The Tenth Saint (29 page)

She picked out her toughest critic. Stan Simon looked sour as usual stuffed into a battered gray tweed jacket whose sleeves stopped a good two inches above his wrists, his neck bound by a navy blue paisley bow tie: the uniform. With pursed lips, he looked at Sarah. His eyes, narrowed in concentration or maybe contempt, looked like buttonholes behind his round eyeglasses. She read a warning in his gaze:
Don’t screw
this up. Don’t embarrass Cambridge. Don’t make waves.

She anxiously looked at her watch. In twenty minutes, it would be their turn at the podium.

As if reading her mind, Daniel bent to whisper in Sarah’s ear. “I want you to own this room. You can do it.”

Something about the honeyed tone of his voice set her instantly at ease. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. He wore a navy Brooks Brothers blazer, slim jeans, and a yellow silk tie he’d bought at a thrift store. His shoulder-length hair was pulled back into a ponytail, a few errant tendrils framing his bronze face. He was at once professional and defiant, very much his own man.

It seemed an eternity before the chairman called Sarah to the podium. Adrenaline flushed her face as she regarded the austere expressions before her. She began with the requisite verbal genuflecting that funding bodies liked to hear, opened her laptop to begin the visual presentation, and delivered the words she had chosen ever so carefully.

“As some of you may know, the Aksum expedition has been both stellar and harrowing. You learned from our reports that the initial months of the project yielded only clues to the massive royal necropolis that we are convinced lies beneath the ground. We have found tools, coins, pottery shards, and ammunition dating to the fourth century.

“As important as these artifacts are, however, it is another unexpected and most unusual find that captured our attention. On the fifth of August, I happened upon a cave carved into the mountains above the high plateau of Aksum. Inside that cave, which came to be known as Cave I, was a coffin, a simple acacia box containing what may be the most intriguing and important find of this century.

“The man buried in this coffin was at first a mystery: a tall Caucasian male with teeth as perfectly straight and well cared for as yours and mine, if not more so. When we had the bone tested, we confirmed it dated to the fourth century, very near the time during which the Aksum necropolis was erected. But the stature of this man, his sheer size and the fact that he was Caucasian, to say nothing of his perfect dentition, suggested otherwise.

“When we had a thin section of the teeth tested, we discovered something even more intriguing: a filling substance found in the mandibular second molar on the left side tested negative for any known dental material. The polymer used in this tooth was a hard, organic molded plastic, a substance never used in any dental procedures, past or present. What’s more, the molecular composition of this material did not match the composition of any plastic known thus far to science. Could the dentists of the fourth century have known something we don’t? It’s possible but not likely, particularly since plastic itself was not invented until the nineteenth century. I stress this point deliberately and respectfully ask the distinguished panel to take note of it, as it is an important clue to what is shaping up as one of late antiquity’s greatest enigmas and one that very much affects us to this day.

“But there is another component of equal consequence. Inside the tomb was a chamber whose walls were inscribed in an obscure language that was neither spoken nor written in Aksum or elsewhere in Abyssinia. This gave us further proof the man was not an Aksumite but rather a pilgrim from another region who had traveled to the remote mountain kingdom for reasons that perhaps would be explained by the inscriptions.

“After exhaustive testing and consultations with linguists, we discovered the text was written in an ancient dialect spoken by tribal peoples of the Syro-Arabian peninsula from the third century BCE to about the fourth century CE. These estimates are just that, however, because this language was of extremely limited scope and so few examples of it exist.

“So why would these texts be written in a tribal dialect? Who was this man? And, more importantly, what did the inscriptions say? These are all questions to which we found astonishing answers. Answers that almost cost the lives of my colleague, Daniel Madigan, and myself and have indeed cost the lives of several innocent Ethiopians who fell while defending an ancient secret whose time had come.

“Now I would like to turn the floor over to Dr. Madigan, who will outline this expedition’s findings as relates to the Cave I Tomb.”

Daniel walked to the center of the stage, eschewing the microphone and the Plexiglas podium. Sarah knew his reputation for making himself accessible to audiences and his talent for distilling complex concepts to their most relevant essence. It was his trademark quality and a brilliant one. It had won over both intransigent scientists and the mass public. She was counting on that very quality to get the attention of this panel.

“Thank you,” Daniel began. “Incidentally, Dr. Weston is one of the finest scientists I have ever worked with. The tenacity she displayed during the Aksum expedition and, more specifically, while decoding the Cave I Tomb mystery is something of an endangered species in our business.”

Sarah was taken aback. She hadn’t expected any sort of validation, but the fact that it had come from Daniel was significant.

“When Dr. Weston and I were researching the content of the tablets, we called on a renowned linguist in Addis Ababa who specialized in South and West Semitic and East African languages. Rada Kabede, an Ethiopian man, recognized the dialect used to inscribe the tablets but did not have the knowledge to decipher it. He did say, however, that it was one of seven depicted on a monument called the Sheba Stone.

“While the Sheba Stone has been in existence since the first century, there are very few known references to it. Apparently, this ten-foot-high monolith was inscribed during the time of the Queen of Sheba in what is present-day Yemen to recount the queen’s life and heroic deeds. The stone, Mr. Kabede told us, was said to reside in a remote monastery outside the town of Lalibela and was known only to the monks assigned to guard it.

“That was one of the last things Mr. Kabede said to us or to anybody, for that matter. He was found dead in his office a few days later, apparently the victim of a shooting by assailants who to this day remain at large.

“That was the first murder associated with the Cave I Tomb, though at the time we were not fully aware of the motives. The second wave of killings came on the night of October twelfth, when a group of assailants entered the monastery of Yemrehana Krestos, killed innocent monks, and destroyed the Sheba Stone.

“If you read the
International Herald Tribune,
you may have seen a two column-inch article on page six. Hardly headline news. And yet, in the sleepy town of Lalibela, such senseless carnage had never been known. Dr. Weston was there that night.” Daniel paused at that critical point.

Daniel let the weight of his words sink in. The audience was silent, riveted. He went on.

“The guardian of the Sheba Stone died in Dr. Weston’s arms as a result of a fatal wound by one of the attackers. As he uttered his last words, he told her of a secret document, a codex that contained the information we were seeking. That document, he said, was hidden within the catacombs of the church in a chamber known only to the chosen.

“It took my colleague’s considerable investigative powers to discover the passageway that led us into the catacombs and the remarkable library of scrolls and lighted manuscripts contained therein, a library known to no one except a handful of religious scholars.

“Without going into too much detail, let me just say that we found the codex to which the monk was referring and, to our astonishment, it was a translation in ancient Greek of the Cave I Tomb inscriptions. I will explain later who this monk was and his connection to the inscriptions, but before I do I want you to be the first to hear the words written by the mysterious man in the Cave I Tomb.”

Daniel read the English translation and projected the photos of the codex that they had managed to smuggle out of Ethiopia. The room was quieter than the death chambers of antiquity. With the urgent tone of an evangelist, he read the final lines: “And thus the race of men will become extinct. Take heed, children of God, for if you can read this, it is not too late.”

His theatrical delivery did not go unrewarded. The room came alive with whispers and commotion. The chairman, sitting in the center of the assembly’s first row, stood and banged his gavel to call for order.

Daniel continued. “The man I referred to earlier, a lifelong monk named Apostolos, was more than the guardian of the Sheba Stone. He was chosen to guard the secret of the tenth saint on behalf of Apocryphon, a brotherhood dating back to the sixth century and the time of Ethiopia’s Tsadkan: the nine saints of Christianity. Apostolos was the direct descendant of Abba Aregawi, the saint who discovered the tomb of Gabriel and translated the inscriptions. Apostolos was the only person in the world who knew where the translations were and, rather than let that knowledge die with him, he entrusted Sarah Weston with it.

“That is how we came upon the tenth saint’s sanctification cross and the codex detailing his final warning to the people of this earth. Relics that we no longer possess because they have since fallen into the hands of criminals.”

After recounting the ordeal, first at Matakala’s house and later on the remote reaches of the Simien Mountains, Daniel wrapped up his presentation like a star lawyer delivering his closing arguments.

“Let us weigh the facts: The man inside the Cave I Tomb was dated to the fourth century, yet neither his stature nor his characteristics fit the profile of a fourth-century man. The dental material found in his teeth is a substance as of yet unknown to science. The inscriptions speak of an apocalyptic event that this man supposedly witnessed.

“But who was this Gabriel? Was he, as the Ethiopian legend would have it, the tenth saint of Abyssinia? Was he a prophet? Were these insights dealt to him by a divine force? And who were the other two to whom he refers?

“The Cave I Tomb mystery is not wholly revealed to us. Science can only give us part of the answer. The rest, we may never know. But we cannot ignore what has been laid before us. It is not only a piece of history, but it may well be a piece of history in the making, a history we have yet to witness.

“This expedition may be temporarily shuttered by the Ethiopians, but we cannot drop our claim on a find this promising. As a consultant to this esteemed body, I hereby recommend that the funding of the Aksum expedition continue and be expanded to encompass more research on the Cave I Tomb and the true identity of the tenth saint. Thank you very much.”

Almost immediately the barrage of questions came from both the panelists and the press. After a period that seemed endless to Sarah, the conference broke.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said to Daniel, taking his arm and leading him out of the room. “Where are you staying?”

He smiled. “In a hotel about an hour out of the city. What about you?” He held the door open for her as they exited the building.

“I’m at the Plaza Athénée,” she said as she hailed a taxi. “It’s nice and quiet there. I’m desperate to get away from this circus.”

The taxi delivered them to the Plaza, and they headed up the elevator to her suite. It was an apartment-sized room with nineteenth-century-style furnishings and lavish red accents. One of the windows framed a view of the Eiffel Tower, illuminated against the dusky sky.

He scanned the room. “Nice place you have here. Is that champagne in that bucket?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Quite right. I was hoping we’d have reason to celebrate. Care to do the honors?”

Daniel poured two glasses of Dom Pérignon Rosé and raised his glass in a toast. “To the lady of the hour.”

She pointed her glass to him. “No. To you. You were amazing back there. To tell the truth, I’m a little nervous about how the press will present this. You know I’m not on the best of terms with reporters. But whatever happens in the end, I am content for having done the right thing.” She touched her glass to his, the vibrating crystal chiming. “I couldn’t have gone down that road without you, Danny.”

Daniel put his glass down and stood close enough to her that she could feel the warmth of his breath. He placed his hands on her neck and slowly moved the tips of his fingers across her collarbone and down to her décolleté.

She trembled with the sensation.

“Don’t you think we’ve talked enough for one day? The only thing on my mind right now is you.” His gaze locked with hers, and she parted her lips to say something. No words came out. He slowly unbuttoned her blouse.

Her heart pounded. In Africa, she had not allowed herself to acknowledge her attraction to him. Any emotional involvement would only have complicated things. But now that he stood before her, confessing his desire, she could no longer deny her own. In his arms, Sarah felt perfectly present and at peace. No one had ever made love to her like this, nor had she ever returned the favor.