Fournier kneels, his face livid. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
“So Eckhart is dead. Died on the rack, I suppose.” Fournier does not correct the supposition; does not admit that he has broken one of the Inquisitor’s fundamental rules: Shed no blood. Instead, he makes a show of rising from his knees. The old man shakes a clawlike hand, dismissing his own question. “No matter. But we must not allow our foes to use his death against us.”
Fournier nods. “Your Holiness is wise, as always. I will see to it.” Bowing once more, he turns to leave the audience chamber, the hem of his white cassock gliding an inch above the gritty floor, remaining — as ever — unsullied.
“Jacques?”
He stops, looks over his shoulder. “Yes, Holiness?”
“Did Eckhart die in a state of grace?”
“Yes, Holy Father. At the end — the very end — he confessed his sins, renounced his erroneous teachings, and prayed for forgiveness. It was inspiring to see him saved.” The papal head nods, or perhaps it simply dodders. Either way, Fournier chooses to interpret the gesture as a benediction, and he leaves before the pontiff can call him back.
Descending the narrow staircase to the cells where prisoners are chained, the cardinal replays the scene once more in his mind. Only a few hours have passed, but already he has seen the scene a hundred times, exactly as he sees it again now:
Eckhart is no longer fit for the rack — his arms and legs too badly damaged by months of torture. Despite obvious agony, the man has refused to yield; has remained stubbornly, damnably unrepentant. “Perhaps my thoughts are mistaken,” he groans, “but my heart is pure. My heart loves God completely. I cannot be a heretic.”
“Are you so perfect?” Fournier demands. “Unblemished? The very lamb of God? So be it.” He sends the jailer to summon a carpenter, and he orders the startled carpenter to fashion a wooden cross in the cell, and to fetch rope, spikes, and a hammer. The carpenter complies, quaking in fear, then flees. Reluctantly, the jailer ties the heretic to the cross and helps wrestle it upright, leaning against the wall, but then he, too, retreats from the cell.
Eckhart’s breathing is scarcely more than a whisper now, scarcely enough to keep him alive. Minute by minute, as he hangs from his arms and his chest sinks, he is inexorably suffocating. “I can still save you,” Fournier tells him, pressing the tip of a spike against the soft flesh of Eckhart’s left wrist. “Confess your sins, renounce your heresies, and beg forgiveness.”
“I have no sins,” Eckhart gasps. “I have no heresies. I am at one with God.”
The iron spike rings as the hammer smashes into it — once, twice, three times.
The three-part sequence — demand, refusal, the ring of hammer upon spike — is repeated at the other wrist, and then at the feet.
Incredibly, Eckhart continues to breathe, if a rasping death rattle can be called breath.
“You have only a moment left,” Fournier tells him. “Repent, and reconcile with God.”
“How can we be reconciled?” the old man murmurs, sparking a flame of hope in Fournier. “How can we be reconciled, when we are already one? God and I are one.”
“Arrogant liar.” Reaching into a sleeve of his robe, Fournier takes out a dagger. “Die and be damned.” He thrusts the blade beneath the ribs of the man who, just a year earlier — just before he walked five hundred miles to defend himself at the court of the Holy Father — had been Europe’s most prominent preacher.
CHAPTER 18
Stefan was leaning against the wall at the southwest corner of the palace, waiting beside the door where he’d made his midnight exit a few nights before. As we approached, he dropped a cigarette to the cobblestones and ground it out, then took the lanyard from around his neck and unlocked the door. The key to the palace fascinated me: It was made of silver, or perhaps steel; its head was cut with an elaborate pattern of filigreed scrollwork; branching symmetrically from two sides of the cylindrical shaft were stubby bars of varying lengths — bars that resembled ribs jutting from a spine. Never had the term “skeleton key” seemed so descriptive.
“So. You wish to see frescoes by Giovanetti?”
“Please,” I said. “Giotto has an alibi, so Giovanetti’s our new prime suspect.”
Stefan rolled his eyes. “Now you think Giovanetti made the snuff movie?” Miranda had filled him in on the trip to Turin, the short-lived Giotto theory, and my conviction that the bones of Avignon were linked to the Shroud of Turin. Was there a hint of scorn in Stefan’s voice when he asked about Giovanetti?
“He’s worth a look,” I said, trying to keep my irritation under control. “Giotto never left Italy. The bones were in France — and the Shroud first surfaced in France. So geographically, at least, Giovanetti fits the facts.” Stefan looked annoyed but took us inside.
He led us through a labyrinth of passages and stairways I’d not seen before — how long had it taken him to learn his way around the sprawling, soaring maze of the palace? — and stopped before a locked door near the top of one of the towers. This door, too, answered to the master key, and Stefan ushered us into a room that took my breath away. Every square inch of the plastered walls and ceiling vaults was covered with vivid images: people and landscapes and buildings, scene upon scene, all set against a background of deep blue.
“Oh, my,” breathed Miranda.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“Oui, not bad. This is the chapel of Saint Martial. In the third century, the pope sent him to France. They say he converted many people and made many miracles.” He pointed to specific panels, one by one. “Healing the sick. Raising the dead. Casting out devils.” The last of the ceiling panels showed an old man kneeling before a handsome, haloed saint; flapping overhead, on batlike wings, was a scaly brown demon that two angels were shooing away. “One legend,” Stefan went on, “is that Saint Valérie of Limoges — a martyr, beheaded for her faith — walked to Saint Martial carrying her head in her hands, so he could perform the last rites for her.”
Miranda scanned the walls and ceiling. “I don’t see a headless woman on the hoof. I guess she’s offscreen, digging her own grave.”
“You’re twisted,” I said. “You know that?” She nodded happily.
My eye was drawn to an area where the fresco was badly damaged. The bright, vivid images were absent altogether or were reduced to faint outlines. Looking closer, I saw that a layer of plaster a half inch or so thick was missing in these areas. “What caused all the damage? Water?”
“Non. Soldiers. During the nineteenth century, the palace was used as a military barracks. The soldiers chiseled out the faces and sold them.”
I scanned the frescoes, and sure enough, virtually all the missing images were faces. One panel showed Jesus flanked by four followers. The four followers’ faces were gone, but Jesus remained unscathed. Pious vandals, I wondered, or just superstitious?
I walked closer to inspect the damaged figures. Faintly traced on the base coat of plaster — the layer exposed when the surface had been pried off — was the black outline of a woman’s face: a face that fit perfectly with the undamaged body. I turned to Stefan. “Why is the outline of her face still visible? Did that bleed through the layer of wet plaster?”