The Psalter (48 page)

Rashid’s head snapped to the side, the force of the kick knocking him off the grimy man. Romano yanked him to his feet by his collar and swung a tight hook to the chin. Rashid’s knees quivered and the Beretta skidded across the floor. The Arab grabbed Romano and leaned on him, driving fists into his kidneys. Romano winced, then shoved hard, pushing Rashid away. Romano jabbed with his left. Rashid blocked the jab with his forearm and hooked his arm around the priest’s. He drove knuckles into the priest’s throat. Romano gasped for air. The Arab punched, striking the cheekbone, and Romano’s head snapped back. He thrust his fist into the solar plexus. The priest’s eyes rolled, and the lights dimmed. Romano keeled over, stunned and sucking for air, but none came.

Del Carlo watched Father Romano crumble. He leveled the pistol as he tried to steady his throbbing knee, and fired a shot. Rashid jumped, startled by the blast echoing off the basilica’s walls. The bullet whistled by his ear. He dropped to his knees and jerked the priest between him and the colonel. He put his arm around Romano’s neck, the crook over his Adam’s apple as he had been taught, and squeezed to block the flow of blood to the carotid arteries.

Romano grabbed at the wrist with his hands as his strength ebbed away. He jerked hard…no luck…Rashid squeezed harder. The priest’s grip loosened. Darkness crept into his peripheral vision and covered his eyes. Peacefulness descended on him, and he went limp.

Out of the blackness, the familiar form from his dreams appeared. The hideous hag slapped his face. She closed her fists and hit the boy. Mike Romano tried to move, to raise his tiny hands to stop her, but he was paralyzed. A far away voice said, “Let him go, or I’ll shoot.” The words seemed unimportant.

Something splintered and lucidness returned. Not the same consciousness, but another from the past, the angry one, from the place he tried never to go. The little boy could finally move his arms. He blocked the crone’s blows and struck back at her. Tears streamed from his eyes and power flowed into his body. Romano swung both fists hard behind his head and boxed the Arab’s ears. Rashid loosed his arm lock and Romano grabbed the wrist with both hands, pulling it loose. He jerked his elbow behind and caught the Arab in the ribs. Rashid spat.

Reflexes took over, not the technical boxing drilled into Romano, but older skills, ones learned on the streets. Clenching a handful of hair, he launched his fist into the Arab’s gut. Rashid rolled on his side, then stumbled to his feet. Romano dove forward and grasped both legs. He lifted him off the ground and slammed him to the stone floor.

Rashid tried to punch while lying on his back, but he had no leverage. Romano gripped his ears, then smashed his forehead down on the Arab’s nose, shattering the bone. Blood spattered. The priest threw a left to the jaw and a right, and another left, over and over. Rage flowed through his fists as he pummeled the unconscious face.

“Father,” a faraway voice said, but Romano kept swinging. “Father,” the voice grew closer and a hand held his wrist. “Father, enough,” Del Carlo said.

The medic gingerly inserted a needle for the intravenous solution into a vein on the back of the Pope’s hand while another medic tightened straps securing His Holiness to the gurney. They tried to wheel him away, but he held on to Father Romano’s sleeve. “Thank you, my son,” the Pope said.

“I didn’t do enough. Had I been smarter, discovered more, perhaps this might have been prevented.”

“What happened today was written long ago. Don’t forget the words of Pius and Fatima. You couldn’t stop these things, and you didn’t cause them, so get that out of your mind. Nevertheless, they didn’t view the future quite clearly, did they?”

“Holiness?”

The Pope smiled. “I’m not dead and you’re not the Pope.”

“I have no wish to be the Pope, now or ever,” Romano said.

“And I don’t want to die just yet, although the door awaits us all. Still, no one wishes to be the Pontiff, my son. We’re chosen, and it’s for us to accept God’s will. Who knows, perhaps today is not the day foretold, and my fate awaits me still. As for you, who can tell what your life holds, but I can say one thing for certain.”

“Tell me, Holy Father.”

“You’re not Michael Romano. You’re
Petrus Romanus
. Whether you sit on Peter’s throne one day or not, you’ll never find peace until you accept your true self. No one knows that better than I. Who you once were isn’t who you are. As for me, I’m a victim of my own vices.”

“Holiness?”

“If I didn’t love tiramisu so much, the bullet would never have struck the spare tire I carry around my middle.”

Romano grinned.

Again, the medics tried to pull the gurney, but the Pope held fast to Romano’s sleeve. “One last thing,” he said, turning serious. “Keller is no adversary. He’s a friend to you just as he was to Father Mackey. Why do you think he took your books? He tried to protect you.”

Romano looked confused.

“He’s never recovered from my Secretary’s murder. You see, Father Mackey was going to meet Cardinal Keller that dreadful night. I foolishly gave them permission to take the Psalter to be translated.” He squeezed Romano’s hand, “And so he did everything in his power to keep you from harm, Peter Romano.” Then the Pope motioned to the medics, and they wheeled his gurney away, surrounded by cardinals.

Father Romano brushed plaster dust from the powder-covered man’s face. “Cardinal Keller?”

Keller coughed. “I thought you were a goner. Isn’t that how you Americans say it?”

“Yes.”

Cardinal Keller shook himself, flapping his arms. The dust billowed. He rubbed his face, creating streaks of white powder that made him look like a clown trying to remove greasepaint. “I wasn’t sure I could get to you in time,” he said.

“How did you survive? And how were you able to climb through the debris to reach me? It doesn’t seem possible.”

“I saw you. Whether with my own eyes or something else, I can’t say. But it seemed as though I beheld you and His Holiness through a shaft of light from where I was covered. God must have guided me and given me the strength.”

“I owe you my life and an apology.”

“You owe nothing, Father. I’m doing my job.”

“I believed you were imposing the church’s law on me and I thought it was unfair. I beg your forgiveness.”

Keller sighed. “The Grand Inquisitor? I know how many feel about me. I’m the Defender of the Faith, not the decider of the doctrine. That I leave to His Holiness and those who have greater minds than mine. People like you, Father. Perhaps one day I’ll be your Defender, with my own life if necessary.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no need for a new Pope…at least not today. All the same, I’m watching you,
Petrus Romanus
. Now it’s my sad task to make Father Sabella reflect on the error of his ways and provide an appropriate penance.”

“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry Eminence,” Romano said, trotting away. “I left the Hébers in the crypt.”

Romano ran to the statue of Saint Helena, down the stairs to the grotto. Looking in every direction, he spotted no one, but the subterranean altar of the Apostle was a wreck. Three of the bronze pillars from above had been driven through the cavern’s ceiling as if by a pile driver. They had plunged through the chamber and the floor of the crypt as well, and only their tips showed above the ground.

The paleographer ran to a gaping hole in the floor. A tiny light shone from below. “Isabelle, Pascal!” Are you there?”

“We’re down here,” Isabelle called out from below.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” they both answered. “Come down, Michael,” Isabelle said. “There are stairs carved in the stone. Watch the first one, it’s the biggest drop.”

Romano felt his way down rough-hewn steps, feeling the wall as he descended until dirt was beneath his feet. Looking to his right, he could just make out a shelf carved out of the rock. His eyes adjusted to the darkness that was slightly illuminated by ambient light from above. Bones lay in a niche, covered by a moldering linen cloth. Over the shelf, written on the rock face appeared graffiti scrawled with chalk or white paint. Romano strained his eyes. Finally, he made out the single Latin word,
petreus
, Peter.

“We’re over here,” Isabelle said.

Romano crossed himself. He wanted to pray, to say something, but his mind was blank.
What does one say to an Apostle
, he thought. He groped his way in the darkness, shuffling deeper into the cavern. Isabelle and Pascal sat on stone blocks beside a tomb that had been broken by falling bricks from above. Scrolls poured out of the sarcophagus and lay strewn across the floor. Pascal used a cigarette lighter to shine a light on one that Isabelle held open. They looked up at him as he stood over them. “What have you found?”

Isabelle and Pascal beamed back at him. Then Isabelle grabbed Romano’s hand. “A letter from Jesus’ twin brother…and it’s in Aramaic. The scrolls are all in Aramaic, except one…in Latin.” Isabelle had tears in her eyes.

“What does it say?”

Pascal gazed up at the priest. “You should read it, Father. I think it is addressed to you.”

45
Johannes’ Testament

Brave and stout Baraldus, the old soldier and priest of fame and faith, lost his life in the narrow lane between the Colosseum and Saint Clement’s Church, the same street where I was born and where they claim Mother is buried, although I will not say whether this is true or false. The citizens of Rome ever after called it the
vicus papissa
, street of the woman Pope. Furthermore, since mother gave birth to me there, humiliated before all Rome, every Pope has turned away from the road, although it’s the direct route from the Papal Palace to Saint Peter’s.

My father, Anastasius, was indeed elected Pope after mother’s vile murder, and his first act was to imprison the villain Benedict for his many crimes. But truth be told, he never desired to be Pontiff. The day after Louis left Rome, Theophylact and the noble families named their own Pope, the foul Benedict, even though he languished in his prison cell. The cardinals of the
patriarchum
abandoned their positions until, in the end, Father reigned as Pope over an empty palace.

Emperor Louis sent dispatches demanding that father fight back and enforce the Constitution and Canon Law, as well as the laws of the Diocese. Even Empress Engleberga encouraged him with letters promising her loyalty and affection. Having secretly read them, I often wondered if she had somehow divined the truth of Mother and Father. Women possess eyes in their hearts that see things men cannot.

Finally, Father renounced the papacy and left the governing of the church to Benedict and Theophylact. Louis raged, but soon his fury softened. Engleberga’s handiwork was likely the cause. Do not women round out men’s sharper corners? Nevertheless, Louis was loyal to a fault and negotiated that, in exchange for Father’s abdication, his anathema was lifted and he was readmitted to communion. Thus did Father become known as the anti-Pope.

Yet the happiest day of Father’s life came years later when he was named Librarian of the Universal Church, a position he held until his death. I was only twelve, but remember tears of joy running down his face as he told me he would rather be a librarian than the wealthiest Emperor in the world.

He chose to die in his apartment in the
schola cantorum
, the very room, he said many times, that had been mother’s. I listened to him say weakly and out of breath as I held his dear hand, “Take the Psalter on the shelf. It belonged to your mother and she put it in my hands when I fled into exile. Never lose it and pass it on to your children. It’s all that I have left of her. Now the book is yours.” He turned away and smiled. “One more thing, darling, then I’m coming.” Looking into my eyes, he whispered, “Your mother and I couldn’t be prouder of you, but you must make one last vow.”

I bent to hear his failing words.

“Promise that you will love and take a wife and she will bear you a child.”

I only nodded, for I could not speak through the tears. Then, serene and smiling, he gave up his soul.

In my youth, I little understood the battle Mother and Father and John Hymonides waged and lost against the nobles for the papacy. Nevertheless, I sadly watched, and my sadness grew to disgust as the noble families used Peter’s throne for their own foul purposes, descending from mere corruption into unabated debauchery. Their foul reign became known as
saeculum obscurum
, or the Dark Age. However, the citizens of Rome sniggered in the taverns and derided the nobles’ iron grip on the church as the Rule of Harlots.

As for my dear teacher and friend Ahmad, Father offered him his freedom when Mother died.

“You may not free me,” Ahmad said, “for I’m no slave. Cardinal Johanna released me from bondage the day she bought me.”

Avraham looked puzzled and scratched his balding pate. “Why did you stay for an existence of humiliation and servitude?”

“I stayed to pay for my great sin, destroying God’s word. Allah took my brother’s life in payment. It’s only right that I give mine also.”

“Whose slave will you be?” Avraham asked. “I wish none, and I won’t own any.”

“I will be a slave to my people. They need me, so I shall return to Ifriqiya to serve them.” With those words, Ahmad disappeared into the night.

Father had no word from him for more than a year, until a letter arrived by ship at the port of Ostia. Ahmad did indeed return to serve his people, arriving only weeks before his own uncle’s death. Thus did the prince who was made a slave become a prince once again, and then Emir, to rule the kingdom of Ifriqiya with dominion even over North Africa, Malta, Sicily, and the Italian cities of Brindisi and Naples.

He ruled as a kind and benevolent Emir, and historians say Ifriqiya reached its zenith under his wisdom and tolerance. But plague afflicted Ifriqiya, carried by pilgrims, and the people blamed Ahmad for their suffering. Indeed, Ahmad himself believed he’d been cursed. He was deposed by his cousin, who was backed by Berber and Turkish mercenaries. Thus did he return to Rome, arriving at the port of Ostia and making his way in the dead of night to take his place as our slave, although father would not accept his bondage. Instead, he put Ahmad in charge of his finances, and he seemed to make our fortune grow as if by sorcery. He became my playmate and teacher of Aramaic, the law, and the Koran.