Marius realized all this time he had been holding his breath.
She reached down and gripped him tightly. He strained against the pressure.
She moved his hand down until it covered her mound. She pressed it hard into her and moved it up and down. Marius felt the wetness, the slippery smoothness, the magic. She kneeled in front of him. She put both hands on his hips and pulled him to her. She took him deep into her mouth. Marius felt waves thunder flash, explode, and rock in his body.
With that out of the way, she urged Marius to lie down beside her. Now they could concentrate on the art of love. Marius could not learn enough about this new world of wonder.
From then on his father allowed him access without restriction. He found he could satisfy his wantonness for only short periods of time.
Now, staring at the water, Marius was filled with revulsion. His father, the man who showed him the way now had sent him away. Even though he wanted to blame his father he knew he himself was solely responsible for his grotesque indulgence. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He could not dwell on such thoughts any longer. He could not remember the last time he felt tears welling inside but only the anger held them back.
He looked for Angelus and saw he was playing dice with a group of soldiers. Marius walked up to stand behind him.
Angelus turned to him. “Ah! Here is my patron!” he said to the other players.
How quickly life had changed, Marius marveled, like the speed of boulders thundering down mountainsides it seemed. He enjoyed being tutored in mathematics and logic; not so much practicing oratory; but best athletics, running, working the farm, riding. Quite abruptly he knew he could look forward to none of that. Only Serafina would remain. She was captured in his thoughts. As his body rocked with the ship, he wondered what would be his role and how soon he would adapt.
“I see you used my gold necklace to make your bets!” Marius said.
“Here! I give it back to you,” Angelus said. He pulled the necklace out from under a mound of coins, “I am doing well.”
Angelus was on a winning streak.
“You’re cheating!” a soldier suddenly declared.
“Poor loser!” Angelus snapped back.
The soldiers raised their voices. It brought troop leader, Captain Morgana.
The captain pulled Angelus upright by his ear. “Our lives depend on each other. We do not steal or cheat on our brothers. Admit you were lying and I will go easy on you.”
“I wasn’t cheating!” Angelus declared.
“I am not a relative,” Captain Morgana said. “There is good reason to fear me.”
“Beating me will do no good!” Angelus said.
“Right!” the captain said. “So, we will beat your patrone!”
Two soldiers grabbed Marius, turned him upside down so his tunic fell baring his bottom.
“No! Stop! I did it!” Angelus said. “I gave myself the edge, that’s all.”
“Tell us,” the captain said.
Angelus returned the money. Then, showed his technique of holding one die curled up in his little finger. Whatever number on the die he needed, was on top so when he threw it with a sidewise sliding motion, it would slip across the blanket and more often than not stop with that number on top. He allowed the other die to rattle freely in his hand as he shook it and implored the gods to deliver to him the number he wanted.
“You are too smart for your own good,” the captain told Angelus, “Your mentor here,” he said pointing to Marius, “will not underwrite you ever again, this son of a senator.”
“No! I am responsible!” Angelus said. “I demand you punish me!”
“Demand, will you? And you’re not even a Roman!” Captain Morgana said. He pulled his sword and with the flat of it whacked Angelus on the side of his head. Angelus fell to the deck senseless. “Your patrone is responsible for all your actions!”
The soldiers surrounded Marius. The one who had lost the most threw the first punch. One after another, the others joined in. Marius did not become immediately unconscious. They kept their blows away from his head and face. Then, one punch thrown while he was falling caught him squarely again on his injured cheek. He passed out cold.
Marius awoke groaning. He found himself crumpled on a bench chained to an oar. He fought back the groan. “Bastardi!” he gasped. The men nearby laughed loudly.
Angelus gave him a wet cloth to clean his face. “Marius, such a beating would have killed me. I owe you my life.”
Then, Marius heard the crack of the whip. Simultaneously he felt the skin on his shoulder blade had been flayed and a red-hot nail driven in. He arched his back in pain, gritting his teeth not to utter a sound.
“Harder! More!” the lasher grunted through broken, yellowed teeth.
Marius pressed his forehead onto the oar. Serafina would run her fingers through his hair, stroke his face, and tickle his nipples. His reverie was interrupted with screams coming through flames. Jerusalem would not last as long as his self-loathing.
6
Antiquity. To Roberto, the Vatican Library had the look, smell, and atmosphere of antiquity. After just getting off a 21st Century jet it was a marked pejorative sensation.
Psychically Diura said, “This place breeds musty negative ions.”
“It’s an omen, for sure?” Roberto hiked his thumb towards the office door.
Together they watched a middle-aged priest approach them.
“I am Father Oscar,” he said. He was short, wiry, had a large nose, buck teeth, curly black hair, and an imprinted smile. “Sorry for the delay. The head librarian is waiting for you. If you would?” the priest asked as he turned and led them through double doors into the head librarian’s office. He announced them to Father Strozzare.
The tall, ascetic, balding cleric with narrow, wire-rimmed glasses stood behind a library table to greet them. “Welcome! I received a fax from my friend, His Eminence John Cardinal Pashcal, Archbishop of New York.” He reached across the desk to shake Roberto’s hand and deliberately ignored Diura. Wisely, she had kept her hands on her purse.
“Thank you, for seeing us on such short notice,” Roberto said.
“You are welcome. A smooth flight?” Father Strozzare asked as he motioned for them to sit as he took his chair.
“Yes, thank you,” Roberto answered. “Your resemblance to Pope Pius XII is striking.”
The priest nodded. “The purpose of your visit?”
“The fourth nail,” Roberto said peremptorily. “But I assumed you knew that.”
The priest stared intensely at Roberto. Father Strozzare raised an index finger and nodded to halt the proceedings. Without saying a word, he reached into a drawer and removed a black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. He put it in the center of the table, and pushed a button at its side. “If you don’t mind, it takes care of eavesdroppers, as well as listening and recording devices and the like--for your protection and for ours.”
“Now that’s a great idea,” Roberto said. “The confirmation I need rests within the Vatican archives. I’d like to arrange for an assistant familiar with remote and antique documents, and a desk where I may work.”
Father Strozzare cleared his throat. “Che peccato! Too bad. Had I known, I could have prevented you from making this unnecessary trip. I cannot offer you any assistance whatsoever. The Vatican does not acknowledge the fourth nail. We have researched it to exhaustion. Do you have new evidence?” Roberto shook his head. “Perseverance can be taken too far.”
Roberto nodded. “At Yale, where I teach playwriting, an aphorism I put up for my students to read says: ‘Persist and succeed, or become wise.’”
“Pedagogy, by all means,” Father Strozzare said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and then unlocked the file drawer behind him. He took out an envelope from which he withdrew four eight-by-ten black and white photographs and put them on the desk before Roberto and Diura. “Clavus Quartus, such as this?” he asked.
Roberto picked t
hem up. The shots were all of different close-up angles of a sealed plastic box in which was mounted what looked like a long, hand-forged, partially black-stained rusty spike. A ruler at the bottom of the photo served as reference, which showed it to be in centimeters, nearly six inches in length, a wide flattened head, and a stained area, which could have represented dried blood.
Roberto was sure that throughout history it was repeated at least once a day that one should never underestimate the enemy. Not only would it be unwise for defensive purposes, but the insult would demand vituperation, or in the least, a bullet well-rubbed with garlic to exacerbate the pain of its wound. It took less than a fraction of a moment for Roberto to accept the fact that he had need of him so he would withdraw into hypocrisy... for the moment.
“Father, does the Vatican hold that this is the fourth nail?” Roberto asked.
“The Vatican does not even acknowledge such a thing as the ‘fourth nail.’”
Roberto put the photos on the desk. “These photos obviously are fakes.”
“You are so sure so quickly...”
The man didn’t deserve an answer. He needed a kick in the balls. “The nail is too perfect, too straight. A nail used in the Crucifixion then retrieved would hardly be straight. It would be bent, broken, stained with blood. Also, these examples are carved out of wood.” The priest’s eyes widened. “This looks like a poor idea for a tourist souvenir, except,” Roberto emphasized, “if the Vatican had the real fourth nail then at least a million duplicates a year could be sold. Also, the label says ‘Clavus Quartus.’ We search for Ille Clavus Quartus.”
“Yes?” the priest answered wrinkling his brow.
“The distinction, as you know, is that when I approximate to the definite article, Ille, I make it ‘the famous Fourth Nail.’ Obviously, I refer to the one and only.”
The priest, toying with a pencil as if making an incidental point, asked off-handedly, “In the little I have read of the fourth nail there has been no explanation for the reason it came to be called the ‘fourth’ nail. Why not the first, or second, or fifth? Or even the reason it came to be.”
“All excellent points; part of the mystery. We won’t know the answers until we find the nail itself. Father Strozzare, if I may, it behooves the Vatican to resolve the mystery of the fourth nail, does it not? Yet, obstacles are thrown in the path of researchers to do so. We believe the fourth nail existed to designate the location of where The Vatican was to be built. I ask you, do you have an official explanation for the reason the Vatican was built exactly where it is in Rome? Why not in Jerusalem? Or Florence? Or Timbuktoo?”
The priest moved uneasily in his chair. “Are you a practicing Catholic?”
“Forgive me, but you did ask the question. As my father before me, I do not believe in fairy tales. Man invented god, not the other way around, although I would be the last man on earth to take religion away from man. You can see what it does to American politics, and such as the Taliban, the Jews and Palestinians, and so on. I prefer to call myself an historian, a scientist if you will. I am carrying on the work of a man I deeply respected all my life. He gave his life to it. I want to see it to its end. I don’t want to leave it to my children to figure out. The fourth nail, fact or fiction?”
“The official explanation...?”
“Father Strozzare, the Clavus Quartus Society believes the Vatican was built in Rome because that is where Jesus Himself decided it should be. St. Peter was the rock upon which the church was built, but through the workings of Jesus, He decreed where the fourth nail was to be buried, and that that was where His church was to be. The Society believes the Fourth Nail was destined to be created, used in the Crucifixion and was taken to Rome by a man called Marius. He buried it as destined it was, and that Jesus decided that thereupon His edifice, church, Vatican was to be built. It was all part of the plan. The Clavus Quartus Society believes it resolves the mystery of the nail’s creation and its vital fundamental significance in the establishment of Christianity. I wish to resolve a centuries-old mystery. I certainly do not aspire to sainthood. Does that clear the air for you?”
Father Strozzare nodded. “You would not lie to a priest.”
“No,” Roberto said, “as I know a priest would not lie.” The thin smile that cut across his face was enough to let the man know enough was enough.
Father Strozzare raised his chin high, looked down through the bottom of his narrow glasses at Roberto, and said, “Dr. Donadio, the church’s official position on the fourth nail, and all that? Simply, it is Hocus Pocus!”
Roberto nodded his head up and down quickly several times. “If you asked me, I wouldn’t mock, Father Strozzare. Yes, the official position, but it’s not the truth you and I know, Father.” Roberto paused to let his words sink in. “Off the record, has anything come across your desk concerning the fourth nail?”
Father Strozzare drew himself up tall. “We do hear rumors propagated by a small group called the Clavus Quartus Society.”
How far would the man pursue his coyness, Roberto wondered. The priest knew as much about the Society as Roberto did. Sitting on this side of the desk for many years was his father, who also had to contend with the duplicity of the church. “My late father was its director,” Roberto said. He watched the priest’s eyes closely.
“Yes! Of course! His eyebrows snapped up. “Quite some time ago, Dr. Donadio sought access in vain to our files of antiquity. So, Mr. Donadio, why do you persist?”
Roberto sat up remembering Latin lessons in the hard-slatted chair in his father’s library, and said, “Nam istaec quidem contumelia est. Religione jurisjurandi ac metu deorum in testimoniis dicendis commonvert. Father Strozzare, would you like to translate for Ms. Dicuorra? Or shall I?” Deliberately subverting a reply, Roberto translated. “Diura, I explained to the good priest that his statement is an affront indeed, and that I am under the obligation of an oath and plan to fulfill it scrupulously as a scholar if not anything else.” Roberto then said staring directly at the priest, “Let us find the nail first, then settle our differences?”
“On that note, thank you, too, for meeting with us,” Father Strozzare said. “We represent no particular body or group, or individual. Let us call this an exploratory conversation concerning a particular project. To move quite directly, you would consider giving up your research?”
“No,” Roberto said.
“For a consideration?” Father Strozzare asked.
“I would not be excommunicated, Father Strozzare?” Roberto asked.
“Only you can do that to yourself by your own choices and actions. The consideration being, say, an amount of money?” the priest asked.
“No,” Roberto said.
“Without the resources of the Vatican your research is limited,” Father Strozzare said, “in fact, I think you face a blind wall. You could enjoy your life in a handsome fashion. I think Signorina Dicuora might agree with that. The research would not be abandoned. Merely, you would leave it in other capable hands.”
“What makes you think we have come to a blind wall? We have many avenues to pursue we have yet to approach,” Roberto said.
“We’re wasting time,” Father Strozzare said impatiently. “You may have counted on good research at the Vatican, but that is lost to you, too. I want you to come work for me. I’m responsible for the project. You will be paid well. I’m authorized to offer you ten-million dollars to find the Fourth Nail.”
“No,” Roberto said.
“You respond so out-of-hand? You may have access to all the Vatican files. It would give you quite a head start to ending the mystery of Ille Clavus Quartus, Dr. Donadio,” Father Strozzare said very deliberately.
Roberto nodded at the title. He welcomed fencing with the priest. His father’s notes had given him a great deal of information. It included a meticulous review of the priest’s background as well as precise minutes of each meeting. Of great interest was his father’s evaluations of the conversation between them. His fa
ther analyzed point and counter point as he would a chess game. “If you have such information, why do you need me? Father Oscar is quite a capable researcher.”
Father Strozzare shifted in his seat. “I am prepared to offer you fifty-million dollars for delivery of Ille Clavus Quartus.”
Roberto had heard this figure before so he passed it off as one would the time of day. It bordered on insouciance, and as far as he was concerned, Roberto no longer cared. He knew exactly what was on the table. “As you well know, whoever had The Fourth Nail could sell miracles and earn fifty million dollars in five weeks. There are others who want to destroy it simply to deny it to Christendom. Why are you playing games?”
“I do as I’m told,” the priest said.
“Who would own the work?” Roberto asked.
“We would, naturally!” Father Strozzare said emphatically.
“’We’ meaning you or the Vatican?” He held up his hand. “Don’t answer, it makes no difference. I think the world owns the work,” Roberto said. “I would be willing to share whatever announcement is to be made with the Vatican. My father thought that would be the high-road thing to do.” He realized the priest did not understand he had been insulted and put off.
“Yes, it would do that, plus one other major factor. You would get the approval of the Catholic church, nihil obstat, not offensive material, which would allow the work to be disseminated and read by all Catholics,” Father Strozzare said.
“Imprimatur? Father, imprimatur?” Roberto said, “Let it be printed! Yes, let it be printed upon its immediate discovery so the world shall know, not wait for the darkness to lift ages later.” There was no longer any fun in the conversation. The priest continued in a very serious vein not realizing any meaningful conversation had ended long before. He would lecture the man and hope he would catch on. “As an educator, my duty is to enlighten. There is no compromise. Father Strozzare, my habit is not to repeat, but repeat I must.” He rapped the table, raised his chin, and said, “Imagine to have the keystone to God’s Will on Earth?”
The Fourth Nail: An Historical Novel Page 3
