The Matarese Circle (33 page)

I have told you the truth, all of it. If you still have doubts, I cannot put them to rest.

Again she had finished.

Taleniekov got up and walked slowly to the stove and the pot of tea.
“Per nostro circolo,”
he said, looking at Scofield. “Seventy years have passed and still they would kill for their grave.”

“Perdona?”
The old woman did not understand English, so the KGB man repeated his statement in Italian. Sophia nodded. “The secret goes from father to son. These are the two generations that have been born since the land was theirs. It is not so long. They are still afraid.”

“There aren’t any laws that could take it from them,” said Bray. “I doubt there ever were. Men might have been sent to prison for withholding information about the massacre, but in those days, who would prosecute? They buried the dead, that was their conspiracy.”

“There was a greater conspiracy. They did not permit the blessed sacraments.”

“That’s another court. I don’t know anything about it.” Scofield glanced at the Russian, then brought his eyes back to the blind eyes in front of him. “Why did you come back?”

“I was able to. And I was old when we found this valley.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“The people of the hills believe a lie. They think the
padrone
spared me, sent me away before the guns began. To others I am a source of fear and hatred. It is whispered that I was spared by God to be a remembrance of their sin, yet blinded by God so never to reveal their grave in the forests. I am the blind whore of Villa Matarese, permitted to live because they are afraid to take the life of God’s reminder.”

Taleniekov spoke from the other side of the stove. “But you said a while ago that they would not hesitate to kill you if you told the story. Perhaps if they were even aware that you
knew
it. Yet now you tell it to us, and imply that you want us to bring it out of Corsica. Why?”

“Did not a man in your own country call for you and
tell you things he wanted you to know?” The Russian began to reply; Sophia Pastorine interrupted. “Yes, signore. As that man, the end of my life draws near; with each breath I know it. Death, it seems, invites those of us who know some part of the Matarese to speak of it. I’m not sure I can tell you why, but for me, there was a sign. My granddaughter traveled down to the hills and came back with news of a scholar seeking information about the
padrone.
You were my sign. I sent her back to find you.”

“Does she know?” asked Bray. “Have you ever told her? She could have brought the story out.”

“Never! She is known in the hills, but she is not
of
the hills! She would be hunted down wherever she went. She would be killed. I asked for your word, signori, and you must give it to me. You must have nothing further to do with her!”

“You have it,” agreed Taleniekov. “She’s not in this room because of us.”

“What did you hope to accomplish by speaking to my associate?” asked Bray.

“What his friend hoped for, I think. To make men look beneath the waves, to the dark waters below. It is there that the power to move the sea is found.”

“The Council of the Matarese,” said the KGB man, staring at the blind eyes.

“Yes.… I told you. I listen to the broadcasts from Rome and Genoa and Nice. It is happening everywhere. The prophecies of Guillaume de Matarese are coming true. It does not take an educated person to see that. For years I listened to the broadcasts and wondered. Could it be so? Was it possible they survive still? Then one night many days ago I heard the words and it was as though time had no meaning. I was suddenly back in the shadows of the balcony in the great hall, the gunfire and the screams of horror echoing in my ears. I was
there,
with my eyes before God took them from me, watching the terrible scene below. And I was remembering what the
padrone
had said moments before: ‘You and
yours
will do what I can no longer do.’ ” The old woman stopped, her blind eyes swimming, then began again, her sentences rushed in fear.

“It
was
true! They
had
survived—not the council as it
was then, but as it is today. ‘You and yours.’ The
yours
had survived! Led by the one man whose voice was crueler than the wind.” Sophia Pastorine abruptly stopped again, her frail, delicate hands grasping for the wooden arm of her chair. She stood up and with her left hand reached for her cane by the edge of the stove.

“The list. You must have it, signori! I took it out of a blood-soaked gown seventy years ago after crawling out of the grave in the mountains. It had stayed next to my body through the terror. I had carried it with me so I would not forget their names and their titles, to make my
padrone
proud of me.” The old woman tapped the cane in front of her as she walked across the room to a primitive shelf on the wall. Her right hand felt the edge, her fingers hesitantly dancing among the various jars until she found the one she wanted. She removed the clay top reached inside, and pulled out a scrap of soiled paper yellow with age. She turned. “It is yours. Names from the past. This is the list of honored guests who journeyed in secrecy to Villa Matarese on the fourth of April, in the year nineteen hundred and eleven. If by giving it to you I do a terrible thing, may God have mercy on my soul.”

Scofield and Taleniekov were on their feet. “You haven’t,” said Bray. “You’ve done the right thing.”

“The only thing,” added Vasili. He touched her hand. “May I?” She released the faded scrap of paper; the Russian studied it. “It’s the key,” he said to Scofield. “It’s also quite beyond anything we might have expected.”

“Why?” asked Bray.

“The Spaniard—the man Matarese killed—has been crossed out, but two of these names will startle you. To say the least, they are prominent. Here.” Taleniekov crossed to Scofield, holding the paper delicately between two fingers so as not to damage it further. Bray took it in the palm of his hand.

“I don’t believe it,” said Scofield, reading the names. “I’d like to get this analyzed to make sure it wasn’t written five days ago.”

“It wasn’t,” said the KGB man.

“I know. And that scares the hell out of me.”

“Perdona?”
Sophia Pastorine stood by the shelf. Bray answered her in Italian.

“We recognize two of these names. They are well-known men—”

“But they are
not
the men!” broke in the old woman, stabbing her cane on the floor. “None of them! They are only the inheritors! They are controlled by
another. He
is the man!”

“What are you talking about? Who?”

The dog growled. Neither Scofield nor Taleniekov paid any attention; an angry voice had been raised. The animal got to its feet, now snarling, the two men—their concentration on Sophia—still ignoring it. But the old woman did not. She held up her hand, a gesture for silence. She spoke, her anger replaced by alarm.

“Open the door. Call out for my granddaughter.
Quickly!
”

“What is it?” asked the Russian.

“Men are coming. They’re passing through the thickets, Uccello hears them.”

Bray walked rapidly to the door. “How far away are they?”

“On the other side of the ridge. Nearly here. Hurry!”

Scofield opened the door and called out. “You! Antonia. Come here. Quickly!”

The dog’s snarls came through bared teeth. Its head was thrust forward, its legs stretched and taut, prepared to defend or attack. Leaving the door open, Bray crossed to a counter and picked up a lettuce leaf. He tore it in half and placed the yellow scrap of paper between the two sections, and folded them together. “I’ll put this in my pocket,” he said to the KGB man.

“I’ve memorized the names and the countries,” replied Taleniekov. “But then, I’m sure you have, too.”

The girl ran through the door, breathless, her field jacket only partially buttoned, the Lupo in her hand, the bulges of the automatics in her side pockets. “What’s the matter?”

Scofield turned from the counter. “Your … grandmother said men were coming. The dog heard them.”

“On the other side of the hill,” interrupted the old woman. “Nine hundred paces perhaps, no more.”

“Why would they
do
that?” asked the girl. “Why would they come?”

“Did they see you, my child? Did they see Uccello?”

“They must have. But I said nothing. I did not interfere with them. They had no reason to think—”

“But they saw you the day before,” said Sophia Pastorine interrupting again.

“Yes. I bought the things you wanted.”

“Then why would you come back?” The old woman spoke rhetorically. “That is what they tried to understand, and they did. They are men of the hills; they look down at the grass and the dirt and see that three people traveled over the ground, not one. You must leave. All of you!”

“I will not do that, grandmother!” cried Antonia. “They won’t harm us. I’ll say I may have been followed, but I know nothing.”

The old woman stared straight ahead. “You have what you came for, signori. Take it. Take her. Leave!”

Bray turned to the girl. “We owe her that,” he said. He grabbed the shotgun out of her hands. She tried to fight back but Taleniekov pinned her arms and removed the Browning and the Graz-Burya automatics from her pockets. “You saw what happened down there,” continued Scofield. “Do as she says.”

The dog raced to the open door and barked viciously. Far in the distance, voices were carried on the morning breezes; men were shouting to others behind them.

“Go!” said Sophia Pastorine.

“Come on.” Bray propelled Antonia in front of him. “We’ll be back after they’ve left. We haven’t finished.”

“A moment, signori!” shouted the blind woman. “I think we have finished. The names you possess may be helpful to you, but they are only the inheritors. Look for the one whose voice is crueler than the wind. I heard it! Find him. The shepherd boy. It is he!”

They ran along the edge of the pasture on the border of the woods and climbed to the top of the ridge. The shadows of the eastern slope kept them from being seen. There
had been only a few seconds when they might have been spotted; they were prepared for that but it did not happen. The men on the opposite ridge were distracted by a barking dog, deciding whether or not to use their rifles on it. They did not, for the dog was retrieved by a whistle before such a decision could be made. Uccello was beside Antonia now in the grass, his breath coming as rapidly as hers.

There were four men on the opposite ridge—as there were four remaining names on the scrap of yellow paper in his pocket, thought Scofield. He wished finding them, trapping
them,
were as easy as trapping and picking off the four men who now descended into the valley. But the four men on the list were just the beginning.

There was a shepherd boy to find. “A voice crueler than the wind” … a
child’s
voice recognized decades later as one and the same … coming from the throat of what had to be a very, very old man.

I heard the words and it was as though time had no meaning.…

What were those
words?
Who was that
man?
The true descendant of Guillaume de Matarese … an old man who uttered a phrase that peeled away seventy years from the memory of a blind woman in the mountains of Corsica. In what
language?
It had to be French or Italian; she understood no other.

They had to speak with her again; they had to understand far more. They had
not
finished with Sophia Pastorine.

Bray watched as the four Corsicans approached the farmhouse, two covering the sides, two walking up to the door, all with weapons drawn. The men by the door paused for an instant; then the one on the left raised his boot and rammed it into the wood, crashing the door inward.

Silence.

Two shouts were heard, questions asked harshly. The men outside ran around opposite corners of the farmhouse and went inside. There was more shouting … and the unmistakable sound of flesh striking flesh.

Antonia started to get up, fury on her face. Taleniekov pulled her down by the shoulder of her field jacket. The muscles in her throat were contorted; she was about to
scream. Scofield had no choice. He clamped his hand over her mouth, forcing his fingers into her cheeks; the scream was reduced to a series of coughs.

“Be quiet!” whispered Bray. “If they hear you, they’ll use her to get you down there!”

“It would be far worse for her,” said Vasili, “and for you. You would hear her pain, and they would take you.”

Antonia’s eye blinked: she nodded. Scofield relieved his grip, but did not release it. She whispered through his hand. “They
hit
her! A blind woman and they
hit
her!”

“They’re frightened.” said Taleniekov. “More than you can imagine. Without their land, they have nothing.”

The girl’s fingers gripped Bray’s wrist. “What do you mean?”

“Not now!” commanded Scofield. “There’s something wrong. They’re staying in there too long.”

“They’ve found something, perhaps,” agreed the KGB man.

“Or she’s telling them something. Oh.
Christ,
she
can’t!
”

“What arc you thinking?” asked Taleniekov.

“She said we’d finished. We
haven’t.
But she’s going to make sure of it! They’ll see our footprints on the floor; we walked over wet ground: she can’t deny we were there. With her hearing, she knows which way we went. She’ll send them in another direction.”

“That’s fine.” said the Russian.

“Godamn it, they’ll
kill
her!”

Taleniekov snapped his head back toward the farmhouse below. “You’re right,” he said. “If they believe her—and they will—they can’t let her live. She’s the source: she’ll tell them that, too, if only to convince them. Her life for the shepherd boy. So we can find the shepherd boy!”

“But we don’t
know
enough! Come on, let’s go!” Scofield got to his feet, yanking the automatic from his belt. The dog snarled: the girl rose and Taleniekov pushed her down to the ground again.