Blood of the Lamb

by Sam Cabot

  “You need the whole thing no matter what direction it goes in.”

  She said nothing, to give him space to follow his thought. He took a pencil from his back pocket, then searched in vain for a piece of paper. Wordlessly, she slipped Damiani’s notebook from her shoulder bag and offered it to him.

  He didn’t reach for it. “Write in that? I can’t.”

  “Damiani would’ve wanted us to.”

  “But it’s from the Vatican Library.”

  “The Bernini,” she said, “Santa Teresa’s relic box. Saint George’s.”

  He met her eyes, sighed, took the notebook, and opened it to a blank page. He tapped the pencil on it a few times, then wrote:

  P R O P E T R O B R A M A N T E E A M AE D I F I C A V I T

  He stared at the line of letters, then separated them into the words they made:

  PRO PETRO BRAMANTE EAM AEDIFICAVIT

  “Was he telling us to rearrange the words? Once we have it all, to run it backwards? But it’s Latin. Word order doesn’t matter.” He did it anyway.

  AEDIFICAVIT EAM BRAMANTE PETRO PRO

  “Or, each word backwards? No. That just gives us Latin gibberish.”

  Livia realized he was talking as much to himself as to her.

  “But he did do it backwards,” Thomas went on. “There must be a reason.”

  Livia withdrew the poems themselves from the zippered pocket of the bag and spread them on the floor in front of the statue. Well, if anyone could help with understanding poems, it would be Santa Cecilia. She read the poems over, taking in the lettered additions. Then she stopped reading, and just looked. Slowly, she said, “If you see it purely as pattern, each line is just below the bottom line of its poem, and the same width.”

  Thomas turned to her, to the poems, back to her. “As pattern?”

  “As graphics. Not meaning.”

  “All right,” he said. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know. But some are stretched out, some are squished up. To me that implies each line’s supposed to be kept as a block.” She gathered the poems and lapped them over one another, then covered the words of the first poem with her hand. Now only the letters were visible.

  T I V A C

  I F I D E

  A M A E E

  T N A M A

  R B O R T

  E P O R P

  “Maybe,” she said, “some other kind of acrostic? The first letter of each line, or the second, or from one corner to another . . .” She trailed off, seeing nothing at all.

  Thomas also stared at the letters, absently tapping his pencil on the marble floor. Beyond its rhythmic sound, Livia’s Noantri senses heard a rustle of wind in the courtyard trees, saw the tiny change in the shadows as the votive flames danced. The spices in the faint incense brought her an odd comfort, a connection to distant lands, other times. She realized that, as much time as she’d spent here with Maderno’s sculpture, she had never focused on the other works in this church. Maybe, after all this was concluded, once they found the Concordat and her world, so recently upended, was set right again— Upended. Set right. “Thomas!” The pencil-tapping abruptly stopped. “It’s not backwards. It’s upside down!”

  He stared.

  She said, “‘For Peter Bramante it made.’ Upside down. For Peter, upside down!”

  He leapt to his feet and hugged her.

  80

  Jorge had been right.

  He didn’t take the time to pat himself on the back, though. As a disciplined guerilla fighter, he shrugged off his satisfaction, not letting it interfere with his strategy. He’d followed Pietro’s scent along Via di San Michele to Santa Cecilia and arrived at the perfect moment. He was pondering how to make his incursion—he wasn’t afraid of churches, of course not, no matter how many, and how dangerous, the obstacles the opposition had thrown into his course already today—when the professoressa and the priest came flying out. It was pitiable to watch the priest try to keep up with her, even more pathetic to watch such a graceful and talented Noantri holding herself back for the convenience of a Mortal. Not that any of that mattered. Jorge’s path was clear. Now that they were on the street he’d just trail them to someplace uncrowded, pounce, and wrest the notebook from her. He took off, staying a safe distance behind, ready to drop back if she seemed to be aware of him, or speed up if they turned.

  Which they did, left on Via dei Genovesi and left again on Viale di Trastevere. The route they chose, avoiding broad piazzas and skulking in shadows, underlined to Jorge that they were up to no good. That, plus the shamefaced, embarrassed air about them both—the priest more than Pietro, but both—as they exited the church, the way they barely looked at each other and took obvious care not to touch. Jorge didn’t know the nature of their wrongdoing and he didn’t care: Anna would know, Anna would explain to him what all this was about once, in glowing triumph, he handed her the notebook. He wondered where Anna was, whether she was mad he hadn’t waited at the theater, but he decided she must not be because she hadn’t called. She probably knew he’d seized the initiative, taken the opportunity to continue his mission. She had faith in him; she was waiting.

  Pietro and the priest rushed through the piazza in front of Santa Maria in Trastevere, keeping to the far side of the fountain from the church, she with her hat pulled down, he pretending to shade his eyes but clearly just hiding his face with his hand. Jorge followed as they worked their way to Vicolo della Frusta and then started on the steps up the Janiculum. He gave them a head start and then trotted up the steps himself. They must be going this way to avoid the road, where they’d be more likely to be seen. Probably, since whatever they were doing involved churches, they were making for San Pietro in Montorio, but a good agent would never assume such a thing. Jorge would catch up with them closer to the top; for now, better to hang back. He let some people pass him. Mortals, they were, huffing and puffing on the steps: a French-speaking couple holding hands, three teenage boys in soccer uniforms (How long had it been since Jorge himself had kicked a ball around? he suddenly wondered), and a thin, hatchet-faced older man who’d find himself able to breathe better, Jorge decided, if he threw away his cigar. Focusing on his task, Jorge realized he must really be spooked, because even though they’d left San Francesco a Ripa far behind, he couldn’t get over the sense that that blond Noantri was nearby. Well, continuing in the face of fear was the mark of heroism. Not that Jorge was afraid. Far from it. His hanging back on the steps was strategic. He could do that because there wasn’t much chance that his quarry would escape him. Actually, there was no chance. Finally, on the Janiculum Hill, Jorge would get what he’d been hoping for.

  81

  Spencer George, having seen the young Gendarme to the door and pressed his hand in perhaps a more fond farewell than their short acquaintance called for, had been settled in his easy chair deep in thought when Livia’s call came. After speaking with her, he’d spent some more time the same way, unmoving, eyes focused on nothing. Now he stood, walked slowly about his house, looking at this and that, contemplating an etching or a bit of silver. Finally he returned to his study. He rang for coffee, and when it had come and he had enjoyed it, he took out his cell phone and made a call.

  “Salve,” came the voice at the other end of the line.

  “Salve. Sum Spencer George. Quid aegis?”

  “Hic nobis omnibus bene est. Quomodo auxilium vobis dare possumus?” All is well here, came the response. How may we be of service?

  82

  Trotting up the last of the steep steps to the courtyard above, Livia slowed. Not that she’d been running at any speed, not for her: she’d had to hold herself back to make sure Thomas stayed with her. For an Unchanged—especially a bookish priest—he had impressive stamina and speed; still, a part of her wanted to race ahead and let him catch up when he could. He knew where they were going, after all. But that would be unfair. It might even make him th
ink she was planning to abscond with the Concordat and leave him empty-handed. She didn’t want to worry him, and this discovery was as much his as hers.

  What she was, in fact, planning to do with the Concordat when they found it, Livia wasn’t sure. Thomas was desperate to hand it over to the Noantri who’d abducted his friend the Cardinal. She needed to take it to the Conclave to obey her instructions—and to save Jonah. Incompatible goals, and though her Noantri strength would give her an easy victory if it came to a wrestling match, the thought of that, after this past day, left her decidedly queasy.

  Well, they didn’t have it yet. That was a bridge they’d have to cross later. She wondered if Thomas was thinking about that moment, too.

  She stopped to wait for him. He jogged up beside her, then leaned over for a moment, hands on knees, catching his breath. He straightened, but didn’t speak. Together, wordlessly, they started toward their goal.

  Saint Peter’s, a mile away at the opposite end of the same long ridge where they were standing, was indisputably Donato Bramante’s most magnificent and monumental building. But this one before them now, this tiny chapel, this Tempietto, was arguably his best.

  For Peter Bramante made it, Damiani’s acrostic had read. Upside down.

  Simon Peter, the first Pope, the rock upon whom Jesus built his church, was martyred in Rome. Modern scholarship located the site of his death as, in fact, the ground on which Saint Peter’s now stood; but in Bramante’s day, and on through Mario Damiani’s, Peter was believed to have died on the Janiculum Hill. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain commissioned Bramante to create a chapel on what was thought to be the very site. The site where Peter, sentenced to crucifixion and considering himself unworthy to share the fate of his Lord, made a final request, which was granted: that he be crucified upside down.

  Livia entered the open gate and stepped into the cloister between San Pietro in Montorio and what had been its monastery, now the Spanish Academy. Crossing the courtyard, she reached the Tempietto and started up the steps, Thomas beside her. They stood for a moment in the faultless colonnade, then entered the single, circular room. Spare, with statuary in wall niches, soft light from high windows glowing off the polished marble floor, the perfect chapel invited contemplation and prayer. It offered proof that though men and women might be incurably flawed, their works occasionally rose to flawlessness; and suggested, therefore, that while sadly not perfectable, people had the power to rise also, to be better than they, until a moment ago, had been.

  Perfection, however, Livia thought, gazing around, did not allow for change. For addition or subtraction. It did not, for example, suggest within itself a hiding place.

  “Below,” Thomas said, as though in response. His voice was completely calm, completely sure. “The place itself.”

  As soon as he said it she knew he was right. They went back out and around to the Tempietto’s far side, where two symmetrical staircases led down to a level below the upper chapel floor. At the bottom where the staircases joined again light slipped through a locked iron gate to glance off a wide glass disk in the floor at the precise center of the chapel above. The glass covered a brick cistern dug, legendarily, on the very spot where Peter’s cross had been driven into the earth.

  This time when Livia picked the lock Thomas watched her eagerly. She pulled open the creaking gate and started through it, but he placed a gentle hand on her arm. “May I go?”

  She stopped at once. “Of course.”

  83

  Hurrying up the steps, Jorge reached the hairpin above Via Garibaldi and started to make the turn. As he came around, his heart, already pounding, surged into another dimension. He whispered, “Anna.” Because Anna was here.

  She stood just above him, slender and steady, her head cocked, her arms folded. Sunlight blazed in her long pale hair, outlined her slim hips, limned her hat like the dark halos edged in gold on the paintings of saints. Anna! She’d come to be with him in his moment of triumph, to share in the victory his cunning was about to bring them. Desire leapt desperately in him, all the more wild because the sight of her was unexpected. His skin longed for hers. His body ached with the need to enfold her, to surround her and have her enclose him in her heat, her ferocity. More than anything he’d ever wanted, Jorge wanted to touch her at this moment.

  He didn’t. He forced his arms still, ordered his feet not to move. Discipline was critical for a revolutionary fighter. Their goal was near. The scents in the air told him the professoressa and the priest had just passed this way. They would follow, they would have them. He saw the scene, knew with certainty how it would be. He’d leap out in ambush, battle them both, and defeat them. The priest was nothing, the Noantri woman a challenge, but Jorge had no doubt of his success. He’d deliver up the notebook to his Anna. He’d planned to rush to her, bearing it victoriously through the streets. But she was here, standing in the sunlight on the rough stone steps. She was here to watch proudly while her Jorge slew dragons for her.

  “Buonasera, Jorge.” She smiled.

  Italian, he thought, puzzled. She’d addressed him in Italian. Usually they spoke Spanish, their private language. Italian was the language she used for the others, sometimes English if she had to, but alone together, she and Jorge shared the melodic, flowing tones of his home. He didn’t know why she’d done it—maybe the excitement, she must feel it, too—but he answered in Spanish, as he’d always done.

  “Anna. You’re so beautiful. Anna, it’s almost over.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  A flash of movement on the steps far above caught his eye. The professoressa and the priest, arriving at the top. He turned to Anna, to tell her.

  She was right there: she’d moved much, much closer. She was still smiling. Her teeth were bared.

  “Buenas tardes, Jorge,” she whispered. “Adiós.”

  “Anna? They’re— Anna, what—”

  He stopped as she embraced him. How could he speak? In the warmth of her arms he shivered in an all-consuming ecstasy. It drained away his will. Joyfully, he surrendered his ability to talk, to move, even to want to move. As always when Anna held him, rapture transported him, a bliss so overpowering it was almost pain.

  Then it was pain. First, a tiny, tearing twinge, where a moment ago her velvet lips had been kissing his throat. Slowly, from there, a burn began to spread; he felt it reach his side, his stomach, across his hips, replacing with fiery agony the unfathomable joy he’d just known.

  “Anna.” He wasn’t even sure if he’d really said it, if she could hear him.

  “Adiós,” she murmured again in his ear. “I’ll find them myself, Jorge. I can keep looking. Alone. I don’t need you.”

  Find them? They’re very near. You don’t need to look. They’re just above . . . He tried to tell her, but the fire inside him was unbearable and he couldn’t speak.

  She stepped back. Blood smeared her smile, his blood.

  The Lord had re-tasted the Disciple’s blood.

  Through the excruciating anguish that engulfed him now, Jorge understood. He felt Anna lift him, knew the moment she threw his agonized body over the railing down to Via Garibaldi far below. The pain didn’t stop, no, it amplified beyond bearing, but Jorge found himself feeling something else, something that drew his attention away from his agony. As he fell he was suffused with joy, a bliss to match, to far outshine, both the pain, and even the ecstasy, of moments before. Of any of his time with Anna, since their first, transcendent night. His Anna had given him a gift. She’d bestowed on him a final blessing, one that exceeded all the Noantri Blessings he’d ever had. Into his mind flashed the face of the old monk, the man he’d killed in the church, that man’s joy and relief, and Jorge understood this gift was one he’d hoped for, yearned for, but never dared admit even to himself. But his Anna knew, and because she loved him, she’d sacrificed her own need for him, given up the dream of a life t
ogether on the broad boulevards of Buenos Aires. She’d put her own desires aside to grant Jorge’s unspoken, barely imagined, wish.

  Anna had re-infected him, and soon, now, now, he was going to die.

  84

  “If this is wrong,” Giulio huffed, “and I’m running up the Janiculum for no reason—”

  “I’m running right with you,” Raffaele Orsini threw back. “And I smoke more.”

  “You’re fifteen years younger. And,” Giulio added, “three steps behind.”

  Despite burning lungs and aching legs Giulio had to smile as Raffaele shot past him. No one could say his partner wasn’t competitive. They’d trailed Jorge Ocampo and Anna Jagiellon through Trastevere, getting enough confirmation on the photos they were showing to determine that, though not together, both were heading up the Janiculum Hill. Giulio had already sent a car to the top, but because there were places to turn off before you got there, Giulio had decided he and Raffaele would follow.

  All right, no more talk. Giulio put his head down, got a rhythm, and kept it going, afraid if he slowed he’d stop and never get started again. Step pump step pump step—

  “Wait!”

  That shout sounded like it came from Raffaele’s last breath. Giulio called on a reserve he hadn’t known he had and pushed on up, to come even with the sergeant. Raffaele had stopped at a place where the curve of the roadway below became visible. Panting, he pointed over the railing. Jorge Ocampo, eyes open and staring, lay in a lake of blood.

  “I guess we can stop running,” Raffaele wheezed. “Or one of us can.” He grinned, then said, “I’ll go check. He may still be alive. He might be able to tell us something.”

  Giulio, peering down at the broken body, clutched Raffaele’s arm as the sergeant turned to head back down the steps. “Raffaele. Don’t go near him. Go up above and stop traffic. No one comes down this road.”