Light in the Shadows

by Linda Lafferty

  It was a frozen instant of horror and death. But it wasn’t the death that brought those tears to her eyes and held her attention.

  It was the life.

  Life pulsed from those figures, from those bodies. Even from the dying saint. From the half-naked executioner, master of death. From the servant girl, the guard, the old woman staring in horror. And from the two other prisoners, figures Lucia had overlooked at first, but who now riveted her attention, peering through the bars of a shadowed window at the fate they might soon enough share.

  The genius of Caravaggio was the life force that surged off the canvas.

  And now, as that force vibrated within her, Lucia was sure: the same force had surrounded her and held her in the dark of the warehouse as she waited and wondered, like those two prisoners witnessing the beheading, whether her life would be sacrificed next.

  She didn’t know how long she stood there, caught in the spell of that moment—a living moment painted four hundred years ago, a sacred moment from two thousand years ago—but she hardly moved until the spell was broken.

  Broken by the shard of memory of other beheadings that had happened only days ago.

  And suddenly she felt lost and alone in the busy room and she spun around, looking for Moto. But he wasn’t there and a sense of menace closed in around her. Someone was hunting her, someone wanted to kill her, and she was all alone in the crowd.

  She fought down the panic. Murder in the cathedral? No, certainly she was safe here at least.

  But she had already seen murder in a church, seen the real blood on the floor, Te-Te’s blood.

  Stop it! She’d told Moto she was sure they were safe here, that they’d gotten away from whoever was chasing them. She’d meant it then and she’d have to keep believing it. If she didn’t, she’d fall apart. She reminded herself of the vow she’d taken outside the airport, however long ago that was: she was all in. No hesitation. No falling apart. No hope, no fear.

  She turned back for one last look at the Beheading. Yes. She had seen what she needed to see. The painting—“their painting”—was a Caravaggio. It had to be. She turned and slipped silently from the room.

  Moto was standing right outside, waiting patiently, watching the crowds that surged into the room.

  “When do we get out of here?”

  After another long bus ride in the rain, from Valletta to Rabat, they were back in the hotel.

  Lucia answered Moto’s question with one of her own.

  “How do we get out of here?”

  “No boats?”

  “No boats. No ferries.” And just to be clear: “No Sicily.”

  “It’s too far to swim.” No answer to that, so he went on. “That means we have to fly.”

  “And no help from your friends?”

  “None. We have to go like ordinary people. Go to the airport, buy a ticket to Rome, and hold our breath until we’re somewhere safe.”

  “OK. So . . . when’s the next plane?”

  “Look it up. You’re the one with the phone.”

  After a long silence, broken only by an occasional muttered curse, Lucia tossed her phone on the bed. “Tomorrow morning.”

  “All right! A big night on the town in Rabat. I always wanted to party in Malta.”

  “I thought we were keeping out of sight.”

  “I’m guessing the January bar scene in Rabat is pretty much the same as keeping out of sight.”

  “It’s only three o’clock.”

  “Nap time!”

  Moto stretched out on the bed, and Lucia sat in the room’s only chair and idly browsed through websites on her cell phone. For a long time there was silence.

  Then Lucia stood up and announced, “I’m going to see the grotto.”

  “What?”

  “The Grotto of Saint Paul. He was shipwrecked on Malta—it’s in the Bible—and he lived in a cave in Rabat. It’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

  “When did you suddenly get religious? Did you make some kind of bargain with God if he’d get you off my cousin’s boat?”

  “If I’d made a bargain with God, it would have been to send a wave to wash you overboard—and a whale to swallow you—for dragging me onto that scow.”

  “Hey!”

  “I know, I know, it’s a noble fishing vessel. Anyway, no religion involved. I was reading on the web that Caravaggio visited the grotto, that he got some inspiration for the Beheading there. As long as we’re stuck here, might as well go. You coming?”

  “It’s a grotto, right? So it’s underground?”

  “Sure. Want to see a picture?” She held up the phone.

  “No, thanks. Not me. I figure I’ll spend enough time underground when I’m dead. Until then, I’m staying up here in the fresh air.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Underground scares me. You go ahead. I’ll stay here.”

  “I guess I can’t tempt you with a side trip to the catacombs. They’re connected to the grotto.” Moto shuddered dramatically. “Thought not. OK. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Tell Paul I said hello. Put in a good word for me.”

  Lucia closed the door behind her, took a deep breath, and headed down the stairs. There was nothing to be afraid of. She’d made up her mind about that.

  After she was gone, Moto sat alone in the room for a while. Then he shook his head, shouted, “No!” to the empty room, grabbed his jacket, and ran out, stopping at the front desk to ask directions.

  As he walked across the small town, he muttered, “No, I’m not.” And then: “I can do this.”

  Lucia’s breath rasped in her throat. She wasn’t certain where she was or how she’d gotten here, but there wasn’t time to think. Only time to run.

  The grotto had been dark, cold, and empty. The woman at the ticket window had barely glanced at her, just taken her money and waved her through. Down a hallway, down a steep curving stairway, and into the dark. There was a dimly lit room with two small chapels and then, around a corner, the grotto itself, low and dark, cut into the rock, a statue of the saint in the middle of the small space. The article she’d read had talked about Caravaggio and the power of the shadows, but she wasn’t seeing it, wasn’t feeling it. All she felt was alone. She understood why Moto hated the idea of being underground.

  She turned to leave, but as she was about to start up the curving stairs, she heard footsteps above coming down. She heard the rustle of heavy fabric and remembered the monk in Rome in the robes with the blood-red cross, the strange cross—and suddenly she realized that she’d been seeing that cross all day. It was a Maltese cross, each of the four arms flaring from the center to the end, each with a notch in the end. An eight-pointed cross. The symbol of the Knights of Malta, the Knights of St. John. Briefly Caravaggio’s saviors, his path to a pardon. And then his sworn enemies. Perhaps his murderers.

  And now perhaps hers.

  There was nowhere to go, only the single flight of stairs leading up and out.

  Without time to think—or to remember her vow that there was nothing to be afraid of—she darted into one of the two tiny side chapels and squeezed down behind the altar. As she crouched there, holding her breath, she had a moment to think, Great, I’m desecrating one of the holy places of Christendom. Now I’ve got God pissed off at me too.

  Then she heard the footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs and go around the corner to the grotto. Now! She leapt out of the chapel and sprinted up the stairs.

  She ran. Not knowing where she was going, she ran. And she heard the footsteps hurrying after her.

  A corner of her mind wondered how fast they could run in those robes.

  A sign to an exit. A staircase leading up into the light. She could see the ticket window where she had entered, but before she could race up and out, she glimpsed a dark-robed figure standing by the door. No!

  She turned and barged through a set of glass doors and down another steep staircase, back into the dark.

  And here the darkness
was deeper than it had been in the grotto, the ceiling lower, the passageway narrower, the floor uneven, dim lights at intervals along the walls. She stumbled and almost fell.

  She was in the catacombs, ancient burial chambers the Romans had carved into the soft rock of the island. Passages branched off left and right, a bewildering maze honeycombed with rooms cut into the rock, tombs large and small.

  She was surrounded by ancient death, and behind her she could hear the footsteps of very modern death hard on her heels. No way of telling where the passages went or why. No time to stop and consider. Only time to run.

  Her strength was fading fast. After two days seasick on the boat and no more than a few hours’ sleep, she didn’t have anything left. She could feel her legs giving way beneath her.

  With a last burst of strength, she dived into a low chamber in the wall to her right and crawled as far back as she could go. The chamber narrowed, the ceiling just a foot or two above her head. She fell into a hole—an empty grave carved in the rock floor.

  Lucia flattened herself against the bottom of the shallow grave and fought to quiet her breath. The footsteps were still coming, not running now, marching with the certainty of a predator that knows its prey is trapped. Her muscles tensed. Dead tired, near collapse, she wasn’t going down without a fight. She remembered a self-defense class in college. Groin and eyes. She pictured her knee exploding up, her hooked fingers clawing. Someone was going to get hurt.

  The footsteps passed the alcove where she was hiding, and for a moment she allowed herself to hope. Then they returned, more slowly, pausing often. She heard voices muttering, indistinct, incomprehensible.

  A moment of silence.

  Then someone grabbed her leg, fierce fingers digging into her flesh. She kicked out wildly and felt her foot connect with something solid. There was a curse, but the grip on her leg didn’t loosen, and she was yanked brutally over the rough stone of the chamber and out into the passageway.

  Hauled onto her feet, she desperately tried to jam her knee into the attacker’s groin, but his long robes entangled her leg. She tried to claw his eyes, but the cowl protected his face and he crushed her against him in a bear hug that immobilized her. Someone else grabbed her legs, and together they carried her down the tunnel. She tried to scream, but her face was pressed against his chest, and the cloth of his robe muffled her.

  She was writhing and fighting for any leverage she could find, but the men who held her were too strong. She tried to wrench her head back from the robe that gagged her, and for an instant, as they passed one of the lights set into the walls of the tunnel, she could see that her face was crushed against the blood-red Maltese cross on his chest. In that brief instant, there was something else . . . but she didn’t have time to think what it was. She was fighting for her life.

  And losing.

  Crushed against the man’s chest, she struggled to breathe. She felt consciousness slipping away. Darkness fluttered at the edge of her vision. A corner of her mind warned that if she passed out now she would never wake again. She tried one last frantic explosion. She got one leg free, kicked again, and connected again.

  But it was hopeless.

  She was finished.

  And suddenly the air was pierced with the shriek of a siren. A moment of silence. Then the siren again.

  Then an amplified voice echoed through the tunnels.

  “Attenzione! Attenzione! Everyone must leave the catacombs immediately! Attenzione! Guards will guide you to the nearest exit. Leave immediately! Attenzione!”

  And then the siren again.

  The siren continued to wail and the announcement repeated.

  Then she heard voices calling.

  “Police! This way! Everyone! Now!”

  The men carrying her exchanged a few quick words in an incomprehensible language—Arabic?—and dropped her on the stone floor. She fell heavily. One of the men kicked her hard in the ribs, and then their footsteps raced off. Her mind registered the sound: one of them was limping.

  Lucia lay on the floor, gasping for breath, wondering if her ribs were broken.

  Then she heard heavier footsteps approaching. The guards were coming. She couldn’t let them find her like this. She scrambled to her feet and tried to brush some of the dirt and dust off her clothes. She fought to get her breathing under control—although a little panic might not be out of place, given the sirens and the warnings and the guards.

  And then a policeman clad in heavy riot gear marched down the tunnel. He didn’t care how she looked. He harshly ordered her to keep moving through the nearly empty passages of the catacombs and out into the last fading light of the day.

  She stood, drinking in the cool, fresh air and trying to understand what had happened. She wanted to close her eyes to concentrate, but when she did, she felt fear boiling up inside her. She turned, trying to look calm, and scanned the area for anyone in a monk’s robe, but the street was filled with ordinary people in ordinary clothing hurrying on about their ordinary lives.

  Lucia wasn’t certain what to do, where to go. She wanted to run back to the hotel, but she didn’t know who might be hiding, waiting, along the way. She was too tired to think where to go, but she couldn’t stay where she was.

  A hand grabbed her arm, and she spun around, ready to punch, kick, claw for freedom.

  “Lucia!”

  It was Moto.

  “Moto! How did you . . . ? Never mind! Get me off this damned rock!” And she hugged him so hard he squeaked.

  Chapter 30

  Roma

  1606

  Cecco pounded the brass knocker on the Palazzo Colonna door. A guard opened the door and grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck.

  “What business do you have disturbing the peace at this hour?”

  “I must speak to the marchesa! Let go of me, I beg you! I come in the name of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.”

  “That ruffian! You—”

  “The marchesa needs to hear my news! It is most urgent!”

  The guard let go of the boy. Cecco straightened his blood-splattered tunic, smoothing down the cloth with his shaking hands.

  “State your business,” said the guard.

  “With your permission, I cannot. It is only for the marchesa’s ears.”

  The guard wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Damn you. I cannot disturb the marchesa.”

  “You must!” pleaded Cecco.

  The guard blinked, focusing on the panic shining in the boy’s eyes. “I will send a servant to wake her son, the grand admiral. Wait here.”

  The door clanged shut, the sound reverberating in the night air. Cecco drew back into the shadows, away from the flaming torches of the palace.

  “What? He murdered a man?” Costanza Colonna’s hand flew to her mouth. The motion was reflected many times in the gilded mirrors of Palazzo Colonna.

  “Not just any man, Mamma,” said her son Fabrizio, grand admiral of the Maltese Fleets. “One of the Tomassoni brothers. They may kill him before the Roman guards can catch him.”

  “Madonna!” she said. Fabrizio watched his mother’s hand quiver. When she lowered her hand, he saw the sorrow ravage her face.

  Michele, you dog! Look how she suffers for you, thought Fabrizio.

  “You see his predicament,” said Fabrizio. “He will either rot in a cell in Sant’Angelo or be run through with a Tomassoni sword. He must flee Roma. Cardinal del Monte houses him but only temporarily. The pope will demand his arrest. Dueling—a murder!—is punishable by death.”

  Costanza Colonna’s gray eyes shimmered. “What more can I do for this Michelangelo Merisi?” she said, throwing her hands in the air. Again, the gesture was reflected in the wide mirrors. The first faint shards of sunlight announced the dawn, a rosy glow coloring the marchesa’s reflection.

  “He cannot stay away from trouble. Pff! Any more than you, Fabrizio!” said the marchesa. She ran her hand through her silver hair, deranging the coiffure her handmaiden h
ad so hastily fashioned. “You both must have drunk from the same malevolent fountain in the village of Caravaggio, cursed be the two of you!”

  Fabrizio made a sound of disgust. “Do not compare me with Michelangelo, Mamma! You still think of us both as little boys.”

  “You were both up to trouble even when you were toddling. But the grief you both bring me has grown bigger than both of you. Murder?”

  “I have washed my slate clean with the Order of Malta.”

  The marchesa drew in a deep breath, expelling it in a sigh. She touched the cross that hung on a golden chain around her neck. “Thank God for that! If only Caravaggio could do the same. Grand Master Wignacourt and the knights’ vows of chastity and obedience would cure the ruffian of his ill nature soon enough.”

  “Michelangelo—a knight!” scoffed Fabrizio. “He’d probably find every prostitute in Valletta, bed them down, and then insist on making them all Madonnas.”

  A wan smile crept across the marchesa’s face. “Incorrigible, our Michele—but he is a genius. He brings fame to Caravaggio, your birthplace and our lineage. He will be remembered long after we Colonnas are dead.”

  She stopped to look out the window at the Piazza Venezia—at the early-morning commotion with carriages and wagons as Roma started the day. Beyond, she saw the green of the overgrown fields and the crumbling stones of the Roman Forum. A shepherd stood with staff in hand, watching his flock and the sunrise.

  “Why should he not become a knight?” she said, still watching the shepherd. “We know many types of men who wear the Maltese cross—some are louts, brawl like bravi, and frequent brothels, yet they are in good standing.”

  “But Mamma! Michelangelo has no noble blood. It is impossible.”

  “There must be a way—”