The Relic Master

by Christopher Buckley

  Vinegar and gall. Why did this sound familiar? Dismas could not think why.

  The hammering ceased. One of Caraffa’s men was saying something to him. Caraffa crouched, closer to Dismas’s face.

  “We are ready for you,” he said. Caraffa poked at Dismas’s palms. He laughed. “You already have holes in your hands. And your feet. We will make new ones. And afterward, you will have your own shroud.”

  Dismas felt the ropes around his wrists being untied. Hands lifted him by the shoulder, dragging him over the ground. He bent forward, to see. Markus was now also being gathered up.

  On the ground nearby were two crosses, fashioned from the bridge planks.

  “I thought to make a third,” Caraffa said, “for Sister Hildegard. Then we would have three crosses, like in the Gospels. But my master is fond of her. And since my master will be very unhappy to hear that a shroud will be displayed today in Chambéry, we must not make him even more cross. Cross. I make another jocosity. What an effect you have on me, Master Dismas. So we will have only two crosses. One for the Good Thief, and one for the Bad.”

  Caraffa thrust his face in Dismas’s. “But I don’t think you will find yourself today in Paradise.”

  He gave the order. Dismas and Markus were laid on the crosses. Markus kicked and writhed and swore, calling out all manner of names.

  Dismas did not, though he could not think why, for he understood what was about to happen.

  He lifted his head to see Magda. Her namesake, the Magdalene, had been there at Golgotha. To give witness and comfort. She was weeping, poor Magda. He shouted to her.

  “Magda. Close your eyes. I’ll be waiting for you in Heaven.”

  He felt his arms being spread against the crossbeams, his wrists held fast against the wood. He felt the prick of something sharp in his palm.

  One of the men said to the other, “If you hit me with that fucking hammer, I’ll kill you.”

  “Look. He’s smiling. What are you smiling for, piece-of-shit German? Don’t you see we’re going to crucify you?”

  “Well,” Dismas said, “you see, I’ve done this before. It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

  “Ah? Then get used to this.”

  Dismas closed his eyes and waited for the pain.

  Then came shouting and a great commotion. The clang of steel. Was this the sound of death, then? Dismas kept his eyes closed. Yes, better that way.

  51

  Vois. Ci. Loth.

  One.

  Caraffa. All his men were dead now.

  They had tied him to a carriage wheel, as he had Magda.

  He was screaming and shouting and cursing, indignant. With reason, for he was innocent of these absurd accusations that he was the killer of Count Lothar, a French agent, a provocateur who murdered the godson of the Holy Roman Emperor and made it look like the work of Savoyards, to drive a wedge between the Emperor and Savoy, so as to make Savoy vulnerable to France. Absurd! Preposterous! Insulting! Not only to himself, but to the dignity of His Grace Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino! When Urbino heard of this outrage, at the hands of German ruffians, their heads would be forfeit! He would—

  Caraffa was silenced by a meaty cuff to the side of his head. His head hung limply.

  The leader of the pursuivants was a severe-looking man, one Gruner. In one hand he held a miniature portrait of the late Count Lothar; in the other, the same Lothar’s signet ring. One of his men standing next to him held Lothar’s inscribed sword, a gift from his exalted godfather. All these things they had found concealed in Caraffa’s carriage.

  Gruner examined the words on the back of the portrait: Vois. Ci. Loth. Here is Lothar. It was by this portrait that Lothar’s killers identified him. Now, their leader was tied to the wheel of his carriage. How foolish of him to keep such pieces of evidence—and in his own carriage.

  Gruner said to the man who stood in front of him: “Why would he do such a thing?”

  The man whom Gruner addressed was an imperial agent. It was he who had secured their release from the Chambéry dungeon. A tall man, handsome, with abundant ginger-colored hair.

  The imperial agent pointed to the bottom of the miniature, to a monogram: AD.

  Gruner said he did not grasp its significance.

  The imperial agent explained that this indicated that the portrait was the work of Albrecht Dürer, the greatest painter in all Germany. Some said, in the entire world. Therefore this painting, even though a small one, was valuable.

  Gruner shrugged and said even so, it was foolish of Lothar’s killer to have kept it. As it was foolish of him to have kept Lothar’s signet ring and sword. But no matter.

  He held a parley with his men. Caraffa had revived now and was able to hear what was said. As he spoke German, he could understand every word.

  The pursuivants were in no good temper. They had been on the trail of Lothar’s killers for six weeks. Then, on entering Chambéry, they’d been arrested, for mystifying reasons. They had spent days in a wet dungeon.

  Gruner’s lieutenant proposed summary execution. Their warrant allowed it. He proposed this be accomplished by leaving their prisoner tied to the wheel as they set off for home.

  Hearing this, Caraffa became agitated and renewed his remonstrations, spitting fury at his captors and calling them unspeakable names.

  Gruner himself now walked over and delivered him a blow to the side of his head that left him bleeding and unconscious.

  Their conference resumed. At length Gruner announced his decision. They would bring Lothar’s murderer back to Swabia, to have good German justice. For murdering the Emperor’s godson, the sentence would be the Cerberus. So it was decided.

  The company mounted. They were eager to be gone from Savoy.

  Gruner said to the imperial agent, “Will you come with us?”

  The agent shook his head. “No, Captain. My work keeps me here.”

  “We are in your debt.”

  “It was only my duty, Captain. It’s I who thanks you for your help in rescuing these.” He pointed to Dismas and Markus and Magda.

  “God save the Emperor.”

  “God save the Emperor. Captain. A word of caution. If you go by way of Aix, best gag and hood your prisoner. He has friends there. Italians, like himself.”

  “No more towns for us. We go by the Bauges.”

  “Wise. God protect you.”

  Dürer and Dismas and Markus and Magda watched until they disappeared into the forest. Only then did they truly breathe.

  The pursuivants had emptied Caraffa’s baggage onto the ground in their search. His clothes were strewn on the ground. Markus picked up the pieces, squeezing them.

  “Ah,” he said, feeling. He cut into the seam of one of Caraffa’s doublets. Jewels fell out. Markus grinned. By the time they had finished, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls filled Magda’s two hands, cupped together.

  • • •

  They buried Unks where he fell. Magda gathered wildflowers and arranged them around the wooden cross they put over him. They said a prayer for him, and then one for Cunrat and another for Nutker.

  They did not linger, eager to be out of Savoy. They went west, into the Jura, taking care to obscure their trail.

  • • •

  They made camp that night in a glade by a stream. The night was clear, the stars bright above.

  By the fire Dürer told how he’d rousted poor old Rostang out of sleep to inform him about the urgent imperial dispatch that had arrived. A grievous error had been discovered. The men now languishing in the dungeon were imperial agents after all, not impostors. They had been sent to protect Count Lothar after an assassination plot against him had been discovered. The previous dispatch was lies, foul lies provided by a French spy, since unmasked.

  Markus said, “He believed this?”

  “Hard to know,” Dürer said. “The old boy was logy. His eyelids kept closing as I spoke. He was still in a stupor from the incense and the wine. He gave the order to releas
e them. I think he just wanted to go back to bed. He was too tired even to make his ‘Mm!’ ”

  They laughed.

  “I waited for them at the castle gate. Identified myself as an imperial agent. Told them it was I who’d got them released. They were grateful, after being in the dungeon with rats.

  “I told them that I had identified Lothar’s killer. Italian, working for the French, to make mischief for the Emperor. That he had now abducted a girl, a good German girl, who had come with her husband to Chambéry to make a pilgrimage. Her husband and a companion were giving chase.”

  Dürer smiled, looking very pleased with himself.

  “Tell it again,” Markus said.

  “But I have told it twice.”

  “I know. But I want to hear it again.”

  Dürer told the story again, this time making his role sound even more heroic, which made Dismas smile.

  Dismas said, “So Urbino has the Shroud of Chambéry. Too bad for Duke Charles. But at least the replacement is an authentic Dürer.”

  Dürer shook his head. “No.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The shroud Caraffa held in the apartment—it was my shroud.”

  Dismas stared. “But Cunrat and Nutker switched them.”

  “Cunrat knocked the reliquary off the table. Don’t you remember? And they both disappeared from view? They were both in a fog from breathing the incense. They botched the switch. It was the real Shroud they put back in the reliquary.”

  “But how can you know this?”

  “Don’t you think I recognize my own work? Caraffa was this close to me in the apartment. I saw. That’s what gave me the idea to tell him he’d given Urbino a fake. To buy time. It happened to be the truth.”

  Dismas sighed. “Christ.”

  “Yes. Christ.”

  They stared into the fire.

  Magda said, “Will Urbino give your shroud to Pope Leo?”

  “I suppose, yes. After he’s slobbered all over it,” Dürer said.

  Dismas considered. “The Pope can’t very well display it from the balcony of Saint Peter’s. How would he explain it? ‘Here is the Shroud of Chambéry. My nephew stole it for me’?”

  Dismas smiled and pointed at Dürer.

  “Look, how he smiles. Are you happy, Nars? Yes, you are happy, aren’t you? Your shroud will take its place in Rome, in the private collection of the Vatican. A masterpiece, by the greatest painter in Germany.”

  • • •

  Next morning at dawn Markus bid them farewell. He was off to Spain and his cities of gold.

  “God be with you, Markus. Bring me back a cobblestone.”

  They took the long route, on foot, ten days through the Jura foothills, to avoid Savoyard patrols. The terrain steepened as they made their way into the high Jura. Then they turned northeast, toward Geneva, and one afternoon saw before them in the distance the great lake, shimmering. Here was the fork in their road.

  Dürer and Magda hugged. Dismas saw the tears in Nars’s eyes.

  “Good-bye, Little Sister. Look for yourself in my work. I will make you immortal.”

  “Good-bye, Painter. God be with you.”

  Dismas walked with Nars some way so they could say their farewells alone.

  They stood awkwardly, neither able to think of anything left to say.

  “So. What will you do for art in Switzerland? Get some inbred half-wit to paint you a picture of cows?”

  “I’m done with art. If I want to look at cows, I’ll find real ones.”

  It was time.

  “Well, Nars.”

  “Well, Dis.”

  They embraced and parted. They never saw each other again.

  Vale

  Charles III, Duke of Savoy, called “Charles the Good,” cultivated an alliance with the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, but his duchy was finally overrun by foreign armies, mainly French, in 1536. He fled Chambéry and lived out the remainder of his life dependent on relatives, dying in exile in 1553. His great possession,

  The Shroud of Chambéry was nearly destroyed in 1532 in a fire in the Holy Chapel. There being no time to assemble the four different keys required to unlock the iron grille protecting the reliquary, a blacksmith was summoned. He pried open the grille. The reliquary had melted from the heat, but strangely—some insist miraculously—the Shroud survived intact. When French troops invaded Savoy in 1535, the Shroud was moved to keep it from being plundered. In 1578, it was permanently installed in Turin, the relocated capital of Savoy, where it has since remained as the Shroud of Turin.

  Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, later Pope Leo X, died in 1521 of a violent chill following an operation on an anal fistula. His lavish spending left the Vatican bankrupt upon his death. His failure to deal conclusively with the growing demand for church reform in Germany, along with his arrangement with Albrecht over sales of indulgences, led to Luther’s protest and all that followed. Not ordained into holy orders until after he became pope, Leo was the last nonpriest to be elected supreme pontiff of the Church.

  Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, ruler of Florence, dedicatee of Machiavelli’s tract The Prince, died in 1519 of tuberculosis aggravated by syphilis, less than a month after the birth of his daughter Catherine de’ Medici. Unpopular and arrogant, Lorenzo’s death went unmourned. His daughter became queen of France as the wife of Henry II. She produced ten children, three of whom became kings, and two, queens. Lorenzo’s tomb in Florence’s Church of San Lorenzo is often mistaken for the nearby tomb of his more famous namesake grandfather, Lorenzo the Magnificent.

  Friar Martin Luther was finally excommunicated by Leo X for heresy in 1521. His indispensable patron, Frederick of Saxony, continued to protect him from Rome and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles. It is unlikely Luther would have survived without Frederick, who ironically remained a devout Catholic to his death, even as his protection of Luther deepened the cataclysmic schism from Rome. Shielded from powerful enemies, Luther continued aggressively to promulgate his Reformation. While in hiding in Frederick’s castle at Wartburg, he translated the New Testament into the vernacular and later completed his translation of the entire Bible. Luther’s Bible displays his genius for plain, emotionally charged narrative. It is regarded by many scholars as the basis of the modern German language. Lucas Cranach, court painter at Wittenberg, stood best man at Luther’s wedding to a former nun in 1525. Luther died in 1546, married, fat, and happy. Centuries of religious warfare followed.

  Frederick III, “the Wise,” Elector of Saxony, gave up collecting his beloved relics in about 1520. The Reformation triggered by his university employee Martin Luther had undermined popular belief in their miraculous powers. Of his 19,013 relics, only one survives today: a beaker of cut glass, treasured not for any holy association, but because it belonged to Luther, who received it as a gift from Frederick’s grandson. Frederick died in 1525. He is buried in the Wittenberg castle church, whose front door opened onto the Reformation.

  Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, was to medicine what Luther was to religion—an iconoclast and revolutionary. He rejected much if not all of conventional medical thought in favor of more natural remedies. He said that he learned more about healing from executioners, Gypsies, old wives, soldiers, and tavern keepers than from all the dry, classical scholastics under whom he had studied in the leading universities. He traveled extensively in the East, bringing opium to the West, which he refined into a distillate he called ladanum or laudanum (from the Latin laudare, to praise). Paracelsus’s ladanum contained among other ingredients crushed pearls, musk, and amber. He can thus be considered the father of modern Western anesthesiology. He prescribed the first effective treatment of syphilis, using mercury; diagnosed silicosis in miners, which had previously been attributed to the evil influence of mountain spirits; and anticipated the modern practice of homeopathy and psychiatry. He died in Salzburg in 1541.

  Albrecht of Brandenburg, Electo
r of the Holy Roman Empire, Archbishop of Magdeburg, and Cardinal Archbishop of Mainz, continued to sell indulgences even after the practice of hawking temporal forgiveness precipitated Luther’s ninety-five theses and the Protestant Reformation. However, the market for indulgences soon collapsed as a result of Luther’s reforms, along with the concomitant decline of Roman Catholicism in Germany and Northern Europe. He died in 1545, owing large sums to the banking house of Jacob Fugger.

  Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, Albrecht’s grand commissioner for indulgences, fell into disgrace, accused of fraud and embezzlement. He retired to a monastery in Leipzig, where he died in 1519, broken in spirit. Shortly before his death, he received a gracious letter from Martin Luther, absolving him of responsibility for the scandal of indulgence selling, on the grounds that the practice had been ordained by higher ecclesiastical authority.

  Albrecht Dürer, greatest of German painters, died in Nuremberg in 1528 at the age of fifty-six, possibly of complications from malaria. He left an estate valued at 6,874 florins, a considerable sum. Dürer painted one last portrait of the Cardinal of Mainz, in which Albrecht is said by some to bear a distinct resemblance to the subject in another of Dürer’s works: Caiaphas, High Priest of the Sanhedrin, who condemned Christ to death.

  No official records exist concerning the former relic master to Frederick of Saxony and Albrecht of Mainz, called Dismas. The only evidence that he existed consists of a simple gravestone in a Lutheran cemetery in the mountain village of Mürren, Switzerland, inscribed

  DISMAS • MAGDA

  MDXXXI • MDXXXIII

  heute wirst du mit mir im paradiese

  which, translated from Luther’s New Testament, is

  this day shalt thou be with me in paradise

  Appendix

  Extracts from the Report on the Findings of the Shroud of Pope Leo Investigation Commission (SPLIC)

  • Characteristics of man in shroud image: height: 177.8 centimeters; weight (approx.) 79.3 kilograms; estimated age: 45 years. (Cf: estimated age of man in image on Turin Shroud: 33 years.)