Page 63

CHAPTER 62

C OTTON FOLLOWED THE WHITE-ROBED FIGURE INTO THE MONASTERY.

They came in through the church’s main doors, which were shut and, interestingly, not locked behind them by the lay brother. Richter dipped a finger into one of the stoups for holy water and crossed himself. The cardinal then genuflected toward the tabernacle at the far end, illuminated by a few dim night-lights. A bank of votive candles sat unlit off to the right.

Cotton spotted a stairway through an arch that disappeared downward. The nave before him was three-aisled and pillared with five bays. Thin and tall, classic Romanesque, with a touch of Gothic. No ornamentation. No statuary. Just plain stone and empty niches. The white-cowled brother did not say a word and kept walking down the aisle. Beneath his feet Cotton noticed that they were walking atop gravestones embedded into the floor. Surely brothers from long past. His senses were on high alert. He was deep in the unknown.

Enemy territory? No way to know.

But definitely uncharted.

The far west wall of the nave was pierced by clerestory windows that allowed in some of the moonlight from outside. He imagined what those colorful portals would look like when the sun streamed through onto the wooden choir stalls beneath. They came to the end of the nave and turned right before the main altar and headed for another door that the brother unlocked and motioned for them to pass through. There they found themselves back out into the night within the cloister. That door too was not relocked.

Interesting.

Did it mean anything?

Hard to say.

Cloisters were covered walkways that surrounded a central courtyard and connected all of the important rooms. For a Carthusian charterhouse the central space was oversized, full of gardens that could be seen in the ambient light washing through the passage. Arches lined the outer side of a wide corridor, a series of doors on the interior side, vaults arched overhead. They proceeded down across the rough stone floor to another door that was opened without a key. Inside stretched a long room with more vaults held aloft by squatty, unadorned columns that stretched in two rows. Once a low-vaulted hall, probably divided into smaller spaces by screens. Maybe a scriptorium? The room was filled with rows of shelving grouped in stacks of two, one after another, each enclosed within a glass cocoon. A soft hum signaled some sort of air quality control. Apparently the Carthusians stored their records with great care. Fluorescent fixtures hung from the vaults and illuminated each enclosure, which were numbered starting with 101.

“We have several rooms like this,” the robed brother said, speaking for the first time in English. “Here are the records we possess from the sixteenth century.”

Which seemed like a lot.

Something he’d once read came to mind. The pomp of a palace may seem hollow and vain for it be the dwelling of one man. But no building can be too magnified for the hundreds of immortal spirits that dwelled inside a library.

How true.

The brother said, “When Cardinal Ghislieri was sent into exile, he came here and stayed for six years until the Medici pope Pius IV died in 1565. In January 1566 Ghislieri was elected pope and became Pius V. He then returned to Rome, but left all the documents he brought with him years earlier here. Here they have remained. Unimportant.”

Richter stepped further into the room and approached one of the glass enclosures. A sealed door allowed access on the short side. “How long have they been protected like this?”

“We upgraded decades ago. Each of the enclosures is temperature- and humidity-controlled. Some are fed by pure nitrogen to slow the decay process.”

“This is not cheap to operate,” Cotton said.

“Nothing worth it ever is,” the brother said.

He agreed.

The robed man pointed toward a table at the far end. “What you seek is there.”

T HOMAS HELD THE RIFLE.

He’d reassembled it from its case and added a fresh magazine with plenty of rounds. He tested the scope and saw that a night-vision version had been substituted. Across the way from his perch, maybe half a kilometer in the distance, was the fortress-like compound of Santa Maria di Castello, its walls lit to the night. He leveled the weapon and sighted the main gate through the scope. No cars had come his way on the road. The last text he’d received had instructed him to park in the trees and stay out of sight. The night air was warm, the Tuscan countryside quiet as a cemetery.

He laid the rifle upright against a tree trunk and knelt on the hard ground. Prayer always seemed to calm him. Having his confession heard by Cardinal Ascolani had brought a measure of calm he’d not felt in a long time. He’d been honest and recounted all of the evils he’d participated in during the past few years, including multiple murders. Ascolani had sat dispassionate, unfazed by any of it, then delivered absolution and assigned a penance of four Hail Marys and two Our Fathers. Which he’d said.

He intertwined his hands, bowed his head, and said the prayers again.

A double penance.

What could it hurt?

The church taught that there was no sin, no matter how serious, that could not be forgiven. He assumed that to imply otherwise was a challenge to God’s omnipotence, His mercy more powerful than any human ability to do evil. But people also had free will, along with the freedom to accept or reject divine mercy. But for sin to be forgiven, you had to admit your faults. He’d always found the parable of the Prodigal Son helpful. A son rejects his father, then squanders his inheritance. Once done, he returns home, admits to his arrogance, and begs his father’s forgiveness. The father does not chastise the son or resent him. Instead, he welcomes the son back home, proving that no sin was greater than God’s mercy, so long as we acknowledge that and seek forgiveness.

Not even murder.

A sound disturbed the silence.

Car engines.

He crossed himself, stood, and retrieved the rifle, staying among the trees out of sight. From the direction he’d come two sets of headlights appeared in the distance. He waited as the vehicles wound their way upward and roared past him, continuing down the road. He stepped out from the trees and watched as the headlights raked the asphalt and closed the gap to the lighted gate that led into the old monastery.

Then both cars disappeared inside.