The King's Gold (33 page)

Around us, people wept. Yolanda was one of them. I was too. Erik stood in silence. Others raised their hands to the images, with their eyes closed and a mixture of agony and beatific joy in their faces.

“No photo,”
yelled a guard as the crowd swelled, thrust forward, trembled.

“Time to go,” Erik finally said. “Yolanda’s right. We’re not going to find anything here.”

She screwed up her face, pointed. “There’s an exit this way; I saw some people take it.”

I was sunk deep in my thoughts about
The Judgement
as she led us into a darkened corridor beneath the incredibly bloodthirsty fresco of David and Goliath, so that we emerged in a dazzle of light. Out here, on gray-stoned streets, there were still more crowds. Everyone made their way from the Vatican museums to the Basilica of St. Peter’s that was now in sight.

Before us shone this brilliant fairy kingdom. St. Peter’s is a white-and-gold mansion fronted by grand pillars, Herculean bronze doors, and capped with colossal statues of marble saints.

It boasts also the pigeon-busy square where Nero crucified Peter, the spot marked today by a cross-topped Egyptian obelisk.

“He died here—I want to know where Dad’s
buried,
Lola,” Yolanda demanded as we moved toward the monument.

I winced into the sun’s glare reflecting hotly off white marble. By my side, Erik stopped walking, all at once, causing a clutch of pigeons to fly up in a squawking burst. He stretched his neck forward; I heard a sharp intake of breath. The face with which he had murmured encouragements to Yolanda in the Vatican museums had been replaced by the earlier, harsh expression. He began to move swiftly forward again.

“Erik, what are you doing?”

“Hoping that I’m hallucinating.”

“Where in the hell did they
take
him?” Yolanda said, still talking about Tomas. She didn’t know what was happening yet. “Why isn’t it on the certificate?”

I didn’t answer. My vision had just cleared.

“Who’s that?” my sister asked, after a second.

In front of us, seated alone and cross-legged on the basilica’s white steps like a bodhisattva, was Marco Moreno. Black hair, black eyes, white shirt. Bemused, exhausted face.

Yolanda stiffened. “Oh no—
him
. He looks exactly the same, Jesus. I’d know this clown anywhere.”

Marco turned his face up to that too-bright sky, as my lover appeared ready to spring upon him and my sister began to fly toward them. But he looked past those two, as if they weren’t half real. He stared straight at me and grinned.

“I knew you’d figure it out, Lola,” he said.

The three of us circled the seated Marco, who looked older and thinner than the last time I’d seen him. New lines crazed around his mouth and eyes. The bite mark on his cheek had flourished into a purple bruise.

“What took you so long?” He rose from his yoga pose and walked in a right-handed diagonal down the steps, toward the feathered, bloomer-wearing Swiss Guards stationed at the metal detectors on the far southern edge of the basilica. “I’ve been waiting forever, from opening till closing. Let’s get this done.”

“Took us so long to what?” I hurried after him. “What are you doing here?”

“Biding my time like some heartsick suitor. Hoping that you’re not holding a grudge over that nasty spat we had in Tuscany.

Sightseeing. Waiting to see your squidgy little face again and listen to you blather on about overheated military history theories and my hypothetical scholarly gifts.” Marco peered closer at me and stopped walking. “God, you look terrible.”

“Love apples,” Erik blurted. “She could have died!”

“I told you to be
careful
with those.”

“I know.”

He touched the skin under my eyes with a gentle thumb before I averted my face. “You’ll be all right. Two days and you’ll be fine.”

“Come here.” Erik reached out to grab him, but Marco slipped from his grasp like a fish and began scooting down the steps again.

“I want to talk to you, sir. Yes! I want us to have a long conversation
in private.”

“No, no, no. We can’t have a squabble now. These chicken-headed guards will get excited, and then we’ll all get thrown into jail for international crimes, like being Central Americans in the possession of rare Italian artifacts without any paperwork.
And
killing Blasej! I could also tattle on you for stealing my car. That was quite an irritation, by the way.”

“He’s right,” I said. “About the police. All of us here together, we match the description on TV.”

“Marco Moreno.”
Yolanda stalked him as he approached a line of people waiting to pass through the metal detectors before they could ascend the stairs to the basilica. “In the flesh, and all grown up. Last I heard, you were drinking your way through Paris, or Stockholm—when you’re not killing little old Italians! You’re a real credit to the family name.”

“Hello, Yolanda. Oh, you’re looking a little sniffly, dear.”

“I think I’m just allergic to your smell, punk. Damn, I haven’t smelled that particular fragrance in a long time. And you were just getting famous when you left home. Lola—look at this guy; you’d think he was any old sort of ordinary jerk, wouldn’t you? Any old sort of regular loser. But he’s not. He is not. I remember, sure. You were just getting good at your war games before you left Guatemala, Marco.”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“The reports were exaggerated, though, weren’t they? What you did to those farmers?”

“What did he do to what farmers?” I asked.

“Where’s the other one?” demanded Erik.

“Domenico?” Marco replied calmly. “He and I parted ways. That is, I broke off our contract. He was becoming somewhat...unmanageable. He’s very interested in speaking to
you,
though, Erik. He’s around here, somewhere. He followed me here from Siena. For the past few days he’s been sitting there, under the obelisk, feeding the birds, hoping that I’ll lead him to you. No, he’s not there now. Probably on a bathroom break. We’ve been having something of a staring contest. I think he’s very depressed.

But let’s not waste our time jabbering about him when we have so much to do! Come on, then, come on, hurry up—”

“I knew it,” I said.

Erik looked at me. “What?”

“No, I knew I saw Domenico, maybe half an hour ago.” I gabbed out a brief explanation in his ear. “In the crowd...before...standing there...he disappeared. I wasn’t sure, but now...”

Erik scanned the throng of tourists and pilgrims. “He won’t keep away—will he? I tried to—to make him stop—back in the valley.”

“Our fathers are dead, Marco,” Yolanda interrupted. “War’s over. Just go back home.”

“Why don’t you?”

“You know already—my
dad
—and what happened to him—”

“Yes, well. If that’s the case, you’ll see there’s a very good reason for keeping me around.” He looked at me again. “Several very good reasons.”

Yolanda stared at him with a scary intensity. “I’m listening.”

“I know where Tomas is buried.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I said.

“Sorry, but I know exactly where he is.”

“Where’s my father?” Yolanda demanded.

“No, no, no. Not yet.” Marco put his finger to his lips.

“Oh, you’ll tell me.”

“First things first.” He had now taken his position at the back of the line and gestured up at St. Peter’s colonnade of sculpted saints. “Tell me why you took so long to get here.”

I scratched my head. “Well— I, um—there was this—theory—about—ruins? I don’t know— It sounded good at the time.”

“My God, you
don’t
know, do you?” he marveled. “About St. Peter’s.”

“We just know now that we’re supposed to find a church,” I admitted.

He touched the tips of his fingers together. “Well, then! Perfect! I think a trade’s in order here. I’ll tell you what
I
know, if you tell me about the clues
you’ve
already found. You see, I have no idea what I’m looking for.”

“Forget it,” Erik said.

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“I’m not feeling like myself today, Marco.” Erik gripped his white-fingered hands together, as if to keep from striking the other man. “Honestly. I wouldn’t test me.”

“What are you going to do, bite me again? Even if you
are
channeling your Neanderthal forebears, I know that you will be very interested in the cards I’m holding.” Marco lowered his voice. “Come
on
people—Antonio’s riddle about the Third City is so intriguing...a little wordplay, a little Biblical history, a splash of logic, and it’s actually simple. Are you sure you don’t want me to tell you what I puzzled out?”

“No,” said Erik, after a strangled pause. “That is, yes, of course I do, you flabbering twit, but I still want you to get the hell out of here.”

“Let’s just kick the info out of him, man,” said Yolanda.

I was practically biting my fists.

Marco walked backward and fixed his eyes on mine as we moved forward up the line, closer to the pantaloon-wearing
Swan Lake
–looking Swiss Guards clustered together around the detectors. “Yes, I can see that
you
do, Lola. And these ballerinas around us seem not to have yet realized that they have celebrity criminals in their midst, so let’s cut to the chase and just admit that we’re a team. Okay. There are two secrets. One is the location of gold, the other of a grave. So that I’ll tell you the second, you must help me find the first. And as to the information that led me here, I know just what you do, which is the riddle:

“‘CITY THREE’S INVISIBLE

WITHIN THIS ROCK, FIND A BATH

BURN LOVE’S APPLE, SEE THE CLEW

THEN TRY TO FLY FROM MY WRATH.’”

“Yes, right,” I said, moving forward, as if pulled by a string. “I’ve got that much.”

“There’s only
one
rock in Rome.” He walked up to a blue-coated guard who ushered him through the detector while he talked. “
Any
Catholic would know that. It’s all in the name. All in the Latin! Though of course I’m purely Indian
and
a devout atheist.”

“All in the name,” Erik repeated now, as if despite himself.
“‘Nomen atque omen.’”

“St. Peter’s Basilica,” I said, not yet understanding.

“St. Peter–
Peter.
” Yolanda’s eyes fixed on the bone-bright dome flashing under the sky. She began playing upon that name in Italian and Spanish. “
Pietro. Pedro.”

“Piedra
,” I said, murmuring the Spanish word for “rock.”

And this is when I remembered. The clue to which church we were seeking had been staring at us all along.
Rock
and
bath
had nothing to do with the Mithras mineral springs in Ostia Antica, just as invisible cities did not relate to Roman ruins.
I should have known
. I had read this! Cardinal Borodino had given the idea of St. Peter to Antonio just before the Rite of Naming in the baths of Mithras. Moments before the coven had felt the effects of the flying charm, the Cardinal had pedantically quoted from the book of Matthew— a Gospel that was evidently one of the favorites of our Medici guide:

“Am I the Rock upon which you build your church, my dear?” The Cardinal asked.

“Is that not blasphemy?” inquired cheery Signora Canova, a wealthy merchant’s wife.

“It is merely a double pun upon the Cardinal’s name, Pietro,” Antonio offered. “And of puns, I always approve.”

“No, you ninny—I’m talking about the Bible,” Signora Canova chattered. “I learned it when I was a tot! About the Saint! Diddle, daddle, what was it? Something about Christ saying Peter was like a rock, or that a rock was like Peter, or anyhow that they had a great deal in common, I can’t remember—”

“That’s Matthew 16,” the Cardinal began twattling...

“‘
And I say also to thee, That thoust art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”
I quoted, grabbing Erik by the arms. “Do you remember that?”

“That’s the biblical foundation for the Catholic Church,” he said. “Where Christ makes Peter the first pope.”

“It’s Matthew 16. It’s also a piece of wordplay in Mediterranean languages. But maybe not in Aramaic, though.”

“What?” Yolanda barked.

“
Petros
is the Greek for ‘Peter,’ and
petra,
the Latin for ‘rock.’ Antonio’s rock—and Christ’s rock—is Peter—St. Peter’s Basilica.
This is the Rock.”

Erik squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s a famous pun!”

“God, why didn’t I see that before—it’s so obvious,” my sister blustered, as she passed through the metal contraption. Next was my turn. Then Erik’s.

Free of the guards, Marco walked backward, up the marble steps, keeping his gaze trained on me.

“Aren’t you the least bit interested in what we’ll find in there?” he asked.

He turned to make his way toward St. Peter’s great columns, its massive bronze holy doors. His frame looked very thin and insubstantial against that heroic architecture before he disappeared into the entrance.

We looked at one another, and then bolted after him up the stairs.

Moving up beyond the barricade of the marble columns, we passed through the great bronze doors of St. Peter’s, with their staggering images of crucifixion and flesh-starved death. My shoes rang like cymbals against the floor’s polished
pietre dure
medallions that lead the worshipper into Michelangelo’s masterpiece.

St. Peter’s is a stone and gold cosmos. Within the dome ahead there is an
oculus,
a punched-out hole, from where the sunlight thrust down like a spear made of mica. The sunshine formed walls in the massive space, carving out dark and bright rooms that obscured, then illuminated, Marco’s head and shoulders as he moved ahead of us through the church.

“You said you thought Montezuma’s gold had a reddish color?” Yolanda asked, pointing skyward.

The ceiling we glared up at was fashioned of pure gold, carved into baguettes and roses, and the worked ore was radiant with a suspect reddish spectrum. It was not, however, the most beautiful of St. Peter’s treasures. To our right, and protected behind a thick shield of bulletproof plastic, mourned a massive sculpture of Mary. She held her dead son on her lap. This was Michelangelo’s gracious
Pietà
. Ahead flourished the bronze canopy of St. Peter, which appeared less like an altar than a magical, melting house made of tasseled gold.