“Later.” Bemis waved Fisher off. “I have to see how this story ends.”
And now the worst news of all. Gaius Calpurnius Piso, our mutual friend, committed suicide on the emperor’s order. Nero crushed Piso’s conspiracy in the nest as it was about to hatch. Even our beloved Seneca had to commit suicide because Nero suspected he, too, was involved. Gone with this amiable Stoic are his plans for a universal brotherhood in a unified empire grounded on the natural law of Supreme Reason, what the Greeks call Logos, the Word. Yet, being Roman, he found, as you know, Greek theorizing impractical for the underpinning of virtue so necessary for the welfare of the empire. From your accounts of the Christ, he detected a common ethical basis for the mass of humanity, which does not consist of Greek philosophers. His divine soul and all his dreams have now ascended to the highest level of the stars where he makes his new home.
Divine soul? Ascended to the highest level of the stars? New home? Fisher shouldn’t jump to conclusions. To make certain, Bemis checked the mounted photograph of the Callinicus text. Although his Latin was not at Fisher’s level, he seconded the professor’s translation.
Even Callinicus apparently anticipated Mormon belief. Men can become gods. And this pagan’s belief was even compatible with the Mormon notion that the best of the best might rule over their own planets in the afterlife. Seneca and Callinicus were on the right track. And he was the one to help them go further down the track of knowledge to the Mormon destination. If he could no longer baptize dead Jews, he still had dead pagans to convert.
Think me not an ungrateful guest, but our host, Gaius Calpurnius Piso, is the cause of our calamity. His followers urged him to claim and seize the throne as soon as Nero uncovered the plot. Instead, he dithered in the temple of Ceres like an aimless child. That pretty boy of straw, so unlike his illustrious ancestors, has through lack of courage, despite all his charms, ruined the Piso clan and all his friends by his ineptitude. Know, dear friend, I shall not betray you just as you would not betray me. My notes on the symposium remain where . . . What? I hear noise on the floor above . . . I must hide in the meeting place of the imperial commission under the trapdoor until I know who . . . I will finish this letter later . . . You will remain close to me in death as in life.
“Holy macaroni, Will. This Callinicus letter is dyn-a-mite,” Bemis shouted to his colleague across the Gabinetto Segreto.
“Who called you earlier?” Looking pleased, Fisher stretched his arms and neck. “Anything important?”
“Not really. Just Renaldi.”
“I have had it up to here.” Fisher lifted his index finger to his throat. “He accused me of faking the papyrus inventory until I set him straight . . . What’s he want?”
“The Callinicus letter.”
“We’ve gone over this before.” Fisher wrung his hands. “He can’t have it.”
“I have no choice, Will.” Bemis licked his lower lip. “I don’t want to pull rank, but you must turn it over. He’ll arrive any minute.”
“You should’ve postponed telling him about the letter.”
“Very Jesuitical.” He regretted his pique unworthy of a Latter-day Saint. “Piso will fire us all and hire a new archaeological team.”
“No way.” Fisher rolled his eyes. “You can’t do it. If you—”
A banging on the door drowned out Fisher’s voice.
“This is Renaldi . . . Hand over the Callinicus letter now.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Fluted glasses with leftover prosecco and plates of uneaten sweets littered the buffet table of Lucio Piso’s office in the town of Ercolano, built over Herculaneum. Piso waved farewell to the last of the village’s elite as they departed the reception given for the new superintendent of excavations in Herculaneum. He ushered Will Fisher into his chambers, which looked more like a luxury suite than a governmental office.
Riccardo Renaldi’s presence meant unpleasantness.
“Congratulations on your discovery of the Callinicus letter.” Piso toasted with the prosecco remaining in his glass. “Join me?”
“No . . . no, thank you.” Fisher swallowed hard. “I don’t drink.”
“What can I do for you?” Piso asked.
“The Callinicus letter is just the beginning.” Fisher sat on the sofa indicated by Piso. “Renaldi ordered Dr. Garvey and me out of the scriptorium because of volcanic activity . . . just as we prepared to open the trapdoor in the floor. We need to go back.”
“Unfortunately, an official alert exists.” Piso shrugged. “As the superintendent of excavations, I must appear prudent for a bit.” He winked. “But trust me.”
“That’s why we should go in tomorrow.” Fisher rubbed his hands together. “We barely escaped with the Callinicus letter. An earthquake could destroy priceless scrolls under the trapdoor. Callinicus was, after all, the scribe to the imperial commission.”
“My hands are temporarily tied because of an annoying functionary.” Piso smiled, crossing his hands at the wrists. “But soon my name alone will cut through even Italian bureaucracy.” His hands burst free from the imaginary restraints. “For personal reasons, I am as eager as you to explore what lies beneath the trapdoor.”
Fisher leaned toward Piso at the other end of the sofa. “Then at least return the Callinicus scroll to us.” The professor looked up at Renaldi standing behind his boss and flashing a sneer. “The one he seized from us.”
“You and I work for the Honorable Lucio Piso,” Renaldi said. “The Callinicus scroll belongs to—”
“Silence.” Piso’s command directed at Renaldi startled Fisher.
Renaldi reeled back like a dog kicked by its master.
“My dear professor.” Piso’s voice dropped back to the silky smoothness of a charmer mixed with a tad of the con man. “For forty years a handful of scholars monopolized the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls until the Israel Antiquities Authority forced publication to the whole world.” His stare chilled Fisher. “I will not permit the Callinicus letter to suffer the frivolity of academics. Do you understand?”
“But I gave you a copy of my translation.”
“With all due respect, I would like another expert to review the original.”
“Who would that be?”
“I am not at liberty to say.” Piso smirked. “My expert is shy.”
“The original must not be put at risk.”
“I don’t need to be lectured. I’m not one of your students.” Piso shifted back to amiability. “I promise to return it to you for storage in the Gabinetto Segreto in the Naples museum.”
“I’d like to transfer the blank papyrus sheets I found to the Vatican Library for safekeeping and mold removal.” Fisher turned to Renaldi. He needed the security chief on board. “I have properly accounted for and inventoried the unused papyrus, haven’t I?”
Renaldi scowled and acquiesced with a curt nod of his head.
“Granted, then,” Piso said with the tone of a potentate.
Fisher dreaded relaying Nicole’s ultimatum. He disliked conflict.
But Nicole had insisted.
At the door, Fisher cleared this throat. “One final request. When you permit us to explore under the trapdoor, we would like to go without a guard . . . I mean escort.”
“And if I do not grant such permission?”
“Dr. Garvey will resign from the project.”
“Impossible.” Renaldi was in his face. “You and the American woman already violated my security order by entering the Latin library without me.”
“Permission granted,” Piso said.
“What?” Renaldi’s lips parted and eyes widened. “My authority is being undermined, Honorable Special Superintendent of Excavations.”
“Never forget your place, Renaldi. You do what I say.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Giving the slip to paparazzi, Will
Fisher and Nicole Garvey dashed up the stairs into the basilica of Santa Prisca hand in hand. By overruling his reluctance to go public with the Callinicus translation before authentication, Lucio Piso had done the unexpected favor of making Fisher a media star overnight.
The publicity circus Garvey shunned, he embraced. The last week had been a whirlwind of press interviews and television shows backgrounded with comely eye candy. Newshounds begged interviews from the photogenic professor. The sight of his face on TV thrilled him more than the adulation of students ever could.
The Callinicus hoopla had gone viral. Fisher’s Twitter followers already exceeded one hundred thousand. The attack on the Callinicus letter by a Vatican faction led by Cardinal Furbone amplified the media frenzy. Scholarly journals begged him to write for immediate publication anything he chose about the relationship between Mithraism and Christianity.
He had to figure out a way of walking the tightrope of public acclaim without further jeopardizing his career at the university. The scandal-hungry reporters staked out near the church doors were bound to learn of the heresy rumors against him. With time, he could solve the problem. For now, he just needed his friend to steady him.
“Where are you off to?” Garvey asked.
“I have to check out the mithraeum below the church.” It had to sound urgent. “The Bulletin of Mithras Research wants the final edit of my article ASAP.”
“Why can’t we both go?”
“I made special arrangements. Only one allowed.” They never asked him to come alone, but the restriction sounded plausible. “Gotta go.” He almost stumbled over the kneeler on the way out of the pew.
***
Below the church, Fisher stood before a rectangular room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling painted a faded blue. An underground chill rolled over his skin. In the alcove near the mithraeum entrance once existed a shrine to the birth of Mithras.
His snuffling nap disturbed by the professor’s arrival, the custodian snorted himself awake and smoothed his hedgehog hair. Scowling, he verified the visitor’s identification. The custodian grabbed Fisher’s satchel. “I need to see what’s inside.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“A man.” The custodian opened the straps. He extracted a book, a notepad, a pocket recorder, colored pencils, and a pint-sized bottle of cut glass decorated with a cross surrounded by wines. “What’s this?”
“A container with holy water . . . blessed by Pope Celestine the Sixth.”
After returning the satchel and its contents, the custodian yawned and waved him inside.
Fisher strolled down the aisle of the mithraeum with its raised platforms on either side toward the altar in the front. The north wall showed Mithras and the sun god sharing a meal as a procession of Lion initiates approached. The south wall depicted a procession with figures from each of the seven grades of initiation. While Garvey waited above, he wept below, tossing back Jack Daniels from a holy water container in the chapel of the god Mithras.
Unknown to Garvey, the board of trustees of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, known affectionately to students as the Greg, had suspended him from his teaching duties. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had triggered his suspension for suspicion of heresy in his latest book. They said he undermined the faith by condoning syncretism of the world’s major religious systems under the banner of “one God with many names.”
All roads led to Rome. Why couldn’t all roads lead to God? Had not the Church absorbed the symbols and traditions and beliefs of other religions? Could any religion be a world religion if it did not? Saint Paul understood this. Why didn’t the congregation? He hoped Cardinal Furbone, the temporary prefect of the congregation after the death of its director, might reverse its prior opinion.
He euthanized his questions with another slug of consolation from his good friend in the holy water container, Mr. Jack Daniels.
New questions sprang up. Why should he sabotage his career prospects with in-your-face opinions? Others, like Abramo Basso, believed as he did, but they kept their heads down and mouths shut. He might still save himself if he recanted like Galileo. He should throw himself at the feet of the new prefect of the congregation and beg for mercy. Wasn’t humbling oneself a virtue? Like obedience?
Wiping away tears with his sleeve, he reproved himself for his maudlin weakness. Fisher groped along the walls of the mithraeum in search of one particular inscription. He had to make sure he got it right in his article. His eyes scanned the rough walls. Sweet are the livers of the birds but worry reigns. What worries? That puzzling piece of graffiti wasn’t what he sought. He found another. You must conduct the rite through clouded times. What was the rite? No one really knew for sure. It wasn’t called a mystery religion for nothing. What clouded times? The barbarians at the gates? The followers of Mithras under attack? Only the dead writer knew. What he was looking for must be farther on. He moved forward along the walls.
Receive the incense-burning Lions, O Holy Father, through whom we offer incense, through whom we are consumed. When he first encountered these words in graduate school, he thought of Christian saints, like Saint John of the Cross, who claimed to be consumed by the fire of divine love. No one knew whether the writer of the verse had the same feeling. All the living knew was that the Lion grade had something to do with fire. Was it a purification ritual before moving up to the rank of Perses . . . the Persian? No certain answer existed but all the more reason why scholars like him could write tomes without fear of contradiction.
He hurried farther from the custodian’s stare. He had to stay away before his breath or glassy eyes betrayed him. He had to keep his pal Jack a secret. Out of the custodian’s sight, he spotted what he came for. And you saved us after having shed the eternal blood. Some said this inscription proved Mithras was a savior god like Christ. Others even saw this as another indication of a Christianity infused by Mithraic belief. His forthcoming article would claim a different meaning. It meant the bull’s blood, not the blood of Mithras, saved mankind. Mithras never shed blood in atonement for the sins of mankind. The typical mithraeum depicted wheat and grapes flowing from either the blood of the bull or the bull’s tail, gifts to mankind from its death. Maybe his more orthodox interpretation would help get the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith off his back.
Fisher scuttled away as he heard the custodian’s steps come closer. Trying to settle himself, he focused on the mural of Mithras slaying the bull, what scholars called the tauroctony, the mystical and mysterious icon of Mithraic ritual. An artistic sunbeam shone from the top left onto Mithras in his starry cloak as he stabbed the bull to death. A dog and a snake leaped up to lick the bull’s blood while a scorpion clawed the bull’s testicles. A miniature pictograph showed Helios the sun god kneeling to Mithras while in another pictograph Helios and Mithras shook hands.
“Can I have some?” Fisher startled to hear the words behind him. He turned. The custodian stared at him. His mind went blank with panic.
“I said . . . Can I have some?”
“Some what?”
“The holy water, of course. I want some for my wife.”
“It’s for . . . my friend . . . He’s sick . . . very sick. He needs it . . . for his cure.”
The custodian grunted acquiescence and walked back to his station.
Fisher hung his head. What have I become?
***
Returning to the upper world, Fisher encountered people sitting in pain on the steps of the church or lying dead on the pavement. Others stumbled and pushed through the doors of Santa Prisca like disoriented bumblebees in their frenzy to get out. Moving unsteadily toward the entrance to help out, he felt the sting of a bleach-like smell bite its way through his nose and mouth. Wisps of a greenish haze drifted out the doors, flung wide open. With tearing eyes and congested lungs, he retreated from the church to the street.
Fits of coughing broke out all around. Hugging herself with blistered arms, a woman sat on the pavement and retched into the street. The high-pitched hysteria of approaching sirens grew louder. Two ambulances and a police cruiser were already parked near a garden at the side of the church. Inside the garden, he found blue-suited paramedics attending persons suffering from breathing problems. He spotted Nicole sitting on a garden bench. A paramedic administered oxygen to her. The paramedic removed the oxygen mask. “Thank God, Nicole,” Fisher said. “You’re alive.”
She rubbed her eyes. “It was terrible.”
“What happened?” Fisher held her hand.
“Two men came onto the altar before Mass . . . deacons? Altar boys? I don’t know.”
She gasped. The paramedic shot her more oxygen and suggested she not speak.
“A yellowish-orange mask, helmets with spokes—like rays from the sun, sticking out . . . a tube running into the neck of the surplice. They put something into the incense burners. They swung the burners back and forth . . . strange chanting. Dirty, green mist came out . . . people sick and . . .”
Her head rocked in spasms of coughing. She stopped. Paramedics took her away to a nearby hospital for observation.
As the professor watched the ambulance leave and prepared to reach into the satchel for advice from Jack Daniels, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Commissario Marco Leone.
“What happened to Nicole?” Fisher asked.
“Another terrorist attack. We think chlorine gas.”
“It burned my nose.” Fisher jammed on sunglasses to thwart Leone from detecting Jack in his eyes. “She said something strange.” He watched a victim being carried away on a stretcher. “About two men on the altar. They wore helmets, with tubing, resembling the sun.”
“The poor woman is in shock.” Leone brushed away a fly. “Her emotions distorted her perception.”
The Mithras Conspiracy Page 14
