Cotton smiled. “Lots of stuff disappearing around here.”
“We can’t worry about any of that right now,” Luke said.
He agreed and pointed at the metal tube they’d brought off the plane. “Show him.”
Pollux slid the parchment and the typed page free and displayed both to his brother. The cardinal seemed uninterested in Mussolini’s fascist manifesto. Instead he focused on the clues.
“I assume you read German,” Cotton asked.
“I do, and this is gibberish.”
“Which was surely the whole idea,” Pollux said. “You would have to be privy to information that only a few people on earth would know to solve that riddle. Luckily, I’m one of those.”
Cotton caught the unsaid words.
The cardinal was not.
“We have to go to the co-cathedral,” Pollux said.
“I should return to Rome,” the cardinal said. “This doesn’t require me any longer.”
“Except that you’re the cause of it all,” Pollux blurted out, in the first sign of any emotion. “You wanted the Nostra Trinità. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get it. But we are going to finish this, brother. Finish what you started, so the Trinity can be restored to the knights, where it belongs.” Gallo paused. “Then you and I are going to have a talk. In private.”
Cardinal Gallo stayed silent.
“All this sibling rivalry is fascinating,” Laura said. “But there are still threats on this island, and plenty of unknowns. Particularly with cars blowing up and bodies disappearing.”
Cotton saw that Luke caught the wry grin on his face, which telegraphed exactly what needed to be made clear.
“Not a problem,” Luke said. “We can handle it.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Kastor had always admired the Church of St. John the Baptist. Solid, austere, its thick walls conveying an unmistakable message of power and strength. Two large towers with octagonal spires flanked either side of its main entrance, each housing bells. Nearly every church on the island mimicked its shape and style, which was not unintentional.
The knights had been smart with its location, choosing a high spot in the center of their new city and erecting a landmark that could be seen from nearly anywhere on, or off, the island. Its austere façade faced west, the altar east, as was traditional in the 16th century. Its sober and robust exterior shielded an amazing expression of baroque art inside, all dedicated to the knights’ patron saint, John the Baptist. Everything about it was tied to the Order, but Napoleon had left a mark, too. As soon as the French stole the island, the bishop of Malta made a request. He wanted the church for his diocese and saw the invasion as an opportunity to wrest it away from the knights. So Napoleon handed it over and decreed that it would be forever called the Co-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, available to all.
And the name had stuck.
He remained unsure what to make of the new additions to the team. But what choice did he have? Spagna and Chatterjee were both dead. Thankfully, the flash drive remained safe in his pocket. He’d not said a word about it and did not intend to. That prize was his alone. And what had happened to Chatterjee’s body? Did the man who’d killed him return and ferry it away?
If so, why?
They rounded the cathedral’s exterior and found a small square that spread out from a side entrance. The cobbles remained damp from the rain. A few people lingered in the square despite the late hour. On the ride from the airport Pollux had worked the phone, speaking with the cathedral’s operating foundation, letting them know he was on the way. Though the Hospitallers no longer actually owned the church, they retained great influence over its use. It actually wasn’t much of a church anymore. More a tourist attraction. Forty years ago things had been different. Fewer visitors to the island then. The world had yet to discover Malta. He recalled visiting with his parents several times, then many more once at the orphanage. Everything here was familiar territory. So why did he feel so out of place?
The wooden doors creaked opened and a middle-aged man in jeans introduced himself as the curator. He was pale-skinned, with an owlish face adorned by thick-rimmed glasses. His hair was tousled, his eyes tired, probably the effects of being woken from a sound sleep.
Pollux stepped up and assumed the lead. “I appreciate you being here at this late hour. It’s important we be inside the church for a little while. Undisturbed.”
The curator nodded.
It was odd to see his brother in a position of authority. Always it had been Pollux following his lead. But he told himself that Pollux was temporary head of the knights thanks to him. Whatever power his brother possessed came from him. He found it unsettling to take a backseat, though it seemed the wisest course. Nothing would be gained by a confrontation. Besides, he was curious about what they might find. Still, the clock was ticking down, the conclave set to begin in less than ten hours. Every cardinal who planned to be inside the Sistine Chapel voting had to be at the Domus Sanctae Marthae by 10:00 A.M. After that, there was no admittance.
He followed the entourage inside to a wide rectangular nave, flanked by two narrow aisles, topped by a ribbed barrel vault. The aisles were further divided into a series of impressive side chapels. The air was noticeably cooler. Lavish stone carvings, gilding, and marble ornamentation sheathed every square centimeter of wall, floor, and ceiling. Nothing had been omitted. Elaborate baroque motifs burst forth in profiles of foliage, flowers, angels, and triumphal symbols of all shapes and kinds. He knew that none of them had been added. Instead, everything had been carved straight from the limestone. Subtle amber lighting bounced off the marble walls, staining the dazzling blaze of color and decoration in a warm glow. Nearly five hundred years of constant pampering had resulted in a masterpiece. Some called it the most beautiful church in the world, and they might be right.
“I’ll leave you alone,” the curator said.
Pollux raised a halting hand.
“Please don’t. We need your help.”
* * *
Cotton had visited St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, and Westminster in London. None were even in this place’s league. So much assaulted the eyes from every direction it was nearly overpowering—a combination of pomp, art, religion, and symbolism in a clash of period styles that somehow mixed seamlessly.
He asked about its origins.
“For the first hundred years, the interior was modest,” the curator said. “Then, in the 1660s, the grand masters ordered a massive redecoration, one to rival the churches of Rome. Mattia Preti was placed in charge and spent half his life creating nearly all of what you now see.”
That was the name Gallo had mentioned on the plane ride.
“This is perhaps the greatest expression of baroque in the world,” the curator added. “Thankfully, it survived the bombing in World War II.”
“We have something to show you,” Pollux Gallo told the curator, and he handed over the typed sheet.
Where oil meets stone, death is the end of a dark prison. Pride crowned, another shielded. Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file. H Z P D R S Q X
“A puzzle for sure,” the curator said. “One part is clear, though. The first four words.”
And the man pointed upward.
Cotton stared up at Preti’s masterpiece. Six defined ceiling bays, each divided into three sections, made for eighteen episodes. The painted figures looked more like three-dimensional statues than flat images, all forming a single, smooth narrative from the life of St. John the Baptist, transforming what was surely once a plain barrel vault into something extraordinary.
“It’s all oil painted on stone.”
As the curator continued to discuss the ceiling and the lines from the puzzle, Cotton turned his attention to the floor.
Another one-of-a-kind.
There were hundreds of tombs, each unique, composed of finely colored inlaid marble words and images, lined in perfect colum
ns front-to-back, left-to-right, wall-to-wall. Every inch of the floor was covered, forming a stunning visual display. A few rows of wooden chairs stood toward the far end, near the altar, surely for people who came for prayer.
The rest was all exposed.
He noticed the lively iconography, the colorful mosaic arrangements depicting triumph, fame, and death. Skeletons and skulls seemed popular. He knew why. One represented the end of a physical being, the other the beginning of eternal life. There were also plenty of angels, either blowing trumpets or holding laurel wreaths, along with coats of arms, weapons, and battle scenes, surely a testament to the deceased’s chivalry. A turbulent tone and character dominated, which he assumed was reflective of the times in which the men had lived. Most of the epitaphs seemed grandiose and wordy, mainly in Latin or the deceased’s native tongue. He spotted French, Spanish, Italian, and German. Commonality abounded in style, but so did individuality. No two were exactly alike, yet they all seemed similar.
“There is also a connection,” the curator said, “with the next words of your message. Death is the end of a dark prison. Let me show you.”
The older man stepped across the floor, searching for one of the tombs.
“Here.”
They all moved toward the center of the nave, where the curator stood before a particularly ornate memorial, centered with a shrouded skeleton before a wall of iron bars. Two columned pilasters supported an arch above the bars, the whole image flat, but animated in a three-dimensional trompe l’oeil effect. Cotton read the epitaph and learned it was the grave of a knight named Felice de Lando, who died March 3, 1726. Above the skeletal figure Italian words appeared in the arch.
LA MORTE E FIN D UNA PRIGIONE OSCURA.
Death is the end of a dark prison.
Coincidence?
Hardly.
* * *
Kastor had always loved the cathedral floor. Nothing like it existed anywhere else in the world. And the tombs were not cenotaphs. Instead they were actual graves with bones beneath them—the more important the knight, the closer to the altar. All burials stopped, though, in 1798 when the French invaded. Important knights after that were buried beyond the city in far less elegant locations. Not until the British took the island in 1815 had they resumed, but then they ended forever in 1869. He knew all about them thanks to the nuns. The kids from the orphanage had routinely worked in the cathedral, himself and Pollux no exception. He’d explored every part of the building, finding the floor particularly intriguing. A mosaic of memory, ripe with words of consolation, instruction, and praise. Some exaggerations for sure, but memories needed “things” to prolong themselves, otherwise they never lasted.
The Roman Catholic Church was a perfect example.
As was his life.
His own parents died with nothing more than a simple funeral attended by a few friends. There was not even a stone marker over their graves. Nothing tangible remained of their existence, save for twin boys.