The Assassini (58 page)

Callistus sat up in bed, slowly threw his legs over the side, sat on the edge, breathing deeply. His face was slick with sweat. His pajamas clung to his back, clammy. D’Ambrizzi watched him struggling to hide the pain. It was an agonizing process.

“How do I
feel
? How do I feel?” Callistus coughed,
half a chuckle. He knew D’Ambrizzi was referring to his indecorous collapse, the fainting spell, whatever it had been, in his office a few days before. “Relieved that it wasn’t a heart attack—though why I cling to life, as if there were some useful future, I’m damned if I know.… Probably precipitated by one or another of my medications. It’s all so tiresome, Giacomo.”

“Aha, the cure worse than the disease.”

“Would there were a cure, my friend. That’s what makes it all such a joke. On me. I don’t ask many questions about my condition these days. Who cares? Do you understand? Who in the name of God cares? Who needs to know? Other than the sheeplike faithful, the unwashed, the believers in voodoo and thingamajig … it’s just not important, not anymore.” He smiled ironically. “Not important in the eyes of God and His plan, anyway.”

“Oh, do you think God has a plan? No, I don’t think so.” D’Ambrizzi shook his massive head. “No, He must be improvising. Nobody, not even God wherever She may be, could have concocted such a lousy plan.” He lit a fresh black cigarette with a gold band around it. “But that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about—”

“God’s lack of a plan? Or the matter of God’s sexual identity? If any?”

“Amusing as that might be,” D’Ambrizzi said, “the subject I have in mind has nothing whatsoever to do with sex. It is, Holiness, directly related to your continuing usefulness on Planet Earth, however long or short your remaining time. We do need to talk.”

Callistus stood up, refusing to give in to the cane, and walked slowly to the window. He was, idiotically, he thought, glad to be alive. Thankful for that small blessing, however glorious might be the world to come. Glad … even though his dreams, his days, his every memory—they were all death-haunted, death-ridden. All the victims, all the dead from long ago, all those who were dying now, all nine … and how many more to come? Who best to bring it to an end? Who best to find out the meaning, crystallize it, smash the crystal? He would
think and dream all night of the dead and then each morning he arose and prayed and struggled along to mass and attended—increasingly pathetically, he was well aware—to whatever business he could. The world was getting accustomed to the idea that he was dying. Well, why not? He was Callistus, but as he grappled with death he seemed to be returning from fantasy a little more each day, seemed to be turning back into the reality of Salvatore di Mona again.…

“So you want to talk,” Callistus said. “Sometimes it crosses my mind that I actually sit around talking to and with Cardinal D’Ambrizzi, one of the great men of the Church, one of the great leaders of our time, Saint Jack … and I am frankly amazed. What business have I to take up the time, to divert this great man from all his pressing duties—don’t smile, Giacomo. I am in absolute earnest. You are
D’Ambrizzi
 … and I am—”

“The Boss,” D’Ambrizzi said. “Yes, Holiness, I want to talk.”

“Has it occurred to you, Giacomo, that we live in dangerous and cynical times?”

D’Ambrizzi laughed. “Not especially, Holiness. All times have been dangerous and cynical., And those were the good times.”

“Ah, you may have a point. But I was thinking that I’d rather talk in your rooms, if it’s all the same to you. They may have installed listening devices—bugs, you know—here. But I have decided they’d be afraid to bug you!” He laughed.

“They?”

“Guess.” He took his own robe from across the foot of the bed, slid into it, and finally, grudgingly, picked up the cane. “Come, we’ll go to your rooms.”

D’Ambrizzi was about to follow him through the door into the antechamber when Callistus stopped. “Giacomo, I suppose we dare not leave my oxygen contraption behind.” He nodded at the cart, the oxygen. “Can you wheel it along? It’s boring, but I’m afraid it must be done. They’d kill me if I left it behind.”

With Cardinal D’Ambrizzi pushing the cart, the two
giants of the Church, the one old, the other old and dying, made a peculiar procession stumping along the Vatican halls in their elegant nightclothes, past priceless tapestries and wall hangings, past the functionaries and staff on duty through the long night or freshly arrived with the dawn.

Once the door was closed behind them, D’Ambrizzi stood beside the heavy, ornately carved dining table with the lions fiercely forming the legs, sitting on their tails, holding the great slab of burled, glasslike wood on their heads. He held a chair—the papal preference was for a straight back and arms—and Callistus slowly, with a constant tremor, lowered himself into its reassuring clutches.

The beginnings of watery sunlight were seeping into the room, lay in puddles on the Aubusson carpet, on the polished surface of the table. The paintings—among them a Tintoretto—added a degree of texture to the room that was absent in the papal apartments which Callistus had taken pains to unclutter.

“Giacomo, here I am, or what’s left of me. Full of curiosity. What’s troubling you? You seldom exhibit much concern over Church matters—”

“I’m not sure that is quite fair—”

“Or any other matters, so far as that goes. But now I read it on your face. What is it? Does it have anything to do with the murders? Is that it?” Callistus felt a flaring of hope. He didn’t want to die without seeing an end to it. And how much longer did he have? He had a terrible fear of his mind losing its edge and beginning to wander, of roving in and out of memories and reality.

“Before I begin, Holiness—”

“Please, Giacomo, cut out the Holiness stuff. We know perfectly well who we are, a couple of battle-scarred veterans.” He reached out and patted the cardinal’s sleeve. “Now, go on. Talk to me.”

“I’m going to speak of something you have time to deal with—something that can serve to cap your works on earth—so forgive me if what I have to say at first seems to have no purpose. We will come to it presently.
But it’s also important for you to know how I reached my present state of mind. Indulge me, Salvatore. Remember … it is you,
il papa
, to whom I speak. Remember who you are and all the weight and grandeur and power of the office you hold.”

Callistus settled back in his chair, began to relax and forget the pain that was his constant companion. He had known D’Ambrizzi a very long time and knew what he was in for. They were going back, as if a master hypnotist were at work, back into the history of their Church with D’Ambrizzi serving as the guide. If Callistus was less than certain that it would be an enjoyable journey, he knew that it would be instructive. How it would lead to him, what he might be galvanized to do, he had no idea.

“You have long known of my love for the city of Avignon,” D’Ambrizzi said. “I want to talk about Avignon but not that lovely city we both know. Instead, I want you to think with me of the fourteenth century, the removal of the papacy to Avignon. Our world was in tatters then, warring families surrounded us. Immediately upon his election in 1303, Benedict XI left Rome, literally fled for his life, wandered a bit, died the following spring in Perugia—not a natural death, let me assure you. Poisoned. A plate of figs, if his biographers are to be believed. Life in the Church was in those days comparatively cheap. Treasure, power, control—so much was at risk. The next conclave took a year. In 1305 Clement V was crowned in Lyons. But he dared not go to war-torn Rome. Instead, he settled in Avignon, driven there by the secular world because the Church had joined the secular battle.

“So, the papacy had passed to the French. It became an instrument of French policy, more secular than it had ever before been—the Church was now truly a political entity. Spiritually the Church had lost its way. Rome was Peter’s see and the popes were Peter’s successors, but now the Church had turned its back, abandoned Rome. And the Holy City had fallen into decay. It had been plundered and ravished by murderers, smugglers, kidnappers, thieves. The churches were desecrated, the
marble and the carvings stolen. By 1350, fifty thousand people a day—pilgrims they were—were arriving to pray at the tomb of St. Peter and found cows grazing on the grass growing in the main apse, the floors covered with dung.

“John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI … Clement
bought
Avignon for eighty thousand gold florins! He built the Palace of the Popes, and the cardinals filled it and their lavish villas with art and accumulated vast personal fortunes. They were secular princes.… When Urban V died, his personal treasury contained two hundred thousand gold florins. The Church was no longer Peter’s Church, it had been corroded from within. It was rotting with the lust for riches, with indulgence and decay and secularism; materialism had triumphed! The Church was now living as if there were no eternity, no judgment, no salvation, nothing but the eternal void and the infinite darkness.”

The cardinal’s voice had sunk to a whisper and he stopped, rested his chin on his chest. Callistus was afraid to speak and break the spell. Where it was all heading he had no idea, but the life of the Church at Avignon seemed to swirl around him. He watched the cardinal stir, reach for a pitcher and goblets on a silver tray. Carefully he poured a glass of water and handed it to Callistus, who wet his lips. The medication tended to dry him out.

“Petrarch,” D’Ambrizzi said, returning warmly to his tale, “said Avignon was the fortress of anguish, the dwelling place of wrath, the sink of vice, the sewer of this world, the school of error, the temple of heresy, the false and guilt-ridden Babylon, the forge of lies, the hell of dung.”

Callistus murmured, “The Babylonian Captivity.”

D’Ambrizzi nodded, his lips dry, his eyes protruding like a frog’s. “Petrarch said that Avignon was home to wine, women, song, and priests who cavorted as if all their glory consisted not in Christ but in feasting and unchastity. St. Catherine of Siena said she was assailed by the odors of hell at Avignon.…”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the history lesson, Giacomo,
but I wonder why you are telling me all this tonight?”

“Because time may be short, Holiness,” D’Ambrizzi rasped. “And I refer not only to your health. The Babylonian Captivity … it’s happening all over again. And you,
Papa
, are presiding over a Church that has led itself into captivity. A Church that has gone willingly, eagerly into the sink of vice!” D’Ambrizzi watched the pope’s eyes slowly blinking, the dullness gone, now glittering from the bed of wrinkled, dying parchment. “Now it is up to you to lead the Church back to safety … and to the service of man and God.” He grinned, showing yellowing teeth. “While you still have time, Salvatore.”

“I don’t understand …”

“Let me explain.”

The pope swallowed a beta-blocker for his blood pressure. Unaware of the reflexive gesture, he withdrew the Florentine dagger from his pocket, began slowly turning it in his hands. The hands were wrinkled and papery and shook weakly, but his face was alight. When D’Ambrizzi offered a rest period, the dying man brushed the suggestion aside, anger coloring his voice.

“No, no, no, I’m perfectly able to continue. I’ll have a long enough rest when I’ve finished with you, Giacomo.”

“All right. Now, for some hard truth, then,” D’Ambrizzi continued, his gravelly voice low, the words heavy with emphasis, as if he were sinking them into Callistus’s mind. “Our Church is captive again, captive in thrall to the secular world—to the world of men and all the basest desires men, flesh, are heir to. Do you understand what I am saying? Truly understand? We are captives of the right wing dictatorships, of left wing liberation movements, of the CIA and the Mafia and the KGB and the Bulgarian secret police and Propaganda Due and Opus Dei and banks all over the world, of countless foreign intelligence services, of all the selfish interests of the curia, of all the endless investments we have in real estate and arms manufacturers … in sum, we are captive of
our own greed and lust for power, power, power! When I’m asked what the Church wants, I think back to a time when the answer might have been complex, requiring judgment and a concept of right and wrong—but now I know the answer before they ask the question … more! We want more, always more!”

The pope felt a fluttering in his chest and glanced at the oxygen equipment. It followed him everywhere since his collapse. Now perhaps it might be useful … but the tiny, desperate beating against the walls of his chest faded. False alarm. He wiped a bubble of spittle from the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief before he spoke.

“But, Giacomo, you perhaps more than any other man of your time have shepherded the Church into this modern secular world, the
real
world, where we must make our choices, where we must compete to survive. You,
you
have designed so much of the leverage we bring to the world’s stage … in the West and in the communist bloc, in the emerging nations of the third world. You, Giacomo, more than any other man, have guided the financial fate of the Church to these unprecedented heights. It’s you who have dealt with all the great powers in all the most delicate matters. This is all unarguable. So—what am I to make of what you tell me now?”

A thin smile played on Callistus’s parched lips. His face no longer had color. It was becoming almost translucent, revealing the skull beneath the skin.

“Call it an old man’s hard-earned wisdom, Salvatore, the product of spending so much of my life doing what you have just described. You still have the chance to benefit from what I have begun to learn now at the end of my career.… There is still time. Therefore, you
must
listen and learn. We have had a sign, Salvatore—the first of my lifetime, a sign to warn us, guide us … and we have ignored its true meaning!” His fist came down with a crash on the shiny tabletop. Callistus watched with mordant curiosity, fascinated by D’Ambrizzi’s performance.

“The murders,” D’Ambrizzi whispered. “I pray that you see it. The murders—a sign like the cross that
appeared to Constantine engraved on the evening’s setting sun. You have the greatest opportunity to shape the Church for good of any of Peter’s successors. You can return the Church to its purpose, its true purpose … if only you recognize the sign, the truth of the murders, the truth
behind
the murders.