carved wood polished smooth by years of use. You feel the irony land heavily. This seat once held authority. Now it will hold silence.

You watch as the body is positioned, supported, adjusted. Cushions are placed strategically. Someone steps back, tilts their head, evaluates. Does it look… convincing enough? You feel a flicker of something like secondhand embarrassment. The living are trying very hard to pretend this is normal.

You notice how the room fills slowly with people who have been summoned. Clergy. Officials. Witnesses. Each arrives with their own internal weather—curiosity, dread, ambition, disbelief. The air thickens with breath and anticipation. Candles flicker more as the oxygen shifts. You smell wax melting, hear soft pops as wicks burn down.

You imagine taking a seat along the wall, finding a spot where the stone is slightly warmer, where drafts are minimal. You tuck your feet beneath you, preserving heat. You rest your hands in your lap, fingers brushing wool. Small comforts matter when the mind is under strain.

Someone clears their throat.

The Cadaver Synod is about to begin.

You feel the weight of that phrase settle slowly. Synod. A gathering. A council. Words associated with discussion, deliberation, wisdom. And cadaver. The clash is jarring. You let yourself feel that discomfort fully, then let it pass. Resisting it only makes it louder.

You notice the silence deepen. Even the torches seem to burn more quietly. Outside, the city remains unaware, tucked into sleep. Inside, history prepares to do something unforgettable.

You imagine Stephen VI entering now. His expression carefully neutral, jaw set, eyes sharp. He avoids looking directly at the body at first, focusing instead on the assembled men. Authority radiates from him, but it feels… brittle. You sense the strain beneath the surface, the need to prove something—to himself as much as to anyone else.

You think about fear. How it often disguises itself as righteousness.

The charges will be read soon. Accusations prepared long in advance, sharpened by repetition. The body will be addressed as if it can hear. A deacon will answer in its place, ventriloquizing guilt into silence. The whole thing will proceed with unsettling formality.

But for now, there is this pause.

You savor it in a strange way. The last moment before action becomes irreversible. You notice your breathing again, steady and slow. You feel the warmth pooling gently around your hands. You imagine a cat brushing past your legs somewhere nearby, unconcerned, grounded in a world where things make sense.

Humans, you reflect, have always been capable of extraordinary devotion and extraordinary cruelty, often in the same breath. Tonight, Rome will demonstrate both, dressed in silk and sanctity.

You settle back, letting your body relax even as your mind stays alert. You are here to witness, not to judge. The spectacle will speak for itself.

The trial is moments away.

And once it begins, there will be no turning back.

You feel it before you see it—the moment when secrecy gives way to exposure.

The doors open wider now, not flung dramatically, but pushed with intention, hinges murmuring as if even the wood would rather keep quiet. Torchlight spills outward, stretching into the corridor, revealing just enough to invite witnesses without fully reassuring them. You stand at the threshold, wrapped in warmth, aware that whatever happens next will no longer belong to whispers.

The body is moved again.

This time, there is no illusion of rest. You notice how carefully everyone avoids sudden movements, as though the dead might startle. Hands grip wood and fabric more firmly now. Coordination replaces gentleness. You hear the faint grunt of effort, quickly suppressed. The human body is heavier than memory suggests, especially when it refuses to help.

You breathe in. Smoke. Oil. A faint, dry scent that reminds you of old parchment left too long in a chest. You don’t dwell on it. You anchor yourself instead in texture—the wool at your wrists, the smoothness of stone beneath your palm as you steady yourself against the wall.

The procession begins.

It moves slowly through the corridors, each step measured, deliberate. You hear the rhythm of it—footstep, footstep, pause—like a heartbeat trying not to draw attention to itself. Fabric brushes against stone, whispering secrets it won’t keep. Somewhere behind you, someone murmurs a prayer under their breath, the words tumbling over each other, unsure where to land.

You imagine the route they take, carefully chosen to avoid certain eyes, to include others. This is not just movement; it’s choreography. Power understands pathways. It knows which doors matter, which corridors carry weight, which thresholds transform private decisions into public acts.

You feel the temperature change as the group enters a larger space. Air circulates differently here. It’s cooler, broader, touched by drafts slipping in from higher windows. Candles flicker harder, their flames bending slightly as if bowing to something unseen. Shadows grow longer, more theatrical.

You step inside with them, quietly, unnoticed.

The chamber is arranged now, waiting. Benches line the sides. The throne stands at the center, solid and expectant. You notice how the floor has been swept recently, dust pushed into corners, an attempt at order. The smell of fresh straw mingles faintly with wax and incense. Someone has prepared for an audience.

The body is brought forward.

You watch as it is lifted, guided, seated. Cushions are adjusted again, more carefully this time. Someone tucks fabric under a limp hand. Another straightens the papal stole so it falls symmetrically. There’s a strange tenderness in these gestures, and you can’t decide whether that makes it better or worse.

You notice how the head tilts slightly to one side, refusing symmetry no matter how they try. A subtle reminder that life has left the building. Someone gently repositions it, then steps back, dissatisfied but resigned. Perfection is no longer an option.

You feel a ripple move through the room as people take in the sight.

This is the moment when disbelief becomes memory.

Some avert their eyes immediately, staring at the floor, at their hands, at the hems of robes. Others stare openly, curiosity overpowering discomfort. You catch a flash of nervous humor on one face, quickly smothered. A few look almost relieved—as if the absurdity confirms something they suspected all along.

You imagine taking a seat now, choosing a place near the wall where warmth lingers. The stone beneath you is cool but not unforgiving. You tuck your feet beneath the bench, conserving heat. You rest your hands on your knees, feeling your pulse slow. Your body knows how to be still.

The smell of incense thickens as more is added, someone hoping—perhaps—that holiness can be summoned on demand. Frankincense curls through the air, sweet and heavy, clinging to your breath. You inhale slowly, letting it soften the sharp edges of the moment.

You notice Stephen VI now, seated opposite the corpse.

He looks smaller than you expected. Not weak—just human. His robes are immaculate, his posture rigid. You sense the tension in him, coiled tight, barely contained. He does not look at the body for long. When he does, his jaw tightens, and you feel something like resentment flicker across his features.

You think about how strange it must be to argue with silence.

A deacon steps forward, pale, eyes darting. You recognize the role he’s about to play and feel a wave of sympathy wash over you. He has been chosen to speak for the dead, to put words into a mouth that cannot protest. His voice will bridge an impossible gap, and no one will thank him for it.

You listen as the room settles. Movement slows. Breathing quiets. Even the torches seem to pause, flames steadying as if aware they are being watched.

This is no longer preparation.

This is performance.

You feel the shift in yourself too—the way your attention sharpens, the way your senses lean forward. Sight, sound, smell, touch all converge, pulling you fully into the present moment. You notice the way wax drips down a candle’s side, pooling at its base. You hear a distant bell toll once, far away, perhaps marking the hour, perhaps something else entirely.

You remind yourself to breathe.

The charges are about to be read. Words prepared carefully, sharpened through repetition. Accusations that have waited patiently for this exact moment. You imagine them hovering in the air already, heavy with intent.

You glance at the body again.

Dressed in splendor. Seated in authority. Silent.

You feel the unsettling humor of it brush past you, dry and dark. Humans, you think, will always find ways to stage their conflicts, even when one side can no longer participate. Especially then.

The deacon swallows.

Stephen leans forward.

And just like that, the boundary between the living and the dead is officially crossed—not by force, but by language.

You settle deeper into your seat, wrapping your cloak a little tighter, creating a cocoon of warmth and steadiness. You are about to hear history accuse a corpse.

And once spoken aloud, those words cannot be taken back.

You notice how the room feels smaller now, not because the walls have moved, but because attention has narrowed.

Every eye, every breath, every flicker of torchlight is drawn toward the figure seated at the center. The body—Formosus—no longer feels like a person or even a former pope. It feels like an object that has been given a role and is expected to perform it perfectly. Silence stretches, elastic and tense, until it hums faintly in your ears.

The deacon steps closer.

You hear the soft scuff of his sandals against stone, the hesitant rhythm of someone walking toward something they would very much like to walk away from. His robes brush his legs, fabric whispering with each step. He smells faintly of clean linen and nervous sweat, a human smell, grounding in its honesty.

You imagine the weight of the task placed on him. To speak for the dead. To lend his living voice to a body that cannot object. To become, briefly, the bridge between accusation and silence. You feel a tightness in your chest at the thought, and you consciously relax your shoulders, reminding yourself to breathe.

In.
Out.

Someone adjusts the candles.

The light sharpens, illuminating the corpse more clearly now. You notice details you hadn’t before—the stiffness in the fingers, the way the robes sit just slightly wrong no matter how carefully they’ve been arranged. Death refuses perfect symmetry. Someone has placed gloves over the hands, perhaps out of respect, perhaps out of discomfort. The effect is oddly formal, like dressing a mannequin for a ceremony it never agreed to attend.

You hear Stephen VI clear his throat.

The sound is dry, controlled. Authority preparing to speak. You sense the room lean forward, almost imperceptibly. This is the moment words begin to do their work.

The charges are read slowly.

You listen as if from a slight distance, letting the cadence wash over you. Accusations of ambition. Of betrayal. Of violating sacred law by holding office improperly. The language is precise, legalistic, heavy with structure. You notice how it avoids emotion, how it frames personal vendettas as procedural necessity.

You feel the irony settle in gently. The living need rules to feel justified. Even when the defendant is incapable of understanding them.

The deacon responds.

Not with his own voice, not really. He pitches it slightly differently, lower, as if trying to imagine how Formosus might have sounded. The effect is unsettling. You feel a prickle along your arms, like the ghost of a draft. His answers are brief, formulaic. Denials, explanations, appeals to context—all reduced to scripted responses.

You sense the absurdity cresting now.

A trial requires dialogue. Accusation and defense. Call and response. And here it is, performed with meticulous care, as though everyone involved has agreed to suspend disbelief for the sake of order. You almost admire the commitment. Almost.

You notice how Stephen addresses the body directly.

He leans forward, voice rising, gestures sharper now. His words strike the air and fall flat, absorbed by silence. He points. He accuses. He demands answers that will never come. The deacon responds again, on cue, voice trembling just slightly this time.

You imagine how exhausting this must be, emotionally. To argue with a body. To pour anger into a void and expect it to satisfy something inside you. You sense how this is less about Formosus and more about Stephen himself, about proving dominance over a predecessor who still casts a shadow.

You shift on the bench, adjusting your position to maintain warmth. Stone leaches heat slowly, patiently. You tuck your cloak tighter around your knees, creating that familiar pocket of safety. Physical comfort helps your mind stay steady when the scene grows stranger by the moment.

You smell incense again, stronger now. Someone adds more, perhaps hoping the sacred smoke will sanctify what logic cannot. It curls upward, catching torchlight, creating soft, shifting patterns that distract the eye. You let yourself watch it for a moment, grounding yourself in its slow, graceful movement.

The crowd reacts in subtle ways.

A murmur here. A suppressed cough there. Someone shifts their weight, boots scraping softly. You catch a flicker of a smile quickly hidden, a sign that not everyone present takes this seriously in the way it demands to be taken. Nervous laughter threatens, then retreats. The social rules are unclear here, and that makes everyone uneasy.

You think about how humans respond to discomfort. Some lean into it. Some detach. Some joke. Some become rigidly formal. You see all of these strategies playing out around you now, layered like the clothing everyone wears.

The questioning continues.

Stephen’s voice grows sharper, more animated. He raises his hand, then drops it against the arm of his chair, the sound echoing in the chamber. You feel the vibration through the stone beneath your feet. Power insists on being felt.

The deacon’s answers grow quieter.

You sense his fear—not of punishment, but of being associated with this moment forever. History is being written, and he has been given a speaking role. That realization weighs heavily in the air.

You glance again at the body.

Still. Silent. Unmoved by accusation or defense. In a strange way, it feels like the calmest presence in the room. Death has stripped away ambition, pride, anxiety. What remains is simply matter, dressed up in meaning by those who need it to be something more.

You reflect on that quietly.

How much of conflict is fueled by the living’s inability to let go. How often the dead become symbols, weapons, warnings. How rarely they are allowed to simply be gone.

The charges reach their conclusion.

A pause follows. Long enough for discomfort to ripple outward. Long enough for doubt to flicker, unspoken, in a few minds. You feel that pause stretch, then snap as Stephen straightens, preparing to pronounce judgment.

You brace yourself—not because anything physically dangerous is about to happen, but because this is the moment intention becomes consequence.

You take a slow breath. Notice the warmth pooling in your hands. Notice the steady rhythm of your heart. Notice the way the bench supports your weight without complaint.

You are here. You are present. You are witnessing something profoundly strange.

Stephen declares the verdict.

Guilty.

The word lands heavily, final and unquestioned. You feel it settle into the room like dust after a collapse. No one objects. No one appeals. The ritual has done its work.

You sense a release in Stephen, a subtle exhale. The narrative has been secured. The past rewritten, at least officially. You wonder, briefly, if it feels as satisfying as he hoped.

You look at the body one more time.

Condemned. Again.

And as the verdict echoes in your mind, you realize the strangest part of all: the dead man has just lost, and nothing about him has changed.

Everything else, however, is about to.

You feel the room shift the moment the verdict settles.

Not dramatically—no gasps, no sudden movement—but in a quieter, more unsettling way. It’s as if the air itself has accepted the decision and rearranged accordingly. Shoulders loosen. A few spines straighten. The ritual has produced an outcome, and outcomes are comforting, even when they’re grotesque.

You notice how quickly humans adapt.

The word guilty still lingers, echoing softly in your mind, but around you, people are already moving on to the next step. Consequence. Procedure. What happens now. The machinery never pauses for reflection unless someone forces it to, and no one here intends to.

You adjust your position on the bench, feeling the familiar scrape of stone through layers of fabric. You tuck your feet a little closer beneath you, preserving warmth. The body knows when to protect itself, even if the mind is still processing.

Stephen VI rises.

The movement draws every eye, robes shifting, rings catching torchlight. He looks steadier now, more assured. Judgment has done its work on him. You sense the subtle confidence that comes from being obeyed, from seeing an entire room accept your version of reality without challenge.

He speaks again, voice calmer, almost measured.

The sentence is pronounced.

You listen as punishments are listed, each one symbolic, ritualized, deliberate. Annulment of ordinations. Stripping of authority. The undoing of a life’s work with words alone. You feel the weight of it—not because it affects the body before you, but because of what it means for everyone else. Decisions ripple outward. Lives rearrange themselves around them.

You notice a few heads bow, not in reverence, but in acknowledgment. This is how it is now. This is the official story.

Then comes the part that tightens something low in your chest.

The punishments are not finished.

You watch as officials step forward again, hands purposeful, faces composed. This is where symbolism becomes spectacle. Where the line between justice and humiliation dissolves completely.

You glance at the body, seated there in borrowed dignity. The robes, the gloves, the careful arrangement—all of it suddenly feels fragile, temporary. You sense what’s about to happen before it does, and your body reacts with a faint shiver.

You pull your cloak closer.

Someone reaches for the corpse’s right hand.

The movement is careful, almost tender, which somehow makes it worse. Fingers close around fabric, then bone beneath. You hear the soft rasp of cloth shifting. A tool appears briefly in torchlight, then disappears from view again. You don’t focus on it directly. You don’t need to.

You listen instead.

There is a small sound—dry, precise, final.

The fingers are removed.

You feel a ripple of reaction pass through the room. Not outrage. Not horror. Something closer to collective discomfort, quickly swallowed. This punishment is symbolic, you understand. These were the fingers used to bless, to ordain, to assert authority. Removing them is meant to erase legitimacy retroactively.

You sit very still.

You notice how the deacon’s face drains of color. How someone near the back shifts their weight abruptly, boots scraping louder than intended. How another person stares fixedly at the floor, as if eye contact with the scene might implicate them.

You think about hands.

How much meaning humans pack into them. Creation. Comfort. Power. Touch. To remove fingers is to say: everything you did with these is undone. It’s an act aimed not at flesh, but at memory.

You inhale slowly through your nose, grounding yourself in scent. Incense. Wax. A faint herbal trace clinging stubbornly to the air. Rosemary again, sharp and clean, cutting through the heaviness just enough to keep you present.

Stephen watches closely.

You sense his satisfaction is incomplete, edged with something restless. This is not about closure. It never was. This is about demonstration. About making an example so vivid it cannot be ignored.

The body is adjusted again.

Without the fingers, something about the posture feels even more artificial. The illusion of authority slips further. The corpse becomes unmistakably what it is—a prop. You feel a strange pity rise in you, not dramatic or overwhelming, just quiet and persistent.

You think about how humiliation works best when it’s public.

Someone announces the next step.

The words feel almost casual now, stripped of their shock by repetition and ritual. The body will be removed. Disposed of. Cast away. The language avoids specifics, as if euphemism might soften the act.

You notice how no one asks where.

It doesn’t seem to matter. Sacred ground is no longer appropriate. That privilege has been revoked. You sense a collective willingness to be done with this, to move the problem out of sight.

You imagine the city outside, the sky still dark but beginning to lighten just slightly at the edges. Morning is not far off. Bakers will rise soon. Animals will stir. Life will resume its ordinary rhythms, blissfully unaware of the night’s events.

The contrast feels surreal.

You watch as the body is lifted once more, this time with less care. The ritual is complete. Respect has served its purpose and is no longer required. Efficiency returns. The human mind is very good at compartmentalizing like this.

You hear the scrape of wood again. The murmur of instructions. The soft clink of metal. Each sound feels louder now, as if the chamber itself has grown tired of secrets.

You feel a subtle urge to look away, and you allow yourself to do so briefly. You focus instead on a candle near the wall, watching wax drip and harden in slow, predictable patterns. This small, repetitive motion steadies you. Predictability is comforting.

You notice how your breathing has slowed without effort. Your body has adjusted. Witnessing has become a kind of stillness.

The procession moves again, this time toward an exit that leads not to ceremony but to erasure. You follow at a distance, unobserved, wrapped in warmth and quiet awareness.

As you pass through corridors, you feel the temperature change again. Cooler air. The faint smell of water. You hear it before you see it—the gentle rush of the Tiber nearby, steady and indifferent.

You realize where this is heading.

Rivers have always been convenient for forgetting.

You imagine stepping outside briefly, feeling fresh night air against your face. It smells of damp earth and water, cleaner than the incense-heavy chambers behind you. You take a slow breath, appreciating the contrast. The world continues to exist beyond this moment, whether or not humans behave sensibly.

The body is brought to the riverbank.

Torches reflect on dark water, trembling gold streaks broken by slow currents. The river doesn’t pause. It doesn’t react. It simply flows, carrying everything eventually, given time.

You watch as the body is prepared one final time—not for dignity, but for disposal. Weights are added. Fabric adjusted to prevent unwanted resurfacing. Practicality replaces symbolism completely now.

You feel a tightening in your chest again, brief but real.

This is the final humiliation.

The last decision imposed on someone who cannot object.

The body is lowered.

There is a splash—not dramatic, not loud, just enough to mark the moment. Ripples spread outward, then fade. The water closes over everything, dark and unremarkable.

You stand very still.

The river accepts the offering without comment.

For a long moment, no one speaks.

Then, gradually, people begin to leave. Quietly. Quickly. As if staying too long might make the act linger in ways they don’t want to carry home.

You remain where you are, wrapped in layers, breathing slowly, listening to the water move past stone.

Formosus is gone again.

And this time, the city hopes it’s permanent.

You rest your hands against your cloak, feeling the warmth you’ve carefully preserved. You let the sound of the river steady you. History has done something irreversible tonight, and tomorrow, Rome will wake up and pretend it makes sense.

You stay a little longer.

Someone should remember how strange this was.

You feel the aftermath settle like dust after a collapse—quiet, pervasive, impossible to fully ignore.

The river continues to move beside you, steady and unbothered, its surface smoothing itself almost immediately after the disturbance. You listen to it for a while, letting the sound anchor you. Water has always been good at carrying things away—objects, heat, secrets, guilt. Humans rely on that. Too much, perhaps.

You turn back toward the city.

Rome is waking now, slowly, reluctantly. The sky lightens at the edges, not quite morning, but no longer night. A thin, gray-blue light creeps over rooftops, catching on tiles and towers. You smell bread baking somewhere nearby, warm and yeasty, comfortingly ordinary. Life insists on continuing, even after something profoundly strange has occurred.

You walk with the others at a distance, unnoticed, wrapped in your cloak like a thought no one wants to finish. Footsteps echo softly against stone. Conversation is minimal. When it happens, it’s clipped, practical, focused on what comes next rather than what just happened. Humans are remarkably efficient at looking forward when looking back feels dangerous.

You feel the fatigue now—not physical exhaustion, but the mental weariness that follows intense focus. You roll your shoulders gently, easing tension. Your body appreciates the movement. You flex your fingers, feeling warmth return to your hands. Sensation grounds you. Keeps you here.

Inside the Lateran again, the chambers feel different.

Less charged. Less expectant. The candles burn lower, shorter, their wax pooled thickly at the base. The smell of incense lingers but feels stale now, as if its purpose has been used up. You imagine someone opening a high window soon, letting in fresh air, trying to clear the space of whatever remains.

You notice the throne is empty.

That absence feels louder than the verdict ever did.

You pause near the place where the body once sat, your eyes tracing the outline left behind—imaginary, but persistent. You imagine how, hours ago, this spot held a corpse dressed in authority, accused and condemned. Now it holds nothing. The contrast is unsettling. Objects leave impressions even after they’re gone. So do events.

You think about the trial itself.

How strange it was to watch words aimed at someone who could not hear them. How carefully everyone pretended this was normal. You realize the true purpose was never persuasion. It was declaration. A performance designed to tell a story loudly enough that it would drown out competing versions.

You feel a flicker of understanding pass through you.

This trial was not for Formosus. It was for the living. For those who needed certainty, clarity, hierarchy restored. Ambiguity is uncomfortable. Silence from the dead leaves too much room for interpretation. The trial filled that silence with authority.

You imagine scribes already at work.

Ink scratching across parchment, recording the proceedings in neat, disciplined lines. Official language. Formal phrasing. History reduced to words chosen by those still breathing. You smell ink and vellum, sharp and familiar. These records will outlive everyone involved. They will become what happened, regardless of how it felt to witness.

You reflect on how memory works.

How easily it’s shaped by repetition. How the official story, once written, settles into place like mortar between stones. Generations from now, people will read about this event and struggle to imagine the atmosphere, the discomfort, the absurdity. They will know the facts but not the feeling.

You feel grateful, in a strange way, to have felt it.

You step into a smaller side chamber to rest for a moment. The stone here holds more warmth, insulated by thicker walls. You sit on a low bench, easing yourself down carefully, savoring the contact. Stone supports without judgment. You lean back, letting your cloak drape naturally around you, creating that familiar pocket of warmth.

You imagine placing a hot stone near your feet again, wrapped in cloth. The gentle heat seeps upward, easing tension you didn’t realize you were carrying. Small comforts matter after witnessing something that stretches the mind.

You notice herbs hanging from a beam overhead—lavender, perhaps, or mint. Their scent is faint but present, calming. Someone has prepared this space for rest, for recovery. Even here, even after everything, people think about sleep.

You breathe slowly.

In.
Out.

You hear footsteps passing in the corridor, more frequent now. Daytime rhythms returning. Someone laughs softly at something unrelated. The sound startles you at first, then reassures you. Life reasserts itself quickly, unapologetically.

You think about Stephen VI.

Where is he now? Perhaps alone, perhaps surrounded by advisors, perhaps already questioning whether this achieved what he hoped. You sense that power rarely brings the peace it promises. It demands constant reinforcement. Today’s certainty becomes tomorrow’s vulnerability.

You imagine whispers beginning almost immediately.

Some will call the trial necessary. Others will call it madness. Some will laugh nervously. Some will feel uneasy without fully knowing why. Rome is good at holding multiple truths at once, letting them simmer until something boils over.

You sense that this story is not finished.

History rarely ties things up neatly. Actions echo. Reactions ripple outward. The river may carry bodies away, but it does not erase memory entirely. Things resurface. Stories return.

You rest your head briefly against the stone wall, feeling its cool steadiness against your temple. You close your eyes for just a moment. Not to sleep, but to process. The darkness behind your eyelids feels gentle, forgiving.

You think about justice.

How often it’s confused with power. How easily ritual can be mistaken for righteousness. How comforting it is to believe that formal procedures equal moral correctness. You don’t judge the people you’ve watched—not harshly. You understand them too well for that.

Fear makes people do strange things.

You open your eyes again.

The light has changed now, warmer, more certain. Morning has arrived. Birds call somewhere above, their voices bright and unconcerned. You hear a cart rumble in the distance, the day’s work beginning. Rome stretches, yawns, moves on.

You stand slowly, feeling your joints respond. You adjust your cloak, smoothing it, tightening it just enough to hold warmth without restricting movement. You are ready to walk again.

As you step back into the corridor, you glance once more toward the chamber where the trial took place. It looks ordinary now. Just another room. Just another space where decisions were made.

You know better.

You carry the memory with you, not as a burden, but as a quiet awareness. A reminder of how fragile boundaries can be. How easily humans convince themselves that extraordinary actions are reasonable, even necessary.

You move toward the exit, blending into the flow of the waking city. No one notices you leave. No one stops you. Observers rarely leave footprints.

Outside, the air feels fresh, cool, alive. You take a deep breath and let it fill your lungs. The smell of bread, water, stone, morning. Comfort returns, gradually, naturally.

You walk on.

The Cadaver Synod has ended, but its consequences are only beginning to stir. Power has spoken, and Rome will respond in its own time, in its own way.

For now, you are simply here. Warm. Breathing. Awake.

And that is enough.

You don’t have to wait long to feel the echo.

Rome is excellent at pretending nothing unusual has happened, but it is terrible at keeping secrets from itself. Even as morning stretches fully across the city, something restless hums beneath the ordinary sounds. You feel it as you walk—an undercurrent, like a draft slipping through closed doors.

People are talking.

Not loudly. Not yet. But in doorways, near wells, in the pauses between buying bread and counting coins. You pass two women standing close together, heads inclined, hands busy with baskets. Their voices are low, but their eyes flick upward when you walk by, alert, measuring. You catch a word here, a phrase there. Last night. The pope. The river.

You keep walking.

The streets smell different in daylight. Less smoke, more life. Baking bread. Damp stone warming slowly. Animal fur, clean straw, sweat already beginning to form as the sun climbs. You notice how your cloak feels heavier now, more suited to night than morning. You loosen it slightly, letting air circulate. Temperature management is constant here—open, close, adjust. Survival is a series of small decisions.

You hear laughter somewhere, real laughter, and it startles you again. The contrast is jarring. How can people laugh after what you’ve witnessed? Then you remember: most of them haven’t witnessed it. They’ve only heard pieces, fragments shaped by whoever tells the story first.

You sense how quickly rumors begin to diverge.

Some say the trial was necessary. That Formosus had corrupted the church, betrayed sacred trust. Others say it was madness. A grotesque farce that insults both faith and reason. A few whisper that it’s a bad omen, that disturbing the dead invites consequences. Superstition slides easily into the gaps left by uncertainty.

You pass a small shrine tucked into a wall niche. Someone has already placed fresh flowers there. The scent is faint but sweet. An offering. Protection. You pause for just a moment, not to pray exactly, but to acknowledge the instinct. When people don’t understand what’s happening, they reach for ritual. It’s comforting. Familiar.

You imagine the reaction spreading outward, beyond Rome.

News travels slowly, but not quietly. Messengers will carry accounts to distant courts, monasteries, scholars. Each retelling will sharpen or soften details depending on the teller’s needs. By the time it reaches foreign ears, the story will already have layers.

You think about how strange it is that this—this unbelievable spectacle—will become a reference point. A cautionary tale. A punchline. Remember that time they put a dead pope on trial? The absurdity ensures survival. Stories that shock stick around.

You feel a flicker of dark amusement pass through you, then fade. Humor is another survival tool.

As you move through the city, you notice people watching each other more closely. Measuring reactions. Who seems comfortable with what happened? Who looks uneasy? These observations will matter later. Rome runs on memory and reputation as much as law.

You imagine Stephen VI again.

You picture him in a private chamber now, pacing. Or sitting very still. Or both, alternating. You sense that satisfaction, if it exists at all, is brief. Power is never done proving itself. The moment one threat is neutralized, another takes shape.

And Formosus, inconveniently, refuses to stay neutralized.

You hear it first as a whisper.

Someone says the river gave him back.

You stop walking for just a fraction of a second—not enough to draw attention, just enough to register the words. Your heartbeat ticks a little louder in your ears. You continue on, but your focus sharpens.

The rumor spreads quickly now.

They say fishermen found the body downstream. Caught in nets. Tangled among reeds. Still wearing fragments of his robes. Still identifiable. The river, apparently, did not cooperate. Rivers are like that. They accept many things, but they don’t always keep them.

You feel the atmosphere shift again, subtly but unmistakably.

This changes the story.

A body returned from the river feels symbolic whether anyone intends it to or not. Superstition flares. People mutter about divine judgment, about signs and warnings. You hear someone say it’s proof the trial was wrong. Another insists it means nothing, that rivers misbehave sometimes.

You notice how fear creeps in around the edges of certainty.

You pass a group of men standing in the shade of a building, voices tense. One gestures sharply, then lowers his hand. Another crosses himself reflexively. A third scoffs, but his laugh sounds thin. You feel the emotional temperature rising, even as the physical day grows warmer.

You think about how carefully constructed narratives unravel when reality refuses to cooperate.

The body being found disrupts the clean ending Stephen hoped for. Disposal was meant to close the story. Instead, it has reopened it. Worse—it has given it a supernatural sheen. Rome loves a miracle, even an uncomfortable one.

You imagine the decision-makers scrambling now.

What do you do with a body that won’t stay gone? How do you respond when the public begins to reinterpret events faster than you can control them? You feel the tension tightening again, familiar, inevitable.

You adjust your cloak once more, folding it over your arm now rather than wearing it fully. The sun has warmed the stones beneath your feet. Heat rises gently through your sandals. You welcome it. Warmth feels grounding when stories start to feel unmoored.

You hear bells ringing—not alarm bells, not exactly. More like confusion. Bells rung because someone didn’t know what else to do. Sound travels farther than explanation.

You imagine clergy gathering again, faces drawn, voices hushed but urgent. The plan has failed. Or at least, it hasn’t ended things the way it was supposed to. Someone suggests burying the body again, properly this time. Someone else hesitates. Who decides what’s proper now?

You feel sympathy for that hesitation.

Because once a boundary has been crossed so publicly, restoring it is never simple. You can’t un-dig a grave in people’s minds. You can’t un-see a corpse on trial.

You notice how people’s language shifts as the day goes on.

Justice becomes mistake. Necessary becomes excessive. Words soften, bend, adapt. This is Rome recalibrating, slowly, instinctively, like a body adjusting after a shock.

You sit for a moment on the edge of a fountain, letting the cool stone seep through your clothing. Water splashes softly nearby, bright and alive. You watch sunlight dance on its surface. Water again. Always water. It carries stories just as much as it carries bodies.

You think about how history often hinges on moments like this—not the spectacle itself, but the reaction to it. The Cadaver Synod was shocking, yes. But its real power lies in what comes after. The discomfort. The backlash. The quiet realization that something went too far.

You feel the city begin to turn.

Not all at once. Not decisively. But enough to sense direction. Outrage simmers. Mockery surfaces. Respect for Stephen weakens. Authority cracks at the edges.

You imagine sleep coming later tonight for many people, restless and fragmented. Dreams filled with images they can’t quite explain. A body in robes. A river that won’t forget. A trial that feels wrong even if they can’t articulate why.

You stand again, stretching gently, feeling your spine lengthen, your breath deepen. You are aware of your own body now in contrast to everything you’ve witnessed—a living thing, responsive, warm.

You walk on.

Rome hums around you, unsettled but awake. The story has slipped beyond control, into the hands of rumor, belief, fear, and memory.

And somewhere beneath all of it, a simple truth takes root:

You can put a dead man on trial, but you can’t make him stay silent forever.

You feel the city’s mood tilt, almost imperceptibly at first, like a floor that isn’t quite level.

By afternoon, the story has acquired momentum. It no longer belongs to corridors and councils; it belongs to mouths and memory. You hear it reshaped with every telling. Some voices lower themselves reverently, others sharpen with outrage, others tilt toward disbelief and laughter. Rome doesn’t agree on what happened—but it agrees that something off has occurred.

You walk past a cluster of people gathered near a shaded wall. Their postures lean inward, conspiratorial. You don’t stop, but you listen as you pass. Someone insists the charges were just. Someone else mutters that no good comes from dragging the dead back into the light. A third shrugs and says power does what power does. The conversation stalls there, uncomfortable, unresolved.

You feel the heat of the day now, sun warming stone, warmth radiating upward through the soles of your sandals. You loosen your grip on your cloak entirely, folding it over your arm. The fabric smells faintly of smoke and herbs, a reminder of the night that refuses to fade completely. Temperature management again—open, adjust, adapt.

You notice how quickly the charges themselves blur.

Ask three people what Formosus was accused of, and you get four answers. Ambition. Illegality. Betrayal. Disobedience. The specifics dissolve, leaving behind a general sense of wrongdoing that no one can quite define. You recognize the pattern. When details become inconvenient, they are replaced by tone.

You think about how accusation works best when it’s vague.

You pass a scribe’s stall and catch sight of parchment already bearing neat lines of ink. The official record is being assembled, shaped, smoothed. You smell the ink—sharp, metallic, unmistakable. It reminds you that permanence is often just repetition with authority. Once written, a thing becomes harder to challenge.

You imagine scholars years from now reading these accounts, frowning, arguing, trying to reconcile the facts with the feeling. You feel a small, quiet satisfaction knowing you’ve felt it. Sensation carries truth that words often can’t.

The whispers continue.

You hear that some clergy are uneasy. That a few have openly questioned the legitimacy of the trial. That others are suddenly very careful about where they stand and what they say. Fear and opportunism make quick allies. You feel the social landscape shifting beneath your feet like loose gravel.

You pause near a shaded archway and lean lightly against the stone, feeling its warmth through your sleeve. The stone has been absorbing the sun all morning, and now it gives heat back generously. You close your eyes briefly and let your breathing slow. In. Out. Simple. Reliable.

Your thoughts drift back to the charges themselves.

How odd it was to hear words like ambition hurled at a corpse. As if ambition doesn’t require breath. As if desire can persist without a pulse. You reflect on how much energy the living expend trying to control the narratives of the dead. It’s almost flattering, in a grim way. Influence outlasting life.

You hear a bell ring again, closer this time, followed by another. Not an alarm—more like insistence. A call for attention. You open your eyes and turn your head slightly, orienting toward the sound. Something is being convened. Again.

You imagine the conversations behind closed doors.

The body found in the river has complicated everything. It has given opponents leverage. It has unsettled supporters. It has introduced a story that refuses to be procedural. You feel the anxiety of that realization ripple through the city’s power structures. Control thrives on predictability; the river has been unpredictable.

You think about symbols.

How easily humans read meaning into coincidence. A body returned by water becomes a sign whether or not it’s intended to be one. Rome, steeped in symbolism, cannot ignore that. You feel superstition seep into logic’s cracks, widening them.

You walk on, letting the noise of the city wash over you. Vendors call out. Tools clatter. Children run, laughing, weaving between adults. Life continues, bright and ordinary, and the contrast feels almost tender. You smile faintly despite yourself. The world is bigger than any trial, even one this strange.

You pass a small group of clergy standing apart, robes gathered close despite the heat. Their conversation stops when you draw near. One of them watches you go, eyes thoughtful. You feel the weight of being seen, even briefly. Observation works both ways.

You imagine how Stephen VI is faring now.

The initial sense of victory has likely thinned, replaced by vigilance. Authority feels heavier when it’s questioned. You sense him recalculating, considering next steps. Perhaps another burial, more discreet. Perhaps public reassurance. Perhaps silence, hoping the noise dies down on its own.

Silence rarely works in Rome.

You hear laughter again, sharper this time, tinged with mockery. Someone tells the story with exaggeration—gestures wide, eyebrows raised. The image of a corpse on trial invites disbelief, and disbelief invites ridicule. You feel the power of that shift. Ridicule erodes authority faster than anger ever could.

You think about how quickly respect can turn brittle.

You sit for a moment on a low step near a courtyard, letting the sun warm your shoulders. The stone beneath you is smooth, worn by generations of bodies pausing just like this. You rest your hands on your knees and feel your pulse steady. Your body is comfortable, supported. Safety allows reflection.

You notice a cat sleeping in a patch of sunlight nearby, belly exposed, utterly unconcerned. The sight makes you breathe a little deeper. Animals understand priorities.

You reflect on the deeper charge underlying all the official ones: insecurity.

Formosus’s real crime, you realize, was lingering. His memory refused to align neatly with the needs of those who followed him. The trial was an attempt to settle that discomfort permanently. Instead, it amplified it.

You hear someone say the word heresy, softly, experimentally. Another counters with madness. Labels circle, searching for a place to land. None quite fit.

You stand again, stretching gently, feeling heat and ease return to your limbs. You adjust your cloak over your arm, fold it more neatly. Small acts of order are reassuring when the world feels unsettled.

As the afternoon wears on, you sense a consensus beginning to wobble. Not collapse—just wobble. Doubt spreads in subtle ways. Questions linger longer. People hesitate before repeating the official line. This is how power erodes—not with a crash, but with a series of pauses.

You imagine a future council quietly undoing what was done. Not dramatically. Not with apology. Just… reversing. Burying the body properly. Pretending that dignity has been restored and hoping everyone agrees to move on. Rome is very good at that kind of compromise.

You feel a strange tenderness toward that impulse.

Because humans want equilibrium. They want sleep. They want to wake up without carrying the weight of yesterday’s excess. You understand that deeply.

You glance up at the sky. The sun has begun its slow descent, light softening, shadows lengthening. Evening will come. Candles will be lit again. Herbs will be steeped. Cloaks will be wrapped tighter. The day will exhale.

You breathe with it.

Whatever comes next—restoration, backlash, revision—this moment has already carved itself into memory. The charges may blur, the verdict may be questioned, but the image remains. A dead man seated in judgment. A city watching itself go too far.

You start walking again, unhurried now. You feel grounded, steady, present. The story is still unfolding, but you don’t need to chase it. It will come to you, one way or another.

For now, the city breathes. And in that breath, something shifts—subtle, necessary, irreversible.

You notice the laughter before you hear the outrage.

It slips through the city like a crack in stone—thin at first, almost harmless. A joke muttered under the breath. A raised eyebrow paired with a half-smile. Someone saying, Can you believe it? and someone else replying, Well… it is Rome. Humor arrives early because it’s safer than anger. It lets people test the ground without fully committing.

You walk through a market now, the air warm and busy, voices overlapping in a familiar hum. The smell of roasted vegetables, bread, and animal fat fills your nose. It’s grounding, reassuring. Ordinary life presses in from all sides, and for a moment, it almost convinces you that nothing extraordinary happened at all.

Almost.

You hear it again—laughter, sharper this time. A man mimics the posture of a seated corpse, tilting his head dramatically. A small group snorts, then glances around, suddenly cautious. The joke fades quickly, replaced by murmured commentary. Humor here has limits. It tests power, but only briefly, like a finger touching hot wax.

You feel the emotional temperature shifting.

Where earlier there was unease, now there’s opinion. Where there was confusion, now there’s interpretation. The city is deciding how it feels, and that decision is not uniform. You sense lines forming—not rigid factions yet, but tendencies. Some lean toward outrage. Some toward mockery. Some retreat into superstition.

You pass a cluster of people arguing quietly near a fountain. Water splashes rhythmically, a counterpoint to tense voices. One man insists the trial was necessary to correct corruption. Another snaps back that it was blasphemy, an insult to God and common sense alike. A third says nothing, just watches, eyes narrowed, weighing which argument feels safer to repeat later.

You slow your pace slightly, not to intrude, but to absorb the moment.

This is what consequences look like.

They don’t arrive as thunderbolts. They arrive as conversations that don’t quite end, as disagreements that linger longer than expected, as laughter that turns brittle and stops being funny. You feel it in your own body—a subtle alertness, a sense that something has shifted beneath the surface.

You adjust your cloak again, draping it back over your shoulders as the air cools slightly. Afternoon edges toward evening. Stone begins to release the heat it absorbed all day, and the temperature drops just enough to notice. You appreciate the warmth immediately. Comfort helps when the mind is busy.

You hear bells again.

Not one or two, but several, overlapping imperfectly. They don’t ring with authority or celebration. They ring with uncertainty. Different hands, different rhythms. You feel a ripple of tension move through the crowd as people pause, heads tilting, trying to interpret the sound. Bells usually mean clarity. Today, they mean confusion.

You imagine clergy responding differently to the noise.

Some stiffen, defensive. Some frown, unsettled. Some sigh, already exhausted. The trial was meant to resolve a problem. Instead, it has multiplied it. You feel the weight of that miscalculation settle gently but firmly into the city’s collective posture.

You think about Stephen VI again.

You picture him receiving reports—fragmented, contradictory. Some advisors downplay the reaction. Others urge immediate action. Someone suggests public reassurance. Someone else advises silence. You sense the indecision tightening around him, the awareness that authority is slipping, not dramatically, but perceptibly.

You realize something then.

Authority doesn’t collapse when people are angry. It collapses when people laugh.

Mockery spreads faster than outrage, and it cuts deeper. You hear it now in the way stories are told—exaggerated gestures, incredulous tones. The image of a dead pope on trial is too strange to remain solemn for long. Absurdity invites commentary, and commentary invites doubt.

You pass a group of younger men near a tavern entrance, their voices animated. One of them laughs openly now, no longer bothering to hide it. He shakes his head, eyes bright with disbelief. Another glances around nervously, then joins in. The sound is infectious. You feel it brush against you, unsettling but undeniable.

You think about how power responds to ridicule.

Poorly.

You notice how the laughter isn’t cruel, exactly. It’s incredulous. Disbelieving. The kind that says, Are we really supposed to accept this? That question hangs in the air, unspoken but persistent.

You walk on, passing into a quieter street. Here, the reactions are different. Faces are tight. Voices low. Someone mutters about divine punishment. Another mentions omens. The returned body from the river has taken on a life of its own in the collective imagination. People cross themselves more often here. Superstition thrives where certainty falters.

You feel a chill that has nothing to do with temperature.

You think about how humans reach for meaning when control slips. Signs appear everywhere. A misaligned tile. A sudden illness. A dream that feels too vivid. Everything becomes evidence. You feel sympathy for that instinct. It’s exhausting to live in uncertainty.

You pause briefly at the edge of a small square, letting others pass. You stand near a wall where someone has tucked dried herbs into a crack—sage, maybe, or thyme. You touch them lightly, releasing a faint scent. Herbal, clean, calming. Someone else’s quiet attempt at protection.

You breathe in.

In moments like this, small rituals matter.

You sense the city dividing not into sides, but into moods. Confidence erodes. Certainty frays. The official story begins to feel less solid, less convincing, as too many alternative reactions circulate alongside it. Power prefers singular narratives. Rome has always preferred plurality.

You imagine conversations inside churches now.

Low voices under high ceilings. Clergy debating whether this trial strengthened or weakened the institution. You feel the unease in those imagined rooms, the awareness that the line between authority and farce is thinner than anyone likes to admit.

You think about history’s sense of humor.

How often the most carefully planned acts become remembered for the wrong reasons. You can almost feel the future leaning in, amused, ready to retell this story with raised eyebrows and incredulous asides. The trial meant to assert control may instead define excess.

You walk past another shrine, this one newly tended. Someone has added extra candles, their flames flickering softly. The wax is still warm, the scent fresh. You watch the flames for a moment, letting their steady movement calm you. Fire consumes quietly. It doesn’t argue.

You notice how evening settles in now.

Light softens. Shadows stretch. The day’s intensity begins to ebb, replaced by a tired kind of reflection. People will talk more tonight, you sense. Darkness encourages honesty. Wine loosens tongues. Beds become confessionals.

You adjust your cloak fully again, wrapping it around yourself as the air cools further. The fabric feels reassuring, familiar. You tuck your hands inside, feeling warmth pool around your fingers. Your body settles, grounded by habit.

You think about how all of this—laughter, outrage, superstition—exists simultaneously.

There is no single reaction to the Cadaver Synod. That, you realize, is its undoing. A truly effective display of power leaves no room for interpretation. This one has created too much space.

You feel a strange sense of inevitability now.

Something will give. Perhaps not today. Perhaps not tomorrow. But authority that invites ridicule rarely remains unchallenged. You sense the city preparing itself—not consciously, not deliberately, but instinctively—for change.

You take one last look around the square.

Faces lit by torchlight now. Expressions thoughtful, uneasy, amused, concerned. Rome in miniature. A city that has seen emperors fall and saints rise, now processing the spectacle of a trial that crossed a line no one can quite define.

You turn away and begin to walk toward somewhere quieter, somewhere warmer. Evening rituals await—food, rest, shared stories. The day will close gently, even if the questions it raised do not.

You feel the calm return slowly, layered over the unease.

Because whatever happens next, the city has spoken in its own way. Laughter has broken the spell. Outrage has found its voice. The trial’s authority is no longer absolute.

And in Rome, that is often the beginning of the end.

You sense the tension finally peak, not with a shout, but with a collective exhale that comes out wrong.

It happens in stages. First, the murmurs grow bolder. Then the pauses between them shrink. Conversations no longer stop when unfamiliar footsteps pass. People test statements aloud, letting them hang in the air to see if anyone objects. Fewer do.

You walk through the city again as evening deepens, the light now fully golden, then amber, then slipping gently toward night. Torches are lit one by one, their flames catching in the breeze. The smell of smoke returns, familiar and grounding. You welcome it. Night has always been better for honesty.

You notice how the laughter has changed.

Earlier, it was nervous. Defensive. Now it’s sharper, more confident. Not cruel—still incredulous—but no longer hiding. Someone openly calls the trial foolish. Someone else replies, foolish is generous. The words land and stay there, unchallenged. You feel a subtle thrill ripple through the crowd. Permission has been granted.

You realize this is the moment Stephen VI loses the room.

Not officially. Not yet. But something has shifted. Authority relies on shared belief, and belief has begun to fray. You feel it in the way people stand, less careful, less deferential. Shoulders relax. Voices rise. Respect doesn’t vanish—it thins.

You pass near the Lateran again, keeping your distance. The building looms heavy and quiet, torches burning steadily at its entrance. Guards stand as they always do, posture rigid, eyes forward. But something feels different. Their stillness feels strained now, as if they are holding position against an invisible current.

You imagine what’s happening inside.

Meetings. Urgent ones. Faces tight, voices controlled but sharp. Someone insisting the verdict must be defended. Someone else arguing that silence might let things cool. You sense raised voices quickly lowered again. No one wants to be overheard. No one is entirely sure who can be trusted.

You feel the irony settle gently into your chest.

The trial was meant to silence doubt. Instead, it amplified it. It was meant to demonstrate control. Instead, it exposed anxiety. Power that feels secure doesn’t need spectacle. This spectacle was anything but.

You walk past a group of older men seated on a low wall, cloaks wrapped tight, hands warmed by cups of something dark and steaming. Wine, perhaps, or spiced broth. They speak openly now, not whispering. One shakes his head slowly, disappointment etched deep into his expression. Another snorts softly. We’ve seen strange popes before, he says. But this?

No one contradicts him.

You feel a coolness in the air as night fully claims the streets. Stone releases the last of its stored heat. You pull your cloak closer, relishing the familiar weight. Linen, wool, fur—all layered just right. Survival through comfort. Comfort through preparation.

You think again about judgment.

How the verdict was delivered with such confidence, such finality. How it landed in the room like a stone. And how, outside that room, it has begun to dissolve, grain by grain, into opinion and memory. Verdicts only hold if people agree to carry them.

You notice more candles being lit at shrines tonight. More offerings. More murmured prayers. People hedge their bets when authority wobbles. They look upward, outward, inward. You pass a woman lighting a candle with deliberate care, lips moving silently. You don’t need to hear the words to understand the intent.

You imagine unrest brewing—not violent, not yet—but emotional. The kind that makes sleep difficult. The kind that fills dreams with fragments: a throne, a body, a river that refuses to cooperate. You feel the city’s collective subconscious stirring.

You slow your pace, letting others move around you. You enjoy the anonymity, the freedom to observe without being pulled into the current. You feel grateful for your warmth, your steady breath, the simple fact of being present but not implicated.

You think about Stephen again.

How he must feel the pressure now, tightening from all sides. How each attempt to assert authority risks further ridicule. How every silence risks being interpreted as weakness. Leadership, you reflect, is often just the art of choosing which risk to live with.

You hear a bell toll, singular and deliberate. This one feels intentional. A call to gather. A signal. You feel the ripple move through nearby streets as people turn their heads, recalibrating. Something is being addressed.

You don’t rush toward it. You don’t need to. The outcome is already forming.

You imagine Stephen standing before clergy again, attempting reassurance. His voice steady, words chosen carefully. You sense that some listen out of habit rather than conviction. Others exchange glances. A few nod too quickly. The cracks are visible now, even to him.

You think about how quickly legitimacy can evaporate.

Not overnight—rarely that fast—but once doubt enters, it multiplies quietly. People replay moments. Reinterpret expressions. Revisit discomfort they previously dismissed. The trial, once framed as decisive, now feels excessive. And excess invites correction.

You pass by a tavern spilling warm light onto the street. Laughter flows out with the smell of roasted meat and spilled wine. Inside, people are talking freely now. Gestures are wide. Eyebrows raised. The story is being told again and again, each time gaining confidence. Ridicule sharpens with repetition.

You smile faintly to yourself.

Not because it’s funny—but because it’s human. People reclaim power by narrating events in their own words. They laugh to assert perspective. They joke to regain balance.

You realize then that the verdict has already failed in the most important way.

It has not convinced.

You pause at the edge of the street and look back toward the heart of the city. Torchlight flickers across stone. Shadows dance and dissolve. Rome looks eternal in moments like this, indifferent to individual rulers, patient beyond comprehension.

You feel small, but not insignificant.

You feel part of a long pattern, one where excess is followed by correction, where authority overreaches and is quietly pulled back by collective memory. The Cadaver Synod will not be forgotten. That, you sense, is now unavoidable.

You adjust your cloak once more, tucking it snugly around your shoulders as the night cools further. You feel settled, calm, anchored by sensation. Warmth in your chest. Steady breath. The gentle rhythm of footsteps around you.

You begin to walk toward a quieter quarter, somewhere to rest. The city will continue to murmur long after you lie down. Decisions will be made. Reversals prepared. Explanations crafted.

Soon—very soon—Stephen VI will face consequences of his own. Not through trial, perhaps, but through the slow erosion of trust. Power rarely falls from a single blow. It collapses inward, piece by piece.

You feel the night soften around you, inviting stillness.

The verdict has been spoken. The punishment delivered. But judgment, you realize, does not end when a gavel falls.

Sometimes, it’s just getting started.

You begin to notice that punishment does not end with a body.

It lingers, stretches, seeps outward into lives that had nothing to do with the night itself. That is how power really disciplines—quietly, indirectly, through paperwork and precedent rather than spectacle. The fingers removed were only the most visible symbol. The deeper damage is happening now, in daylight, on parchment.

You walk past a small church where a priest stands outside longer than necessary, hands folded, eyes unfocused. He doesn’t look distressed exactly—more… uncertain. You feel it immediately. This is one of the aftershocks.

The annulments have begun.

You understand what that means almost instinctively. Every ordination performed by Formosus is now declared invalid. Every priest he consecrated, every bishop he elevated, suddenly occupies a fragile space between legitimacy and erasure. Their authority is called into question not because of anything they did—but because of who touched their heads, who spoke the words, who used those now-missing fingers.

You feel a tightness in your chest.

You imagine what it must feel like to wake up as one of them. To put on familiar robes that suddenly feel borrowed. To perform rituals you’ve performed for years and wonder—Do these still count? To look at your hands and question whether they are still instruments of grace or just flesh going through motions.

You smell incense drifting from the open doorway, but today it feels sharper, less comforting. You imagine the priest inhaling it and feeling no reassurance, only doubt. Ritual depends on belief. Undermine belief, and everything wobbles.

You pass another group of clergy gathered under a shaded portico. Their voices are low but tense. You don’t hear every word, but you don’t need to. You hear validity, authority, precedent. Heavy words. Dangerous ones. These are men who have spent their lives trusting structure. Now the structure is biting back.

You realize something quietly unsettling.

This punishment spreads farther than intended.

It doesn’t just humiliate Formosus. It destabilizes the church itself. If one pope’s actions can be undone so completely, what does that say about permanence? About continuity? About trust? You feel the philosophical fault line crack open beneath the practical concern.

You imagine a village far from Rome.

A small church. Stone walls. A priest who has baptized children, buried elders, blessed marriages. He receives word—late, fragmented—that his ordination may not be valid. You imagine the way his hands tremble slightly as he holds the message. The way doubt creeps into moments that were once automatic.

You feel the cruelty of that ambiguity.

Not dramatic. Not violent. Just corrosive.

You continue walking, noticing how often the word confusion appears now—in conversations, in expressions, in the way people pause mid-sentence. Confusion is exhausting. It drains warmth from the spirit faster than cold drains heat from stone.

You adjust your cloak again, a reflex now. Wool around your shoulders. Linen soft against your skin. You anchor yourself in sensation because the story has grown abstract, institutional, heavy. Your body needs grounding.

You think about Stephen VI’s role in all of this.

You sense that he may not have fully considered this consequence—or perhaps he did and dismissed it as acceptable collateral. Either way, the effect is the same. His attempt to assert control has destabilized the very authority he stands on.

You pass a scribe again, this one looking tired, ink-stained fingers rubbing at his temples. He has been copying annulments all day. Names. Titles. Decrees. Each line quietly rewriting someone’s life. You smell the ink, thicker now, metallic and dry. It feels heavier than before.

You reflect on how punishment often hides behind bureaucracy.

No blood. No screams. Just decisions recorded and distributed. And yet the harm is real. You feel it in the air, in the way people carry themselves now—less certain, more cautious.

You sit briefly on a low step near a shaded courtyard, letting your legs rest. Stone cools you through your clothing, a welcome contrast to the mental heat of the moment. You place your hands flat on your thighs and breathe slowly.

In.
Out.

You imagine the conversations happening behind closed doors tonight.

Priests asking whether they should continue performing sacraments. Bishops debating loyalty versus survival. Advisors calculating risk. Faith, once a given, now tangled in legality. You feel a quiet sadness surface—not heavy, just persistent.

This is the cost of spectacle.

You think about how easy it is to forget the ripple effects when you’re focused on winning a symbolic battle. How tempting it is to believe that undoing one man will simplify everything. Humans love clean endings. Reality prefers complications.

You stand again and continue walking, slower now.

You notice how some people are already trying to minimize the damage. Quiet assurances offered. Interpretations softened. Someone suggests that intent matters more than technical validity. Another counters that rules are rules—until they aren’t. You feel the institution wobble between rigidity and mercy, unsure which will preserve it.

You imagine future councils quietly restoring legitimacy, retroactively validating what was undone. Not because it was right—but because the alternative is chaos. You sense that compromise forming already, invisible but inevitable.

You feel a strange compassion for the church in this moment.

It is a vast, ancient thing, trying to correct itself while carrying the weight of its own history. Sometimes it overcorrects. Sometimes it panics. Sometimes it mistakes control for stability.

You notice the light shifting again.

Evening settles fully now. Torches flare brighter. Shadows deepen. The city slows, exhales. The day’s arguments will continue tomorrow, but for now, people seek warmth, food, rest. You smell stew simmering somewhere, rich and herbal. Comfort returns in small, stubborn ways.

You think about punishment one last time.

How it is rarely contained. How it often spills beyond its target. How the dead, ironically, are the least affected. Formosus does not feel humiliation. He does not feel erasure. The living do.

You wrap your cloak tighter, creating that familiar cocoon of warmth. You feel steadier now, calmer. You have followed the punishment far enough to understand its true shape.

It is not vengeance.

It is fallout.

And fallout, once released, cannot be easily gathered back in.

You walk toward a quieter street, the city humming softly around you. The punishments beyond death continue to unfold, unseen but deeply felt.

Soon, attention will turn elsewhere. Power always does. But the cracks left behind will remain, faint but permanent, like stress lines in old stone.

You breathe slowly and let the night hold you.

Some punishments echo longer than any verdict.

You feel the story turning inward now, like a tide reversing under the surface.

The spectacle has passed. The punishments have rippled outward. And now, quietly, almost politely, the consequences begin to circle back toward the living man who set all of this in motion.

Stephen VI does not sleep well.

You imagine him in a private chamber, the stone walls too close, the air too still. Candles burn low, their smoke clinging stubbornly to the ceiling. He lies beneath layers of linen and wool, fur pulled high against a chill that has nothing to do with temperature. His body is warm enough. His mind is not.

You feel his restlessness as if it were your own.

He turns. The mattress creaks softly. Somewhere outside, water drips—plip… plip… plip—unhelpfully rhythmic. He closes his eyes, opens them again. Sleep refuses to cooperate when certainty cracks.

You imagine his thoughts looping.

It was necessary.
It was justified.
It had to be done.

The phrases repeat, but they don’t land the way they used to. They don’t settle. They float, weightless, unable to anchor themselves in conviction. You sense the subtle shift from confidence to vigilance. From command to defense.

You feel it in your own body too—a faint tension behind the eyes, the kind that comes from replaying moments and spotting things you missed. That pause. That look. That laugh that lingered a second too long.

Stephen has noticed them as well.

You imagine him sitting up now, pushing blankets aside, feet touching cold stone. The chill jolts him awake fully. He pulls on a robe, wraps it tighter than necessary, creating a barrier between himself and the room. Comfort as armor.

He paces.

Each step is measured, controlled, but the repetition betrays unease. Power hates unpredictability. And Rome has become unpredictable again.

You imagine reports arriving.

Carefully worded. Softened. Filtered. Advisors choosing language like stepping stones across unstable ground. Some discomfort among the clergy. Certain voices expressing concern. Unfortunate rumors circulating.

You feel Stephen’s jaw tighten at each phrase.

Concern can be managed. Rumors can be countered. But ridicule? Ridicule slides past defenses. It seeps into places authority cannot easily reach.

You remember the laughter.

You imagine Stephen remembering it too.

You feel the emotional temperature in the city rising—not toward violence, but toward rejection. The kind that doesn’t shout. The kind that withdraws. Trust thinning, thread by thread.

You step back into the city again, moving through it as night deepens.

Torches burn brighter now, their flames steadier in the still air. The smell of smoke and cooked food mingles pleasantly, almost soothing. People gather indoors, voices rising, cups warming hands. Stories are being told again—repeated, refined, sharpened.

You notice how Stephen’s name is spoken differently now.

Not with reverence. Not even with anger. With curiosity. With skepticism. Sometimes with a tilt of the head and a pause before finishing the sentence. That pause is dangerous. It leaves room for doubt.

You imagine Stephen hearing about this.

You imagine the tightness in his chest, the subtle realization that authority, once questioned, demands constant reinforcement. He must respond. He must reassert. Silence will be interpreted as weakness. Action risks further backlash.

You feel the trap close.

You think about how power isolates.

The higher you rise, the fewer honest reflections you receive. People tell you what they think you want to hear. They soften bad news. They offer reassurance that rings hollow. You feel the loneliness of that position keenly now, even without sympathy.

You imagine Stephen calling for another meeting.

The room fills again with familiar faces, but the mood is different. Less confident. More cautious. People sit farther apart. Their hands stay folded. Their eyes dart more frequently. You feel the discomfort of shared uncertainty settle in.

Someone suggests reaffirming the verdict publicly. Someone else advises restraint. A third warns that pushing too hard could provoke unrest. The debate circles without resolution.

You feel the weight of leadership pressing down.

You realize something important then.

Stephen cannot undo what he has done without admitting error. And he cannot double down without risking collapse. Both paths cost him something. That is the price of excess. It narrows options until every move hurts.

You imagine sleep finally claiming him, briefly, reluctantly.

Dreams come quickly—and they are not kind.

You imagine him dreaming of the throne. Empty. Of the corpse, seated again, silent but somehow accusing without words. Of the river, endlessly returning what it was meant to take. He wakes abruptly, breath sharp, heart racing.

You feel the tension in your own chest mirror his.

Morning comes again.

Light spills into the city, soft and persistent. Birds call. Carts roll. Life insists on normalcy. But something has shifted permanently now, and you feel it in the way people move—more watchful, more willing to question.

You hear new rumors.

That Stephen’s behavior has grown erratic. That he lashes out at perceived slights. That he sees enemies everywhere. Fear does that. It turns shadows into threats. You sense his authority tightening into something brittle.

You imagine guards standing closer now. Advisors watching each other carefully. Every gesture scrutinized. Every word weighed.

You feel the city’s patience thinning.

Rome has tolerated many strange leaders. It has endured excess before. But it has little affection for rulers who make it look foolish. Pride matters here. Image matters. And the Cadaver Synod has embarrassed the city as much as it has unsettled it.

You walk through a quieter street, letting your steps slow.

You smell herbs again—lavender, mint—hanging from doorways, steeping in cups, woven into daily rituals. People seek calm where they can find it. You take a slow breath and let the scent steady you.

You imagine Stephen noticing the distance now.

People bow, but less deeply. They listen, but less attentively. Respect performed is not respect felt. He feels the difference keenly. It gnaws.

You think about how leaders fall.

Not always by force. Often by accumulation. Of doubt. Of mockery. Of fatigue. Of lost confidence. The Cadaver Synod was not the blow—it was the crack.

You sense the ending approaching, though it has not yet arrived.

Stephen still holds power. For now. But the ground beneath him has softened, and he knows it. Every decision feels heavier. Every silence louder.

You pause near a wall warmed by the afternoon sun and rest your hand against it. The stone is solid, reassuring. You let that steadiness transfer into you. You breathe slowly.

In.
Out.

The story is no longer about Formosus.

It hasn’t been for a while.

It is about what happens when authority overreaches, when spectacle replaces wisdom, when control is mistaken for stability. It is about how quickly certainty can turn inward and consume itself.

You feel calm now, oddly enough.

Because once you recognize the pattern, the outcome feels inevitable.

Stephen VI has set forces in motion that will not stop for him.

And Rome—ancient, patient, observant Rome—has already begun to decide what to do next.

You sense the breaking point before it announces itself.

It arrives not as a single event, but as a quiet accumulation of gestures that no longer align. A guard who hesitates half a breath too long before obeying. A messenger who delays delivering bad news. A crowd that gathers a little closer than intended, not angry—just curious. Curiosity is dangerous. It asks questions power cannot always answer.

You walk through Rome with that awareness humming softly in your chest.

The city feels tighter now, like a room where the air has been used too many times without opening a window. Torches burn, but their light seems harsher. Voices carry farther. Footsteps echo longer than they should. You smell smoke and hot oil, and beneath it, something metallic—tension has a scent if you pay attention.

You imagine Stephen VI becoming aware of this shift in fragments.

A report that feels incomplete. A look exchanged between advisors that ends too quickly. The absence of reassurance where it used to be automatic. He senses it the way animals sense weather changing—through pressure, through silence.

You picture him seated again in a chamber that feels too large now.

The throne that once felt solid beneath him suddenly seems theatrical, almost absurd. He sits straighter than necessary, as if posture alone can restore gravity. You feel the strain of that effort in your own shoulders and consciously relax them. Your body knows the difference between genuine steadiness and forced control.

You imagine voices rising outside.

Not chants. Not yet. Just overlapping conversations growing louder, less careful. You hear a name spoken—his name—without the reverence it once carried. The sound lands wrong. He notices. He always notices now.

You think about how quickly fear sharpens perception.

Stephen becomes reactive. He interprets neutrality as opposition. Hesitation as betrayal. You sense his world narrowing, the way it does when survival instincts override reflection. Power, once expansive, contracts.

You walk past a group of men standing near a street corner, their posture alert but relaxed. They’re not guards. Not officials. Just citizens watching, waiting, listening. You feel the electricity of possibility crackle faintly in the air. Something could happen. That awareness alone changes behavior.

You imagine the first confrontation not as violence, but as refusal.

A command issued and not immediately obeyed. A suggestion ignored. A correction challenged. These are small acts, but they matter. Authority relies on choreography. When one dancer steps out of rhythm, everyone notices.

You feel a chill and pull your cloak closer, even though the night is mild. Wool settles around your shoulders. Linen rests softly against your skin. Familiar textures remind you where you are, anchor you to the present. You breathe slowly, grounding yourself as the tension escalates.

You imagine Stephen responding poorly.

His voice rises when it should soften. His gestures grow sharper. He doubles down on certainty at the exact moment flexibility is required. Fear does that—it mistakes volume for strength.

You sense the city’s patience thinning.

Rome has endured tyrants, fools, visionaries, and madmen. It has seen power misused and reclaimed countless times. What it does not tolerate well is being made ridiculous. The Cadaver Synod crossed into that territory, and the embarrassment has not faded.

You hear it in the way people speak now—openly questioning, openly comparing. He’s not right. This is too much. It can’t go on like this. These phrases move through the city like sparks seeking tinder.

You imagine the final catalyst arriving without warning.

Perhaps it’s a rumor of another extreme order. Perhaps it’s a confrontation that escalates too quickly. Perhaps it’s simply the wrong moment, the wrong tone, the wrong audience. History often hinges on timing rather than intention.

You feel the shift in the air.

The crowd gathers more densely now, not organized, not unified, but drawn together by shared discomfort. You stand at the edge, unnoticed, feeling the warmth of bodies nearby, the collective heat of people standing close. The smell of wool, sweat, smoke, and anticipation blends into something unmistakably human.

You hear raised voices.

Stephen’s authority is challenged openly now. Not formally. Not respectfully. Just… questioned. That alone is enough. The spell breaks. Once broken, it does not reassemble easily.

You imagine Stephen realizing, too late, that the room has changed.

He speaks, but the words don’t land. He gestures, but the gestures feel rehearsed, disconnected. You feel a strange calm settle over the crowd—not peace, but resolution. The decision has already been made emotionally, even if it hasn’t yet been acted upon.

You think about how revolutions rarely feel revolutionary in the moment.

They feel awkward. Messy. Uncertain. People don’t know where to stand or what to do with their hands. There’s confusion, hesitation, then sudden movement.

You imagine the physicality of it now.

Hands reaching out. Not to harm at first, but to restrain. To remove. To stop. The shift from symbolic power to physical reality happens quickly. Stone walls echo with raised voices. Footsteps scramble. Someone shouts an order that goes unanswered.

You feel your heart rate increase, then deliberately slow it. In. Out. You remind yourself that you are observing, not participating. You are safe in this moment, wrapped in layers, anchored by breath and sensation.

You imagine Stephen being taken.

Not dragged violently—at least not yet—but escorted with urgency that borders on panic. His robe snags briefly on a corner. The sound of tearing fabric is small but devastating. Symbols unravel faster than people expect.

You feel the collective intake of breath as the sight registers.

This is real now.

You sense no joy in the crowd. No celebration. Just grim inevitability. The recognition that something has gone too far and must be corrected, however unpleasant the correction may be.

You imagine Stephen looking around, searching for familiar faces.

Some avert their eyes. Some look back with something like regret. Loyalty evaporates quickly when fear shifts sides. You feel the loneliness of that moment keenly, even if you don’t excuse the actions that led here.

You think about the symmetry of it.

A man who put a corpse on trial is now himself being judged—not by ritual, not by parchment, but by collective will. History has a way of folding back on itself like that.

You step back slightly, letting others move past you. You press your hand briefly against a stone wall, feeling its cool steadiness. Stone endures. People pass.

The city absorbs the moment.

Voices lower again, this time not out of fear, but out of seriousness. This is no longer spectacle. It’s resolution. Rome does not linger in chaos longer than necessary.

You imagine Stephen confined now, removed from the public eye.

The details will blur. Some will say he was imprisoned. Some will say worse. The truth will harden into a few agreed-upon phrases. Excessive. Unstable. Unfit. The language will tidy things up.

You feel the tension drain from the streets gradually, like water receding after a surge. People disperse. Life resumes, cautiously at first, then more confidently. Rome resets itself with remarkable efficiency.

You remain where you are for a moment longer.

You listen to the sounds returning—footsteps with purpose, voices with normal cadence, laughter tentative but real. You smell food again. Warm bread. Herbs. Smoke. The city exhales.

You wrap your cloak tighter, not because you’re cold, but because the moment deserves containment. You carry it carefully, like something fragile.

Stephen VI’s fall will be remembered differently depending on who tells it.

Some will frame it as justice. Some as chaos. Some as necessity. You understand now that history rarely agrees with itself. It only settles.

You take a slow breath.

In.
Out.

The Cadaver Synod has claimed another victim.

And Rome, once again, has corrected its course—not cleanly, not gently, but decisively.

You turn away, feeling calm return, layered and steady.

The worst has passed.

And the night, at last, begins to quiet.

You feel the city settle into a strange, uneasy calm—the kind that follows a storm when no one is quite sure what’s been damaged yet.

Stephen VI is gone from public life now. Removed. Confined. Spoken about in the past tense even though he still breathes somewhere behind stone walls. Rome has a way of doing that—mentally relocating people before their bodies catch up. You notice how quickly his name changes shape in conversation. It’s no longer spoken with urgency. It’s spoken with distance.

You walk through streets that feel familiar again, though subtly altered.

The torches burn steadily. Vendors call out prices with renewed confidence. Children chase one another, laughter ringing clean and bright. You smell roasted grain and herbs, the comforting scent of routine reasserting itself. The city, it seems, is eager to move on.

And yet.

You feel something unresolved humming beneath the surface.

People speak of the Cadaver Synod now as if it belongs to another era already, something exaggerated by retelling, softened by time. That was madness, someone says with a shake of the head. Things got out of hand. The phrasing is gentle, almost forgiving. Humans are very good at sanding down the edges of their own discomfort.

You pause near a wall warmed by late-afternoon sun and rest your palm against it. The stone is solid, indifferent. It has seen these cycles countless times—rise, excess, correction, forgetfulness. You feel steadier touching it, as if borrowing some of its patience.

You think about Formosus again.

How his body was exhumed, tried, punished, thrown into a river, retrieved, whispered about, argued over. And how, in the end, none of it achieved what it was meant to. Instead of erasing him, the trial etched his name deeper into memory. You feel the irony settle gently but firmly in your chest.

You imagine the future historians.

They will puzzle over this event, tilting their heads, rereading accounts. Some will analyze the politics. Some will focus on the psychology. Some will simply marvel at the sheer strangeness of it. No matter the angle, they will linger here longer than Stephen ever intended.

You hear someone nearby say, They should have just let him rest.

The sentence lands softly, but it carries weight.

You realize this is the city’s verdict.

Not guilty. Not innocent. Just… unnecessary.

You walk past a church where a quiet service is underway. Voices murmur in unison, low and rhythmic. The smell of incense drifts out, familiar and calming. You stand just outside for a moment, listening. The cadence steadies your breath. Ritual, when used gently, still works.

You reflect on how easily authority mistakes action for resolution.

The Cadaver Synod was action—dramatic, decisive, unforgettable. But it was not resolution. It did not heal divisions. It did not restore confidence. It exposed fear and insecurity instead. You feel a quiet understanding settle in you, not judgmental, just observant.

You think about resilience.

How institutions survive their own worst moments not by defending them, but by absorbing them, contextualizing them, moving forward with adjusted caution. Rome is doing that now, slowly, instinctively. It is pretending the episode was an anomaly, a fever that broke.

You notice how people avoid talking about Stephen’s end in detail.

It’s not polite. It’s not comfortable. Better to let it blur. History often survives by omission as much as by record. You sense the story already simplifying itself in popular retelling: He went too far. It ended badly. We moved on.

You sit briefly on a low bench beneath a fig tree, leaves rustling softly overhead. The shade is cool, the air still. You fold your cloak neatly beside you and stretch your legs, savoring the simple pleasure of rest. Your body appreciates the pause.

You breathe slowly.

In.
Out.

You think about how the trial revealed something fundamental.

Not about popes, or law, or theology—but about humans. About our discomfort with ambiguity. Our need to correct, to judge, to finalize. Our tendency to turn uncertainty into spectacle rather than sitting with it quietly.

You feel grateful for the distance you have now.

You were close enough to feel it, far enough to remain whole. That balance matters. It allows reflection without becoming consumed.

You watch a cat wander across the square, tail flicking, entirely uninterested in human drama. It pauses to sit in a sunlit patch, closes its eyes, and settles. The sight makes you smile softly. Perspective arrives from unexpected places.

You imagine the body of Formosus finally laid to rest properly, quietly, without ceremony. No torches. No audience. Just earth and stone and the mercy of being left alone. You hope for that ending. It feels right.

You notice how evening begins to soften the edges of the day again.

Light warms. Shadows stretch. The city slows naturally, without being forced. You feel the rhythm returning to something sustainable. Excess has burned itself out.

You think about legacy.

Stephen VI wanted to define history. Instead, he became a footnote—an example, a warning, a moment people reference with disbelief. Formosus, ironically, emerges with more dignity than he was afforded in life or death. Memory is not always fair, but it is rarely obedient.

You stand again, gathering your cloak, feeling its familiar weight drape over your arm. You feel calm now. Grounded. The story has reached a place of reflection rather than tension.

You take one last look around the city.

Rome glows softly in the fading light, eternal and unbothered. It will outlast popes and trials and excesses alike. It always does.

You begin to walk toward somewhere quiet, somewhere warm, carrying the lesson gently rather than heavily.

Some stories don’t end with punishment or victory.

They end with understanding.

And tonight, that understanding feels enough.

You feel the story loosening its grip now, not because it no longer matters, but because it has finished saying what it came to say.

The city has absorbed the shock. Rome always does. It doesn’t forget—but it files things away, labels them, turns them into reference points rather than open wounds. You sense that process underway as you move through quieter streets, the noise softened, the urgency faded into something more reflective.

People speak of the Cadaver Synod now the way one speaks of a bad dream.

With disbelief. With a shake of the head. Sometimes with a reluctant smile that says, Did that really happen? The details blur at the edges, but the feeling remains. Too much. Too far. Something crossed.

You notice how often the phrase human error appears in conversation.

Not evil. Not malice. Error. The word is forgiving, almost gentle. It allows everyone to step back from the edge without admitting how close they stood to it. You understand the impulse. Forgiveness, even of institutions, is a survival strategy.

You walk past a group of young scholars debating animatedly, hands moving as they talk. One insists the trial proves the dangers of unchecked authority. Another counters that it shows the fragility of systems built on ritual rather than accountability. A third just laughs softly and says, Or maybe it just shows people panic when they feel powerless.

You slow slightly, letting their words wash over you.

None of them are wrong.

You feel the philosophical weight of it settle gently in your chest. Not heavy—clarifying. The Cadaver Synod is no longer just a historical curiosity. It’s a mirror. One that reflects human behavior across centuries with uncomfortable accuracy.

You think about fear.

How it drives people to extremes. How it convinces them that dramatic action equals control. How it whispers that doing nothing is the most dangerous choice of all. You recognize that fear in Stephen. In his advisors. In the clergy who went along with it. Fear doesn’t need villains. It only needs uncertainty.

You pause near a low wall and sit, letting the stone cool you through your clothes. The day has been long, emotionally if not physically. Your body appreciates the stillness. You place your hands on your knees and feel your breath deepen naturally.

In.
Out.

You think about resilience.

Not the loud, heroic kind. The quiet kind. The kind that lets people recover from embarrassment, from excess, from mistakes that briefly defined them. Rome is resilient in that way. It doesn’t dwell forever. It adapts.

You notice how the church, too, begins to recalibrate.

Conversations shift from defense to repair. From justification to prevention. Someone mentions safeguards. Someone else suggests humility, though not loudly. The tone changes. Not apologetic—but cautious. Caution is progress.

You imagine future leaders referencing this moment privately.

We don’t want another Cadaver Synod.
The phrase becomes shorthand. A warning. A boundary. That is often how lessons survive—compressed into symbols that discourage repetition.

You feel a quiet satisfaction in that.

You walk again, unhurried, letting your steps fall into rhythm with your breath. The city feels gentler now. Less charged. The air cools as evening deepens, and you pull your cloak back around your shoulders, enjoying the familiar weight. Wool settles. Linen breathes. Warmth returns in layers.

You think about memory.

How strange it is that a man dragged from his grave gained more permanence through humiliation than he ever did through authority. Formosus, stripped of dignity, emerges with a kind of tragic clarity. He becomes less a pope and more a symbol of how easily power can be misused by those who follow.

You realize something important then.

History does not reward intention.

It rewards impact.

Stephen may have believed he was correcting the past. History remembers him as a cautionary tale. Formosus may have been flawed, ambitious, political. History remembers him as the dead man who was put on trial—and through that absurdity, as a reminder that some lines, once crossed, echo forever.

You feel calm settle deeper now, the way it does when a story finally aligns itself into meaning.

You pass a small household where evening rituals are underway. Someone stirs a pot. Someone else arranges bedding. A cat weaves between legs. The smell of herbs and warm food drifts into the street. Ordinary life, patient and persistent.

You smile softly.

These are the things that outlast spectacle.

You reflect on how power often forgets this—that most people don’t live in grand gestures. They live in routines, in warmth, in small assurances. When authority disrupts that too violently, it invites resistance not because people are rebellious, but because they want to sleep at night without unease.

You feel your shoulders relax fully now.

The tension has dissolved into understanding.

You think about how you will remember this.

Not as horror. Not even as outrage. But as a moment when humanity showed its extremes—its capacity for fear-driven absurdity, and its equally strong capacity to recognize when something has gone wrong and quietly correct course.

You realize that the most important judgment in this story was never delivered by a pope or a council.

It was delivered by collective discomfort.

By laughter that broke the spell.
By doubt that refused to stay quiet.
By a city that looked at itself and said, Not like this.

You stand again, stretching gently, feeling warmth return to your limbs. You adjust your cloak one final time, tucking it just right, sealing comfort around you. Your body feels ready for rest now. Your mind feels settled.

You glance back once more at the city.

Rome glows softly, ancient and forgiving. It has folded this story into itself, where it will remain—not festering, but instructive. A reminder passed down quietly through time.

You begin to walk toward wherever you plan to sleep tonight.

A bed layered with linen and wool. Maybe a fur throw at the foot. Herbs tucked nearby to scent the air. A warm stone placed under the blankets, radiating gentle heat. You imagine the comfort clearly and feel your body respond with gratitude.

You breathe deeply.

In.
Out.

Some stories shout their lessons.

This one whispers them, long after the noise has faded.

And as you carry that whisper with you into the quiet of the night, you feel ready to let it go—knowing it will remain, softly, in the background of history, doing its quiet work.