The omega factor, p.26
The Omega Factor, page 26
“I agree,” Fuentes said. “You absolutely have my attention.”
Chapter 53
Kelsey continued to study the twelve panels for the altarpiece. Thanks to computer imaging she was able to lay them out flat on the screen, side by side, in perfect proportion, as Jan van Eyck initially created them. But since 1934 the work had not been complete. Here, on her screen, for the first time anywhere, was the actual, cleaned, restored Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in all its glory. What a sight. And by comparing the original Just Judges from the fifteenth century with the 1945 reproduction she’d noticed something.
Small. Relatively insignificant.
Or was it?
The Just Judges displayed ten men on horseback. Who were they? Art historians had debated that for centuries. Were they burghers from van Eyck’s time? Other princes? Dukes? The only thing experts seemed to agree upon was that two of them were the van Eyck brothers. The one most prominent, in the center, wearing a blue cloak and ermine hat, striding on a white horse was Hubert van Eyck. Right behind him in a brown robe and another fur-trimmed hat was Jan. No reliable images of the van Eycks actually existed, though many historians think Jan added his face to several of his private commissions. Still, the general consensus was that the van Eyck brothers were there, part of the Just Judges.
What she’d noticed on the original, under high resolution, was that two of the ten faces were identical. Which was not the case in the reproduction. All ten faces were clearly different. From what she’d read about the reproduction, Jef Van der Veken changed some of the faces, adding in contemporary public figures from his time, including Belgian’s then king Leopold. From a close look at the reproduction she saw that was indeed the case. The ten faces were all different. But on the original, eight were different, and two were the same. When Van der Veken created his reproduction, it would have been hard to determine much detail in the faces, given the amount of dirt and grime that had invaded the panels by the 1930s. So when Van der Veken painted over he just fashioned the faces as he pleased. It was, after all, intended as a mere reproduction.
The car kept speeding down the highway, Sisters Ellen and Isabel in the front seat, not bothering her.
No way existed to contact anyone. No email accounts were associated with the laptop. Same with text. No icon led to any texting platform. But she did not feel the need. She was no longer afraid or angry. Instead, she was interested and engaged.
She focused on the two identical faces from the original Just Judges.
Both were clean-shaven, and one wore a green robe with a silver-and-blue fur hat. He was facing ninety degrees to the right, his gaze across, straight toward the center panel. Both hands were visible, the left empty, the right holding a short stick balanced atop the index finger, held in place by the thumb. It pointed in the direction the face was looking.
To the right.
The face was the same as the image behind Hubert van Eyck. The one generally believed to be Jan van Eyck.
Why had Jan included himself twice?
Her gaze followed the pointer in Jan’s hand across to the adjacent panel, the one known as Knights of Christ.
She clicked and enlarged the image.
Nine people on horseback.
Several wearing crowns denoting kingship. The lead figure sported silver armor, holding a banner pole in one hand and a shield in the other. It was the same figure she’d shown Nick, pointing out the strange words that appeared within the red cross atop the shield. She knew the story of this figure. The neutral face, not male or female. A laurel encircling the head. The decidedly feminine touch to the armor.
Most art historians said this was Joan of Arc.
Entirely possible given that Jan van Eyck had a connection to her. His benefactor, Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy, had been the one to both capture and turn her over to the English. She was executed in 1431. The altarpiece was completed in 1432. If the two faces on the Just Judges were Jan van Eyck, then Jan had painted a pointer in his hand that was aimed straight at Joan of Arc.
With her finger, Kelsey kept going in a straight line beyond Joan, off the Knights of Christ and onto the larger main panel. The path took her finger across a hedgerow that filled the painting’s upper left quadrant. Toward the center the bushes dipped, forming a distant valley, before rising ever skyward toward the Holy Ghost who shone down on the entire scene. The valley seemed a blue-gray smudge, far off in the distance, misty and foreboding. But high-resolution imaging allowed her to enlarge the area and, as she did, something remarkable formed out of the blur.
A building.
Distinct. Unusual. Multistory, with several wings, stepped gables, and a conical tower. It seemed to fill a promontory high among the trees, off to itself, quiet and alone. Surely it had been noticed before, since the minute details of the altarpiece had been analyzed to death. It had most likely been dismissed as just more of Jan van Eyck’s realism, part of a thousand other miniature details he’d included. But no one, other than she, since 1934, had been privy to the original Just Judges being a part of the altarpiece.
Was all this nothing more than coincidence?
Something told her no.
Jan van Eyck had left that trail intentionally.
“Has your order always been called the Maidens of Saint-Michael?” she asked the two women in the front seat.
Sister Ellen turned back to face her. “Not in the beginning. They were the Sisters of Saint-Michael. That all changed in the mid-fifteenth century when they adopted the moniker of maiden.”
“Did that have anything to do with Joan of Arc?”
She asked because of the nickname Joan subsequently acquired after her death. La Pucelle d’Orléans. The Maid of Orléans.
“It did,” Isabel said. “She was one of us, a postulant, who left the motherhouse during her training and did great things. She died far too young. But we drew strength from her martyrdom. So, with her vindication in 1456, our name was changed to honor her.”
After 1431 Joan’s negative image changed. Apparitions began. Miracles attributed to her happened. Imposters flourished. She was no longer deemed a heretic. Instead, many began to call her a saint. For Charles VII, time had draped a taint of illegitimacy over his anointing, since Joan had played a key role in making that happen. If she was a heretic and sorceress, as the tribunal had decreed, had the king gained the throne by using her powers—which, by default, made him a heretic too? That question kept being raised. So much so that, in 1450, Charles ordered an investigation into her conviction. Five years later the pope joined the effort, urged on by Joan’s mother, calling for the tribunal’s original verdict to be overturned.
Which happened in 1456.
The original tribunal was declared tainted with fraud, iniquity, and contradiction, manifest with errors of fact and law. Joan’s conviction was deemed null, invalid, worthless, and without effect. She was washed clean of all sin. And ultimately made a saint.
“There was a grand celebration in Orléans after her vindication,” Ellen said. “Our response to that was to change the name of the order. We became maidens. Why do you ask?”
“Simply curious.”
But she wondered. Was there more to that story? If so, she doubted these two women would be sharing it. She needed to speak to whoever was in charge.
“Have you found anything?” Ellen asked.
May God forgive her.
“Not yet. But I’ll keep looking.”
Chapter 54
Fuentes assessed Bernat de Foix.
Master Dati of the Dominicans had provided some background information. De Foix was a successful businessman with a reputation for fairness and honesty, two traits essential for someone owning and operating an auction house. No criminal record. No bad publicity. Nothing negative. Except that he was clearly a deeply troubled man.
“I thought Cathars detested wealth and all things of this world?” he asked de Foix.
“I thought priests were to be celibate.”
Fuentes smiled. “As did I. Did you have Father Tallard killed?”
“The world enjoys one less predator.”
He took that as a yes. But he wondered, “Cathars do not kill.”
“I killed no one.”
“You just ordered it done. Same thing.”
“No. It is not.”
“So then you would say that Pope Innocent III, who ordered the Albigensian Crusade, bears no responsibility for the tens of thousands who died?”
De Foix said nothing. But the logic was impeccable.
It was indeed the same thing.
He pointed a finger. “You may have violated the consolamentum.”
“You know of our practices?”
“I’ve studied Catharism. Of course, I believed it to be in the abstract, that the religion no longer existed. Yet, here I am, face-to-face with a Perfectus. Your salvation from this evil world may now be in jeopardy.”
But he saw that de Foix did not care. All he wanted was the ruin of Gerard Vilamur, and he was willing to risk his soul to get that.
Impressive.
And telling.
“Why did you choose to sponsor the restoration of the Just Judges reproduction?” he asked.
De Foix cast a curious look. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Please just answer the question.”
Fuentes had to gauge for himself whether the act was intentional or merely a fortuitous event.
“I thought it would gain me some notoriety. The cost was relatively low and the amount of publicity high.”
“Another of those things your religion deems evil.”
“We’ve adjusted.”
He chuckled. “I suppose you have. Did you know the original lay beneath the reproduction?”
“I had suspicions.”
“From other Cathars?”
No reply.
But that was okay. He was convinced that this man knew nothing of the Just Judges’ significance. Nothing of Jan van Eyck, Joan of Arc, or the Blessed Virgin.
Nothing of les Vautours.
Just a vengeful opportunist.
Perfect.
Exactly as he’d hoped.
Ω
Bernat was feeling uneasy.
True, these were men of the church, but his kidnapping and their treatment of him seemed more in line with mobsters than prelates. Nothing all that unusual, if history was any teacher. Surely, Cathars from long ago had thought the same thing about an invading army storming the countryside, pillaging and plundering, destroying everything and everyone in its path, all in the name of God.
Cathars had it right.
This world truly was evil. Everything in it tainted by evil. It was a place to escape from, to leave behind. How many times had he come and gone before? How many other lives had he experienced? Impossible to say. He’d intended for this to be his last since he’d accepted the consolamentum and was now a Perfectus. But the cardinal could be right. Innocent III was as guilty of murder as every one of the crusaders. No difference. And the same was true for him. He would have to start the consolamentum all over. But he flushed those troubling thoughts from his brain and refocused on the more immediate problem.
“You’re a prince of the church,” he said to Fuentes. “What are you going to do about Vilamur? He’s a criminal. A disgrace.”
The cardinal faced Vilamur. “What do you say to that, Archbishop?”
“I categorically and explicitly deny everything he says in its entirety.”
“You see, Monsieur de Foix, the archbishop maintains that you are a liar.”
“I have proof.”
“Not anymore,” one of the other men said. The tall one. “We removed all of the files and information on the archbishop that we found in your study. And we found this.” The man displayed the glass vial with Vilamur’s saliva. He’d planned on taking it to the DNA laboratory when he returned from Ghent. “You have nothing.”
“And I doubt that you have discussed this with anyone, other than the one compatriot,” Fuentes said. “Friar Rice, what was the name you found on the email?”
“Andre Labelle. He sent the video of the archbishop leaving Father Tallard’s house, with the body inside. We can only assume he recorded it.”
“Other than this Monsieur Labelle,” Fuentes said, “and perhaps a few within the Cathars, I doubt anyone else knows anything.”
This man was both perceptive and thorough. What had he stumbled into? What was happening here? Something far more than Vilamur’s adultery.
“Tallard is still dead,” de Foix spit out. “There will be an investigation.”
“Actually,” Fuentes said, “there will not. That body has been removed and disposed of, the house thoroughly cleaned. No one will ever see that pedophile again. The authorities will simply think he fled. A warrant will be issued for his arrest, and that will be the end of it. The men you hired to kill him will, of course, never say a word.”
Every detail had been addressed.
Which made him wonder.
What were they going to do with him?
Ω
Vilamur was exercising the patience that forty years of wearing a white collar had taught him. True, he’d once engaged in multiple sexual affairs with a great deal of women. But he quit all that a decade ago. Not even a rumor of his amorous exploits had ever surfaced. He’d thought all that a thing of his past.
But that was not the case.
So he wanted to make clear to de Foix, “This ends here. You can’t go any further with whatever you had in mind.”
“I can still ruin you,” de Foix said. “The allegation alone is enough. I read that you’re being considered for a cardinal. So much negative publicity will surely end that.”
He glanced over at Fuentes. Hard to gauge the man’s eyes or features in the dark. But what de Foix had just said rang true. The time was approaching 4:00 a.m. Dawn less than two hours away. Which meant daylight. People. Witnesses. Trouble.
Wherever this was going, it better get there fast.
“Archbishop,” Fuentes said. “May I have a word with you. In private.”
Ω
Fuentes had come to France to find answers.
And he had.
Now it was time to make the hard call, the type that bishops, cardinals, and popes had made for centuries. The church had not survived for two thousand years by being weak or stupid. Instead, it was smart and strong. True, the Holy See no longer fielded an army or engaged in open warfare. But that did not mean battles were not fought. And he was now faced with one of long standing.
Prior to 1852, the Holy Inquisition had dealt with the problem of les Vautours. But it made little progress. Once the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology came into existence, the matter was transferred there. Over the course of the last 170 years the eighteen predecessors in his job had generally ignored the Vultures, arguing that it was better to let a sleeping dog lie. But none had been presented with the golden opportunity that had dropped into his lap. Archbishop Vilamur’s problem had, at first, seemed the most promising lead. But events in Ghent had played out better than expected. The trail now seemed clear. He knew precisely where to find the Vultures. Which meant the matter of Bernat de Foix was more an annoyance. One he had no time to indulge.
He wanted to be pope.
Nothing and no one else mattered.
Ω
Vilamur walked with Cardinal Fuentes away from de Foix and the two Dominicans into the blackened trees. A day ago he was a relatively unknown metropolitan archbishop who wanted to be a cardinal, one of many other bishops around the world with the same ambition. Now he was the confidant of a man actively seeking to be pope, one who apparently commanded Dominicans.
Talk about good fortune.
What a difference a day made.
“It is sad but true that, throughout our history, violence has been a part of the church,” Fuentes said. “Pope John VIII was poisoned and clubbed to death by his own clerics. Stephen VI imprisoned and strangled by other prelates. Leo V murdered on orders of Pope Sergius III. John X imprisoned and eventually smothered to death. Benedict VI, killed by a priest on orders from an emperor. John XIV’s life ended by an antipope. Not to mention the many crusades, inquisitions, and wars popes waged for centuries where millions died. You know all about that, though, thanks to your thesis.”
Yes, he did. But he had to know, “Are you equating me with those dead, corrupt popes?”
“Let us be frank, Archbishop. Those popes I just mentioned were horribly corrupt. They abused their position. You, of course, also abused your position. You took advantage of women. You violated your oath of celibacy. You are corrupt. I also want to point out what other Catholics, when faced with similar corruption, chose to do.”
He understood. They killed.
“Please know that I did not come here to judge you,” Fuentes said. “None of us are free of sin. But I also do not want you to become unmindful of the seriousness of your past actions.”
“I don’t need to be reminded.”
“I think you do. And you also need to grasp the degree of salvation I am extending toward you.”
“Which will not be free.”
“Not in the least. There will most assuredly be a conclave sometime in the next twelve months. If granted a cardinal’s hat, you will be eligible to participate and vote. Once you reach the age of eighty, in three years, you will lose that vote.”
“But you will be pope by then.”
Fuentes nodded. “And you can work within the Curia, for as long as you desire, well past the age of eighty. In a position befitting your status.”
“As a cardinal whom you own.”
“That’s a crude way of referring to things. But accurate. If it is any comfort, you will not be alone.”
Which was no comfort.
He’d dreamed about his elevation for many years, wondering what the moment would feel like. To be there, in St. Peter’s Basilica, at a consistory, where his selection would be decreed in the presence of all the remaining cardinals. He would swear allegiance and be presented the ring, scarlet zucchetto, and biretta by the pope.
