Blood of the Lamb (36 page)

Luigi Esposito was delighted. He supposed he shouldn’t have been, since the case had no breaks yet, but the Carabinieri were treating him like an equal—like a cop!—and he’d been right about that repellent Argentinian clerk. All a mistake, faulty alarm system, hogwash. It was like breathing fresh mountain air, to be working out here in the real world, where investigating crime was more important than maintaining decorum.

And Luigi had an idea.

He’d arrived at San Francesco a Ripa at almost the same moment as
Ispettore
Aventino and his sergeant, Orsini, which meant none of them had seen the purse-snatching, the fight, or the suspect blasting out of the church with the good Samaritan after him. They found the two damaged officers groaning on the marble floor inside. Both the suspect and his pursuer, apparently, went flying across the piazza and disappeared up Via di San Francesco a Ripa. The suspect, from witness reports, was pulling ahead, which probably meant the good Samaritan eventually gave up, patted himself on the back for the rescue, and went about his business. Carabinieri and
polizia
were out combing the area for the suspect; but they’d done that before, after he escaped from Santa Maria della Scala, and hadn’t found a trace. Aventino had requested a bulletin go out to the churches of Rome, ostensibly a warning because the suspect was dangerous. Luigi had caught on, though, and was impressed: the
ispettore
, with that one move, had provided them with many thousands more eyes.

Luigi, though, was interested in a specific set of eyes.

He stood with Aventino and Orsini on the church steps near one of the potted palms, he and Aventino smoking, Orsini scanning the piazza. The sergeant was a man who was in his element in this job, Luigi thought. As he himself would be, if the job were his. They had finished interviewing everyone willing to stay and be interviewed—and everyone who thought they’d slink out the doors; because while the Carabinieri had worked the inside, Luigi, with the help of an officer he’d been lent (a uniformed officer with a brain!
Miracoloso!
) had ambushed the slinkers. Afterward, they’d compared notes. The Carabinieri had told Luigi about the ruckus with the aumbry in Santa Maria in Trastevere, and though it wasn’t clear whether it was the same cast of characters involved in that one, they all agreed: the Vatican Library and three churches in the same day meant something big was going on.

“The historian,” Luigi said. “I want to go back and talk to him.”

Aventino squinted through the smoke from his cigarette. “The Englishman? Spencer George? We grilled him pretty thoroughly. You just caught the end.”

“So you’re satisfied he has nothing to do with this?”

“I’m never satisfied. We’ve got people watching him. I just don’t have anything new to ask him yet.”

“I’d like to try.”

Orsini grinned. “A hunch?”

Luigi felt his face grow hot. “Not really, I—”

The
ispettore
shrugged. “Good cops play their hunches. Let us know what you find out.”

“Yes, sir!” Luigi, thrilled to be just another cop on a case, playing a hunch, entrusted with the interrogation of a suspect under surveillance, loped to his car. Five minutes later he was back in Piazza della Scala, parking opposite Spencer George’s door. He banged the bronze lion knocker and saw the curtain move aside in the upstairs window. For a moment he wondered what he’d do if the historian didn’t let him in. He had no authority outside the Holy See, and even if he’d had, a citizen was under no obligation to speak to anyone in law enforcement unless he was under arrest. Or then, either, come to think of it: that’s what lawyers were for.

But the door opened and Spencer George stood there, his expression as haughtily bored as it had been when he’d sat on the church pew a few hours ago.
Did his face ever change,
Luigi wondered,
or was this sneer permanent?
He was about to introduce himself when the historian spoke.

“Well. The gentleman from the Gendarmerie. Presumably you’re here to ask yet more tiresome questions. I’d hope your position would create in you greater reserves of humility and courtesy than that of your secular peers, but I doubt it does. At least let’s be comfortable. Please, come in.”

66

Anna’s blood started to boil.

Jorge had left the theater. She could tell by sniffing the air when she dropped in the open window: his scent was faded, dissipating in the musty room. She stared around her, picking out, in the dark, all the details Mortal eyes would have needed assistance to see. What was it about this place, Il Pasquino? Why had Jorge chosen to hide here? Dust, mold, and spiderwebs; torn curtains and bubbling plaster. Another object once valuable, now discarded, discounted, by myopic Mortals, who found no worth in what they couldn’t use right that instant. This had been a beautiful place once, she could tell, before it was chopped up, then closed and allowed to rot. Sleek, art deco lines, comfortable, wooden-armed seats, even a retractable roof. A place to relax and be transported to someone else’s fantasy, where you’d be safe for an hour or two.

Maybe, after she and her followers were successful and Noantri rule was established over a peaceful—a pacified—world, she’d reopen this theater. She’d name it after Jorge, she thought, smiling. L’Ocampo. He’d like that.

Too bad he wouldn’t be around to see it.

67

“Ignatius Loyola revered Saint Francis. Ignatius was the son of a noble family whose crest was two gray wolves, rampant, and a cauldron. And of course the wolf is associated with Francis, also.” Thomas spoke rapidly, and had fallen back into university lecturer mode, Livia noted, as he led the way up the stone staircase to the left of the altar. To reach these stairs they’d had to cut through the sacristy. Livia had regretted Thomas’s lack of ecclesiastical dress at that point, as she had when they left the confessional. She wasn’t sure the priests and monks at San Francesco a Ripa would be pleased to see some guy in a sweatshirt climbing out of the box; but speaking through the screen, Thomas had brushed off her worry. “It’s not an issue. There’s no law about what I wear when. Anyway, my passport photo shows the full regalia. If anyone asks I’ll tell them I’m on vacation, we were out sightseeing, and you were overcome with an urge to confess as soon as we walked in here. Believe me, they’ll be thrilled.” He paused. “I’ll be lying, but they’ll be thrilled.”

“Lying? What about all the things I just told you?”

“We had to keep talking. You had to say something.”

“I could have said lots of other things.”

He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t . . . I didn’t . . . even if you were—”

“Oh, never mind. Father. We have work to do. Let’s go.”

As it happened, they weren’t challenged leaving the confessional, or in the sacristy, or on their way up the stone stairway. A number of priests and monks could be seen in the aisles of the church itself, trying to restore tranquillity after the recent excitement. No one noticed Thomas and Livia making their calm way toward the altar. Of course, the two of them did—calmly—stick to as many shadows as they could find.

“Before he founded the Jesuit order—my order—Ignatius made a number of pilgrimages to sites associated with Francis. Including here.” Thomas sounded odd to Livia. A peculiar note had found its way into his voice in the confessional, and she could still hear it now. And why was he going on about Ignatius Loyola and Francis? Was he offering what he had to offer—knowledge—as some sort of apology for accusing her of tendering meaningless words just so there would be something for the Carabinieri to hear? Although, to be honest, the raw truth of what she’d said had surprised her, too. Or was Thomas trying to convince her his deciphering of the poem had been correct? Why work so hard? She believed him, or at least, believed him enough to follow where that deciphering led and see if he was right. Still, he kept talking. “This was a Benedictine monastery church when Francis came here, on his visits to Rome to petition the Pope—Innocent the Third—to authorize his new order. He lodged in a tiny cell up these stairs. Nearly three centuries later Ignatius Loyola made a pilgrimage here, asking and receiving permission to sleep in the same room.”

He stopped as they reached a small landing at the top. Before them stood a wrought-iron gate, its lines and curlicues allowing a clear view, but no access, to the room beyond. Thomas stepped aside, motioning to the lock. He folded his hands and waited.

He’d certainly gotten used to this process fast, Livia thought, taking out her pick and shim. She didn’t call him on it, though, saying instead, “How do you know this is where we’re supposed to be? If Ignatius made all those pilgrimages to all those sites?”

“I made this particular one myself, my first time in Rome.”

That wasn’t actually enlightening, but Livia said nothing, concentrating on the lock. It was at least a century old, which meant her tools were almost too delicate for it, but after thirty seconds of careful work—the faint resistance of tumblers against her fingertips was her guide—she heard it click open. Swinging the gate aside, she stepped into the room. She almost brushed against Thomas on the narrow landing, but he drew back, pressing himself into the stone wall.

“I thought we were past that,” she said.

“Past what?”

“You being afraid to touch me.”

“I . . . I’m not . . .”

The oddness of his voice made her turn to face him. She saw his flushed cheeks, his wide pupils, and finally she understood.

“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “It’s natural, in a way you don’t know.”

“What are you talking about? What is?” he croaked.

She stepped back, put more space between them. “Your desire.”

“My
what
?”

“Father. You’re a priest, but you’re a man. I’m Noantri and I’m a woman. What you’re feeling right now—” She stopped, looking for the right words. “Our bodies—Noantri bodies—exert a pull on the Unchanged. When I saw Jonah just now, everything I felt for him . . . You couldn’t help but sense it, and it made you—” The dismay on his face was so total Livia understood three things: she was right; as funny as he looked, she mustn’t laugh; and they’d better get back to work before he ran away again.

68

In stunned disbelief, Thomas watched Livia step into Saint Francis’s cell, into the room where that most pious and self-denying of saints had prayed and slept. The horror he felt was not because such an unnatural creature as she was defiling these hallowed stones. Exactly the opposite: it was partly because he realized he’d led her here with no hesitation, no disquiet whatsoever. Worse: with a sense of pride and pleasure. Showing off his cleverness, his erudition. To a Noantri? When had he become so cavalier about who she was, what she was?

And the other cause of his horror was the knowledge that she was right.

The rapid heartbeat, the tingling. The inability to stop talking, to be too near her, to look at her. How many ways, he wondered, could he deceive himself?

He’d felt desire before, of course he had. If ordination meant the end of human frailty there would be no need for vows. He’d felt it, not acted upon it, confessed, and been absolved. Was what was happening now so different?