The Artifact: Natasha Burrows Series Book One

by Phillips, Michelle

  He came out of the bathroom as she was drying herself. “I can’t look at you without imagining what we have done…. over and over again.”

  He watched her as she lifted one foot onto the bed to dry her leg, running the soft towel up and down its supple elegant length. He wondered if there was ever any time when she didn’t look sexy.

  “What made you change your mind - about us?”

  She smiled coyly not willing to answer, no really knowing the answer herself. She had let herself go with him, unafraid of what he might think of her body, and just enjoyed every second of their love-making. She had never done that with anyone else before.

  She skipped over his question quickly, “I decided to take a chance. We could have died so many times out there in that jungle, I just decided that maybe I should live a little. It was fun, but we really have to focus now. I think I need to get some new clothes,” she lifted her clothes from yesterday gingerly up from the floor with two fingers, she was really not willing to wear them another time.

  “Well I really prefer you without” he said mischievously. “I’m pretty sure that snooty Maitre d’ was right about the dress standards at Vatican City.”

  “I’m not about to say no to a shopping trip in Italy,” she said with her eyes sparkling.

  “I think I might get myself some new duds as well, tell you what, I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour, there’s just something I want to take care of.”

  “Ok, Mr mysterious” she joked “I’ll see you then.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Magnificence and Misery

  Xavier left the hotel, he had seen the twisted helix coloured strips of a barbiere on the way to the hotel and he decided it was time to get cleaned up. It was a long time since he had manscaped, and he now had the semblance of a shaggy beard.

  “Sir, I fix - I fix it for you eh?” the barber waved him enthusiastically into the rolls royce of all barbers chairs, an antique cherry red and chrome gas lift contraption so detailed that looked like it belonged in the Louvre. “You like?” the barber nodded to the chair raising his eyebrows erratically. “It wasa my grandpappas, he was a barber before me.” The barber stroked the chair fondly remembering how he would let him play in it when there were no customers in the shop.

  “Yes, its very nice.” Xaiver took a seat. “You know Bradley Cooper? I want it cut like that.”

  “Ahh, yes, the American movie star, no?” he raised both his eyebrows “yes, si, excellent. I do thisa for you. It's okay, I’ll givea you the slick back.” he motioned pushing his hair back from his forehead “makea you looka sexy ah?” His voice tilted and rolled like a small boat bobbing in the waves. “Long time since Giovanni looked a sexy eh?” his two workers in the salon laughed. “You see, ah, all of you, I makea you all look nice, but me Giovanni, they laugh.”

  One of his staff, a skinny young man who was cutting a customer's hair waived a pair of scissors wildly as he spoke, his English a little better, “Never mind him darling. He has not had proper hair ever since the Tower of Pisa started to lean.”

  “Phfftt” the man hissed and started to work on Xavier's hair.

  His experienced hands moved quickly over his head, cutting and snipping here and there. He took to tackling his beard, the warm straight edge razor cut through his unruly hair like a knife through butter. It had been a while since he had been clean shaven, and it sure felt good.

  The barber stood back admiring his work. “Belissimo” he said kissing his fingertips “Perfecto. All the, how you say, le signore will fall in love.” Xavier looked at his appearance in the mirror. There was only one le signore, or lady he wanted to fall in love with him.

  Next he went shopping and bought himself some white chino’s, a pale blue shirt and some G.H. Bass Loafers. He rolled his shirt sleeves up, and wore his loafers without socks like they did in Italy. As he walked down the street he drew admiring stares from passersby, to which he was totally oblivious, in a bubble of his own after the night before.

  There was no doubting Xavier was an attractive man and was used to having his choice of women, but since he had first locked eyes with Natasha, she had stolen his head, and now his heart. She was different to those vapid beauties he had taken up with in the past. Good to look at, they soon bored him, with constant chatter about the next party, or getting their hair or nails done.

  Natasha was different. She was beautiful that was for sure, but she had a substance about her, an air of dignity and a sense of compassion. She could also hold her own in a discussion, she was intelligent and her mind was strong. In the back of his mind he was afraid he was going to blow it. The shoe was on the other foot, instead of him getting sick of hearing about tanning products and nail salons, he was afraid she was the one who might get sick of him. Sure he had done a lot of things, he was a man of worldly experience, but he didn’t have the same education as her the same book smarts.

  There was also something else that was nagging away at him, hidden deep inside, grinding like a cow on a cud, regurgitating and rehashing, ruminating away in the recesses of his mind. Something else he couldn’t dare think about.

  A gnawing sensation like a stomach sickness, eating away at him incessantly. Something that he had to figure out a way to deal with, but if he pushed it far enough back, he could procrastinate, delay the inevitable and deal with it when it finally came knocking in its full glory, demanding the attention it deserved.

  He entered the hotel foyer, where Natasha sat waiting for him. She looked up, at first barely recognising him. A look passed over her face, astonishment mingled with something else he couldn’t guage quite what. Her jaw dropped.

  “You look, well, amazing.” The man standing before her was like the greek god Adonis. Cleanly shaven with his hair lightly layered in waves pushed back from his face, his body tanned and chiseled beneath the crisp blue shirt and cotton pants, he looked like he had just stepped out of a Giorgio Armani catalog. She had seen him naked the night before, but if it was possible, he looked even better with clothes on today.

  He simpered, a smile that would melt even the polar ice caps. “I’m glad you like it” he said. She looked down at herself.

  “I don’t really match do I?”

  “Easily fixed” he said holding out his elbow to escort her “Let's go shopping, shall we?” There were so many shops and boutiques around the hotel it was easy to find something for Tasha to wear. She had been checking on the etiquette for Vatican City, and chose a pair of chinos, along with a nice turquoise blouse. Short shorts and skirts were a no, along with plunging necklines and open midriffs. She teamed it with a simple scarf and a small clutch which she secreted the orb inside.

  “Now we look like a pair” she declared.

  He looked admiringly at her. “You look good in whatever you wear, but I do prefer you naked.”

  “Come on, I think you already said that this morning.”

  “Did I? Repeating myself…”

  “Come on” she laughed, pulling at his arm. “It’s a sure sign of old age, and I’m not getting any younger standing here.”

  They walked the three kilometres to Vatican City, taking in the cities sweeping scenery and sights along the way. To Natasha, Rome was one giant, open air living museum, a historical site 3,000 years in the making. Filled with beautiful architecture, elaborate fountains, and people, plenty of people.

  There was a certain juxtaposition to the modern vehicles packing the streets of ancient ruins, a sprawling cosmopolitan city jampacked full of influential art, architecture and culture on display, and the shrill toot-toot of scooters running helter skelter everywhere. She recalled reading once, when Mark Twain first visited Rome, he called it ‘a museum of magnificence and misery.’

  All she saw was the magnificence. She was long disconnected from the misery of the Forum and the Colosseum, the Ancient ruins holding a violent past, evoking the power of the former Roman Empire. As they got closer, Vatican City, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church,
home of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums housing masterpieces like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescos, came closer, its impressive silhouette looming into view.

  Tasha took a deep breath as they drew nearer. They were going to enter via Peter’s basilica, on the southeastern side of the city accessible from via Della Conciliazione. It was free to enter Peter’s basilica and there was a long line to get in. She looked up ahead and clutched her tote a little tighter. She had the orb and her uncle’s ring concealed inside, and noted the metal detectors up ahead.

  “It will be alright” said Xavier assuredly. She nodded, she felt nervous fingers clawing at her stomach the closer they got.

  “They are truly clever” said Tasha. “Over the centuries they have lusted after knowledge, trying to control it, own it and even manipulate it. They started out by fighting and killing those who wanted to possess knowledge like Galileo and William Tyndale.

  They executed Tyndale for translating the bible into English, a common language, so that commoners could read it. Before that they were the only ones who could lord it over people reading the bible to them. He took that away from them, so they took his life. Over time they got more politically correct, and instead of killing people who obtained new knowledge, they persistently hunted it down and amassed it away, out of sight and out of mind in these large bunkers.”

  Xavier raised his eyebrows “so you do know something of the history of the Church.”

  “How could I not? Do you know about the Knights Templar?”

  Xavier nodded his head, “a little.”

  “They became exceptionally powerful over the course of the crusades, even starting to hold initiation ceremonies. It seems like the Church may have decided their order was becoming dangerous and could seize power, so they cut them down. In 2007 they finally announced they would be releasing the documents they had held for over 700 years, the trials and a long-lost parchment that showed that pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, that the investigation of the order absolved the knights of the heresy charges that led to many of them being tortured and burnt alive. The Processus contra Templarios Documents were put on the market at a cost of $8,000 American Dollars each. Libraries and scholars from around the world reserved most of the 800 editions of the parchments before they were even published. You know - that's a total of $6.4 million American dollars.”

  “Phew” Xavier looked at her amazed. “You are kidding?”

  “No, but think about it for a moment. You persecute and brutally kill the very people who went to fight your holy wars, and then lock away the evidence that proves they were exonerated of the charges. Years later when time has healed or concealed all wounds, you sell the documents of the sin, the very documents you created, and profit off them in an extraordinary fashion.”

  “Wow, how do you know all this?”

  “Natasha at your service, purveyor of useless facts” she announced with a flippant bow. “But seriously” she said, ceasing fooling around, “because I was foremost in protesting against our University Library. They wanted to purchase a copy. I was adamant that the money could be better spent. I wonder how they came to the conclusion that the price of treachery was worth $8,000 a piece. A bit like the thirty pieces of silver, how do you put a price on it?”

  Xavier chuckled “I would expect nothing less from you, you can get a little feisty when you get a bee in your bonnet.”

  “If what you're trying to say I get passionate about things that matter to me, compliment accepted” she smiled at him, a dazzling smile that took him completely unawares. She looked radiant in the warm Italian sun, her hair shining golden and her green eyes glimmering.

  “You know what fascinates me more?” he stated still staring at her. She looked at him a little hesitant to answer, afraid it was going to be a trick question by the way he was admiring her.

  “No, tell me” she gushed.

  “Book thieves.”

  “Book thieves?” she was a little taken aback. She was sure he was going to say something corny, or romantic.

  “Well think about it. A stolen painting leaves an immediate blank space on the wall, but a stolen book, it leaves an easily filled place on on the bookshelf, how long would it take to realise its missing, days, months, years? I mean, who has the expertise and knowledge to be a professional book thief? What makes you wake up one morning and say, well, today I’m going to steal me some books?”

  Tasha thought about it. “There is only one I know about. Edward Forbes Smiley III.”

  “Well with a name like that, it practically guarantees he would be in the high stakes world of book thiefdom..… how did you find out about him?”

  “Through the University. Smiley was a map collector, he ingratiated himself with major libraries by donating maps to their collections. At the same time, he was hacking rare maps out of the books in those libraries. His theft went unnoticed for years until Smiley was nabbed in Yale University’s rare-book library after a librarian noticed an X-Acto knife blade on the floor. Last summer, they issued a public appeal to help find the owners of his stolen works. I was visiting Yale at the time, there was a bit of a buzz going on around the University about it. A lot of libraries improved their security over maps after that.”

  Tasha turned and stared at the opulent Renaissance styled Basilica flanked on all sides by colonnades, holding up one of the largest domes in the world. It was slowly getting closer. She couldn’t help thinking. Who knows what apocrypha lay hidden, what secrets they hold capable of changing the history of world as we know it. Concealed by the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Holy See and the red tape of the Roman Curia.

  They had reached the metal detectors and passed through without any difficulty. “From what I read, if you want to visit the library of the Holy See, you have to stop in a little office just inside the Porta Angelica, just off to the right as you stand inside St Peter’s square looking at the Basilica, where they will take our passports or papers and give us a visitor's pass.”

  “Ok, and what happens after that?” Natasha still looked a little nervous.

  “If you continue up the Via di Porta Angelica and turn right, you come to a paved courtyard where tournaments once took place. Coincidentally it’s a carpark now.”

  “How is that a coincidence?”

  He chuckled “I don’t quite know, it just sounded good.”

  “Who needs a tour guide when I have you?” there she went with that smile again. It was driving him crazy.

  “It’s here in this wing that we will find the Archives.”

  “Ok, let's go then shall we?” she said mustering up some courage and linking her arm through his.

  The archives were housed in a fortress-like wing of the Vatican behind St Peter’s Basilica, with the avenue leading to the building watched over by a phalanx of Swiss Guards, all in ceremonial uniform, officers from the city state’s own police force and the Gendarmerie out en-force. They walked through the avenue conscious of all the eyes watching them.

  “Well they certainly like to make a statement” Tasha eyed them nervously.

  “I can’t say much of their fashion sense either” said Xavier trying to lighten the mood. “I wonder if it has ever changed over the 500 years they have been guarding the pope?” he pondered with amusement. The Swiss Guard were dressed in a black basque cap and their Gala Uniform, designed in the colours of blue, red and yellow, the traditional colours of the Medici family. The blue and yellow cloth stripes puffed out at the arms and legs, interrupting in a flowing movement the red vest and pants.

  “It does kind of make them look like court jesters, or clowns” she grinned.

  “See, there’s the spirit.”

  They had their passports taken and had been issued with a pass, but that would only get them into the library and not the archives themselves. The archives were adjacent to the library and needed their own pass, one that was issued only to scholars and researchers. Th
e door was flanked by two guards. Tasha eyed them cautiously.

  “How do you want to do this?” she asked Xavier.

  “I think we just go for it.”

  “Of course you do” she shouldn’t have expected any other answer from him really. Thing was she had no idea how to go about it, so his plan sounded as good as any that she could think of, which was none. They entered the archives, passing the guards and approached a man standing, dressed in a casual suit.

  “I honestly thought God’s librarians, would you know, look a little different” whispered Xavier.

  “Me too” she whispered “more, like the cucula the Benedictine monks wore, or at least a habit.”

  “Welcome to the Archivum Secretum Apostalicum Vaticanum” he greeted them “I do not believe I have seen you here before?” his eyebrows raised in query.

  “Hello” Tasha greeted him nervously. She leant forward and spoke softly “We are here to see the Egyptian Book Of The Dead. We were told you may be able to help us?”

  The man’s thin eyebrows raised in unison and he gazed at them keenly. She was unable to gauge his expression or judge the glint she saw in his dark eyes. She waited on bated breath for him to respond.

  “Certainly” he replied after what seemed like an age but was only a few moments. “Pleased to meet you, my name is Barnabas.” She let her breath slowly escape through her clenched teeth. “Please place all your belongings in one of the lockers we have outside the main research area and I will take you to the reading room where the index of the archive is located.” He handed them both a pair of white gloves.

  “So far so good” she whispered to Xavier whilst they stood at the locker. She took the orb of her clutch and carefully wound it into the scarf folded around her neck. It got caught up in the folds and remained concealed in a hammock of sorts around her neck. She took the ring and placed it on her finger, feeling a small stab of sadness trying to clench at her stomach. She lifted her head, shaking it off and threw her clutch into the locker, pushing it shut. They turned to follow the man who had introduced himself as Barnabas, unclear as to what he had in store for them.