UMBERTO D’ALAQUA HAD SENT A CAR TO PICK SOFIA UP at the hotel, and at the door of the opera house the assistant manager of the theater had been waiting to escort her to her host.
That touch was impressive, but she felt the full impact of D’Alaqua’s stature when she entered his box. The other guests were members of the city’s—and the country’s—rich and powerful elite: Cardinal Visier, Dr. Bolard, two eminent bankers, a member of the Agnelli family and his wife, and Mayor Torriani and his wife.
D’Alaqua stood up and welcomed her warmly, with a squeeze of her hands. He seated her next to the mayor and his wife and Dr. Bolard. He himself was seated next to Cardinal Visier, who had greeted her with a cool smile.
She felt the men looking at her out of the corners of their eyes—all except the cardinal, Bolard, and D’Alaqua. She’d taken pains to look not just good but stunning. That afternoon she had gone to the hairdresser’s and returned to Armani, this time to buy an elegant red tunic-and-pants outfit. It was a color the designer didn’t often use, but it was spectacular, Marco and Giuseppe had assured her. The tunic had a low neckline, and the mayor couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off it.
Marco was surprised that D’Alaqua had sent a car to pick Sofia up rather than coming personally, but Sofia understood the message. D’Alaqua had no personal interest in her; she was simply his guest to the opera. The man put unbreachable barriers between them, and though he did so subtly, he left no room for doubt.
At the intermission, they repaired to D’Alaqua’s private salon for champagne and canapés.
“Are you enjoying the opera, dottoréssa?”
Cardinal Visier was looking her over as he asked her the clichéd question.
“Yes, Your Eminence. Pavarotti has been wonderful tonight.”
“He has indeed, although La Bohème is not his best opera.”
Guido Bonomi entered the salon and effusively greeted D’Alaqua’s guests.
“Sofia! You look absolutely gorgeous! I have a whole list of friends dying to meet you, and not a few wives jealous because their husbands’ opera glasses have been on you more than on Pavarotti! You’re one of those women who make other women very nervous, my dear!”
Sofia blushed. She was losing patience with Bonomi’s inappropriate effusions and looked at him furiously. The professor read the message in her blue eyes and changed course abruptly.
“Well, then, I’ll be expecting you all for dinner. Your Eminence, dottoréssa, mayor…”
D’Alaqua had seen Sofia’s discomfort and stepped to her side.
“Guido’s like that; he always has been. An excellent man, an eminent medievalist, but personally a bit…shall we say…exuberant? Don’t be upset.”
“I’m not upset with him, I’m upset with myself. I have to ask what I’m doing here; I don’t belong. If you don’t mind, when the performance is over I’ll go back to the hotel.”
“No, don’t go, dottoréssa. Stay, and forgive your old professor, who can’t seem to find the proper way to express his admiration for you. But he is sincere in that.”
“I’m sorry, but I really should go. There’s no reason at all for me to go to dinner at Bonomi’s house; I was a student of his, that’s all. I shouldn’t even have let myself be invited to the opera on account of him. To take a place in your box, among your guests, your friends…really, I apologize for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
“You’ve caused me no trouble at all, I assure you.”
The bell announced the end of the intermission, and Sofia reluctantly allowed D’Alaqua to guide her back to his box.
As the next act unfolded Sofia noticed that D’Alaqua was discreetly watching her. She felt like fleeing on the spot, but she was damned if she’d behave like a silly girl. She’d stick it out to the end, then she’d say her goodbyes and never cross his path again. He had nothing to do with the shroud—it was absurd, and she intended to tell Marco that once and for all.
When the performance was over, the audience gave Pavarotti his usual standing ovation. Sofia took advantage of the moment to say good evening to the mayor, his wife, the Agnellis, and the bankers. Finally, she approached Cardinal Visier.
“Good night, Your Eminence.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
Visier, surprised, tried to catch D’Alaqua’s eye, but he was conversing animatedly with Bolard.
“Dottoréssa, I’d be very disappointed if you did not come with us to dinner,” the cardinal told Sofia.
“Oh, Your Eminence, I’m sure you understand better than anyone how uncomfortable I am. I really must go. I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“Well, if there is no way to convince you…but I do hope to see you again. Your view of modern archaeological methods intrigued me—your ideas are so innovative, really. I studied archaeology before devoting myself entirely to the Church, you know.”
D’Alaqua interrupted them.
“The cars are waiting….”
“Dottoréssa Galloni is not coming with us,” Visier told him.
“I’m so sorry, I’d hoped you would, but if you’d rather not, the car will take you to your hotel.”
“Thank you, but I’d prefer to walk—the hotel is not far.”
“Forgive me, dottoréssa,” the cardinal interrupted, “but I don’t think you should walk alone. Turin is a complicated city; my mind would be easier if you would let the car take you.”
Sofia gave in so they wouldn’t think her entirely ungracious.
“All right, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” the cardinal murmured. “You are a formidable person, of great merit—you mustn’t allow others to affect you so. Although I imagine that your beauty has been more of an inconvenience for you than an advantage, precisely because you have never traded on it.”
The cardinal’s unexpected words were comforting. D’Alaqua accompanied her to the car.
“I’m glad you came, Dottoréssa Galloni.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be staying in Turin for a few more days?”
“Yes, perhaps for as long as two weeks.”
“I’ll ring you, and if you have time I’d like us to have lunch together.”
Sofia stammered a soft “All right” as D’Alaqua closed the car door and gave the driver instructions to take her to her hotel.
As the rest of the party departed, Cardinal Visier confronted Sofia’s old teacher.
“Professóre Bonomi, you have offended Dottoréssa Galloni and offended all of us who were with her. Your contribution to the Church is undeniable, and we are grateful for all you’ve done as our principal expert in sacred medieval art, but that does not give you the right to behave like a lout.”
D’Alaqua watched, floored.
“Paul, I didn’t think Dottoréssa Galloni had made such an impression on you,” he commented a few moments later when they were alone.
The cardinal shook his head. “I think Bonomi behaved terribly—he acted like an old lecher, and he offended her unnecessarily. Sometimes I ask myself how Bonomi’s artistic talents can be so unrelated to the rest of the man’s life. Galloni seems to me a good, serious person—intelligent, well educated, refined—a woman I could fall in love with were I not a cardinal. If we…if we weren’t who we are.”
“I’m surprised at your candor.”
“Oh, please, Umberto, you know as well as I do that celibacy is a hard, hard option—as hard as it is necessary. I have kept my vow, God knows I have, but that doesn’t mean that if I see an intelligent, beautiful woman I don’t appreciate her. I’d be a hypocrite if I denied it. We have eyes, we can see, and just as we admire a statue by Bernini, or are moved by the marbles of Phidias, or tremble at the hardness of the granite of an Etruscan tomb, we recognize the value of the people around us. Let’s not offend each other’s intelligence by pretending we don’t see the beauty and worth of Dottoréssa Galloni. I hope you’ll do something to make it up to her.”
“Yes, I’m going to call her and ask her to lunch. I can’t do any more than that.”
“No. We can’t do any more than that.”
“Wow! You look terrific! Been to a party?” Ana Jiménez was just entering the hotel as Sofia got out of the car.
“Been to a nightmare. What about you? How are things going?”
“All right, I guess. This is harder than I thought, but I’m not giving up.”
“Good for you.”
“Had dinner yet?”
“No, but I’m going to call Marco’s room; if he hasn’t eaten yet I’ll see if he wants to come down to the dining room.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“I don’t. Don’t know about Marco—hold on a minute and I’ll let you know.”
Sofia came back from the front desk holding a message.
“He’s gone out to dinner with Giuseppe. They’re at the Turin carabinieri comandante’s house.”
“So let’s you and I eat. It’s on me.”
“No, I’ll treat.”
They ordered dinner and a bottle of Barolo and measured each other.
“Sofia, there’s one episode in the history of the shroud that seems very confused.”
“Just one? I’d say they all are. Its appearance in Edessa, its disappearance in Constantinople….”
“I read that in Edessa there was a very well established and influential Christian community, and it was so fierce that the emir of Edessa battled the Byzantine army rather than be forced to turn over the shroud.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Sofia confirmed. “In 944 the Byzantines stole the shroud in a battle with the Muslims, who at that time ruled Edessa. The emperor of Byzantium, Romanus Lecapenus, wanted the Mandylion, which is what the Greeks called it, because he thought if he had it he’d have God’s protection and be invincible. He sent an army under his best general and offered a deal to the emir of Edessa: If the emir turned over the shroud, the army would withdraw without doing the city any harm, he would pay generously for the Mandylion, and he would free two hundred Muslim captives.
“But the Christian community in Edessa refused to turn over the Mandylion to the emir, and since the emir, even though he was a Muslim, feared that the shroud had magical powers, he decided to fight. The Byzantines won, and the Mandylion was taken to Byzantium in August of the year 944. The Byzantine liturgy celebrates the day. The Vatican archives contain the text of Pope Gregory’s homily on August 16 when he received the cloth.
“The emperor sent it for safekeeping to the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae in Constantinople, where every Friday it was worshipped by the faithful,” she continued. “From there it disappeared and it wasn’t seen again until it appeared in France in the fourteenth century.”
“And that’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Did the Templars take it?” Ana asked. “Some authors say that it was the Knights Templar that stole the shroud from the Byzantines.”
“It’s hard to say. The Templars are blamed for everything—they’re pictured as these supermen who could do anything. They may have taken the Mandylion, or they may not have. The Crusaders sowed death and destruction—and confusion—wherever they went. Or it may be that Balduino de Courtenay, who became emperor of Constantinople, pawned it, and after that it was lost.”
“He could pawn the shroud?”
“It’s one of many theories. He didn’t have enough money to maintain his empire, so he went begging to the kings and princes of Europe and wound up selling off all sorts of religious relics brought back by the Crusaders from the Holy Land—in fact, his uncle Louis the Ninth of France bought a number of them. It’s also possible that the Templars, the most powerful bankers of the time, who also were constantly trying to recover sacred relics, paid Balduino for the shroud. But there’s no document to support that.”
“Well, I think the Templars took it.” Ana’s eyes were defiant.
“Why?” Sofia didn’t understand this leap of reasoning, which turned out not to be reasoning at all.
“I don’t know, just hints in what I’ve read. You yourself pointed to that possibility. They took it to France, where it finally reappeared.”
The two women continued talking for quite a while, Ana speculating about the Templars, Sofia reeling off facts.
Marco and Giuseppe bumped into them on the way to the elevators.
“What are you doing here?” asked Giuseppe in surprise.
“We had dinner together and had a great time, right, Ana?”
Marco greeted the reporter warmly but he asked only Sofia and Giuseppe to have one last drink with him in the hotel bar.
“What happened, what are you doing home so early?” he asked when they sat down.
“Oh, Bonomi pissed me off. He fell all over me and made us both look like fools. I felt really uncomfortable, and when the opera was over I came back here. I mean, honestly, Marco, I don’t want to be where I don’t belong—I was totally out of place there, and it was embarrassing.”
“What about D’Alaqua?”
“He was a total gentleman, and surprisingly enough, Cardinal Visier was too. Let’s leave them alone, shall we?”
“We’ll see. I don’t intend to close off any line of this investigation, no matter how far-fetched it may seem. This time I’m running down every possibility.”
Sofia knew he meant what he said.
Sitting on the side of the bed—the rest was covered with paper, notes, and books—Ana Jiménez turned over in her mind the conversation she’d had with Sofia.
What, she wondered, had Romanus Lecapenus, the emperor who stole the shroud from Edessa, been like? She pictured him as cruel, superstitious, power-mad.
Really, the history of the shroud had not been a happy one: wars, fires, thefts…and all for the thrill of possession and out of the conviction, rooted deep in the heart of men, that there are objects that are magical.
She was not Catholic, at least not a practicing Catholic. She’d been baptized like almost everyone else in Spain, but she couldn’t remember ever having been back to Mass since her first communion.
She pushed the papers aside. She was sleepy, and as always before going to sleep, she picked up a book by Cavafy and looked absentmindedly for one of her favorite poems:
Voices, loved and idealized,
of those who have died, or of those
lost for us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in dreams;
sometimes deep in thought the mind hears them.
And with their sound for a moment return
sounds from our life’s first poetry—
like music at night, distant, fading away.
She fell asleep thinking about the battle fought by the Byzantine army against the emir of Edessa. She heard the voices of the soldiers, the crackling of the burning wood, the crying of children who held tight to their mothers’ hands as they frantically sought refuge. She saw a venerable old man surrounded by other old men, and a throng of the devout, on their knees, praying for a miracle that didn’t happen.
Then the old man approached a small, simple wooden casket, took out a carefully folded piece of cloth, and gave it to a massive Muslim soldier who could hardly contain his emotion at taking these people’s most venerated treasure.
The general leading the Byzantine army received the Mandylion from an Edessan nobleman and, victorious, rode swiftly off toward Constantinople.
Smoke obscured the walls of the city’s houses, and the Byzantine soldiers who were swarming through the streets looting the city carried off their booty in large mule-drawn wagons.
Later, in the stone church that still, somehow, remained standing, beside the cross, surrounded by priests and the most faithful of the Christians, the bishop of Edessa swore—and they swore with him—that the Mandylion would one day be recovered, though it cost them their lives to do it.
Ana moaned in her sleep. She sat up with tears streaming down her face, racked with anguish.
She went to
the minibar for water and opened the window to let in some cool air.
Cavafy’s poem seemed to have come true, and the voices of the dead had stormed her sleep. So real had the dream been that she felt that what she had seen and heard as she slept had actually happened. She was sure that the events had unfolded just that way.
After a shower she felt better. She wasn’t hungry, so she stayed awhile in her room looking through the books she’d bought for information on Balduino de Courtenay, the emperor gone begging. There was little to be found, so she went online, even though she didn’t always trust what she discovered on the Internet. She was looking for information on the Templars, too, and to her surprise she came across a page supposedly posted by the Order of Knights Templar itself—an order that no longer existed. It was well known that it had been eradicated by the king of France in the fourteenth century. She called the head of IT at her newspaper and explained what she needed.
A half hour later the IT man called her back. The Web site server was in London—and the site was perfectly registered, perfectly legitimate.
c. A.D. 1250
My lord, a messenger has just arrived from your uncle.”
The emperor of Byzantium stirred at the sound of his servant’s voice and then sat up slowly, blinking sleepily. As he came fully awake and realized Louis’s long-awaited response was at last at hand, Balduino leapt out of bed and ordered his manservant to send the messenger in.
“You should dress, my lord,” murmured Balduino’s chief adviser, who had also entered the chamber. “You are the emperor, and the envoy is a nobleman from the court of France.”
“Pascal, if you did not remind me, I would happily forget that I am emperor. Help me, then. Is there an ermine cape I’ve not yet sold or pawned?”