Blood of the Lamb

by Sam Cabot

  The calls from churches, monasteries, and convents had been coming thick and fast. Raffaele couldn’t tell if the ordained and avowed who were burning up the tip line were worried for their own safety and that of their treasures, or were merely trying to be of service to the authorities. Whichever it was, Carabinieri officers had been crisscrossing Rome all afternoon responding to reports of collection boxes jacked open and tourists’ wallets disappearing, which were the kind of thing usually the province of the Rome polizia; and also, stories of strange men lurking in church doorways and loud arguments on basilica steps, which on a normal Rome day wouldn’t get reported at all.

  However, the clerics, to whom Raffaele was used to turning for spiritual but never before professional help, had provided nothing. The only thing these calls had yielded was a sense, disquieting to Raffaele, that church-related disturbances were much more of a quotidian occurrence than he’d thought.

  What had borne Raffaele promising fruit was exactly what, in his experience, usually did: two pretty girls drinking wine at a café table, in this case on Via della Luce. Both nodded emphatically when he showed them Ocampo’s picture.

  “Half an hour, maybe?” The brunette cast a heavily made-up glance at her redheaded companion for confirmation. “He was in a hurry.”

  “Running?” Raffaele asked.

  “No, walking fast, and he kept looking behind him like someone was following him.”

  The good Samaritan, Raffaele thought, wishing he had a photo of that man, too. “Was anyone?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you’re sure it was him?”

  “He was gross,” the redhead sniffed. “All sweaty. And some kind of awful cologne.”

  “Sickening,” her friend agreed.

  “And the way he looked at us when he went by. Like if he weren’t in a rush he’d sit right down and buy us a drink.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t try that, huh?” Raffaele grinned.

  “Don’t flirt, you’re on duty,” the girl said, but she smiled.

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “Seriously? I didn’t even look at him.” A toss of the red hair.

  The brunette pointed north. “That way. I think he turned left a couple of blocks up.”

  “You watched where he was going that far?”

  She nodded, then shrugged as the redhead stared. “I don’t know, something about him—he was just interesting, okay?”

  The redhead rolled her eyes.

  “How about this woman?” Raffaele intervened, swiping to the photo of Anna Jagiellon. “Was she with him?”

  Both girls leaned forward to see. Their eyes met in surprise. “Not with him,” the brunette said. “But a few minutes ago. Going the same direction. They know each other?”

  “Was she who was following him?” asked the redhead. “That he was afraid of?”

  Raffaele didn’t answer that, but asked, “The same direction?”

  The brunette nodded. The redhead, to prove she could be as helpful to the Carabinieri as her friend—or maybe, to draw Raffaele’s attention back to herself—said, “She turned left up there, too. I don’t know if it was the same street—”

  “It was,” the brunette confirmed. The redhead scowled.

  “You’re sure it was this girl?” Raffaele asked.

  “Absolutely. She’s, like, completely hot. I mean, not that we’re— But she—” The brunette blushed prettily. Raffaele tried not to smile.

  “A girl who looks like that,” the redhead clarified, “other girls notice.”

  Raffaele thanked them, walked a few paces away, and called Giulio. “Looks like we’re right. Whatever it is, she’s involved. Not only wasn’t he stalking her, right now it seems like she’s looking for him.” He boiled the conversation down.

  “You’re sure they have the right people?”

  “They called him gross and brought up the cologne. Her, they were checking out the competition. Girls don’t miss much when they’re doing that.”

  “Good work. Keep going. I’ll join you as soon as I can get there.”

  Raffaele pocketed the phone and continued up Via della Luce to the corner the girls had indicated. He stopped a few more times, showing the photos, closing in, once again, on Jorge Ocampo.

  76

  Livia was examining a side-chapel ceiling in Santa Maria dell’Orto when the two priests stepped from the confessional. She walked to the back of the church, where they stood talking.

  “Thanks for waiting,” Thomas said to her.

  She smiled. “I’d never interfere with the confessional. I just hope your penance doesn’t involve giving up coffee—I’m desperate. Father Franconi, your Zuccaris are truly beautiful. And wonderfully restored.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed them. Please come back to our church. We celebrate Mass every day at four.” He added, “There’s an excellent café around the corner.”

  Father Franconi’s smile followed them out the church doors. They walked purposefully in the direction he’d pointed them, American tourists in search of caffeine. As soon as she heard the church doors creak shut Livia said to Thomas, “Your blood pressure’s about to blow the top of your head off. Relax. I have it.”

  “The poem? You do?”

  “You gave me just about enough time. I guess you found something to talk about.”

  “Yes. No problem. It was fine. Fine. The turkey’s still there?”

  “On top of the wardrobe, almost touching the ceiling. Beautifully carved, but huge. I had to tilt the whole thing over. Luckily it’s so heavy it just sits up there. They don’t fasten it down.”

  “It’s that heavy, but you— Right. Never mind.”

  She smiled. “The poem was under the base, as far from any of the edges as it could be.”

  “Did you read it? What does it say?”

  “No. I barely made it out of the sacristy when I heard the confessional doors open. It’s in my bag. Let’s go get coffee.”

  She saw Thomas pick up on her thought: they needed to get off the street, and two people bending over a page in a café would arouse no suspicions. Besides which, he looked like a man who could use a restorative drink.

  At the café they ordered macchiati. Once the waiter had brought them and gone back behind the glass counter, Livia unfolded the sheet of paper on the marble table. Thomas leaned to read it.

  Nun se po’ vvedé la bbellezza de ’sto vorto bbello

  come nun se vede pe’ gnente l’effimerità

  de la musica: e uno, e tre, li diti senz’anello

  indicano la grazzia de l’incorrotta santità.

  La su’ anima lucente rischiara ’sto spazzio poverello.

  We cannot see the beauty of the face

  that turns, music’s ephemerality,

  and one, and three, the fingers gesture grace

  and point toward incorrupt sanctity.

  Her lucent soul illumes this tiny space.

  Below, the expected penciled letters:

  R B O R T

  Brow furrowed in concentration, Thomas looked from the poem to the letters, back and forth. Livia was about to speak when he blurted, “Bramante! If you add the b and the r. Going backwards. Bramante eam aedificavit. ‘Bramante made it.’ Not amante. Nothing to do with lovers. Bramante. Something Bramante made.”

  “Well, that doesn’t narrow it down much.” Donato Bramante, the architect who brought the High Renaissance style to Rome, had held, among other posts, that of papal architect to Julius the Second. Still, it was something; and there were more words to come. “And the t r o?”

  “I don’t know. The next word. I mean, the word before. Whichever of Bramante’s buildings Damiani used.”

  “Good. Now finish up so we can go.”

  “But the poem—”

&nb
sp; “Yes. Let’s go.”

  “Wait. You know where this poem’s sending us?”

  “Of course. You don’t?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Seriously?” She sat back, grinning. “And I had no idea about Saint Francis’s cell. Believe me, this one’s as easy as you said that one was.”

  77

  This time, Jorge was doing it differently. Slowly, methodically. Scientifically.

  For one thing, he had to. After he’d escaped the ambush at San Francesco a Ripa he’d zigzagged through the neighborhood, partly to throw that interfering blond Noantri off his trail. He’d stopped and bought more cologne to aid the purpose, and that and his evasive maneuvers seemed to have worked, because that smirking man was nowhere to be seen.

  The other reason for Jorge’s serpentine, systematic progress was to pick up the trail of Livia Pietro. There were only so many streets leading away from San Francesco a Ripa. Unless she was still inside, she had to have left by one of them; and if she were still inside, sooner or later she’d come out. And leave by one of them.

  He was on Via Anicia, in fact, heading back in the direction of San Francesco a Ripa to start again, when he got a strong whiff of Pietro’s gardenia perfume and the perspiration and skin-scent under it. She’d been here, and fairly recently. He looked back to make sure the blond man wasn’t behind him and then picked up his pace. It was an easy trail to follow, for a talented operative like himself. Sticking to the late afternoon shadows, he arrived at, not surprisingly, another church. It was Santa Maria dell’Orto; and it was closed. Why all these churches? Jorge wondered. Was Pietro like him, a Noantri who still missed the comfort of the stained glass and the wooden pews, the wise homily and the glimpse of heaven? Anna said heaven was an outdated and ridiculous concept, a crutch for fearful Mortals. Of course she was right, but Jorge, as he peered down the long, indistinct tunnel of his endless future, sometimes wished he could lean on that crutch just a little bit, even now.

  But back to work! Risking leaving the shadows, Jorge worked his way through the intersection in front of the church. Pietro, he decided, had been here, but she wasn’t here now. She’d arrived along Via Anicia, but she’d left along Via della Madonna dell’Orto. Her scent was stronger there. Fresher. Madonna dell’Orto, walled on both sides and running east to the river, at this time of day didn’t provide much concealing shadow. So be it. Jorge strode into the middle of the street and boldly made his way.

  78

  Thomas followed Livia through the open gate and into the shadowed garden in front of Santa Cecilia. The streets they’d traveled to get here had been quiet, but when they shut the gate the walled garden surrounded them with a different kind of silence. Thomas stopped for a moment, surprised to feel his heartbeat slow down, his breathing calm. He felt suddenly apart, serenely separated from the tumult his life had turned into on this day.

  Almost, he realized with a start, he felt an echo of the old peace.

  The basilica’s open doors welcomed visitors, but when Thomas and Livia entered they found themselves nearly alone. The air was soft with fading incense; it whispered to Thomas of Asia, of desert caravans and distant cities. Three votive candles flickered in a side chapel. There, a woman knelt before the rail. No one else was about.

  Livia didn’t hesitate. She trotted up the center aisle. Thomas followed her to the stone rail that stood in front of what he privately considered one of the most beautiful works in Rome. He wasn’t an art historian, so maybe he was wrong, but he’d come out of his way on previous trips to Rome just to spend time with this: Stefano Maderno’s breathtaking, delicate statue of Saint Cecilia, head so oddly turned away from those who looked on her.

  Livia knelt before the statue, and Thomas, though sure she was just inspecting the marble for possible poem locations, knelt with her.

  “You’re sure it’s this one?” he asked.

  “There’s no question. ‘. . . the beauty of the face / that turns . . . and one, and three, the fingers gesture grace.’” Livia pointed to Cecilia’s hands, their gentle fingers raised to signal the holy trinity. “And,” Livia added, “she was one of us.”

  “What?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly. “Cecilia— You’re telling me—”

  Livia nodded. “They tried three times to chop off her head. They didn’t quite succeed, but in any Unchanged the damage and blood loss would surely have caused death. Not only didn’t Cecilia die, she remained conscious. It was only after she was allowed to take Communion that she slipped into a coma. The next day they declared her dead and buried her. Stefano Maderno had her disinterred twelve hundred years later, to use her remains as a model for this work. They were intact, undecayed. As you see.”

  Thomas stared, first at Livia, then at the pure white marble sculpture of the saint. Could this possibly be true? “Is this . . . You said it could take a very long time . . .”

  “Yes. In some cases, hundreds of years. Cecilia’s Renewal was almost complete when she was disinterred.”

  “Maderno . . . How did he . . . Why . . . no. I know.”

  “Yes. Maderno also. They’d known each other two millennia before. In, I believe, Greece. He’d been to her grave. He could tell she was nearly ready. That’s why he put himself forward for the commission.”

  Thomas nodded, a part of him astonished, not by this news, but by his lack of astonishment at it.

  “Look.” Livia brought him back to the moment, gesturing in the direction of the woman in the side chapel, who rose and turned. “She’s leaving. This may be the best chance we’ll get.”

  79

  As soon as the woman who’d been praying in the side chapel stepped out the church door Livia was up and over the railing. She’d done this a number of times over the years, waiting her chance to be alone in order to study Maderno’s Cecilia. The basilican authorities made it almost impossible to get close to this sculpture. Even to the Unchanged, the evident tenderness, Maderno’s skill and joy as he made this piece, was so captivating that the marble cried out to be touched, to be taken in with more senses than just sight. Even the way sound echoed off the stone folds of Cecilia’s shroud . . . Livia stopped herself. This was not the time to get lost in the beauty of this work.

  Thomas, as usual, was a beat behind her. He’d probably never lose his instinctive horror of trespassing, of breaking the rules. He did seem to have lost a good deal of his horror of her people, though. He’d taken her revelation that Cecilia was both saint and Noantri with a minimum of aversion and no disbelief she could detect.

  As he stepped over the railing she knelt and ran her fingertips along the line at Cecilia’s throat. That would have been the obvious spot for a Noantri to hide something for a Noantri to find; but the line was as she remembered: a chiseled groove in the solid stone, filled with a thin layer of gold. She moved on, exploring the flowing marble garments, the cavity made by Cecilia’s arms resting in front of her torso, the space under her lifted left foot. Livia’s fingertips thrilled to every alteration in texture, rough to smooth; her muscles followed Maderno’s hammering, his tapping, his polishing. Her delight in experiencing, skin to stone, the cool curves of Maderno’s work was so great that it threatened to derail her urgent search.

  Or maybe it already had. She was carefully searching the cavity at the statue’s feet when Thomas said, “Um, Livia?” She turned to see him prying his key-ring penknife into a small gap at the statue’s base. As she watched he dug the blade into a slip of paper and slid it out.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Gingerly, Thomas unfolded the familiar page. He looked up at her. “It’s the last.” He turned it for her to see. It held no poem. The paper was blank but for five block letters printed in graphite.

  E P O R P

  The last! No new poem, no next church to go to. They had it all, now—the entire puzzle. This final piece would lead them to the Concordat. Heart
pounding, Livia knelt beside Thomas. “Pro,” she said, reading backwards as they had learned to do. “If that’s the first word, and the p e goes with what we already had, the word before it is Petro.” She looked up to see the dismay she suddenly felt echoed on Thomas’s face.

  “‘For Peter’?” he said. “‘For Peter Bramante made it’?”

  Livia sat back on her heels. “Saint Peter’s? He hid the Concordat in Saint Peter’s?”

  For some moments they sat in silence. Saint Peter’s, the Vatican church, was Donato Bramante’s grandest work. A huge basilica where the Popes themselves worshipped, it held side chapels, underground rooms and tombs, hundreds of statues, plaques, paintings, gold and silver and precious woods, multiple levels, even tiers to its giant dome. How would you search Saint Peter’s? Where would you begin?

  “That would be so like Damiani, wouldn’t it?” Livia asked rhetorically. “Once he got it out of the Vatican Library he didn’t take it anywhere. Just around the corner. To Saint Peter’s. But where?”

  Thomas made no answer, just shook his head.

  “Maybe when we get there,” she said. “Maybe something will jump out at us.”

  Thomas looked as unconvinced as she was, but what else could they do? She stood. He didn’t, though. Still crouched beside the sculpture, he said, “He wrote it backwards.” Frowning at the floor, which she was sure he wasn’t seeing, he asked, “Why did he write it backwards?”

  “As extra insurance? If you didn’t have the whole thing—”