Veil of the Goddess

by Rob Preece

  He gestured to the waiter, who carried over a large plate of cakes and set it in front of the priest. Ivy hadn't even known you could order food here. It was the kind of detail Father Galen would know.

  "Religious Artifact?” Small bits of cake sprayed as he spoke. “Constantinople is full of artifacts. Constantinople was Christian when the pagans still paraded in Rome."

  "I'm thinking of something relating to a woman. Perhaps Saint—"

  Father Galen held up a hand. “Constantinople has also been called the City of Mary. Although the Protestants accuse Catholics of undue adoration of the virgin, it was with the Orthodox that Marianism first took hold. For five hundred years, Constantinople was safe under the protective veil of Mary, Mother of God."

  Ivy almost smacked her forehead. The Virgin Mary was a lot more obvious and a lot more important than St. Helena. Sure St. Helena was associated with the Cross. But the people most closely related to the Cross were Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene.

  "Tell me about the protective veil of Mary. Was this a real veil, or is that just symbolic for the fact that the city was just a strong fortress?"

  "Not just a strong fortress. Constantinople was a strong fortress of God,” Father Galen said. Despite his girth and his assumed drug habits, the man was clearly a committed Christian. “For a thousand years, after the fall of the Western Rome, we protected the barbarian west from the despotisms of Asia. Without us, Europe would be Moslem now."

  "But the veil. It wasn't an artifact, a relic?"

  "Ah, but it was.” Father Galen stuffed another cake in his mouth, chewed once, then swallowed. “The veil of the Mother of God was the most holy symbol of the city. According to legend and church doctrine, the Emperor paraded the veil on the walls of the city the very night before the Turks finally broke through the pitifully few last defenders and sacked the city. It was terribly real, wonderfully holy."

  "And what happened to it then?"

  "It is said that Mary herself came down from the heavens and recovered her veil, as this City of God would require it no longer."

  He ate another of the small cakes. “Constantinople was an experiment,” he explained when he saw that Ivy was still listening. “For a thousand years, the Orthodox strove to create the Kingdom of God here on Earth. Not by waiting for a mysterious rapture, but by living in a Christian way, with a Christian Emperor. The Emperor's title was Autocrat, Equal to the Apostles, and it was quite literally meant. Greek Emperors summoned the great councils of the Church, councils that still bind your Catholic Church, and many of the Protestants as well. The bishops and priests argued, but the Emperor decided. For hundreds of years, a Roman Pope could only be elected with our Emperor's approval."

  He actually wiped tears from his eyes. “Now, the Church in Constantinople is poor. Even the other Orthodox have their own concerns. Few send money to us and, of course, the Turks expelled most of the Greeks from Anatolia, a land where they had lived for three thousand years or more. But once, we were the city on a hill, the strong shield of the west, the one beacon of civilization while Europe descended into barbarism. And the veil of the Mother of God was our symbol."

  * * * *

  The Veil of the Mother of God. It sounded like something out of a secret codebook.

  "What could it do?” Zack asked. “Did it have special powers? Could it really defend an army or a city?"

  Father Galen looked at him like he'd peed in the communion bowl. “This is a holy object, but it is only a thing. Objects can be adored to help the faithful focus their attentions on the holy. They themselves must not be worshipped. Objects don't have power."

  Which didn't answer Zack's question. He wondered if the Foundation agents knew a more complete answer.

  "Are we certain that the Virgin Mary came down and recovered her veil?"

  Father Galen pursed his lips in distaste. With his fat cheeks, doing that made his nose almost disappear in rolls of fat. Which meant he couldn't do it for long without cutting off his breathing. “Some say that the veil was taken to Russia where many of the faithful fled after the fall of the City. Others believe it was taken to the Catholic west and is now hoarded amongst the secret treasures of the Vatican. The story of Mary recovering it could be apocryphal. Although if it was not true, why has the veil not been found and shown? It has been almost six hundred years since the Turks violated the center of western civilization, after all."

  He ate another cake, this one pensively, actually taking the time to chew three times before swallowing.

  "When the Greeks occupied Constantinople after World War I, many thought that the veil would be recovered, that the time for a new greater Greece had arrived, that we could claim our place as one of the powers of Europe. But that was not to be. Surely, if Mary had not taken the veil back to heaven, they would have discovered it then."

  * * * *

  Father Galen's words were almost like a light bulb going off in Zack's head. It was hard to imagine two symbols most closely connected to the wars between the Christian and Moslem worlds. The Cross had been found by the Byzantines, stolen by Persia, recovered by the Byzantines, taken by the Arabs, recovered by the Crusaders and used by them as their battle standard, before finally being captured by Saladin. And this Veil of Mary had apparently been used in a similar role by the Orthodox—and, according to Galen, at least, could launch the Greeks into a war against the Turks.

  Armed with the recovered Cross and Veil, could the Foundation be contemplating a new crusade? Given the problems the U.S. was already having in Iraq, only a complete idiot or a fanatic would want to launch a more general war between Cross and Crescent. As they'd proven in Iraq, winning isn't the problem. The problem is what to do once you've won. The Foundation wasn't made up of idiots, but it did seem to have its share of fanatics.

  "Let's just assume for a moment that Mary didn't take the Veil back to Heaven,” Ivy said. “And assume that the Russians and the Catholics didn't get it either. Where would it be if the Greeks had hidden it, waiting, perhaps, for the day when the city would become Greek again?"

  Father Galen glanced at Ivy, then back at the last of the cakes on the plate. He pushed the plate away as if he were making a huge sacrifice. “Who knows? Perhaps it was looted by the Turks. Perhaps it was destroyed in the fires the Turks set when they rampaged through the city raping our women and murdering our scholars and priests. Perhaps it was buried in a grave."

  "You're Greek, right father?"

  Father Galen glared at Ivy. “Of course I am Greek. But I am not from Greece. My family has been Greek and in Constantinople for more than a thousand years. Although the Turks persecute us, some of us who will not flee, but will remain to remind the world that Constantinople is a Greek city, a holy city, the Second, perfected, Rome."

  "Right. So, where would you have hidden the veil? Think hard. Someplace the Turks wouldn't have looked, right. Someplace that only another Greek would guess."

  He squinted at Ivy. “I tell you this and then you steal it? How does this help my people?"

  Zack figured it was time for him to break in. “Did you notice anything strange when you were outside, father? Maybe you saw the dozens of U.S. sailors with Shore Patrol insignia. But they aren't patrolling the harbor bars the way a Shore Patrol should. They're wandering around the oldest parts of the city, probing, poking, looking for something. One thing you can bet. They aren't doing it because they want to help the Greeks. I don't know exactly what the Foundation believes, but I do know one thing. They aren't Catholics, and they aren't Orthodox, either."

  Father Galen sighed. “If the veil is hidden, it has survived detection for over five hundred years. Why should a group of uneducated sailors succeed where holy fathers have failed?"

  "The hunters aren't just sailors. They know where to look, and they use the Cross like a dousing rod,” Ivy said. “I've seen it work."

  Zack wouldn't have guessed it possible, but Father Galen exploded to his feet, shoving the table away from h
im and catching his balance by leaning on one of the carved support columns so hard that the entire coffee shop shook. “They are using the Cross, the symbol of Christ's suffering, to work magic? We cannot allow this blasphemy."

  Zack caught the priest by the cassock, then wished he hadn't as the big man leaned his four hundred pounds against Zack's battered body. “Careful, Father. If you try to stop them, they'll kill you. They don't care about human life. Probably they figure God will sort it out. But if you help us, we might be able to find it ahead of them, keep it from whatever they plan to use it for."

  "I will talk to my fellow priests,” Father Galen promised. “I have young Cejno's number. I shall call you in the morning and let you know what we have decided.

  Chapter 12

  The eastern horizon didn't even hint at dawn when someone started hammering on the door to the apartment Ivy shared with Zack.

  She pulled herself out of bed and stumbled to the entryway. Cejno peered into the apartment eyehole, probably trying to catch a glimpse of her running around naked. His brief experience with the French woman apparently hadn't satisfied Cejno's curiosity about the female form.

  The hashish smuggler exploded into the apartment as soon as she opened the door. “Father Galen says the priests will help you. He says their Patriarch has heard of the Foundation."

  "What did he hear?” Zack demanded.

  Cejno shrugged. “He's heard of them and he wants to help you. Is that not enough?"

  "Great. Does he say anything about where we should start looking?"

  Cejno looked at the floor. “Father Galen says the priests will study their church records. Although the Turks destroyed some and the Venetians others, they have records that go back long before even those in the Vatican."

  "Just what we need. A bunch of priests sitting around reading old books. If those books said anything about where the veil was hidden, someone would have found it by now. Which means we're on our own,” Ivy concluded. “Give me ten minutes to get showered and we'll head out and see what we can find."

  "Father Galen also asked me to tell you that the Americans are still everywhere."

  "Are they digging?"

  "I have not heard that."

  "Good. Why don't you see if you can round up something for us to eat while Zack and I get ready?"

  Cejno nodded and headed out the door.

  "Mind if I go first?” she asked Zack when she saw him outside the bathroom.

  He shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about the Bishop's reaction, though."

  "Why's that? He's going to help us. Didn't you see how Father Galen reacted when we told him how Smith used his crucifix as a dousing rod?"

  "So how do you think he's going to take it when you use the True Cross as a door opener?"

  Ivy hadn't thought about that. To her, it wasn't the same. The Cross wanted to be used as the Key. But she could see how a priest might not see things that way.

  "We've got to go with the allies we can find.” She stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Even a lukewarm scrub would feel good. If she ever got back to America, she planned on soaking for a week.

  Father Galen met them at a pastry shop and proceeded to impress everyone by buying two-dozen cream-filled pastries and eating them all.

  "We have found no indication that the Veil was hidden,” he admitted. “But we are quite certain that the Veil now in Russia is not the one that we held here. This does not mean the Russian one is inauthentic, of course. Mary may have had more than one garment."

  "Got it,” Zack said. “So if it's hidden, you don't know where?"

  "Correct."

  "How many people can the Patriarch spare to help our search?” Ivy took one of the pastries and bit into it. The chocolate and cream concoction probably had five hundred calories all by itself.

  Father Galen looked embarrassed. “I am that person."

  "So, it sounds like we're outnumbered. We'll have to outthink the Foundation people.” Which wouldn't be easy. The Foundation had obviously been researching the artifacts for years. “If you were a Byzantine Greek and the Turks were about to take over your city, where would you hide the veil?"

  "In the Great Church,” Galen said without pausing for thought. “The Hagia Sophia had already been the center of our faith for a thousand years."

  "Too obvious."

  Unfortunately, Ivy agreed with Zack on that one. Besides, if it were hidden in the Hagia Sophia, the Foundation would get there first. “When the Turks conquered Constantinople, the first place they went was the Hagia Sophia. The defenders would have known that. So, where else might they have tried?"

  "The Great Palace, I supposed. Perhaps the church of the Twelve Apostles, or of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. Of course, there were hundreds of monasteries within Constantinople during those days. It could have been taken to any of them."

  "Where was it kept before the siege?"

  Father Galen rolled his eyes. “That I do not know. Doubtless there was a church built to hold it. Perhaps the Blachernae Church."

  Galen seemed more interested in the future than in the past, as long as the future looked like his idea of the idealized past. Well, Ivy couldn't hold that against him. Lots of people thought that way.

  "If it's in a church, the Foundation will find it. Tell me about the Great Palace. Is that what they call the Topkapi Palace?"

  Father Galen laughed. “The Turks wish it were so. No, the Great Palace was a whole city for the government of the entire world. Built by Constantine, it was much larger than Topkapi. Indeed, a major piece was recently found well outside the Topkapi."

  "So, if the veil was taken to the Great Palace, it could be pretty much anywhere in the old section of the city?” Zack said.

  "But of course. This was a city within the city."

  "Is there anyplace sacred to Mary? Maybe the legend of Mary coming to earth and retrieving her veil was meant metaphorically, or even as a clue."

  Father Galen crossed himself—it wasn't quite the same sign her Catholic priests used, but it was similar, just as his robes were different but similar. “That is an interesting thought. There are many sites in the city sacred to the Queen of Heaven."

  "Which would be the oldest?"

  Father Galen looked at Cejno. “Perhaps I could have just a small amount for the pipe. Thinking is heavy work."

  Cejno shrugged. “All of the hashish is dispersed, Father. I merely stay here to help my friends."

  "Ah, well. I feared it was to be so.” Father Galen removed a tiny pipe from a pocket he had hidden somewhere in his robes, sniffed at it, then put it back without lighting. “In Constantinople, the ‘oldest’ can be very old indeed. Many of our churches were built on Greek temples. Although it is not always political to remember this, the pagans once had their own Queen in Heaven."

  Ivy felt the same surge of rightness she'd felt when she'd been dragged into the temple of Aphrodite in Anamur. From what she'd seen of Smith and read in the Foundation papers before they'd been destroyed in the Predator attack, the Foundation seemed to be made of exactly the kind of Christians who would deny the earlier heritages and the truths that had shaped their faith. “So, what place was sacred to those pagan goddesses?"

  Father Galen looked at Cejno again, but without much hope. “Who can say? The Hagia Sophia was built on a pagan temple. Even Christian Emperors saw themselves as conservators of the Greek culture and collected statues and other works from the pagan Greeks."

  They were no better off than they had been when they'd started this adventure. Ivy refused to give in to despair.

  "Which of the Greek goddesses would have been Queen of Heaven?” Zack asked.

  That wasn't a bad question, although Ivy suspected that the truth was complex. Just as Catholics insisted on the separate yet indivisible nature of God, so Ivy now understood that the separate goddesses of the pagan Greek faith were not completely separate individuals but could also be seen as aspects of one Goddess. The legend of
Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena seeking to be selected as most fair might also relate to the aspects of the Goddess—virgin, mother, and crone. Bits of mythology that had never made sense to her before suddenly fell into place with new insights.

  "Probably Hera."

  "And is there a site most associated with Hera?"

  Father Galen raised his eyes. Not to the heavens, Ivy realized, but to the counter. He'd finished his pastries and was seriously considering buying more.

  "There was a famous statue of Hera once,” Cejno said. “Part of the Hippodrome. It was stolen by the Catholic invaders."

  "Stolen and destroyed,” Father Galen said.

  Great. And now Catholic invaders were looking to steal the veil of Mary. No wonder the Orthodox were suspicious.

  "The Foundation guys have already been over the ruins of the Hippodrome,” Zack reminded them. “If it's there, they've got it."

  Nobody else had any ideas and Father Galen had pretty much cleared out the pastry store so they agreed to meet again for lunch at a nearby restaurant and went their separate ways.

  * * * *

  "You've got a plan, right?” Zack bought coffees from a sidewalk merchant and they were pretending to be tourists along the wall that had protected Greek Constantinople for so long before the great Turkish cannon, Basilica, had crashed through the ancient gates and doomed the city to Turkish rule.

  "Let's just say I've got an idea."

  Although the city walls were over fifteen hundred years old and had been prayed over by countless defenders and invaders alike, they lacked the distinctive colors of power that Ivy thought she would find. Apparently there was more to the magical powers than just prayer. Perhaps there needed to be an enclosed area to hold that power inside rather than let it leak out. Or perhaps the walls, important as they were, were simply not regarded as holy objects. She was pretty sure it wasn't the violence those walls had seen that kept magic at bay. That yellow temple to the hawk-headed god they'd found in Kurdistan had seen plenty of violence, of human sacrifice, yet it still reeked with power.