“The SIV. I know. I saw the emblem on your shirt.” Leviticus gestured to the seat in front of his desk as an invitation for the Jesuit to sit. “How can I help you?”
“You can help us,” he said, “by servicing the needs of the Church.”
“You knew my place within the Church?”
“I do. It is within the scope of our knowledge under the exclusive sponsorship of the pope to know so.” Then with cool evenness and little hesitation, he said, “You were a Vatican Knight.”
Leviticus fell back into his seat. “Again: How can I help you?”
The Jesuit’s smile never left him. “Of course you know the result of the conclave.”
He nodded. “The good Cardinal Vessucci has taken the papal throne. A good man in a deserving position.”
“And in turn the pontiff has requested your assistance,” he returned. Father Domicelli then raised the aluminum suitcase for show and pointed to the desktop. “May I?”
Leviticus swept the papers aside. “Yes, of course.”
The Jesuit laid the suitcase on the desktop, undid the clasps, and lifted the lid. Inside were crisp, clean clerical shirts and clerical collars as pristine as snow, the shirts neatly folded. Beneath them were military-style pants with cargo pockets and freshly glossed military boots. On the shirt pocket was the logo of the Vatican Knights, a blue and gray shield with a Pattée cross as its center point and two Heraldic lions standing on their hind legs holding the shield stable with their forepaws. Upon seeing this Leviticus worked his lip into a minor tic, a micro-expression of pride over the embroidery that meant so much.
In slow reaction he reached for one of the shirts and held it within his hands as if the fabric was as fragile as threadbare silk. And with either caution or homage or perhaps even both, he brushed his fingertips over the embroidered shield. “I remember,” he simply said.
“The shirt is set to specifics,” he told him. “Pope Pius the Fourteenth has decided to reinstate the Vatican Knights, and he needs your efforts, should you accept his proposal, to serve the Church once again.”
Leviticus never took his eyes off the shirt. “I still have my old uniforms,” he said in a dreamy, almost distant tone. “I have all of them.”
“Would you be interested in reprising the role as second lieutenant of the Vatican Knights?”
He looked at the priest and nodded. “It would be my absolute honor.”
Father Domicelli extended his hand. “Welcome back, Leviticus.”
The Mexican desert was dry and arid at the site of the mission where Isaiah had been adopted from by Cardinal Vessucci all those years ago and then taken to Vatican City. The structural body of the orphanage hardly changed — although the cracks were wider, longer, and the surrounding adobe walls bleached lighter than what he recalled. The rooms, the hallways, the lighted core of its essence remained the same, however. Even after all these years.
Though his moniker was Isaiah, his given name was Christian Placentia, a child orphaned at an early age who wound up half dead at the missionary doors. Summarily taken in and nourished by a kindly nun, Christian soon caught the eye of the missionary priest who noted the child’s exemplary physical skills, high intelligence and good character. Word soon reached across the ocean to the ear of a cardinal in Vatican City — a world away — who saw in Christian the potentials required of a Vatican Knight. For years the young man trained diligently, if not fanatically, learning the skills of an elite fighter, as well as the philosophies regarding the differences between right and wrong, and how to employ ‘just’ reasoning to awkward states of affairs. Philosophies, teachings and classical readings were a must. Martial arts became a discipline of self-defense not only to protect himself, but for those who could not protect themselves. Not only did the Church turn children like him into men with a particular set of combat skills, but also compounded their development by fashioning unfaltering character by embedding the mantra Loyalty above all else, except Honor, as a code of unwavering principle.
It was a credo he lived by as a Vatican Knight. It was also a credo he lived by as a missionary who now served the orphanage he had grown up in.
Dressed in a cleric’s shirt and Roman Catholic collar, wearing faded dungarees and work boots, Christian worked the garden tilling the soil with a hoe, the muscles of his arms becoming ropy and sinewy with every strike that drove the implement’s blade into the ground.
After mopping his brow with his forearm and leaving a greasy smudge, he rested against the hoe’s handle for a brief moment.
“Christian Placentia?”
The former Knight turned toward the voice. Beneath the bullet-shaped entryway leading into the garden stood two priests, one a near facsimile of the other in appearance with the exception that one was slightly taller. While one stood idle with his hands crossed before him, the other remained just as idle with an aluminum suitcase in his grasp.
“Yes.”
“May we have a word with you?”
Isaiah nodded and gestured them forward with a beckoning of a dirty hand. “Please,” he said, “come in. The garden is for all to share.”
They pressed forward and took a seat upon a decorative bench bearing the faces of smiling cherubs. On their pockets of their robes were the emblems of the SIV.
“You’re from the Vatican,” Christian stated rhetorically.
The man with the suitcase nodded. “We are.”
“What can I do you for?”
“As you know a new pontiff was elected.”
“The venerable Cardinal Vessucci — a good man.”
“That’s correct. And since we are SIV, we come under the rule of the pope regarding undisclosed matters that must remain unknown to the clerical population of the Vatican.”
Christian waited.
“We know that you were a Vatican Knight,” the Jesuit finally said.
“And you came all the way from the Vatican to tell me this?”
The priest with the suitcase laid it against the ground, undid the claps, and opened the lid. Inside was a pristine uniform of a Vatican Knight. “The pope has requested, should you approve and accept, that you return to the Vatican as a Knight. The unit is being reinstated.”
At first Christian appeared unemotional until the Jesuits saw that the Knight’s eyes insisted otherwise. They were bright and dazzling and filled with undeniable joy.
“Pope Pius the Fourteenth has respectfully requested that you rejoin as a Second Lieutenant — the same position you held six months ago before the unit was disbanded by Pope Gregory. Others are returning to the Vatican as we speak.”
Christian got on a bended knee and lifted the shirt from the case, noted the emblem on the pocket, and drew it close.
“Do you accept the pontiff’s invitation to reunite?”
He looked at them, his eyes saying it all. “Of course,” he said. “Yes.”
The priest then nudged the aluminum case closer to Christian with his foot. “Welcome aboard, Isaiah,” he said, placing an emphasis on his moniker. “The pontiff will be pleased by your decision.”
“When am I to return?’
“After you conduct your first mission,” he quickly answered.
“And that would be?”
“To Las Vegas,” the Jesuit answered, standing.
The other Jesuit followed his partner’s lead and took to his feet as well.