The favoured one.
But I see nothing that will stop me usurping her.
Nothing that will prevent me from taking my rightful place in line.
The Korybantes dance their way to the front, naked but for their shields, swords and helmets.
The sound of metal on metal makes a sinister percussion.
The steel is there to slice.
To cut.
To kill.
There is an orgiastic surge in the music.
The Galli begin their chanting.
We gather closer and bond tightly with our sisters from Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor, Etruria and Anatolia.
The nine Korybantes are joined with the three magical Dactyls.
We are all one.
The music, drumming and chanting reaches its climax.
The goddess is here!
Our Mother has arrived.
She holds aloft the hands that eight thousand years ago dug into the earth of Çatal Hüyük, the hands that spread the soil of time while She gave birth flanked by leopards.
We all scream.
Scream so loud our spirits almost fly from our throats.
Somewhere down in the blackness, the special one gathers the fine clothes we have sewn for her and dresses herself.
She moves to the centre of the pit.
The limbs of eunuchs strain on thick ropes and the rafters creak.
Above us, a bull that has trod pastures for six summers bucks in its harness.
Then it thrashes no more.
The blades open up its sacred rivers of blood and they pour down on the libation boards across the pit.
My sister showers in the animal’s life force.
She dances joyously as the blood from the Bull of Heaven purifies her.
Now she is born again — for eternity.
Unless I can stop her.
23
Father Giordano is covering for a friend and working a double shift.
That said, he’s doing it at a place where priests don’t mind putting in unspecified amounts of unpaid overtime.
St Peter’s.
Or, to give the greatest building of its age its full name, the Basilica Papale di San Pietro Vaticano.
Tom has scurried across the city to be there for Alfie’s final appearance of the day, and already all the effort is worthwhile.
The basilica is breathtaking.
Tom can’t think of any other way to describe it. The beauty of the vast seventeenth-century façade built of pale travertine stone, with its giant Corinthian columns, makes him dizzy.
Then there’s the inside.
The spectacularly arched entrance with its heavenly stained glass just about holds Tom’s eyes before they fix on Michelangelo’s central dome, still the tallest in the world at more than a hundred and thirty-six metres. Then there’s the basilica’s wonderful nave, narthex, portals and bays to feast on, before his favourite visual treat, the main altar, with Bernini’s astonishing bronze baldacchino, a pavilion-like structure that stands almost a hundred feet high and looks even taller.
St Peter’s is visual gluttony. No sense is left unstuffed. No emotion left sober.
Mass is said at altars great and small throughout the cavernous building, so Tom has to search a while before he finds his friend in the relatively modest Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
Modest is the wrong word.
The gilded bronze Bernini tabernacle alone is worth more than the entire church that Tom last officiated in.
He kneels with the rest of the congregation and can’t help but feel proud of his tall ginger-haired friend as he works his way gracefully and passionately through the service.
For Tom, the Mass is over all too quickly.
He settles back in a pew and enjoys the peace while he waits for Alfie to change and reappear. Few places in the world have the intense silence of a church, and he still finds it the most effective place to examine his own thoughts.
And right now there are lots of them.
Was it smart to rush into a relationship with Valentina?
What does she expect from it?
Where does he hope it will go?
How is it most likely to end?
So many thoughts. All backed up and jostling for attention like closing-time drinkers in a city-centre bar.
Looking back, he can see that they grew close after the death of her cousin Antonio. But maybe there was always a spark between them. Some genetic trigger that attracts people and compels them to be together was pulled.
But he thinks there’s more than that.
More than just the physical.
He admires her strength and ambition, respects her individuality and her determination to make a go of things on her own. He loves her sense of humour and her desire to do good.
Yes, Tom concludes, it was smart to throw himself into a relationship with her. Chances of happiness don’t exactly queue up outside your door and knock noisily for an appointment. Especially if you’re an ex-priest with no job, no home and no savings.
He looks up from the old dark wood of the pews and sees Alfie, his face beaming as brightly as the winter sunshine filtering through Michelangelo’s dome. The service is over.
‘Well, if it isn’t the planet’s most troublesome ex-priest.’ He opens his arms.
Tom embraces him warmly and puts a hand gently to his face. ‘You looked magnificent up there, my friend. I’m so proud of you. How did you end up saying Mass in here?’
Alfie puts an arm around Tom and guides him towards the door. ‘A long story, best told over hot coffee and Italy’s finest pastries.’
‘Sounds heavenly.’
‘Sufficient to say it was God’s will. That and the fact that innumerable first choices went down with a severe dose of the shits after a very poor communal meal.’
24
The hospital cafeteria is sickeningly warm and smells queasily of hot fat and bleach.
Over barely warm coffee and day-old croissants, Valentina and Federico try to make sense of what’s just happened.
Not that there’s much to make sense of.
The woman prisoner is bark-at-the-moon mad. And from the quick check Federico does with HQ, there’s still no sign of a victim.
When the dregs of a poor espresso have been drained, Lieutenant Assante heads off with instructions to write up his notes, mail them to Valentina and not mention the case to anyone else until she tells him to. He resents the tightness of her leash, but with any luck he’ll be off it and back with his wife and family by lunchtime.
Valentina’s about to call Tom when she’s struck by an urge to return to the ward. If nothing else, she’d like to learn more from Louisa Verdetti about the patient’s latest outburst, providing of course the director hasn’t already left.
She has.
Her office is empty. Lights out. Blinds down. Door locked.
It looks like most of the nursing staff have gone too. No doubt the skeleton Sunday crew has been stretched to invisibility doing routine jobs.
Valentina takes advantage of the slack supervision. She flashes her ID at the guard in the corridor and within a minute is once again face to face with Suzanna.