“I understand,” Magda said. “But allow me to help beforehand. In the kitchen they said they would be happy to have an extra pair of hands. I’ll leave before the tableau commences.” She smiled girlishly. “So as not to compromise your authenticity.”
“Bless you. Mm! His grace does not even permit spectators in the chapel for the Last Suppers.”
“No audience?” Dismas said. “But isn’t the purpose of a tableau to put on a spectacle?”
“Normally, yes. Not the Last Supper. He feels it is too sacred. After all, there was no audience at the Last Supper.”
“No, I suppose. Will the Shroud be on display?”
“The reliquary will be present. On the table. But the Shroud will remain inside. What a centerpiece, eh? Mm!”
“Beyond compare.” Dismas smiled.
It came to him. He remembered a detail from his perusal of the Gospels in the archdeacon’s Bible.
“Master Rostang, are you familiar with the Gospel of John?”
Rostang feigned umbrage. “I should hope. Mm!”
“My master would like to show his gratitude. He would like to contribute something to the tableau. A detail from the Gospel of John, as a thank-you.”
“Which detail?”
“Well, as you recall, in the Gospel of John, when the Magdalene arrived at the sepulcher the morning of the third day, she looked inside and beheld . . . remember?”
Rostang brightened. “Two angels. All in white. Mm!”
Dismas nodded. “Sitting on either side of the Shroud.”
“Mm!”
41
What Would Jesus Want?
Do we have enough of this shit?” Cunrat asked.
“Don’t call it that,” Magda said. “But yes. I think. Perhaps. Anyway, we will find out if it is enough.”
“That’s cutting it close, isn’t it?”
“If it’s not enough,” Dismas said, “then when you and Nutker enter, I’ll signal you, so.” Dismas pulled at the tip of his nose twice. “If I do that, then come in, look beatific for a bit, and leave. Nothing more. It will be my signal to abort.”
“What’s ‘beatific’?” Unks said.
“Like an angel,” Magda said. “For those two”—she indicated Cunrat and Nutker—“it will come naturally.”
“Those two? Pah.”
Cunrat said, “It’s not a bad plan, Dismas. Maybe even a good one. But it depends on many parts, which must all work. Why don’t we just torch the fucking chapel? In the smoke and confusion, we go in, pry open the grille with iron bars, and pfft, we are gone.”
“We have discussed this, Cunrat. Again and again. We are not going to burn down the Holy Chapel. And you should pray that God is not hearing you suggest such a thing. Let me remind you—all of you. We are translating the Shroud. In a just cause. To keep it from being stolen by Urbino and Caraffa.”
Markus groaned. “And what is Jesus telling you now, Dismas? Have you been having more speaks with him?”
“Don’t be impious, Markus. Sure, Urbino and Caraffa have intentions on the Shroud. I am confident of this.”
“And if they don’t?” Cunrat said.
“Then they will leave in peace and go to Paris for the baptism of the French brat. And if our plan is sound, we will translate the Shroud of Chambéry.”
“And then?”
Dismas sighed. “Well, Cunrat, what do you think we should do with the Shroud?”
“I’ll tell you what our orders are. To bring it back to Albrecht. After we kill you.”
Magda gasped.
“Don’t worry,” Cunrat said, “those were our orders. But that was before. We are all comrades, now.”
Magda gave Cunrat a kiss. Then kissed Nutker and Unks. “You are good boys, all.”
The Landsknechte blushed.
Cunrat said, “But being comrades, we should all have a say in what to do with our prize. I say we sell it. In Basel, at Dismas’s relic fair. How much would it fetch?”
Dismas considered. He imagined the scene. What a delight for Schenk.
“A fortune,” he said. “But the sale would have to be private. You can’t just go to Basel and announce, ‘Here is the Shroud of Chambéry, freshly stolen from the Duke of Savoy.’ You put out word, quietly, to a half dozen of the top brokers. And see what the market will fetch.”
“What would it fetch?”
“A very great sum, Cunrat. Enough so that every one of us would never have to worry ever again about money.”
Unks rubbed his hands together.
“But before we count our shekels,” Dismas went on, “let us ask ourselves . . . what would Jesus want? Would he want us to steal his Shroud from Duke Charles and sell it to the highest bidder?”
“He said, ‘Blessed are the poor,’ didn’t he?” Cunrat said. “Well, we’re poor.”
“Yes. Good point,” observed Nutker.
“Well,” Dismas said, “if we want to quote scripture, let’s also remember, ‘And they divided up his garments among them, and cast lots for them.’ ”
Nutker said to Cunrat, “What’s he talking about?”
Magda said, “Shame, Nutker. It’s from the Gospel, Nutker. Did you never go to church?”
“I was only—”
“Counting your shekels. Even before you have them. Nutker. Don’t you see Dismas is concerned for our souls?”
The Landsknechte looked at each other. Souls?
Magda went on: “If we steal Jesus’s shroud only to sell it for money, what will we say to him on the Day of Judgment?”
Unks spoke. “I will say, ‘Thank you, Lord, for the money I made from your Shroud. What a fine time I had spending it.’ ”
Nutker nodded. “I will say, ‘Because of this money, I could retire from being a Landsknecht. No longer did I have to kill people to earn my living.’ ”
“Yes,” Cunrat affirmed. “By taking the Shroud, Jesus is leading us to live good lives. Yes. Now I am seeing the workings of . . . what did you call it?”
“Divine grace.”
“Yes, that.”
Dürer shook his head. “What supple theologians you fellows have become.”
“Hold on,” Dismas said. “I am not so sure this is what Jesus has in mind.”
Markus groaned. “Everyone. Stop. You are giving me a headache. Not you, Magda. ‘What would Jesus want?’ Sure, Jesus is laughing through his asshole, listening to you. It’s a fake, the Shroud. They’re all fakes. Dismas himself was sure it was fake until his brain turned to porridge because of what that cocksucker cardinal in Mainz did to him. Now he thinks a bedsheet is speaking to him.”
“Hold on, Markus,” Dismas said.
“Shut up, Dismas. Which I say as your friend. You are not yourself. How long have I known you? We have gone through hellfire together how many times? Before they did this thing to you, you would never have had speaks with linen.”
Magda spoke up. “I think what Markus is trying to say is—”
“That I have lost my reason,” Dismas said.
“Look,” Markus said, “I don’t know, or care, what Jesus thinks. If we are going to do this, let’s do it. And if we are still alive tomorrow, then we can decide what to do with it. We’ll vote. And give Jesus a vote.”
No one spoke.
Dürer said, “I don’t know if it’s real. But real or not, I don’t like the idea of that reprobate Urbino stealing it from Duke Charles. He’s a sweetie pie.”
So it was decided first to proceed, and then to decide how to proceed from there.
The Landsknechte announced that they were parched and must go out for a drink. Dismas gave permission, but exacted a promise they would not get stinking, for tomorrow would require everyone’s wits.
Markus went with them, not because he was thirsty but because Dismas asked him to keep an eye on them. Magda went to her room to do her sewing, leaving Dismas and Dürer alone.
“Come on, then,” Dürer said. “Give me a hand.”
Dürer’s
shroud was laid out on the archdeacon’s dining room table. It had to be folded identically as the one in the chapel: that is, twice lengthwise, then twice across the width, then again and again until there were thirty-two layers.
They finished and regarded it in silence.
“It’s good, Nars.”
“Um. Even better than the Duke’s. Far too good to give to that pig Albrecht. If we do succeed, what then?”
“It seems we’re to vote on it.”
“And if the vote is to return it to the Duke? Are you confident the lads will abide by such a vote? We’re not town council.”
“We’ll find out, I suppose.”
“It does seem extravagant, Dismas. To risk our skins to steal something that we might give back.”
“Yes. It makes little sense. As little as thinking that a piece of cotton is speaking to you. But what sense does it make to believe that fifteen hundred years ago a man who was dead for three days sat up in his tomb?”
Magda was sitting athwart the bed, her back upright against the wall, sewing a pile of white fabric bunched about her legs. Dismas crawled onto the bed next to her and put his head in her lap and fell asleep.
When he woke in the morning he was glad that the Shroud had not spoken to him again in his dreams.
42
What If They Drink the Wine?
The tableau of the Last Supper would begin—“Promptly, if you please!” Rostang asked—at six o’clock.
Shortly after midday, Dismas and Magda went to the Holy Chapel to make a show of helping with the final preparations. The chapel was conveniently still aswarm with servants and workers.
Magda disappeared into the kitchen. Dismas went around the table, adjusting chairs and folding napkins, seeing to this and that. The silver incense chest was there, near one of the braziers at the end of the table. He crouched over it, as if admiring its fine silversmithing, and opened the lid. He reached in and took out a bit of myrrh to sniff. So doing, he tugged on a drawstring inside his sleeve, releasing into the chest the contents of a tubular sack that Magda had sewn into the lining. He closed the lid and continued with his chair adjusting.
Magda emerged from the kitchen. She nodded. Together they left the chapel.
Descending the chapel steps to the Court of Honor, they heard a sound. A carriage rumbled up the cobbled ramp into the courtyard. Then came another, and another, and still more—a dozen or so. As the carriages passed, Dismas saw on each the de’ Medici ducal insignia. One of the carriages, painted light blue, he recognized as Caraffa’s. They turned in a wide circle and came to a halt in front of the Royal Apartments across the courtyard from the chapel.
“What’s this?”
He and Magda watched as footmen emerged from the entrance carrying baggage and loading it onto the carriages.
“Urbino’s leaving.”
“Thank God,” Magda said.
Still more carriages arrived. Rostang emerged from the door of the Royal Apartments and walked across the courtyard to the chapel. He saw them, waved, and came over.
“What’s going on?” Dismas asked.
Rostang made no effort to conceal his delight.
“Our distinguished guest departs for Paris and the baptism of the French brat. How we will miss him. Mm!”
“Is he not staying for the tableau and the exposition?”
“Alas. Signore Caraffa informs me that his grace is feeling poorly. And as the journey to Paris is long, he has resolved to make an early start. What a lot of luggage Italians have. But always they look so pretty. Well, Master Rufus, Sister—six o’clock, yes? Mm!”
Rostang scurried off.
Dismas’s elation at this double benison—no attempt by Urbino on the Shroud, and Magda no longer exposed to danger—was such that he wanted to hug Magda right then and there. But as they were in a public place and as she was dressed like a nun, he refrained.
“Come, hurry!” he said excitedly.
He felt like a bird that had been released from its cage. His feet hardly touched the cobblestones. They hurried from the castle grounds and ran up the three flights of stairs to the archdeacon’s apartment, Magda having to lift her nun skirts. Dismas burst through the door, startling Dürer and the others.
“Wonderful news!” he announced, gasping. “Wonderful, glorious news! The Italians—they’re leaving! As I speak, they are loading their carriages and fucking off to Paris!”
“So?” said Nutker.
“Don’t you see? It means they’re not after the Shroud. Which means, my friends—my good friends—that we no longer must translate it!” Dismas collapsed into a chair. “What a fine day. What a fine day.”
Cunrat said, “I thought we agreed to steal it first and then decide?”
“I, too,” Nutker said.
“Lads,” Dismas said. “Duke Charles is a good fellow. Why would we steal his relic?”
The Landsknechte considered.
“What about your penance, then?” Cunrat said. “All this time you’ve been mewling about going to Hell if you didn’t perform your penance.”
Dismas nodded. “Yes, my penance. Well, Cunrat, I have been thinking about this. Asking myself, what kind of priest gives as penance to steal the burial Shroud of Jesus? Would Luther give such a penance?”
Cunrat frowned. “That’s convenient.”
Dismas laughed. “I’m touched that you are concerned for my soul. I call that convenient.”
“You said we’d snatch it, and then vote whether to sell it.”
“Cunrat. The Italians are leaving.”
“I don’t see that changes anything. A plan is a plan. I say we see it through. And then vote what to do with it.”
Dürer interjected a rather more practical matter.
“What about the wine and the incense?”
Christ, Dismas thought. In his elation over the Italian exodus, he’d forgotten.
There came a knock on the door. Dismas answered it. One of Caraffa’s men, breathless.
“Signore Rufus! Sister Hildegard!”
“What’s the matter?”
“His grace Urbino is stricken. Dying. He asks for the Sister.”
“But isn’t he leaving?”
“We were preparing to leave when came the attack. His confessor has been summoned. Please, Sister. He asks most urgently for you. And to bring your heart potion.”
Magda gathered her apothecary bag.
“I’ll go with you,” Dismas said.
Magda signaled Dismas to close the door so the servant wouldn’t hear.
“A moment,” Dismas said, closing it.
Magda said, “You must go to the chapel.”
“But—”
“I don’t know what to do about the incense. But the wine is in a large earthenware jug, on a table next to the door into the chapel. There’s a cloth with a small red cross over the jug.”
“I can’t just go into the kitchen and make off with the wine!”
“The wine steward is a fat man with a red cap embroidered with the ducal crest. His name is Bertrand. He flirted with me. Go into the kitchen and find him. Tell him . . . no, better—whisper to him: ‘Sister Hildegard asks you to meet her after the tableau. In the castle garden.’ He will be very happy to hear this, I promise you. Then, when you are leaving, knock over the jug, like a clumsy accident.”
“What if it’s not there? If they’ve moved it? What if it’s served at the tableau?”
“Then,” Magda said, “Jesus and his apostles will have a very happy Last Supper. Look, Dismas, the wine is there. Just go in and knock it over. What can they do but call you an oaf?”
“All right. All right. But the incense. What am I to do about that? Kick the chest over? Never mind. I’ll think of something. But I don’t want you going to him alone.”
“Don’t worry, Dismas. All will be well. He’s dying. It will all be over soon.” She kissed him and smiled. “Now, go and be a good Judas.”
She left with the servant.
Let Us Ambulate Together
Dismas rushed to the Holy Chapel in great anxiety. Reaching the courtyard, he saw the train of carriages outside the Royal Apartments, still being loaded by servants. He thought this strange, as the Duke was dying. He hurried on until he heard his name being called.
He turned and saw Signore Caraffa approaching from across the courtyard. Why was the Duke’s chamberlain not at his bedside?
“Ah, there you are,” Caraffa said with discrepant jauntiness.
“Signore. I—How is his grace?”
“At rest.”
Dismas placed his hand over his heart and bowed. “Accept my most profound sympathy at this wretched hour.”
“No, no. He’s sleeping.”
“Oh. Your summons had us most concerned. Is Sister Hildegard attending to his grace?”
“Come, Master Dismas,” he said. “It’s a pleasant day. Let us ambulate together.”
Dismas stood his ground.
“Why do you call me that?”
Caraffa smiled. “It’s your name. How appropriate. Dismas the Good Thief. What was the name of the Bad Thief? Gestas? One only remembers the Good Thief. Why, I wonder? No matter. Come.”
“Where is Sister Hildegard?”
“Am I your sister’s keeper? Ah. I make a jocosity. I don’t, usually. I am not a jocose person. Come.”
Dismas started toward the Royal Apartments. Caraffa said after him, “You will not find her, Master Dismas. Don’t make a scene. What can you gain if they learn who you are? And your purpose here?”
Dismas hesitated.
“It would be better for you to listen to what I have to say.”
Dismas fell in beside Caraffa, heart pounding.
“Now, shall we first agree not to waste such a fine day with denials? Good. What a relief, that finally we can speak to each other without masks. Your friend, the so-called Count Lothar—he’s good. I cannot rid myself of thinking that I have seen him before. Has he been to Florence?
“What he said, that business about how his godfather is the great champion of Savoy—most amusing. But what a sour face you make, Dismas. Are you not in the mood for badinage? Very well. Neither do I like to waste time. We are both busy fellows. I as chamberlain to his grace. You as relic master to Frederick of Saxony. And to the Cardinal of Mainz. Having two masters, you are even more busy than I.”
The Relic Master Page 27
