“No shite. Honest truth. It was terrible.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I’m gobsmacked I didn’t hear about it through the vine. Priests are terrible gossips — much worse than old women. Just shows how out of touch I’ve been while on me holliers.” He took a long pull on his beer — his second beer, or maybe his third; he had a quick elbow, and I wasn’t keeping track. “And you say this Stefan had three different folks on the string, all of ’em wanting to buy the bones? How do you know that?”
“Because the homicide detective found a fax that Stefan sent them. We don’t know if all three were serious bidders. But we do know that one was. Deadly serious.”
“Sounds like a bad business, Bill Brockton. Are the police making any headway tracking these folks down?”
I shook my head in frustration. “Not enough. They think we can rule out two of them. One’s a shady art dealer, a woman who caters to rich buyers who want precious antiquities and don’t care how they’re obtained. The detective thinks she’s a slimeball, but not a killer. And she has a solid alibi for the time of the murder. One is a distant colleague of yours, Father Mike — a curator or something, we don’t know who — at the Vatican Museum.”
He made a face. “Ah, the Vatican Museum — the Holy Father’s lovely little art collection. One of the fringe benefits of the job. Art and altar boys. We have a lot to answer for someday.”
“But the one we’re pretty sure has Miranda is a Protestant fanatic. An end-timer. A preacher who sees himself as one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” The nearby church bell tolled, and I nearly jumped out of my seat. “He calls himself Reverend Jonah Ezekiel. And if I don’t give him the bones in twenty-four hours, he’ll kill her.”
“So just do it. Why not? Because the police are telling you not to? Bugger the police; save the girl’s life. Simple.”
“It’s not simple. We don’t know where the bones are.”
“What’s that?”
“We think Stefan moved them, hid them, just before he was killed. We don’t know where they are.”
“So why did this crazy fellow kidnap the girl?”
I rubbed a hand across my weary eyes. “I let the detective talk me into pretending I had the bones. We were using them as bait. But we were just bluffing.”
“And now this fanatic has called your bluff.” I nodded miserably. “Raised the stakes a bit, too, I’m thinking.”
“God, I didn’t mean to involve Miranda, Father Mike. I thought I could keep her out of it, but I was wrong, and Descartes, the detective, was right. We’re all involved, we’re all implicated. One thing’s for sure — if I can’t find the bones in time, Miranda will die, and I’ll be to blame.”
“Well, then, there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?” I looked up. “We have to find those bones, haven’t we, lad? And right smartly, too.” He laid a hand on his chest, studying me thoughtfully. “One more thing, lad. I know you’re not a big believer in saints and relics, but would you think about wearing this?” He loosened his collar, reached inside his shirt, and fished out a large silver medallion on a leather cord. He took it off and offered it. “Look, it’s a twofer,” he said. “On this side, Saint Christopher, protector of travelers. On the other”—he flipped it—“Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things.”
“There’s a special saint just for lost things?”
“Sure, lad. There’s a patron saint for pretty much everything, and a prayer to go with it. There’s a fancy prayer to Saint Anthony — you beg him for help, you tell him what you’ve lost, and then you grovel a bit, all polite and pious. But there’s another version, a cheekier version, that I like a lot better. ‘Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and must be found.’ Makes him seem like a friendly chap, a helpful bloke, you know?”
I took the medallion from him. The disk was big — it nearly filled my palm — and surprisingly heavy. I hefted it. “Jeez, this thing must weigh half a pound.”
“That’s the metal detector,” he said. “It’s built right in. It beeps when you get close to what you’re looking for.” Seeing my look of puzzled incredulity, he laughed and shook his head. “You’re a trusting soul, Bill Brockton. I like that about you.”
I studied the images of the two saints. “Travelers and lost things. Sounds like it’s custom made for me. Okay, why not? I’ll take all the help I can get.” I slipped the cord over my head and tucked the medallion inside my shirt. The metal felt heavy and warm against my chest; also strangely comforting. “Thank you.” He simply nodded.
As we were finishing up, the bells in the tower of Saint Pierre began to peal. “Ah, five o’clock Mass,” said Father Mike. “I’d best be going in. I’ve been a bit lax this week.” Without looking at me, he added casually, “You’re welcome to come along, if you like. I find the music calms me nerves sometimes. But it’s a good thing you’ve already eaten — the snack they serve is awfully skimpy.” I nearly laughed in spite of myself…and then, to my surprise, I followed him into the church.
Saint Pierre wasn’t big — closer in size to a chapel than a cathedral — but the design was ornate and complex. The doors and windows were framed by high, pointed arches. Above them, flanking the doorway, were two slender towers capped by steep, bristling stone spires.
The wooden doors — two sets of double doors — were immense: tall, thick, and elaborately carved with figures. The panels of the doors themselves featured saints, the Virgin Mary, and an angel. The most striking figure, though, was carved into a pillar that flanked one of the doors. Almost life-size, the figure was a stylized likeness of an American Indian or Aztec chief, complete with headdress. Although construction of the church had begun 150 years before Columbus stumbled upon America, the building wasn’t finished until the 1550s. The doors — a final touch — reflected Europeans’ fascination with the exotic discoveries being made in the New World.
Inside, the high, fluted notes of a pipe organ echoed and faded as we slipped into the cool, dim interior. Father Mike dipped his finger in a basin of holy water just inside the door, then touched his forehead, bowed, and crossed himself before sliding into a pew near the back. I followed, feeling out of place yet glad of the distraction and the man’s easy company.
Behind the priest, high above the altar, a large painting showed Jesus handing Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Above the painting was a huge sunburst, easily ten feet in diameter, carved from wood but covered in gold. At its center was a stained-glass window depicting a dove, its wings spread, its beak stretching straight up, streaking toward heaven like a rocket.
The organ music was replaced by high, pure soprano voices chanting in close harmony. I’d long since stopped believing in angels, but the ethereal music that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves was almost enough to make me reconsider. The service itself alternated between French and Latin, which I couldn’t have followed even if I’d tried. Yet despite being an outsider and a foreigner, on many different levels, I found solace in the sounds and sights and smells of the vaulted stone sanctuary, the gilded altar paintings, the drifting incense, and the ancient rituals.
But spiritual solace wouldn’t help me save Miranda; for that, action was needed. What was it Eckhart had said? “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” I waved a slight good-bye to Father Mike and slipped from the pew. He started to rise and follow me, but I laid a hand on his shoulder and shook my head. His kind company and his attentive ear had helped, but now I needed to be alone again.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door, I emerged into the square. The sun had dropped below the rooftops by now, and every table at L’Épicerie was taken. My eye caught a flash of movement three stories overhead, and I looked up to see a cat, its fur the black-and-white hues of priests and nuns, tiptoeing along a ledge three stories above the restaurant. At the end of the ledge, where the wall of the building intersected the church, the cat crouched and then leaped up through an open window: a study in grace, agili
ty, and fearlessness atop a perilous tightrope.
Wafting across the pavement, accompanied by the clanking of silverware and the clinking of wineglasses, came the distinctive scent of seared flesh. Unless I was mistaken, it was lamb.
My mind flashed to the image of the lamb chiseled on the ossuary. What was the story in the New Testament, the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep in order to search for one other sheep, which was missing? What was the moral of that story? Something, I dimly recalled, about there being more rejoicing in Heaven when that one lost lamb was found than over the other ninety-nine, the ones that weren’t in danger.
Where was the ossuary? And, far more urgent to me, where was Miranda — and could we save her?
CHAPTER 38
AVIGNON
1342
Simone has all but ceased to paint.
Cardinal Orsini, whose portrait Simone painted seven years ago, during the excitement of his arrival at the papal city, has been almost the only one able to pry any work out of him, and that’s only because Simone’s survival — his, and Giovanna’s, and her talentless brother’s, and the brother’s family, too — depends on Cardinal Orsini’s continued generosity. Simone is now putting the final fatigued flourishes on an altar polyptych, a folding wooden screen with eight hinged panels, each the size of a prayer book. Simone has sold the polyptych to Orsini as if it were a new commission, but the truth is, he painted the scenes themselves years ago — ten years ago; how can so much sand have slipped through the glass? — back in Siena, back when he was at his peak, he now realizes. Now Orsini is ill, probably dying, and the urgency of finishing the panels’ decorative borders quickly, before the cardinal’s purse is buried with him, is the only thing driving Simone to take up his brushes, punches, and gold leaf.
There is one other painting on his easel, also sold but not quite finished: a small Holy Family, not even two feet high, showing Mary, Joseph, and a boyish Christ — but such a Christ as has never been painted before. The scene portrays the parents reunited with Jesus after the boy has been missing for three days — days he has spent at the Temple, debating theology with the elders. Joseph scowls, and Mary, her cheeks splotchy with anger, scolds the boy — imagine, scolding the Son of God — while the young Christ stands defiant, arms folded coldly across his chest, a look of stubborn scorn directed at the Blessed Virgin. Simone can’t quite say what has prompted him to paint such an irreverent scene. All he knows is that he feels an odd kinship with the stony-faced boy; having endured endless cajoling and scolding from people who want him to paint this or sketch that, Simone feels the urge to fold his arms across his chest and set his jaw just so.
Giovanna has forgiven his infidelity, perhaps because she sees that he scourges himself more savagely than she ever could. She understands self-inflicted wounds. Her deepest sadness in life is her inability to bear Simone a child, and knowing that another woman has done so is a bitter reminder of her own failure.
Simone still goes to his studio day after day, but he spends most of his hours staring at the ghost portrait on fabric, The Death of Innocence. He’s lengthened his worktable to accommodate most of the strip of linen — nearly fifteen feet of it — and has applied a flat, smooth coat of plaster. Normally at this point he begins to paint, working swiftly so the paint bonds with the damp plaster. Not this time; this time, he needs a surface as dry and smooth as marble. Stopping often to consult the drawings he made by lamplight years before, he sketches the dead man lightly with a charcoal pencil — front and back, joining the images at the top of the head. Once he’s satisfied with the faint sketch, he swaps the pencil for a thick piece of reddish-brown sinopia chalk and begins shading the features — heavily for the prominent ones, lightly for the hollows and recesses. It takes him three days to complete the figure itself, and another day to add the wounds. Finally, carefully, even tenderly — as tenderly as if he were undressing a beautiful woman — he unrolls the linen onto the image he has created. Once again using the rounded end of the wooden pestle, he rubs softly, stroking the linen from every direction to transfer a whisper of pigment from the tabletop to the fabric. The final step is to add the bloodstains — a watery tempera of red vermilion, brighter than the man’s ochre image — to highlight the wounds.
He has just completed the trail of blood on the forehead — a meandering trickle that hints at furrows; a brilliant touch! — when someone knocks at the studio’s door. He ignores it, as he ignores all knocks but Giovanna’s distinctive, birdlike pecking at the wood, but it continues, growing more forceful with each thump-thump-thump. “Simone Martini, open the door,” commands a voice that sounds accustomed to swift and unquestioning obedience.
“Leave me in peace,” he calls out. “I’m working. I must not be disturbed.”
“Open the door, Master Simone, or we will break it down.”
Simone considers ignoring the command, but he lacks the energy to repair the door, so he pulls the bolt and opens it a crack. The commanding voice belongs to one of the papal guards, who pushes his way into the room, sees it empty except for Simone, and makes a beckoning gesture toward the open door. Half a dozen clerics file noiselessly into the room — two canons, a bishop, a pair of red-hatted cardinals, and lastly a monk. The monk is a large, white-robed Cistercian; it is, Simone gradually realizes, none other than Pope Benedict himself: an older, more dour version of the man he saw hiding the bones in the palace wall. Simone nods slightly in acknowledgment; he should, of course, kneel and kiss the pontiff’s ring, but he continues to feel as petulant as the scowling young Christ on his easel.
“Master Simone, you are too stingy with your companionship and with your paints,” says one of the cardinals, whom Simone does not recognize. “Cardinal Orsini — may God restore his health or ease his death — speaks so highly of your polyptych that we must see it.”
“My friend and patron is very kind,” says Simone, “but it is not yet finished, and I would be ashamed to show it.”
“Nonsense, Master Simone,” the cardinal counters. “You are much too modest.” His voice is cheerful on the surface, but there is an undertone of malice: a verbal dagger enfolded within the voice of silk and velvet. His eyes fix upon the drape that covers the altar screen, and there is a sharp glitter in them. “Is this the piece?”
“Your Grace,” Simone begins, but it is too late. With surprising quickness, the cardinal has stepped forward and flung aside the cloth that covers the panels. Simone hears “ahs” and words of admiration. The one cleric who does not seem to be impressed is the pope, but His Holiness is not known for his love of art — a shame, given that his palace has acres of barren walls still crying out for frescoes and tapestries to warm and soften them. Perhaps the next pope, Avignon’s artists pray, will elevate art to its rightful place in the palace.
The pope turns aside from the screen and directs his gaze toward the Holy Family, propped on the easel. Walking closer, his sausage-fingers clasped behind his back, he leans close, studying the face of the young Jesus. The chatter in the room ceases as his entourage notices his frown. Finally he turns and faces Simone, his eyes narrow and cold. Without speaking, he approaches the painter, circles him, and then stands and stares. Finally he speaks. “Master Simone, how is your soul?”
“My soul? I am more accustomed to being asked about my paintings.”
“I don’t care about your paintings, except for what they illuminate about your soul, Simone Martini. I see a troubled soul in this picture.”
The air in the studio crackles with tension now. “There is much trouble in this world, Your Holiness,” Simone slowly replies.
“But there is none in our Lord,” the pope counters. “This painting is blasphemous. Possibly heretical.” The papal entourage now murmurs its disapproval.
“I mean no blasphemy, Your Holiness. The scriptures teach us that God became flesh and dwelt among us.”
“His Holiness needs no schooling on the scriptures from a painter,” the
officious cardinal exclaims.
“No, of course not,” Simone replies. “But surely a mother’s distress would show in Our Lady’s face when her beloved son has been missing for three days? And surely our blameless Lord — even as a youth — would take offense at being chided?”
The pope trains inquisitorial eyes on Martini’s face, gauging whether the artist is mocking him, then turns away. “What other blasphemies are you painting in here, Martini?” Simone makes no answer. The pope peers behind the large wooden screen at the long table, then squeezes through the opening for a closer look. The room falls silent. Suddenly the silence is broken by a gasp and a sharp cry. The pope staggers out from behind the screen, his face ashen, clutching his chest. He tries to speak, but he cannot. He stares at Simone in terror, as if he has seen a ghost: the ghost of a man he tortured and killed years before.
Half carried, half dragged, he is taken to the street and placed in a hastily commandeered cart that clatters to the palace. Three days later, the Inquisitor-turned-pontiff is dead, and a new pope — a great lover of art, a man who will open the papal purse strings like no one before him — is elected, taking the name Clement VI. He hosts a sumptuous coronation banquet to which he invites three thousand high-ranking clerics and nobles. “My predecessors,” he tells his guests, “did not know how to be pope,” and they agree. Avignon’s greatest artistic and cultural boom is about to begin.
But it will begin and end with no further works by Simone Martini. His final sale, the day after Clement’s banquet, is to an eager young cleric from Lirey who is the private chaplain to one of France’s most illustrious knights, Lord Geoffroi de Charny.
The chaplain — part of the pope’s entourage the day His Holiness was stricken — has returned to Simone’s studio, curious to see the work that affected the pope so strongly. Far from being disturbed by the work, the chaplain finds the faint, haunting image quite intriguing…and most promising. Properly presented — not as a new work of art, but as an ancient relic, the actual winding-sheet of our Lord! — the image could inspire profound reverence, attract throngs of pilgrims…and unleash a torrent of donations from the devout.