The Inquisitor's Key (29 page)

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, I emerged into the square. The sun had dropped below the rooftops by now, and every table at L’Épicerie was taken. My eye caught a flash of movement three stories overhead, and I looked up to see a cat, its fur the black-and-white hues of priests and nuns, tiptoeing along a ledge three stories above the restaurant. At the end of the ledge, where the wall of the building intersected the church, the cat crouched and then leaped up through an open window: a study in grace, agility, and fearlessness atop a perilous tightrope.

Wafting across the pavement, accompanied by the clanking of silverware and the clinking of wineglasses, came the distinctive scent of seared flesh. Unless I was mistaken, it was lamb.

My mind flashed to the image of the lamb chiseled on the ossuary. What was the story in the New Testament, the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep in order to search for one other sheep, which was missing? What was the moral of that story? Something, I dimly recalled, about there being more rejoicing in Heaven when that one lost lamb was found than over the other ninety-nine, the ones that weren’t in danger.

Where was the ossuary? And, far more urgent to me, where was Miranda—and could we save her?

AVIGNON
1342

SIMONE HAS ALL BUT CEASED TO PAINT.

Cardinal Orsini, whose portrait Simone painted seven years ago, during the excitement of his arrival at the papal city, has been almost the only one able to pry any work out of him, and that’s only because Simone’s survival—his, and Giovanna’s, and her talentless brother’s, and the brother’s family, too—depends on Cardinal Orsini’s continued generosity. Simone is now putting the final fatigued flourishes on an altar polyptych, a folding wooden screen with eight hinged panels, each the size of a prayer book. Simone has sold the polyptych to Orsini as if it were a new commission, but the truth is, he painted the scenes themselves years ago—ten years ago; how can so much sand have slipped through the glass?—back in Siena, back when he was at his peak, he now realizes. Now Orsini is ill, probably dying, and the urgency of finishing the panels’ decorative borders quickly, before
the cardinal’s purse is buried with him, is the only thing driving Simone to take up his brushes, punches, and gold leaf.

There is one other painting on his easel, also sold but not quite finished: a small Holy Family, not even two feet high, showing Mary, Joseph, and a boyish Christ—but such a Christ as has never been painted before. The scene portrays the parents reunited with Jesus after the boy has been missing for three days—days he has spent at the Temple, debating theology with the elders. Joseph scowls, and Mary, her cheeks splotchy with anger, scolds the boy—imagine, scolding the Son of God—while the young Christ stands defiant, arms folded coldly across his chest, a look of stubborn scorn directed at the Blessed Virgin. Simone can’t quite say what has prompted him to paint such an irreverent scene. All he knows is that he feels an odd kinship with the stony-faced boy; having endured endless cajoling and scolding from people who want him to paint this or sketch that, Simone feels the urge to fold his arms across his chest and set his jaw just so.

Giovanna has forgiven his infidelity, perhaps because she sees that he scourges himself more savagely than she ever could. She understands self-inflicted wounds. Her deepest sadness in life is her inability to bear Simone a child, and knowing that another woman has done so is a bitter reminder of her own failure.

Simone still goes to his studio day after day, but he spends most of his hours staring at the ghost portrait on fabric,
The Death of Innocence
. He’s lengthened his worktable to accommodate most of the strip of linen—nearly fifteen feet of it—and has applied a flat, smooth coat of plaster. Normally at this point he begins to paint, working swiftly so the paint bonds with the damp plaster. Not this time; this time, he needs a surface as dry and smooth as marble. Stopping often to consult the drawings he made by lamplight years before, he sketches the dead man lightly with a charcoal pencil—front and back, joining the images at the top of the head. Once he’s satisfied with the faint sketch, he swaps the pencil for a thick piece of reddish-brown sinopia chalk and begins
shading the features—heavily for the prominent ones, lightly for the hollows and recesses. It takes him three days to complete the figure itself, and another day to add the wounds. Finally, carefully, even tenderly—as tenderly as if he were undressing a beautiful woman—he unrolls the linen onto the image he has created. Once again using the rounded end of the wooden pestle, he rubs softly, stroking the linen from every direction to transfer a whisper of pigment from the tabletop to the fabric. The final step is to add the bloodstains—a watery tempera of red vermilion, brighter than the man’s ochre image—to highlight the wounds.

He has just completed the trail of blood on the forehead—a meandering trickle that hints at furrows; a brilliant touch!—when someone knocks at the studio’s door. He ignores it, as he ignores all knocks but Giovanna’s distinctive, birdlike pecking at the wood, but it continues, growing more forceful with each
thump-thump-thump
. “Simone Martini, open the door,” commands a voice that sounds accustomed to swift and unquestioning obedience.

“Leave me in peace,” he calls out. “I’m working. I must not be disturbed.”

“Open the door, Master Simone, or we will break it down.”

Simone considers ignoring the command, but he lacks the energy to repair the door, so he pulls the bolt and opens it a crack. The commanding voice belongs to one of the papal guards, who pushes his way into the room, sees it empty except for Simone, and makes a beckoning gesture toward the open door. Half a dozen clerics file noiselessly into the room—two canons, a bishop, a pair of red-hatted cardinals, and lastly a monk. The monk is a large, white-robed Cistercian; it is, Simone gradually realizes, none other than Pope Benedict himself: an older, more dour version of the man he saw hiding the bones in the palace wall. Simone nods slightly in acknowledgment; he should, of course, kneel and kiss the pontiff’s ring, but he continues to feel as petulant as the scowling young Christ on his easel.

“Master Simone, you are too stingy with your companionship and with your paints,” says one of the cardinals, whom Simone does not recognize. “Cardinal Orsini—may God restore his health or ease his death—speaks so highly of your polyptych that we must see it.”

“My friend and patron is very kind,” says Simone, “but it is not yet finished, and I would be ashamed to show it.”

“Nonsense, Master Simone,” the cardinal counters. “You are much too modest.” His voice is cheerful on the surface, but there is an undertone of malice: a verbal dagger enfolded within the voice of silk and velvet. His eyes fix upon the drape that covers the altar screen, and there is a sharp glitter in them. “Is this the piece?”

“Your Grace,” Simone begins, but it is too late. With surprising quickness, the cardinal has stepped forward and flung aside the cloth that covers the panels. Simone hears “ahs” and words of admiration. The one cleric who does not seem to be impressed is the pope, but His Holiness is not known for his love of art—a shame, given that his palace has acres of barren walls still crying out for frescoes and tapestries to warm and soften them. Perhaps the next pope, Avignon’s artists pray, will elevate art to its rightful place in the palace.

The pope turns aside from the screen and directs his gaze toward the Holy Family, propped on the easel. Walking closer, his sausage-fingers clasped behind his back, he leans close, studying the face of the young Jesus. The chatter in the room ceases as his entourage notices his frown. Finally he turns and faces Simone, his eyes narrow and cold. Without speaking, he approaches the painter, circles him, and then stands and stares. Finally he speaks. “Master Simone, how is your soul?”

“My soul? I am more accustomed to being asked about my paintings.”

“I don’t care about your paintings, except for what they illu
minate about your soul, Simone Martini. I see a troubled soul in this picture.”

The air in the studio crackles with tension now. “There is much trouble in this world, Your Holiness,” Simone slowly replies.

“But there is none in our Lord,” the pope counters. “This painting is blasphemous. Possibly heretical.” The papal entourage now murmurs its disapproval.

“I mean no blasphemy, Your Holiness. The scriptures teach us that God became flesh and dwelt among us.”

“His Holiness needs no schooling on the scriptures from a painter,” the officious cardinal exclaims.

“No, of course not,” Simone replies. “But surely a mother’s distress would show in Our Lady’s face when her beloved son has been missing for three days? And surely our blameless Lord—even as a youth—would take offense at being chided?”

The pope trains inquisitorial eyes on Martini’s face, gauging whether the artist is mocking him, then turns away. “What other blasphemies are you painting in here, Martini?” Simone makes no answer. The pope peers behind the large wooden screen at the long table, then squeezes through the opening for a closer look. The room falls silent. Suddenly the silence is broken by a gasp and a sharp cry. The pope staggers out from behind the screen, his face ashen, clutching his chest. He tries to speak, but he cannot. He stares at Simone in terror, as if he has seen a ghost: the ghost of a man he tortured and killed years before.

Half carried, half dragged, he is taken to the street and placed in a hastily commandeered cart that clatters to the palace. Three days later, the Inquisitor-turned-pontiff is dead, and a new pope—a great lover of art, a man who will open the papal purse strings like no one before him—is elected, taking the name Clement VI. He hosts a sumptuous coronation banquet to which he invites three thousand high-ranking clerics and nobles. “My pre
decessors,” he tells his guests, “did not know how to be pope,” and they agree. Avignon’s greatest artistic and cultural boom is about to begin.

But it will begin and end with no further works by Simone Martini. His final sale, the day after Clement’s banquet, is to an eager young cleric from Lirey who is the private chaplain to one of France’s most illustrious knights, Lord Geoffroi de Charny.

The chaplain—part of the pope’s entourage the day His Holiness was stricken—has returned to Simone’s studio, curious to see the work that affected the pope so strongly. Far from being disturbed by the work, the chaplain finds the faint, haunting image quite intriguing…and most promising. Properly presented—not as a new work of art, but as an ancient relic, the actual winding-sheet of our Lord!—the image could inspire profound reverence, attract throngs of pilgrims…and unleash a torrent of donations from the devout.

The shrewd young priest from Lirey buys the shroud from Simone for thirty florins. Thirty pieces of gold.

Prices have gone up since the last time Christ was sold.

Avignon
The Present

I CHECKED THE REARVIEW MIRROR, AND SURE ENOUGH,
another car pulled from a parking space and fell in behind me. It looked like the car I’d seen the prior day, and this time I got a good enough look at the grille to tell that it was a black BMW. I even thought I recognized the driver’s large, shaved head from the airport-security photo of Reverend Jonah’s hulking bodyguard. Just as Descartes had predicted, Junior was tailing me to Geneva.

A quarter mile up the street, the wall was punctured by a gate, the Saint Joseph portal. I turned right, through the gate; behind me, a horn blared angrily. Checking the mirror again, I saw that a white panel truck—service vehicles look the same the world over—had run a stop sign and cut in front of the black sedan, tucking in almost on my bumper. When the light at the intersection turned green, I threaded the car through the narrow opening, then turned immediately right onto the three-lane road, Saint Lazarus Boulevard, which ringed the outside of
the wall to my right. The road was like a modern-day moat of asphalt, swimming with cars rather than barracudas. Out my left window was the emerald-green Rhône, and as I checked my mirrors for the BMW, I caught a brief glimpse of Saint Bénézet’s Bridge downstream. The banks of the river in this stretch were lined with barges and dredges, as well as old canal boats that had been transformed into luxurious houseboats. A small crane was bolted to the stern of one of these canal boats, and dangling from a cable, hoisted high above the reach of thieves, was an old-fashioned three-speed bicycle, much like the one gathering dust in my garage back home.

A quarter mile upstream the road branched; one lane continued to hug the wall, while the other dived into a tunnel. A road crew was working near the mouth of the tunnel, and a flag-man was motioning cars slowly forward. As I approached, he stepped from the curb and began waving his flag. I braked, but he waved my car through, as well as the white panel truck behind me, before stopping the line of traffic. At the front of the line of stopped cars was the black BMW, and I smiled as I imagined Junior fuming at the delay.

Halfway through the tunnel I slammed the car to a stop, put the gearshift in neutral, and leaped out, leaving the engine running. Behind me, the side door of the white panel truck opened, and out sprang a gray-haired man who could have been my brother, wearing khaki pants and a blue shirt that mirrored my own outfit exactly. My look-alike nodded to me, tucked himself into the Peugeot, slammed the door, and took off. I hopped into the van, and the door slid shut. Inside, I could barely see Descartes in the dimness; he was just finishing a radio transmission, and as he did, I noticed a pair of headlights through the rear windows, rapidly closing the distance with our slow-moving van. “It won’t take him long to catch up with the Peugeot,” Descartes said. “That was
très bien fait
—very well done. Twenty-three sec
onds.” In less than half a minute, the switch—taking me out of the Geneva-bound car and putting a double in my place—had bought us a day’s delay. A day and a half in which to find the hidden bones or—failing that—to get the Native American skeleton that was en route from Knoxville. It was, I suddenly realized, another switcheroo: a look-alike, a standin—and it was standing in for another fake relic at that.

When we emerged from the tunnel, our driver turned right at the first intersection. The black BMW roared past, its speed and dark windows defeating my efforts to see the driver’s features.

“The decoy—my doppelgänger; the fake me,” I said to Descartes. “Who is he?”

“Just one of our inspectors; a guy who happens to look like you.”

“Lucky him,” I said. “How much danger do you think he’s in?”

“On the way to Geneva, zero. On the way back, maybe more. They might try to ambush him and get the bones.” The inspector shrugged. “He has military experience and tactical training. He’s smart, a good driver, a good shot. He can take care of himself. But risk is part of the job.”

The van lurched as the driver doubled back toward Avignon. “You think Junior will fall for it?”

“Let’s hope so.” He waved a finger at my clothes. “He saw you get into the car dressed like this, and he’ll see your double get out of the car dressed like this. So unless something makes him suspicious, he’ll assume it’s you.”

His “unless” dug into me, the way a splinter on a rough wooden railing can snag a passing finger. “What might make him suspicious?”

He shrugged. “If they had someone watching at the other end of the tunnel, maybe they noticed the extra twenty seconds it took for the car to go through. The police, we might notice that kind of thing. Your FBI might notice. But these guys aren’t that good. They’re fanatics, not cops or spies.”

“Fanatics brought down the World Trade towers,” I pointed out. “Never underestimate the power of fanatics.”

“I don’t underestimate their power,” he said. “Just their capabilities. As far as we can tell, only the preacher and the big guy came to France for the bones of Jesus.”

“The bones of
not
-Jesus,” I corrected.

“True,” he conceded, “but we can’t tell that to them. If they learn the truth, they have no reason to keep mademoiselle alive. We must pray that they continue to have faith in our lies.”

I wasn’t much of a praying man, but there in the back of a lurching van bumping its way back to my hotel, I sent out a request to God, or to the universe:
Whatever it takes, truth or lies, help me get Miranda back safely.
I thought of Meister Eckhart’s criticism of the hypocrisy of praying
Thy will be done
but then complaining about the outcome. But I wasn’t praying
Thy will be done;
I wasn’t that virtuous or pious. I only wanted Miranda back, safe and sound.

The van turned again, entering the old city, and hugged the wall until it reached the tower that faced Lumani. The driver pulled onto the narrow sidewalk and stopped with the van’s side door directly aligned with Lumani’s wooden gate. “Stay here,” Descartes reminded me, “until the decoy gets back from Geneva.”

“Do I have to? This feels like house arrest, and it’s gonna drive me crazy. I’d really rather help you look for the bones.”

“It’s too risky,” he said. “If the preacher sees you, he knows you’re not in that car. Then he kills mademoiselle.
Non,
you must stay out of sight. We will keep looking for the bones. Now go.” He tapped the van’s driver on the shoulder. The driver got out; luckily, he was skinny as a rail, or he’d never have managed to squeeze through the narrow gap between his door and the wall of the house. Stepping into the street, he checked carefully in both directions, then gave a quick, low whistle. Descartes slid open the van’s side door, and without even having to lean out the opening,
I put my key in the lock and opened the wooden gate. Then, in one step, I was inside the sheltering wall, latching the gate behind me. This maneuver took even less than the twenty-three seconds in the tunnel.
Très bien fait,
I thought. And
Please, bring her back.