by Rob Swigart
Should I succeed, of course all history is changed, and nothing that was written will stand. Vale.
“He didn’t make it, did he?” Steve was pacing restlessly from one end of the room to the other. It seemed to have grown smaller.
“First he spied for England, and then he tried the Pope directly.” Lisa frowned at the document and set it down.
Steve went on. “They burned him at the stake around Ash Wednesday, 1600. He must have noted the irony, since his most famous work was called The Ash Wednesday Supper. He was one of the greatest minds of his time and they killed him.”
“He expected it; he saw it coming.”
“But think of the suffering that could have been avoided if he had succeeded! Religious wars, all the witches and Protestants and other heretics burned, all the dead in places like Ireland, the Middle East, even the bloody conflicts between Hindus and Moslems, suicide bombings and wars and terror. If only he could have convinced the Pope to suppress the intolerance…”
“I don’t think it would have worked even if he had reached the Pope.” She sat on the couch and crossed her legs.
“But he tried anyway, knowing he probably would die! What incredible courage. Nine years of Inquisition torture, prison, silence. Nine years of unspeakable suffering just on the infinitesimally small chance he could succeed.”
“He was a brave man, Steve. He was also an aggressive, arrogant man who happened to be the Pythos. That meant he was giving answers to governments who never knew his name. He was supposed to keep it that way, but he went too far.”
“Don’t you care? Think of what might have been, what he might have accomplished had he succeeded.”
“It’s no good, Steve; it didn’t happen. Please. I have to think now of what will be, not what could have been.”
He sank down beside her. “I know, I know. But damn it all, how can they continue with this folly. How could this Order, these people, how could they do this, burn, kill, torture in the name of God?”
“They’re believers, Steve. I can see it clearly. Can’t you? I see it just as I saw Bruno writing….” She paused, as if hearing a distant voice. “Listen, I’ve spent my life since college studying what people wrote about their daily lives, the oppressions they suffered, the hopes they had. Small things. I buried myself in their lives because they were long gone, their stories were written, finished, delivered to me from the sands of Egypt. They were safe, those people. I lost myself in them. Even though Raimond told me over and over my fugue states were a blessing and not a curse, I was always afraid I could never have a husband, friends, family, a life. Now I’m certain of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bruno had no family. Raimond Foix had no family. If I’m the Pythia, I’m doomed to solitude as well.”
“Not necess…”
“Never mind, forget it.” A tear made its way down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently. “Now I’m supposed to worry about the whole fucking world. I look at this message from Giordano Bruno and I don’t think I have what it takes. He failed and died. What’s the point? The oracle always answered a client with a sentence or two. Almost always they misunderstood. The Pythos understood they would do something stupid, anticipated it, used it. It was that way when the Pythia spoke from Delphi. It’s probably been that way ever since Hypatia.”
She fell silent.
Finally he said, “If there ever was a need for the Founding Document, it’s now.”
She tried a smile. “What are you, some kind of prophet?”
“So where is this Founding Document?” Steve asked. “Bruno didn’t say.”
“‘Its whereabouts are safe in the city of God.’” Lisa stroked her lower lip with her thumb. “What did he mean by that? The city of… Oh.”
“What?”
“Augustine!”
“Yes?”
“Raimond had a copy of it, a Jenson! It’s missing.”
“I thought he was talking about the religious wars. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre was a recent memory. In the near future Henri III and Henri IV would both be assassinated for their tolerance of Protestants.”
Lisa was impatient. “Yes, yes. But he meant Augustine’s book.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I feel it. And if Raimond had a copy, that copy was important. The nun stole it.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “If it points to the Founding Document, we have to get it back.”
“What if she knows the clue was in it?”
He frowned. “I don’t see how she could. You just figured it out.”
“You’re right,” she murmured, stifling a yawn. “We need it.”
The sensation of her hand on his chest, his scent and the feel of his palm against her remained in her skin’s memory, like the echo of light just after sunset. It was a fragile moment that she had tucked away, assuming he had done the same. That moment of mutual contact was the last thing that passed through her mind before, still seated on the couch, sleep overcame her.
43.
There was something different about the darkness, something palpable. She could feel panic lapping at the edges of her mind like a cold, dense liquid. She sat up.
Who was she? The feeling was a familiar old friend she could never quite trust. This had happened before.
She moved her hands. She wanted to touch something. Or someone. But she touched nothing, and the panic rose higher, threatening to drown her in darkness. She gasped for breath, struggling to pull air into her lungs. Air.
She let herself go, a softness spreading down her legs, her arms, her belly. You will learn who you are, just draw the air in slowly, slowly, release it the same way, let it go. Don’t give in to the panic. Let it come, the name, the self, the story, the life. Let it come.
She could see a shape as if through smoke, smoky light, red-lit. Blood swimming behind her eyes. Sparks in the air, flame.
Familiar flame sprouting from a roof; it had happened recently, fire leaping, receding behind her. Ahead she saw blue, sky, air, emptiness. No form gathered into a familiar shape, no voice spoke. She fell into a sky slowly fading to black.
Hands pulled at her, tore her down, and roughly carried her along. She was looking upward again into the starless night, angry voices shouting all around her. She recognized Greek, Coptic, Latin. The voices spoke of killing and the panic was there, an old friend, leaning over her shoulder, telling her to let go, to give in, to scream. She opened her mouth. She drew in a breath and almost let go.
But she stopped herself, breathed in again, and out. Fingers pinched at her flesh, hands twisted her limbs. Such anger masked fear, she knew that, and that fear would kill her, would end her story, her life. The world would go dark and she would simply cease.
Somehow that was a comfort. It would end the pain. Someone was cutting at her feet, sending searing heat up her leg. She heard the wet sound of a bone breaking and her leg went numb.
I don’t like dying without knowing who I am.
They were opening the skin up the legs, along her side, stripping it away, peeling it from her body. The shouting never stopped, the angry words, the cruelty. The broken leg was numb, yet pain seared her. She was going blind with it.
She breathed in, breathed out. She did not cry out. She said nothing, only wondered who they were. Why were they killing her? What could she say to them? What made them fear her so? They would not stop. They were going to erase her, obliterate her, as if she never had been.
Did it matter?
The pain faded, faded, was gone.
Whoever she was, she ceased to exist…
“Lisa!”
She was wild, staring sightlessly. The room was white and blue and dim. Shadows had collected in all the corners. She was naked, standing at the elevator door, her fingers hooked under the handle; she was going out. Her eyes drifted down and saw red lines that traced her body, down her legs, her arms. These puckered lines were ancient scars. They slowly faded. She lifte
d her eyes to the man who had spoken. “Who?”
“Lisa Sybilla Emmer!” His voice was hard, like flint; it could cut, could peel away her skin, flay her alive. She could feel it, a cold blade along her spine, down the sides of her legs.
But he was a handsome man with a helmet of yellow hair and clear blue eyes darkened with concern. His chest and shoulder were bandaged, too, and she knew this injury had come while he was protecting her. She wanted to lean into that chest, put her head against his shoulder and close her eyes.
But she could not do this any more than she could give way to the panic. Her belly tightened and her jaw clenched. Something was going to happen, something bad. Already the shadows and darkness were gathering, despite the lamp on the table, the glow from the bathroom nightlight. “No,” she insisted reasonably. “My name is Neele.”
He shook his head. “Your name is Emmer. Lisa Emmer. You’re from Chicago. You live in Paris.”
She said, No, no, but the negation stayed inside and didn’t emerge and she began to doubt. Finally she said, “Nancy. Nancy Neele. That’s who I am.”
She didn’t want him to frown like that, not at her. She began to shake.
He led her back to the couch, threw a blanket over her nakedness, held her, just as she had wanted, her head against his shoulder. It lasted only for a moment, so brief a time. She pushed away. “No,” she said. “No. We have to…” But what did they have to do? “Something’s going to happen.”
“What?” he asked, reasonably.
“I… don’t know.” Her teeth were chattering. “No. Wait. They’re coming.”
“Who? Who’s coming?”
She shook her head. Her hair swung in loops. She couldn’t stop the movement, the whip of hair across her eyes and forehead. He put his hands on either side of her face. Gradually it subsided. “Who’s coming?” he asked again, more softly.
“They.”
“Sister Teresa? Defago?”
“Not them, not now. Someone else, Americans, I think.” She looked around wildly. “We have to go. They’ll drag us from the carriage, they’ll cut… burn…” She couldn’t go on.
He stared. “Hypatia?”
“Who?”
“She was dragged from her carriage, flayed alive in the church.”
“Was she? Oh, she was. We have to go.”
“We’re safe here, Lisa. No one knows about this place. We’ll leave in the morning, I promise. What was that? What just happened to you?”
She didn’t answer, merely repeated, “We have to go now.”
She tried to pick up the clothes scattered on the floor, but her hands were numb and shaking. He had to help her pull on her panties, fasten her bra. She had jeans, blue jeans she remembered, that’s what they were called. Yes, they were blue, they covered the fading red lines on her body where the angry strangers had cut away the flesh. His hands were impersonal but gentle as they buttoned her blouse.
“OK,” he said softly. “You’re dressed. It’s after two in the morning, though, and we have nowhere to go. If we leave, we’ll be exposed. We should stay here, Lisa. We need to wait for daylight.”
“No! No. No.” She ran to the door, tugged at the handle. “It won’t open,” she said. She didn’t understand this was an elevator. All she had to do was press the button and the door would open. The little cabin was waiting for them. It only went between two places, here and down below.
He didn’t tell her this, though. He took her hand, led her away. “No, Lisa. Calm. We must wait.”
There was a ringing sound. The phone.
He lifted the receiver and raised her hand at the same time. He kissed her palm and answered, “Oui?” She looked at the instrument curiously, held against his ear, the ear nestled in golden hair. Yes, it was a familiar object, you could talk to other people with it, but this was no time for distractions. Panic was leaning over her shoulder again, whispering. She tugged his hand. Come, she wanted to say. Come, let’s go.
He was listening, paying no attention to her. He didn’t understand that people were coming for them, and they had to hurry.
He cradled the phone. “Come on,” he said. “You were right. We have to go.”
“Where do we go?” she asked, though she was the one who had wanted to leave.
He pressed the unlock button and the door clicked open. “Down,” he said. The lights were off in the darkened rooms. Darkness would not stop the people who were coming for them, but it might delay them.
In the elevator were two unmarked buttons. He pressed the lower one.
There was no response. He pushed it again, but already he was looking around. She smiled at the way he was measuring shadows in the apartment, the few spaces of cover – bathroom, bedroom.
Suddenly the little cage shuddered as if getting ready to move. He was examining the shape of the service hatch in the ceiling. He pushed it, grabbed the sides and pulled himself up, disappearing like a rabbit gone up a hole. She thought this image was funny and giggled at the image of a rabbit running upward. His hands appeared from the black rectangle and pulled her up after him. He closed the hatch just as the elevator began to descend.
The space in which they now crouched was confined and dusty, limited by the wheel set into the low ceiling above them and by the walls flowing upward, the cables in the center, bulges and humps of structure. She pressed herself into him and suppressed a sneeze.
The counterweight passed them, going up. The mechanism was well oiled, though, and made very little sound. She could hear her own breathing.
This was exciting. Nancy Neele had never seen this much excitement.
And then she wondered Who was Nancy Neele? This man, Steve, had been calling her Lisa. She was Lisa, it struck her in that split moment, and she saw Raimond Foix in his desk chair, head tilted back. She could clearly see a dent in the cupid, a shattered star in the window behind him and blood, so much blood. The vision was so vivid she tasted the copper of it, felt the press of wood chips under her shoe.
She’d had to leave the room. She was faint, and then numb. Now she sobbed, once, and Steve had his hand over her mouth in an instant. She stared at him, wide-eyed, seeing him clearly despite the paltry glow from a bulb near the roof of the building, growing smaller, a star alone and fading in a narrowing sky.
The elevator stopped. They could hear the door slide open and people enter. It was small. Steve held up a finger, two, three. The cage lurched upward. The bulb approached, casting its feeble light. At the top the cage stopped again. He was already prying open an electrical service panel, exposing neat wiring. He had a coin in his hand and began turning the screws that held the wires in place.
The door slid open below them. He held up his hand. Movement rustled. Again the fingers, one, two. So the third remained in the cage. He nodded.
The door swung shut. When he heard it click, Steve pulled a wire free.
The occupant pushed on the door. He muttered, “Shit!” and pushed again. He pounded once and laughed, as if it no longer mattered.
Steve pulled off two more wires and twisted them together. The cage started down. The man in the elevator threw himself at the door. It didn’t budge, and as the elevator descended it took the door out of reach and he gave up.
How did you know how to do that? Lisa mouthed, but Steve was listening. The elevator stopped, the door opened and someone left. The door closed again. Steve lifted the panel and dropped lightly inside. On the other side of the door the intruder was saying the elevator had brought him down, no, he hadn’t pressed the button, had they found anyone? He acknowledged and opened the elevator door. Light from the parking garage flooded in. Steve smiled.
Lisa watched from the opening. The man, dressed all in black like a movie cliché, his eyes obscured by night vision goggles, took a step back in surprise. Steve followed. The man lifted his pistol and Steve doubled over into a coughing fit, holding up his hand as if to say, Wait, this will pass.
Oddly he did wait. Steve inched closer, gas
ping for breath, hand still up. The coughing continued, racking his body. It was too much for any man to bear, this frenzied arpeggio of tightened lungs begging for release. He wheezed, bent double, and straightened, swinging his arm in a vertical windmill that trapped the other’s arm between his own arm and back. His upper arm curled smoothly around the man’s elbow and twisted upward. There was an unpleasant snap followed by a grunt of pain and the pistol clattered to the pavement. Steve stepped back, smiled gently, and drove the edge of his hand into the man’s throat.
Lisa climbed down into the elevator. The tinny voices of the men trapped upstairs chattered in the man’s earpiece, but neither they nor this man, his arm bent at an awkward angle, would be following them any time soon.
She bent to retrieve the weapon. “American,” she said, handing it to Steve on the way out.
44.
Sister Teresa walked slowly across the vast chamber under the abbey, restless and frustrated. She missed her cabin in the woods, its solitude and special privations. From time to time she curled her scarred hand around the grip of her Glock and drew comfort. She was a warrior of the Lord and this weapon was what she knew, what she wanted. Strength flowed from it.
It had begun so well. Despite the sloppy aim of her second shot, the execution had been clean. Yet in everything after that – kidnapping Rossignol, his confession, Bruno’s decoded message – she and her priest had been tricked and thwarted, the enemy remaining always just out of reach.
Was it because of her theft? She should never have taken the Augustine. Yet how could she not? As soon as she had seen it there on the floor it had called to her. Augustine was the distant ancestor of her Order. He was why she believed. Had he not said, “Salus extra ecclesiam non est,” there is no salvation outside the church? Had he not created the Rule? Self denial and obedience? Did he not say, “The superior should be obeyed as a father?” Did she not obey her superior as a father?
Collecting treasure was not part of her mission. Yet the Augustine and its rich illustration had called. Whenever she closed her eyes she could see the image of two small angels (she refused to see them as pagan cherubs), one with his spear deep into the side of a slain stag. The deer was Jesus Christ and she was the angel, the image of holiness, successful in the hunt. At the same time she was the killer of the Lord. Was Foix her deer? Was he the slain god?
