The Testament, page 28
"I am Arcangela, the Abbess of Santa Marina Maggiore."
The Anchorite stared up at Jenny with piercing gray eyes that bulged slightly from their sockets. "So you are the Plumber's woman. A handsome one, you are, but so sad!" Her eyes seemed fixed, like an owl's, so that she was obliged to turn her head to look this way and that. She was old and very thin, her skin translucent as rice paper, the blue of the veins in her temples and the backs of her hands startlingly vivid. She had a face the shape of an inverted teardrop, with a wide forehead and a crooked nose. One side of her mouth drooped slightly, and Jenny wondered whether she'd suffered a minor stroke until Arcangela shuffled forward on one lame leg.
"An ancient injury," Arcangela said. "I was nine when I was caught in the acqua aha. I slid and fell and was crushed between a piling and the hull of a boat. My parents said I was careless and, worse, stupid, to be standing at the edge of the fondamenta during the flood, but I loved to watch the water rising because at those times it takes on the color of wine… or blood."
She had a wide mouth with expressive lips that moved seemingly of their own accord. "You have asked to see me?"
"Yes," Jenny said. "May I come in so that I may speak with you in private?"
"You may not," Arcangela said, "principally because there is no way in or out of my cell."
"What?" Jenny was taken aback. "Surely you aren't a prisoner, as Anchorites were in medieval times?"
The abbess smiled, a slow, sly, wonderful grin that served to lessen Jenny's unease. "It is so. I have been walled in of my own volition because, like all Anchorites, the depth of my faith in Jesus Christ has compelled me to reject the world, and live here in isolation. So far as the world outside this convent is concerned, I am already dead. Father Mosto said the last rites over me just before I was bricked in. That was thirty years ago." She turned and pointed. "Look there, the other two windows in my cell. This one, to the left, looks out onto the altar of the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo`, and this one to the right is where I'm fed and where I put the chamber pot when it is filled."
Jenny was somehow terrified by this description. "You mean you haven't seen the sky in thirty years?"
"Why would I do such a thing, you're asking yourself. It sounds like hell, you're thinking." Arcangela's pale eyes were alight with an inner fire. "Am I right?"
"Yes." Jenny, on the verge of being overwhelmed, could only whisper the word.
"Well, it's not faith alone, I can tell you," the Anchorite said. "Such faith is indistinguishable from madness."
She came closer, and Jenny could smell her-a rank, sour, animal smell. It was, Jenny imagined, how human beings must have smelled in the time of Casanova.
"You do not flinch from me-well, that is something," Arcangela said. "I am here, I have been here for thirty years to do penance, to pay for the transgressions my charges commit every day of their lives."
"But your charges are nuns," Jenny said. "What kind of transgressions could they commit?"
Pointing at Jenny, Arcangela addressed the sister. "Look at her, Suor Maffia di Albori. Dressed like our own Santa Marina!"
Jenny blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
Arcangela crooked a knobbed forefinger. "Santa Marina, eighth century, from the Bythian province of Asia Minor." She nodded. "Like you, she dressed as a man-in her case, a monk's habit-and lived among males all her life. We brought her relics here in 1230, when we founded this convent in her name, so that we could walk among men, talk to men, and so advance our Order's work."
"The Order?"
The abbess's eyebrows suddenly shot up like a release of energy or the beginning of an idea. "Ah, Suor Maffia di Albori, now she has begun to make the connections, to piece together the patchwork quilt of clues we have been patiently feeding her."
Jenny's finger's gripped the iron bars of the Anchorite's cell. "You are members of the Gnostic Observatines?"
"As you yourself are," Suor Maffia di Albori said at her side.
"But I was told that-"
"The Order didn't allow women," Arcangela finished for her. "And now you know the truth. From the day Santa Marina Maggiore was founded, our charges have dressed in monk's habits, passing out of this sanctuary and into the world outside. In this way, we made deals with nobles, bartered with merchants, gathered knowledge for the doge and for ourselves. It was we who furthered Venice's way in the world, it was through our contacts in the Levant that the Serene Republic grew rich and powerful."
"And you with it," Jenny said.
Arcangela's face clouded over. "Ah, now you talk like your male counterparts in the Order."
"Oh, no, I was remembering Bravo's comment that the convent had provided the funds for the church's fourteenth-century renovation."
"And how conveniently our generosity over the centuries has been obscured by the envy of some of the members of the Haute Cour-including the late Father Mosto-who want us disbanded, stripped of our power. All because I dared ask for representation in the inner circle."
"But you should be part of the Haute Cour," Jenny said.
"You believe that-and so did the Plumber. It was he who stood up for us, he who, when shouted down by the others, came to our aid and helped us without anyone else knowing."
That was just like Dex, Jenny thought, tears standing in her eyes.
"We have nothing of our own, else why would we have needed the Plumber's help?" Arcangela said. "We have never wavered from the tenets of poverty laid down by St. Francis for the Observatines. Of course, wealth in many different forms did, on occasion, come our way. But always it was used to help others, for the furtherance of the Order. Our loyalty is unquestionable."
The forefinger was raised again. "And the work for which we are vilified is highly dangerous. When, in 1301, the first of our charges was killed in Trebizond on a mission of grave importance, Santa Marina Maggiore underwent a sea change. The day our sister in Jesus Christ was brought back here from Trebizond, the then abbess, Suor Paula Grimani, swore to become an Anchorite in penance. Within three days, the bishop of Torcello arrived to administer the last rites and the first of our abbesses was bricked in. The penance has become perpetual."
Jenny shook her head. "But to consign yourself to a living hell."
"Do you not understand the purpose of penance?" the Anchorite asked. "Perhaps I should have quit smoking or given up raisins. Do you think such deprivation adequate for the loss of a life?"
"Of course not, but you could have stopped. You could have ordered your charges to return here and never leave again."
"Yes, I could have done that," Arcangela said, "but then I wouldn't have been fit to be abbess. Then our trove of secrets would have been depleted centuries ago, and that would have been the end of the Order."
"So you did most of the work, and the monks took the credit."
"It wasn't as simple as that, the monks were always quite active. But they don't think as we do, do they?" Arcangela said. "And they don't have access to our resources. You see, for centuries Venice's prostitutes came here to pray, to seek penance and have the Virgin Mary absolve them of their sins." She shook her head. "You know, many of them are closer to God than the so-called legitimate citizens of the city."
Arcangela moved a little more into the light, which only underscored the ravines etched into her face. "It was the whores who had access, you see, to everyone from the doge on down, and it is we who had access to the whores. At night, they lie next to politicians, merchant-princes, even Holy Fathers, and the whispered confidences passed in the aftermath of their work came straight to us. It was the masks, you see. It was easy in a city of masks, where identities were hidden, for anyone, married or clergy-even the doge-to move unrecognized through Venice, to visit anyone he wished without fear of being found out. This is why it is often said that what the whores of Venice don't know isn't worth knowing."
"The monks must have hated that you had sources not available to them."
"Of course they did, and they made our lives miserable because of it. They knew the nature of our transgressions. They knew we could not complain or go around them-we could not bring that kind of attention to ourselves. We're females, after all, we cannot give confession or communion or sermons, so even we-who ventured beyond the cloistered walls to further our Order-are in a way all prisoners."
"Nothing has changed," Suor Maffia di Albori said. "It is as I told you."
"I remember," Jenny said. "I won't be defeated by Venice."
"Good, good." Arcangela moved until her clawlike fingers touched Jenny's. Her skin was as smooth as silk. "So, now I will answer your question."
Jenny frowned. "But I haven't asked you yet."
"No need," the abbess said. "An emissary of the man you wish to see has just arrived. Suor Maffia di Albori will take you to him."
"The man? Who-?"
"Why, Zorzi, of course. Paolo Zorzi," Arcangela said shortly. "Now go." She waved a hand vaguely. "I am unused to all this talk and my head hurts."
Jordan passed out of Vatican City into the sprawl and clutter of Rome proper. It was well that his hired car was air-conditioned, Rome was sweltering. At the Piazza Venetia, he turned, inching past the Forum, which was so choked with tourists it was impossible to make out the lower stories. He rose toward the Campidoglio and passed over it and out of the centro storico-the heart of Rome-arriving at the Bocca della Verita` and then on into the Aventino, a calm, leafy district of large old villas, studded with embassies and a scattering of upscale apartment buildings.
Jordan observed everything through the tinted windows, at a remove from the overheated chaos of the Roman afternoon.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Camille. When she answered, he asked her for an update on the situation in Venice.
"Have no worries. Everything is on schedule, my love," she said.
"Good, because Canesi's been flexing his muscles again." He barked a short laugh. "Unfortunately for him, his muscles have begun to wither away."
"What a pity."
"How is Signore Cornadoro behaving himself?"
"Perfectly, my love. And now I must ask the same of Signore Spagna."
"Osman is no concern of yours, Mother. Your focus should be on Bravo."
"When have you ever had cause to doubt my focus?"
Jordan felt an unpleasant quickening of his heartbeat, a response to the whiplike flick of his mother's displeasure. His anger at himself flared. "Results, Camille, are what matter now. Results. All other issues fade to insignificance. Your world is Bravo, and only Bravo. Everything now rests on your shoulders."
He ended the call with a mixture of anxiety and elation, before she could come back at him. Pulling up in front of a stately embassy building flanked by pencil cypress trees and coral bougainvillea, he deliberately turned off his cell phone. Emerging from the car, he was hit with a wave of heat that fairly staggered him. As he walked up the Istrian stone steps, the front door opened and Osman Spagna, bowing slightly, ushered him into the cool, air-conditioned interior.
"It is a pleasure to see you again, Grand Master."
Jordan nodded as he followed Spagna through the facade of the Cypriot embassy offices. In reality, there was no Cypriot embassy in Rome. Those duties were handled for Cyprus by the New Zealand embassy. This building, in fact, housed the headquarters of the Knights of St. Clement of the Holy Blood.
Spagna used a special key to unlock a door set flush in the wood paneling and, moments later, he and Jordan were seated at a polished tulipwood table in a high-ceilinged room, with double doors at one end and at the other windows that looked out over manicured lawns and trees. The magnificent view, however, was not visible, as the heavy velvet drapes were drawn across the expanse of glass. The walls were devoid of any decoration; there was nothing in the room to indicate its use.
"The documents are complete, Grand Master," Spagna said, pushing across a folder for Jordan's perusal. "Everything is as you specified."
Jordan avidly read through the signed contract selling off the building they were in, the one that had housed the Knights for decades. "No one knows about this, you're certain?"
"Quite certain," Spagna said. He was a short, stocky man, with dark skin, a large nose and a ferret's cunning eyes. With his calculating, mathematical mind he was the natural counterpart to Jordan, the engineer essential to the empire builder. "As you can see on page five, paragraph seven, the language is quite specific. The buyer cannot reveal the transaction for three months after he takes possession. Since it will be his residence, this presented no problem for him."
Jordan sighed as he looked up. "At last we are leaving here, at last we will be free of Rome, the Vatican, and Cardinal Canesi."
Spagna nodded. "It is, indeed, the last step toward our freedom," he said. "You and I have spent the last decade using Lusignan et Cie's resources and contacts to secretly replace the power and capital that had been provided for us by the cardinal and his cabal of Vatican insiders."
This was why Jordan had come to Rome, not to kowtow to Cardinal Canesi or to pay his respects to the pope, but to gather in the last piece of his plan. "It's done then-my dream has become a reality. From this moment forward, the Knights are no longer tied to Canesi or the whims of the pope. We are free to forge our own destiny."
He rose and Spagna with him. Together, they threw open the double doors to an enormous conference room. As they crossed the threshold, the thirty-five individuals-businessmen, politicians, economists, financial managers, currency and commodity traders, think-tank members from twenty different countries-rose as one from their seats around the rosewood table and stood beneath a banner embroidered with the seven-pointed purple cross, the emblem of the Knights of St. Clement.
"Gentlemen," Jordan said, "I come with the momentous news all of us have been waiting for." He circled them until he was directly beneath the banner. In an instant, he had tugged at a corner. The banner fluttered down, piled around his feet. Beneath it was revealed a new banner: one which depicted a Gyronny shield: lines radiated from the central point outward, dividing the field into six triangular sections. At its center was a guardant Gryllus, a mythical beast, a monstrous grasshopper with the head of a snarling lion. This was the emblem of the Muhlmanns.
Jordan, his face flushed with victory, turned to the assembled. "The Knights of St. Clement, as we have known them, are dead," he said. "Long live the Knights of our own making!"
A glorious destiny, he thought amid the rising clamor, made possible by the death of Dexter Shaw, by the slow dismantling of Braverman Shaw. Because when Bravo finally found the cache of the Gnostic Observatines, Jordan would take possession of it all, including the Testament of Jesus Christ and the Quintessence, which he never had any intention of turning over to Canesi. No, they would be his to do with as he wished. Even Camille did not know that he planned to anoint himself with the Quintessence and so become as close to immortal as Methuselah himself.
But he was not thinking of godhood now-that was for the future. For now, he contented himself with imagining the endgame, when Bravo would be on his knees, when he would tell him the truth. He wanted to see the shock and betrayal in Bravo's face just before he ended his life.
Chapter 17
Bravo was in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. He was sitting across from his father. Between them was a square stone-and-concrete table in which was set a chessboard. He had chosen the Giuoco Piano/Two Knights Defense as his opening because it gave him two options instead of one. But after the sixth move he could see that it was no good-slowly but surely, as always happened, his father was getting the best of him.
Dappled sunlight filtered through the plane trees and the sounds of kids skating or throwing a Frisbee floated like balloons through the soft late spring air. Pigeons-the flying rats of New York-strutted across the hexagonal pavers, greedily searching for the stray crumb.
As Bravo was moving his knight to c3, Dexter said, "What would happen, do you think, if you chose not to gambit your e-pawn?"
Bravo thought about this for a moment. He now knew the knight to c3 was a tactical mistake-his father had in his way said as much. Following the strategy out, he saw the flaw, then he turned his mind to alternatives, finally pushing his bishop to d2.
Dexter sat back, pleased. This was his standard methodology of teaching his son. He never told Bravo what to do, but rather nudged him to rethink his strategy, find the flaw himself and then, armed with that knowledge, come up with a better solution.
After the game, they packed up the pieces, according to custom the kings and queens first, the pawns last. Dexter said, "Remember when you soapbox-raced around the fountain?"
"That was some racer you made me, Dad. It let me beat everybody."
"That was you, Bravo. You were born with the desire to win."
"I lost, though, that one time."
Dexter nodded. "To Donovan Bateman, I remember it vividly."
"He shoved me and I fell."
"You came home with that knee of yours all bloody-and when you took off your clothes and your mother saw your whole side black and blue she almost passed out."
"But you patched me up, Dad, good as new. You said you were proud of me."
"I was." Dexter slid home the top of the black and white box that held the chess pieces. "You didn't cry, or even flinch while I was cleaning the gravel out of your kneecap, even though it must've hurt like hell."
"I knew as long as you were there everything would be all right."
Dexter put the box under his arm and they stood up. "I'd like you to come back home and stay for a while."
"Are you all right, Dad?"
They had cremated Steffi less than a week before, Dexter standing silent, head bowed, Bravo on one side of him, Emma on the other, as the coffin entered the massive retort. Dexter had wanted-perhaps needed-to see the process through from beginning to end, and they wanted what he wanted. The fire would be on, they were told, for two hours, so they went out to an old-fashioned luncheonette. It had a soda fountain with chromium stools along one side and vinyl-clad booths on the other. The old waitress wore black, as if in mourning, and the tiny black and white floor tiles were hexagonal like the machine in the crematorium that crushed the bones. They saw their gray, shocked faces in a mirrored strip that ran above the soda fountain. Strange to say, for that two-hour span the family was the closest it had ever been. They ate turkey sandwiches, which came with dressing and a tiny paper cup of cranberry sauce, and drank chocolate ice cream sodas and remembered Steffi. There was something about the reduction of the human body to its basic carbon form that was liberating. This was, at least, what Dexter told his children both then and later, when they scattered the two pounds of ashes into the fallow ground of the small garden at the back of their brownstone where, months later, irises, dahlias and roses would spring up in delight.
