by Sam Cabot
“I want you to head straight for the lion’s den,” Lorenzo said, drawing on his cigar to get it going. “In the nineteenth century, before there was an Italy, rebellions up and down the peninsula raised questions about the secular power of the papacy. The Church in the world, Thomas.”
“Your favorite subject.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes in mock despair. “In the world, of the world—completely different states! Have you learned nothing, Father Kelly?”
If he’d learned nothing else, Thomas had learned that particular distinction well and truly in his years with Lorenzo Cossa. He couldn’t help grinning.
Lorenzo grunted. “You’re having me on, aren’t you? I suppose that’s a good sign, that your sense of humor, such as it is, is returning. May I get back to the nineteenth century?”
“Please.”
“The questions about the Church’s secular power became questions about spiritual power. Do you see what I’m saying? These men followed their doubts to their logical end. Don’t run from that: study it. If your faith is strong—as I know it is—you’ll survive this encounter and be the better for it.”
“And if not?”
Lorenzo held Thomas’s eyes. “I’m offering no promises. But at the least, you’ll have added to the store of human knowledge. Is that, in itself, such a poor goal?”
It had not been, and Thomas had worked toward it, at first mechanically, then with growing animation. Lorenzo’s prescription had proven to be precisely the cure for Thomas’s spiritual ailment. Close study of the words and actions of men whose sworn enemy was the Church gave Thomas the tools, the time, and in some way the courage, to sort out the roots of his own faith and the roots of his doubts. The doubts, he’d begun to understand, flowed from received wisdom, unexamined assumptions. Thomas—really? The faith sprang from someplace simpler, deeper: the peace he’d always felt in the presence of God. The questions the new voice was asking were only that: questions. Not sly statements of fact, just uncertainties. Legitimate; but standing against them was that undeniable, palpable sense of being home.
Thomas was rock-certain that without Lorenzo’s help then, and in the late-night calls in the weeks and months that followed, he’d have made the huge and heavy mistake of valuing the new voice over the old peace. He’d have left his vocation, he’d have left the Church. Now, eight years later, with Thomas secure in his decision and the direction of his life, Lorenzo was asking Thomas for help.
How could he say no?
4
Lorenzo Cardinal Cossa replaced the ornate receiver and stared sourly at the telephone on his desk. How much had been spent to rewire these ridiculous porcelain antiques to modern standards? He relit his cigar, sighing. That they’d go to that trouble proved, yet again, the soundness of his argument: the Church, Lorenzo Cossa’s home, his chosen and very nearly his sole family, had lost its bearings. Was wandering in the wilderness. The useful elements of the modern world—functioning electronics, for example, and comfortable clothing—it eschewed in favor of gilt and ermine. But suggest a Latin Mass, or offer the once-obvious idea that the contemplation of a saint’s relics could be of spiritual use, and you were derided as pathetically old-fashioned.
All right, then, he was. And from now on, he’d use his cell phone.
As he puffed the cigar, the Cardinal’s mood improved. Thomas was coming, would be here in two days. Unlike Lorenzo, Thomas didn’t grow short-tempered at the Church’s frivolities; he either shrugged them off, or actually didn’t notice them, so focused was he on the high-altitude joys of recondite research. Not only a born churchman, a born Jesuit. Born and, once Lorenzo had found him, led, directed, and guided. Thomas Kelly had been that once-in-a-lifetime gifted student, and Lorenzo Cossa had uttered daily prayers of thanks for him. The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he sent Thomas to Lorenzo. In fact Lorenzo saw it as a sign: his time was coming.
And now, had come.
Many of those around Lorenzo assumed that, having achieved his current exalted positions (both at once!), he’d fulfilled his ambitions and would now happily putter among the manuscripts and books for the rest of his days. A valued and important cardinal, a senior official, and a trusted adviser, yes of course—but sidelined, as the Librarians always were.
Not true. Oh, no, not true. Lorenzo’s work had just begun.
5
The wind made a grab for Livia Pietro’s hat as she raced out the door. The magnolia’s thick green leaves gleamed in the sunlight but she dashed by without a glance, charging across the uneven stones of Piazza Trilussa, heading for the bridge. A strong breeze carried the loamy scent of the Tiber; the more she sped up the harder it pushed against her. As an external manifestation of her internal state, that was perfect; she’d have laughed if she hadn’t felt queasy. She didn’t remove the wide straw hat, only clamped her hand on it as she ran. She felt foolish, hand square on head like that, though her neighbors’ indulgent smiles would have told her—if she hadn’t already known—that eccentricity from her was nothing new. The hats, the sunglasses, her ancient tower house, the gray streaks she refused to banish from her long, dark hair, and, worst, her unmarried state at the age of gray streaks, all conspired, though her academic status provided partial explanation. (“Professoressa,” they’d confide to one another knowingly.) Gossip, Livia was resigned, was inevitable. Through friendliness and liberal spending in the local shops she managed at least to keep the gossip benign.
A horn bleated. She let a motorino pass, then darted across the road in a nimble dance with oncoming traffic. She hurried over the bridge as fast as she dared, though not as fast as she could. Among Livia’s Blessings were agility and speed. A horsewoman in her youth, she retained a high level of athletic skill. But a middle-aged professoressa speeding like Mercury along the Ponte Sisto would invite exactly the kind of attention Livia was at pains to avoid.
Odd, she thought as she ran, to be rushing someplace she so very much didn’t want to go; but a Summons was neither a happy event nor an occasion for choice. Although the Conclave met regularly to debate issues of importance to the Community, it was possible to live a long and happy life without ever being Summoned before it. In fact that was the experience of most Noantri; but this was Livia’s second time.
Worse, she feared this Summons was not unrelated to the first.
Across the river she cut left, onto Via Giulia, where the cobbles led past the Palazzo Farnese’s ivy-draped wall. The Fontana del Mascherone—the Big Mask Fountain—looked particularly apprehensive and unhappy today. Before her Michelangelo’s bridge curved over the road. Livia loved that bridge, its perfect arch and trailing leaves, but right now her heart lurched at the sight. Immediately past it stood, to the right, an apartment building where people lived comfortable, normal lives; and to the left, her destination: Santa Maria dell’Orazione e Morte.
The art historian in her wanted to stop and stand, to drink in the church’s bone-bedecked façade, her eyes tracing the path the sculptor took as, inch by inch, he’d coaxed cherubs and skulls from the stone. At times, before a statue or a painting, Livia felt tiny contractions in her arms and hands. Her body, more insightful by far than her mind or even her heart, was re-creating the artist’s movements, teaching her how the piece had come to life. Those moments of perception, which after so many years still thrilled her, had been part of the Change for Livia; the works where she felt them were the ones she knew and loved best.
This church’s façade was one of those, but she didn’t linger. She slipped a five-Euro note from her pocket and slid it into the collection slot. In that same movement she found and threw the hidden switch to unlatch the church door. Each Noantri Summoned before the Conclave was told about the switch and how to operate it. Livia had been told the first time; now, she regretted to say, she knew.
Inside the church she took off her dark glasses and moved through the sanctuary to a point behind the
altar. The crypt door stood ajar. She removed her hat, smoothed her hair, listened for a moment to the thumping of her heart, and headed down the uneven stone steps into the dank air of the crypt.
At least she was on time.
The stairway curved down to a brick-arched, stone-floored room whose niches held meticulously stacked bones and pyramids of skulls. Rosettes made from hands and arcs made from ribs adorned the walls. Four centuries of the poor and the unclaimed had found sanctified ground here, their bones painstakingly cleaned and positioned for the devout to reflect upon as they prayed. Not for the first time, Livia considered the oddness of her people’s penchant for the trappings of death. It was akin, she had decided, to the woven streams that flowed through the carpets of the Bedouins.
This church, though, odd as it was, was an excellent choice for meetings of the Conclave. Like so many of Rome’s small churches, Santa Maria dell’Orazione was now rarely used, and the crypt visited even less often. A discreet and sizable annual contribution from the Noantri to the church’s burial society procured private access to the crypt at any time; thus the latch in the collection box. For uninterrupted meditation, officially, and no priest or bone cleaner had yet sought to investigate more deeply. The Conclave would be undisturbed, and the weight of centuries in the scents of earth and rock would, as always, serve to remind those who met here of the consequence of their deliberations.
The crypt housed an eternal flame, also appropriate. Its flicker was often the only illumination, but now, as was usual when the Conclave met, great iron candelabra on either side of the room cast pools of wavering light. Puffs of air from cracks in the ancient walls danced shadows against the blacker darkness. As she stepped through the doorway, Livia heard no sound but her own footsteps and their timid echoes, fading as she walked forward and stood before the Conclave.
All were assembled, silent, waiting: the twelve Counsellors sitting in rows right and left, and between them the Pontifex, whose dark gaze made Livia uneasy even when she encountered him in the most casual of circumstances. Here, in the hush of stones and skeletons, it was all she could do not to squirm. She stood silent; it was protocol that the Pontifex should speak first, though in truth Livia could not, at that moment, have spoken at all. A shuddering conflict had enveloped her, familiar from her first Summoning. Like all Noantri, Livia felt an immediate comfort, a sense of grateful belonging, in a group of her own people. It was physical and instantaneous, a calling of blood to blood. The relief of it had flooded around her when she walked into the crypt. But here, it was illusion. These black-robed Counsellors were not her friends. Standing before them the first time, she’d sensed individual flashes of sympathy behind the unanimous disapproval. This time, though she didn’t yet know why she was here, nothing but anger filled the dank air.
“Livia Pietro,” the Pontifex said, his deep, slow voice echoing in the stone chamber. “I’m dismayed to see you before us once again.”
Not as much as I am, Livia thought, but she only nodded in acknowledgment.
“Years ago, when you were called here,” the Pontifex went on, “you spoke eloquently. You admitted your error in judgment, but you pleaded movingly the case of Jonah Richter. Your plea was heard. He was initiated and allowed to remain. Many of us, through the years, have made similar mistakes in the name of love.” Though the Pontifex’s eyes did not stray from Livia, the black-robed man at the end of the row to his left—the position of the Conclave’s newest member—lowered his gaze. Livia struggled not to do the same. “In the event,” the deep voice continued, “your breaking of the Law seems to have been in vain. Jonah Richter left you not long after he became one of us. You look surprised that I know this.”
“We were—we were in Berlin at the time, my Lord.”
“Because we allowed him to remain, did you think we would not be watching him? The New always bear watching, Livia.”
Now Livia did look away, her face hot. Her separation from Jonah was no secret, but she hadn’t understood it to have happened in a public spotlight, either.
“Livia,” the Pontifex said in tones that were, to her surprise, gentle, “we haven’t called you before us to settle that account. This Conclave deliberated and, once you’d made Jonah Richter Noantri, permitted him to continue. That was our decision. Nor could any reproach from us be as painful as his forsaking you has already been, I’m sure. That’s the way it is with affairs of the heart.” Livia looked back up, meeting his dark eyes as he said, “No, we’re here because of a different betrayal. Larger and much more dangerous.”
He turned to the woman on his immediate right. Senior in the Conclave and one of the Eldest—like the Pontifex, a bridge to the times Before—she was known to Livia as Rosa Cartelli, although of course that would not have been her name at birth.
“We have received a letter.” Cartelli’s words were clipped and businesslike. “From Jonah Richter. In German,” she added. Livia heard clearly the contempt in Cartelli’s voice. To the Counsellors, from various lands and all highly learned, Jonah’s native tongue wouldn’t have presented a problem; but by tradition, communication with the Conclave was initiated in Latin. From courtesy, the Counsellors usually replied in the language of the petitioner; with Livia called before them, all were speaking Italian. But the choice was always theirs. That Jonah had defied tradition this way did not bode well.
“The letter is a threat,” Cartelli said flatly. “He is telling us to choose: either we can make public the contents of the Concordat, or he will.”
“But . . .” Livia was at a loss.
“Do you doubt he would carry this through?” the Pontifex asked.
After a moment Livia shook her head. “No, Lord. Jonah is . . . impatient. He feels the Concordat constricts us all. There are many who think the same way,” she added. “Who feel it is past time we stepped into the light. And that the world is ready to accept us.”
Why had she said that? To defend Jonah? After all this time and in these circumstances? Absurd.
“Yes,” the Pontifex said patiently. “I know that. They are wrong.”
Livia glanced at the faces of the Counsellors. Most appeared in calm agreement with the Pontifex—as, on this point, despite having just articulated the opposing view, Livia was herself. Three Counsellors, however, glared with an accusatory fierceness that could only mask doubt. Well, why would that not be? Unveiling was a topic of endless interest to, and discussion within, the Community; why wouldn’t it be debated in the Conclave as well? Still, whatever their individual beliefs, none of the Counsellors spoke, save one: a woman two seats from Cartelli, whose features were Asian and whose name Livia didn’t know. “They are wrong,” she echoed the Pontifex in a soft, clear voice, “and there are others in our Community more radical than Jonah Richter who would seize on the chaos this revelation would cause to advance plans yet more perilous.”
Livia waited for more explanation; none was forthcoming, but she didn’t doubt that what the Counsellor had said was true. She looked again to the Pontifex. “But, Lord, this threat. Why would any of the Unchanged believe him? He can try to reveal whatever he wants—he’ll sound like a ranting fool. Surely this isn’t any real danger.”
“It could be.” The man at the end, the one who’d looked away when the Pontifex talked of mistakes made for love, spoke now. “If he can prove it.”
“But how could he?”
“The Vatican’s copy of the Concordat disappeared in 1849,” the Counsellor said.
Taken aback, Livia asked, “It did?”
“Yes. And Jonah Richter claims to have it.”
“Is that possible?”
The Counsellor looked to the Pontifex. “The man who stole and hid it,” the Pontifex said, “a poet by the name of Mario Damiani, was one of us—a Noantri who believed as Jonah does. Damiani died without revealing its location.” The Pontifex spoke steadily, but a shadow passed over his face that Liv
ia thought was not from the flickering candles. “We made a search. I can assure you the Church did also, starting even before the Pope returned from Naples to reestablish his rule in Rome. The Vatican eventually concluded their copy had been misplaced, or possibly destroyed, in the looting and the subsequent attempt to restore order. For the past century and a half they’ve believed it most likely lost somewhere in the vast disorganization of their collection.”
Livia nodded slowly. “It would be plausible. Artworks and documents surface in the Vatican all the time. Sometimes centuries after they disappear.”
“The cumbersome bureaucracy at the Vatican—in the Church in general, in fact—has always worked in our favor. The very fact that the Concordat never came to light convinced the Church it hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands. For our part, the Conclave was satisfied it had either been destroyed or was hidden so well it would never be found. But Jonah Richter claims he’s discovered its hiding place and will reveal its location unless we reveal its contents. That, of course, would be tantamount to Unveiling.”
Livia tried to think clearly. “Is it possible Damiani never took it at all? That Jonah knows that story and is bluffing?”
“Jonah Richter might be bluffing, but Mario Damiani did steal the Concordat. He made a copy.”
The Pontifex turned to a round man, an American, Livia recalled, named Horace Sumner. “He sent it to a friend, a journalist named Margaret Fuller,” Sumner said. “Sealed in a silver box. He instructed Fuller not to read it, and we don’t believe she did. In any case she didn’t speak about it and she died within a year, in a shipwreck. Her papers and possessions were all lost—except for the silver box, which we were able to retrieve. We’ve read the copy. It’s the Concordat, word for word.”
