On the Fifth Day (10 page)

"I had little in common with my brother," he said, "and I have no interest in what he believed, but I have to find out what happened to him. I owe him that much. I'm going to Naples."

THE FOUR HORSEMEN

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse
that was
red: and
power
was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and
see
thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

--Revelation 6:1-8

CHAPTER 15

Pestilence sat alone and unnoticed on a wrought-iron chair, sip

ping espresso, watching a handful of ragged boys pursuing a soccer ball up and down a washing-hung alley across the piazza. There was no one else in the tiny Neapolitan cafe and nowhere to put them were they to arrive. From time to time someone would drop by and chat with the owner behind the tall bar, though such visits seemed as much social as professional and the American saw no money changing hands. Someone sped by on a scooter, and Pestilence watched the sun setting behind the once-elegant apartments with their eighteenth-century facades, now dirty, the lower stories plastered with election posters and daubed with the graffiti that covered the city. In the middle of the square the traffic honked and jostled around some forgotten equestrian statue, so that anyone not listening with special con

centration would not have heard the cell phone when it rang. Pestilence heard, and did not need to check to see who was calling. Only the Seal-breaker had this number.

"Yes?"

"Expect the target within the hour," said the Seal-breaker without preamble. "He will make for Santa Maria delle Gra

zie. You should expect him there."

"I'm already in position," Pestilence said, smiling. The rider on the white horse, the first of the four horsemen of the apocalypse called forth by the Seal-breaker in the book of Revelation, had been the subject of many interpretations over the years, though the figure was probably rooted in the Parthians, whose mounted archers terrorized first-century Rome. One of their preferred tactics was to gallop away in ap

parent retreat, only to turn in their saddles and greet their pur

suers with a hail of arrows: a Parthian--or as it came to be known in English--
parting
shot. The deadly duplicity of the strategy fed Bible readers who favored less historical and more 68

A. J. Hartley

allegorical readings of the book's curious symbology. For them the whiteness of the horse combined with the treacherous use of the bow suggested deception and falsity of a particularly lethal kind. Pestilence, or this modern, coffee-sipping, version of him, liked that. What was the use of murderous malice if you could see it coming a mile away?

That last thought raised an awkward possibility.

"Are the others here?" said Pestilence.

"You don't need to know that."

"We could get in each other's way," said Pestilence with a flush of irritation.

There was a momentary silence on the other end of the line, and Pestilence became still.

Shouldn't have asked. He'll know what you really mean.

"There will be other agents in the field," said the Sealbreaker. Pestilence took a breath. A taxi blared unnaturally close.

"Famine?"

"Already there," said the Seal-breaker.

Pestilence's eyes closed for a moment and one hand clenched. There was no point saying anything else. And what could be said? How could anyone give words to the kind of creeping terror another human being generated without seem

ing weak or irrational?

"OK," said Pestilence. "Just keep him out of my way."

The phone went dead, and Pestilence drained the last smear of coffee with a gesture that looked determined, in spite of the way the cup tinkled uneasily in the saucer. At almost the same instant, Thomas Knight walked into the piazza. He was squinting at the sun, laboring with his bag, and generally oozing the air of baffled anxiety that clings to tourists the world over. His clothes marked him out as different, as American, so that he was conspicuous and out of place long before he paused to consider the map in his guidebook. He looked as if he might be limping slightly.

Pestilence smiled and turned away from him, setting down the tiny espresso cup with a hand that was now quite steady. CHAPTER 16

Thomas had emerged from the taxi rattled and slightly nause

ated. The traffic had been relentless and moved seemingly at random and at high speeds over the ancient cobbled streets. Twice he thought they would hit pedestrians who stepped out in front of them, and they did actually tap the mirrors of a passing van whose driver responded with a volley on his horn, but no reduction in speed. Unable to make sense of the taxi driver's Italian, he had held out a fistful of notes and the man had taken ten euros without further comment, before turning the battered turquoise Fiat back onto the street. Thomas dragged his luggage behind him and squinted at the road names etched into the sides of the corner buildings, turned a couple of times, and finally located the appropriate side street. There, where the sun was less insistent and the traffic roar more muted, he found a great arched door squeezed in between a bakery and a cafe/bar. The door was a good twenty feet high, covered with ancient green paint and studded with nails, black with age. He tried the bell, which was set into the mouth of a bronze lion head, and waited. This was the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and, more particularly, the retreat house where Thomas's brother had spent some of the last weeks of his life. Thomas, who spoke no Italian beyond a few phrases he had picked out of his guide

book on the plane, shifted from foot to foot uneasily. The next few moments--assuming someone answered the door--were bound to be uncomfortable.

A small door within the larger one cracked and opened, like the portal in a dream, and a young man stepped out. He was dressed in a black cassock, his hair was neatly trimmed, and he looked frankly at Thomas through rimless oval glasses for a moment. Thomas began muttering in apologetic English, but before he had said anything of substance a strange change 70

A. J. Hartley

came over the young man. His eyes widened and he took a half step backward, his mouth open but no sound coming out. He looked confused, maybe even scared.

Thomas's apologies accelerated.

"I'm so sorry to just show up," he said. "I don't speak Ital

ian. I hope this isn't a bad time. I'm Thomas Knight. My brother Ed stayed here last year. He was a priest from America."

"You are his brother," said the priest, the uncertainty melting away as quickly as it had come. "Yes. I can see. Come inside."

Thomas followed him in to a dark, barrel-vaulted hallway that was several degrees cooler than the street and, beyond it, a sunlit courtyard shaded green by orange trees on which the fruit--still small and pale--hung improbably. As the door be

hind him clicked into place, the street noise faded and they could have been in some country villa.

"I am Padre Giovanni," said the young man. He offered a strong, olive-skinned hand and Thomas shook it once, smiling.

"I would have warned you I was coming," Thomas began again, "but it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing."

The Italian looked unsure of the phrase, and Thomas waved it away as unimportant.

"You are looking for somewhere to stay?" said the priest.

"I think we have a room available for a few days, then we will be full with
Franciscana.
Nuns from Assisi."

"A couple of days would be fine," said Thomas, glad that he would not have to venture out into the city traffic again in search of a home for the night. His leg hurt from the fall at the zoo, and he was exhausted. He might sleep for a couple of hours before going out for dinner, then he would figure out what exactly it was he was trying to achieve on this trip, other than not being in Chicago for health reasons.

"I think also that your brother left some boxes," said the priest, leading him across the courtyard to a flight of stone steps.

Thomas became quite still.

"Perhaps you would like to see them," said the priest. 71

O n t h e F i f t h D a y

It was like stepping through a rain shower, and it washed all his tiredness away.

"Yes," said Thomas. "Right away, if you don't mind."

The room he was assigned contained a bedstead, an ancient chest of drawers, a desk with a single chair, and a plain wooden crucifix on the white plastered brick. He paced the terra-cotta tile in his bare feet, feeling their coolness, and then slipped on a pair of sandals and headed back the way he had come. Fa

ther Giovanni was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs with a heavy iron key in his hand.

"This way," he said.

They walked past a large communal dining room and the open door of a kitchen that smelled heavily of baking bread and rosemary, making small talk about the flight, the tempera

ture back home, and when meals were served. There had been no mention of money thus far.

At the foot of another staircase the priest greeted a passing nun in a brown habit, then showed him into a storage room heaped with crates and boxes.

"Those two belonged to Eduardo," he said. "I did not know him well but I think he was . . ." he paused to find the word,

"interesting." He smiled at the memory and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

Thomas stood there for a moment and then pulled one of the boxes toward him and flipped the cardboard flaps open. Inside were books, some in English, some in Italian, a few in other languages including French and Latin. Most of those he could read looked like works of theology, biblical exegesis, church history and archaeology. Some seemed more scientifically in

flected and there were several by or about someone called Teil

hard de Chardin. But it was the papers and journals that caught Thomas's eye. He reached in and removed a slim notebook. In

side were lists and scribbled, halting notes in his brother's fa

miliar scrawl. The first page was headed "Pompeii."

72

A. J. Hartley

Thomas smiled distantly at his brother's studiousness, then looked up as the sound of raised voices drifted down the hall

way outside. Two men, one loud and angry, and getting closer. Without a thought, Thomas shoved the journal into the in

side of his jacket just as the door blew open and a man stum

bled in, shouting, his face red with fury and his eyes fixed on Thomas. Behind him, rushing to catch up, looking alarmed and hesitant, was Father Giovanni.

The first man--also a priest, it seemed from his clothes--

was perhaps sixty, a big, broad-shouldered man with a voice like thunder. He stabbed at Thomas's chest with his index fin

ger, the stream of Italian invective unbroken. Thomas raised his hands, fingers spread.

"He says you have to go," said the young priest. "He says this place is only for religious. You cannot stay."

"Why?" said Thomas. "What did I do?"

Another rapid exchange in Italian. The old priest's temper

ature seemed to be going up by the second.

Thomas lowered his hands and looked sidelong at Father Giovanni, who shrugged small and slow.

"I told him who you were," he said, "but he said this is church property till the order says otherwise."

"Father Eduardo was my brother . . ." Thomas began, at

tempting a more conciliatory tone.

"You go!" roared the other suddenly. "Now."

And then there was silence, save for the furious priest's la

bored breathing. His eyes remained fixed on Thomas and his nostrils flared like a bull poised to charge.

"These are my brother's things," said Thomas with a com

posure he didn't feel. "I have a right to look at them."

The old priest snarled a few words in Italian out of the cor

ner of his mouth, and Father Giovanni's discomfort increased still further. Thomas caught the word
Polizia.

"He is telling me to call the police," said the young priest.

"Yeah, I got that."

"I'm sorry."

"And I cannot stay here tonight?"

73

O n t h e F i f t h D a y

"There is a hotel around the corner," said the young man, clearly embarrassed. "The Executive. I am sorry."

Thomas looked back at the other priest, but the blind rage had not abated one iota.

CHAPTER 17

The Executive was a stone's throw from the retreat house, on the corners of Via del Cerriglio and Sanfelice in the heart of the old city and less than a mile from the castle and har

bor. Had it been a longer walk, Thomas--suffering the com

bination of a sprained knee and a rising indignation about how he had just been treated--would have been too dis

tracted to find it. But he checked in to the renovated convent building without incident and within moments found himself standing on a third-floor balcony overlooking the crazed traffic in the street below and wondering how he would ever sleep through the noise.