The testament, p.9
The Testament, page 9
Her words momentarily took the edge off his rage. "Did you find him?"
"No. The tides were strong and a two-day storm offshore had churned the water to murk. It was impossible to see anything clearly, let alone find a body."
"I'm sorry," Bravo said.
"So am I."
His anger fought to reassert itself. "If it wasn't you, then who was assigned to protect my father?"
The knifepoint of his voice pricked her. "Are you out for revenge, Bravo?" she said shortly. "If so, I suggest you save it for those who murdered him."
Racked by his own tragedies, he hardened his heart against hers. "You didn't answer my question."
They had come to the end of the necropolis, though there was a scattering of other mausoleums in the near distance. They stood facing one another, glaring.
"Your father ditched his Guardian some time before he met you. He also disabled a Knight of the Field who was shadowing him. He was an expert at losing himself whether he was in a crowd or not, and, in retrospect, it's clear he wanted to be alone with you-completely alone."
Bravo took some moments to digest this as they continued down the path she had chosen, then he slowly let out his breath. "You seem to have all the answers, and you're resourceful. Is that why my father led me to you?"
"I wish I did have all the answers." She cocked her head. "Why did your father ditch his Guardian, why did he want to be alone with you?"
I want to make you an offer. Remember your old training?
"I don't know," he said, but there was another clutch in his stomach and he had to fight the urge to hit something. He knew what his father had meant for him, all right. The only question was whether he'd accept it. "No," he said after a moment's thought. "He asked if I remembered my old training. Of course he knew I did, he was simply preparing me. I'm certain he was going to ask me to join the Order."
For a moment she was silent, checking the immediate vicinity as she had done at random intervals ever since they had stolen the SUV. Judging by the dates on the gravestones-all in the eighteenth century-they had entered the oldest section of the cemetery.
"I'm hardly surprised."
"You're not?"
"Your father was someone different, special. He was far more than simply a member of the Haute Cour," she said slowly and deliberately. "But to understand this, I have to start from the beginning. As you know, the Gnostic Observatines were once Franciscans."
Bravo nodded. "The original Order was founded in the thirteenth century by followers of Francis of Assisi, and almost immediately upon his death there were those friars who believed that they should be living in apostolic poverty. This angered the pope no end because it was the Church that owned the riches accrued to its Orders. But it wasn't until 1517, almost three hundred years after the death of St. Francis, that the Order formally split into two separate factions, the Conventuals, who wanted to stay put, and the Observatines, who were convinced that St. Francis wanted them to remain itinerant-wanderers exploring far-flung territories so as to bring the word of Christ to those most in need of His gospel.
"Some Observatines knuckled under and even became the pope's envoys on forays to the Levant in order to gain troops and money for a crusade against the increasingly aggressive Ottoman empire. At the time, the Ottoman's powerful navy was taking the islands of the eastern Mediterranean and had begun to threaten even the Republic of Venice.
"But the Gnostic Observatines resisted the pope's edicts for them to renounce their apostolic poverty. They refused and, at length, they had no choice but to flee, going underground. The pope, angered, sent one of his military orders-the Knights of St. Clement, based in Rhodes-in an effort to once and for all bring them to heel."
"For those few of us academics who remember anything about the Gnostic Observatines at all, that is what passes for common historical knowledge. It is correct in the general, but false in its particulars," Jenny said. "Long before the official schism was recorded in history, an internal battle arose, leading to a horribly acrimonious secret rift in the Order. This was scarcely surprising. From the first, the Dominicans and Benedictines, the older and more established orders, aligned themselves against us."
"Why, exactly?"
"For the same reason I was drawn to the Order," she said. The trees left only small ovals of sunlight winking through the rich green of the leaves, through which they picked their way, side by side, like lovers on their way to a trysting place. "We had an advantage in being formed later than the other orders. We had the benefit of William of Ockham."
"Ockham's razor."
"A theory that followed an Aristotelian path different from Thomas Aquinas's faith-based doctrine. Aquinas had moved beyond Aristotle in saying that when we understand the laws of nature we begin to perceive God's plan. 'Ockham's razor' argued that Aquinas was dead wrong: by insisting that reason was the path to unlocking God's intentions, he had demystified God. So a split was formed that would exist forever more.
"The Order followed Ockham in believing in the basic separation of faith and reason, religious doctrine and scientific investigation. How can an astronomer deduce from the orbits of the planets God's design? How can man, using concepts created by the mind of man, possibly come to know God's will?"
Nearing its end, the path pitched gently down toward a low-lying field that bordered a placid-looking pond, drowsing in the heavy sunlight. A high stone wall, the farthest limit of the cemetery, was in sight. The gravestones were thin and flinty, with the bony shoulders of extreme age. Some were so obscured by lichen and moss that it was virtually impossible to decipher the inscriptions. Just beyond, where the path ended not far from the stone wall, hunkered a final mausoleum, quite plain. A jagged crack ran up the left side, as if at some time in the distant past it had been dealt a violent blow by vandals. The ancient stone was as rough as a carpenter's palm. The elbow of a tenacious weeping willow root had inveigled its way into the foundation, as if nature itself was making a bid to reclaim what man had sought to preserve.
A small dark bronze door presented itself to them, above which was a stone pediment, wide and low-pitched, blackened by the elements and acid rain, a triangle of sorts in the center of which, thrust into shadow, was etched a name: MARCUS.
As they stood looking up at the name, Jenny said, "What you may not know is that the rift had been predicted-some have said prophesied-by the twelfth-century abbot Joachim of Fiore. Fiore had written a number of compelling apocalyptic tracts which trumpeted a coming age of the Holy Spirit, when the Church would be reformed by two religious Orders, one living in apostolic poverty. Between 1247 and 1257, Giovanni Burelli of Parma was the Minister General of the uneasy Franciscans. He was summarily deposed because he was close to the Spirituals, a sect of Franciscans from whose ranks the founders of the Order would eventually come. The Spirituals were followers of Joachim of Fiore, whose writings echoed precisely their main doctrine and complaint against the rest of the Franciscans. In 1257, the pope ordered Giovanni of Parma to resign, exiling him to Greccio."
Bravo nodded. "I'm familiar with these facts. He was sent to La Cerceri, the Franciscan hermitage on Monte Subasio near Assisi. He was incarcerated there for the rest of his natural life."
"Or so it was reported to the pope." She took out a key, placed it into the lock on the bronze door. "This is where your knowledge ends, this is where the secret history begins."
She opened the door, and they stepped inside. They were greeted by the smell of must and air seeming as old as the mausoleum itself. At first, he thought the inside was clad in sheets of marble, but on closer inspection, he discovered that walls were in fact plaster, painted in a faux marble pattern as beautiful as it was cunning. A pair of bronze crypt doors were set flush with the wall. They were long and narrow to accommodate the caskets within which rested the remains of the dead. At intervals, just above eye level, there were old-fashioned wrought-iron sconces along the walls, some with lights, others obviously receptacles for flowers, for there hung from two of these the glass-encased withered remains of poppies and irises like skeletons in a haunted house.
"In fact, Giovanni was never a prisoner," Jenny continued as she lit the lamps. "As it happened, a number of the friars in charge of La Cerceri were Spirituals. They were not only sympathetic to Giovanni but were instrumental in installing him as the Magister Regens of the Order, which was even then gathering to it secret followers."
Bravo gestured. "But this is a Jewish cemetery, the family name on this mausoleum is Marcus."
Jenny gave him the ghost of a smile, her strong white teeth showing. "Giovanni of Parma had a sister, Marcella. She fell in love with a painter by the name Paolo di Cione, but it wasn't until after they were married that he told her that he was an Italian Jew, that his family name was Marcus."
She put the flat of her hand against one wall. "You see, Bravo, it wasn't simply our insistence on apostolic poverty that so angered the pope that he sent his private army to hunt us down. The Order has a secret-one so important, so potentially dangerous, that only the members of the Haute Cour knew of its existence.
"Consider the logic of it. The Order had taken a vow of poverty and therefore couldn't own anything, as the other orders did. How, then, were we to survive? It was Marcella, Giovanni of Parma's sister, who came up with the solution. It happened that before he was deposed, the pope allowed Giovanni to pick his successor. He chose Bonaventura Fidanza. It was widely believed that Giovanni chose this master at the university of Paris because they were friends, but in reality it was because Marcella knew that Bonaventura had violated his vow of chastity and fathered a child by Marcella's cousin. This secret she confided to her brother, and thereafter the acquisition of certain select secrets became the currency by which the Order continued their work.
"Eventually, as I told you, the cache became a litany of the evil in the world. The important thing to keep in mind now is that with the power of these secrets we were often able, as I said, to influence kings, merchant-princes, generals-at times, if we were very clever and very lucky the course of history was altered by our intervention. We protected those with knowledge, scientists and writers, independent thinkers born ahead of their time who otherwise would have been persecuted, burned at the stake, publicly flogged or hanged. We hid firebrands, muckrakers and whistleblowers so that they could continue exposing the workings of dirty politics, revealing difficult truths. Of course, we didn't always succeed, but we always did our best to work for the greater good of mankind. Still, our work made us anathema to the Vatican, which is a storehouse of secrets, lies and repression."
Jenny's face was half in shadow. Her gray eyes were very large and in them floated motes the same color as the freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose.
"And then, there came into our possession an artifact so valuable that the Haute Cour was compelled to move the entire cache, to protect it with multiple measures. By tradition, two men possessed the key to the cache and the knowledge of where the cache was buried: the Magister Regens and one from among the Haute Cour whom they called the Keeper."
Several strands of hair, glowing like live copper, had come loose from her ponytail, riding against the surge of her cheek, and she pushed them behind her ear. "The Keeper is special, Bravo, never more so than now. There has been no Magister Regens for decades. The Haute Cour governs the Order now. The Keeper is the official key-bearer, but there was one other from the Haute Cour used as a backup, should anything happen to the Keeper."
"You said was."
"The backup was a man named Jon Molko. He was the first taken and tortured by the Knights. When they discovered he wouldn't talk, they killed him, just moments before your father found him."
"What happened to Molko's key?"
"We don't know."
Bravo put his hand in his pocket, fingered the strange key his father had given him six months ago in Paris. His father's key. But what about Molko's key? Did the Knights of St. Clement have it?
"Our cache of secrets," Jenny was saying. "All that keeps us strong, all that will keep us strong is in the Keeper's hands. This awesome responsibility, this terrible burden was handed down from one Keeper to the next through a process of meticulous and painstaking selection." She moved her head back and forth in an intimation of wariness, and the ruddy lights glimmered on her skin, burnished her in a glow that seemed centuries old. Her lips, bright crimson, were half-parted, and her voice, when she continued, was breathless. "Bravo, your father was the Keeper of all the Order's secrets."
It was a curious thing, but the only time Donatella felt at peace was when she was in a graveyard. For this reason she had made herself familiar with the cemeteries in every city to which she had traveled. DC was no exception, and though the area had an inordinate number of cemeteries, at one time or another she had explored them all, in sunlight and moonlight, in rain, snow and fog. And, in truth, there was none she knew better than Miamonides. It had been a long-held belief of hers that an important secret held by the Gnostic Observatines resided in the Marcus mausoleum-the tomb of the sainted Fra Leoni, a personal touchstone for every member of the Order-but not even the last two members of the Order's Haute Cour she and Rossi had dispatched had been able to provide confirmation. A pity, because raiding that tomb would be a psychological blow from which, she was certain, the Order would not recover.
Now, as she realized where the Guardian was taking Braverman Shaw, she felt a slight tremor ripple down her spine, making her tingle. She and Rossi were moving between the mausoleums, on a line more or less parallel with the path down which their quarry walked. They had to be extremely careful, for the Guardian was being exceptionally watchful and, though Rossi might unconsciously underestimate her, Donatella was determined that she would not.
Rossi had no tolerance for anything he perceived as weakness. His faith in Donatella was absolute-a curious anomaly in his feelings about women-and she had no intention of giving him the slightest cause to doubt that faith.
When she saw the Guardian take Braverman Shaw into the Marcus mausoleum she could hardly contain herself. As if sensing her extreme excitement, Rossi approached her and, curling his fingers around her forearm, said softly in Italian, "You won't forget yourself, will you?" His eyes sought hers, engaged them. In his gaze were all the terrible incidents of their shared past, all the pain and despair, all the blood taken and spilled. To him, her vulpine eyes were like a looking glass in which he saw the best of himself and at the same time recognized the worst. "We have our orders, we cannot deviate from them, yes?"
She nodded, but her mouth was dry and her pulse was heavy in the side of her neck. His fingertips on her carotid picked up the throb as if it were a seismic shift. "This is how you are when we're about to have sex," he said softly. "Your eyes change color, your pores exude an intimate odor, and I know that you're ready." He leaned toward her, his nostrils dilating as he inhaled. "You see? But still I must wonder what complex changes take place inside you."
Mutely, she dug in her pocket, produced a small matte-black canister, which she held like a conjurer between thumb and forefinger. Rossi smiled, releasing her.
Weapon drawn, ready, she headed toward her heart's desire.
"Faith is a tree, growing new branches even in the face of a storm," Emma had said. "There is a plan for us." Was she right, Bravo asked himself now, or was this nothing more than a mirage?
But no. At long last, it seemed that he was beginning to understand his father-why Dexter had encouraged the study of medieval religions, why he was bitterly disappointed when Bravo abandoned those studies, his antipathy toward Jordan Muhlmann, who, Bravo could see now, he blamed for leading his son astray. In the case of Jordan, it was a monumental misunderstanding, and Bravo wished more than anything that his father were standing beside him so that he could explain the nature of his deep and abiding friendship with Jordan.
"You said there was one secret greater than all the rest," he said now. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Jenny said in that perfectly sincere voice of hers.
He did not believe her, but perhaps there was a good reason for her lie. The wariness between them likely flowed both ways.
"You still haven't told me why you brought me here." His carefully neutral tone was an attempt to draw her out. "You could have told me the history of the Order anywhere."
"True enough." Her fingertips moved over the veining of the faux marble walls with the questing delicacy of a safe-cracker's. The rest of her, however, was utterly still. "But there is the question of initiation."
"Initiation?"
"Congratulations. You've just become the most important human being on earth."
He stared at her, for the moment unable to speak or even to think clearly.
Jenny turned toward him, her pale, slightly upturned eyes glimmering through the semidarkness of the antique masonry. He recognized in her glance, in the way she stood, a certain complicity. Entombed together in the intimate blood-temperature warmth, they seemed to be moving in concert, returning in ritual fashion not only to the Order's storied history but to Dexter Shaw's lifelong conspiracy. And all at once tears sprang into his eyes because in a sense gloriously real to him, his father was being resurrected before his very eyes.
Her head dipped and the strands of hair came free again, fiery in the lamplight, curled against the ripe duskiness of her cheek. She took his hand to transmit to him, he assumed, her utter stillness. But instead he felt a vibration of intensity so extreme it quickened his blood; he became aware of her intent, as if, like the young woman in the portrait in her house, she was an arrow in a tautly drawn bow, about to be released.
"There is much to do and I doubt that we have much time." As if to underscore her words, there came a hollow sound, ugly and thoroughly unmusical, as a small, matte-black canister hit the stone floor and began rolling toward them. Then the door to the mausoleum slammed shut.
