‘Until a few years ago, Aehrenthal was interested only in his Novo Ordi Templi and the various neo-Nazi groups he belonged to or was in contact with. He had ambitions to find the sacred relics from an early stage; that’s why he became a biblical antiquarian in the first place. Every time a relic was mentioned on the grapevine, he would hare off after it. He has a collection of fakes in his castle up there.
‘Then he got wind of your grandfather and his discoveries. Almásy gave him that. Almásy had met several of your grandfather’s crew while they stayed in Cairo after the discovery. If it hadn’t been for the war and their being sent off on further raids it’s highly likely one or another of them would have done some sort of deal with Almásy to relocate Wardabaha. They might well have gone out there with him, and he might have made his name by bringing out the…the relics your grandfather chose to leave behind. Then the war ended, Almásy died, several of the original LRDG patrol died as well, and it was all forgotten.
‘I think Wardabaha remained a distant dream for Aehrenthal for many years. Then two things came together. He found out where your grandfather lived. And he read about cellular cloning. Or perhaps it happened the other way round. I don’t think the link occurred to him for a long time.’
‘I don’t understand. Cellular cloning? Like sheep?’
Iustin rubbed his hands together. He too wanted bed, but he knew he would not sleep tonight.
‘He wants to find the bones of our Lord. He hopes there will be tissue on them. He will extract the DNA. He will grow his own Christ, he will create a baby that will grow into the Christ child, and the child will grow to be a man, and the man will be Aehrenthal’s creation. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. He will be a Christ who hates Jews, who despises blacks, who preaches Aryan supremacy. And his first act will be to announce a second holocaust.
‘Long before that his followers will have started to gather at his feet. Aehrenthal will summon them, and they will summon others. Aehrenthal has the relics. There’s no point in our looking for them in Romania: he’ll take them with him to Libya, to rejoin them with the tombs. Soon he will have the bones of the entire family of Christ, the bones of some of his early followers, the bones of their children, and whatever is left of their possessions.
‘There will be a new Reich, and Egon Aehrenthal will be its Führer.’
He put the poker back in its place. The burning embers had turned to ashes. Here and there lumps of blackened wood lay twisted and misshapen.
‘It’s time we went to bed,’ Iustin said. ‘We both have a lot to do tomorrow.’
22
The Road to Nowhere
They left the following morning long before dawn. Ethan drove in the darkness while the others slept. He’d been given a map, together with an address and instructions. The address was in his head, but he had to stop from time to time to consult the map by torchlight. Driving on again, he peered into a tunnel formed by the car’s headlights, as though it carved its way through stone. Sometimes rain fell, sometimes balls of ice, sometimes snow.
They headed east for a short space, then turned south on a road that passed through Radauti. A little further brought them to the main road between Siret and Suceava. As they reached the outskirts of Suceava, the first light of dawn penetrated the darkness, and by the time they got there they could see the great bell tower of St Demetrius form itself like a ghost to see them past. Ethan pressed on for Falticeni.
Ilona had started to come round.
‘God, it’s cold. Where are we?’
‘We’ve passed Suceava and are on our way to a place called Falticeni.’
‘Falti-cheni.’ She pronounced it for him. ‘Where’s Father Iustin?’
Ethan changed down a gear to get traction on a slippery slope. The lights of other cars were passing them now.
‘He decided to stay behind. I’ve got the name of someone in another monastery, outside a town called… I really can’t pronounce this one! Pi-at-ra Neemt?’
‘Not bad. Piatra Neamt.’ She repeated the place-name slowly. ‘Do we have time to stop in Falticeni?’
‘We have to leave this good road after that. Maybe a short break.’
‘Falticeni’s not much of a place, but many writers and artists have lived there. There’s a museum full of works by Ion Irimescu.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘You English know nothing. Irimescu was a great sculptor. He lived to one hundred and two. We’re very proud of him in Romania.’
Ilona wakened Sarah as Ethan found a parking space off the main road. They had come a long way from Sancraiu, but Ethan knew that Aehrenthal’s order had eyes and ears across the country. They would have to watch every step of the way until they reached their destination.
Back in Putna, the toaca had begun to sound. In the ‘bell tower’, a young monk prepared to summon his fellows to the divine service. A long wooden board, the toaca hung from the rafters, facing the monk. He held two metal mallets in his hands, and slowly began to strike the board with them. What started as staggered bangs slowly acquired rhythm and form and speed. The simple strokes gave way to a stunning complexity of instrumentation as the monk’s hands spun and danced, bringing the dead wood to life, sending out a pattern of blows and counterblows through the freezing air. He never missed a beat, never lost control of the rhythm.
Throughout the monastery grounds, monks and nuns turned from their breakfasts or their morning tasks and started towards the church to pray. The music of the toaca rose in the cold air, loud and persuasive, driving away sleep, quickening hearts and minds, blow falling upon blow in fast succession, like rivets driven into the steel heart of winter.
Marku Dobrogan stumbled into the open air, his eyes watering as they came into contact with the cold, his nose seizing up, his throat burning as if sprinkled with spices. Every morning he struggled against the temptation to turn round and head back into the dining hall for a few minutes more warmth. But he knew that if one of the older monks caught him showing such weakness, he’d be put to stand in the open for the rest of the day and sent off to attend divine service all night without supper. He’d known it would be a hard life in the monastery when he’d entered the novitiate, and with only a month left before he took holy orders, he hated to think that he might stumble towards the end.
His job every morning at this time was to refill the lights in the church, following the night’s devotions. He had a can of olive oil and a bag of candles. The lights inside were never allowed to dim.
Little light entered the church from outside. Some fell through the lantern tower, but there were no high windows, no stained-glass panels to bring light and colour into the building. That was achieved by candles and oil lamps. Huge banks of thick commemorative candles studded the nave and clustered around the pillars. There was an aura of piety so thick and complete that it filled the young monk’s lungs like a soothing smoke. Incense turned piety to fragrance, the scents of spikenard and hyssop, opoponax and sandalwood, onycha and myrrh. The church was wreathed in it still, the high roof and its saints lay hidden behind a thin, twisting veil.
Marku moved diligently here and there, following his morning routine, running prayers through his head to keep out the troubling thoughts that constantly threatened to intrude. As he filled one of the larger lamps about halfway down the nave, his eye caught sight of something. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but he knew it was out of place. Someone had left a large object in front of the iconostasis, something black that blocked the gold of the icons.