an almond tree nearby, even now, in winter. Someone was growing a small pot of basil. And there was a sweet odor, ever so faint: the bodies of dead saints. Anthropologists called it second burial, this practice of disinterring their dead after several years and adding the bones and skulls of monks to the monastery's collection. The enamel house was jokingly called the University. The dead go on teaching through their memory, so went the tradition. And what will you teach them, Thomas? de l'Orme wondered. Grace? Forgiveness? Or a warning against the darkness? Evening vespers was beginning. Remarkably, a caged parakeet had been allowed into the courtyard. Its song matched the monks' Kyrie eleison, the notes of a tiny angel.
At moments like this, de l'Orme longed to return to the cloth, or at least to the
hermit's cell. If you let it be just as it was, the world was a surfeit of riches. Hold still, and the entire universe was your lover. But it was too late for that.
Santos arrived in a Jeep that rattled on the corrugated dirt. He disturbed a herd of goats, you could hear the bells and scurry of hooves. De l'Orme listened. Santos was alone. His stride was powerful and wide.
The parakeet stopped. The Kyrie eleisons did not. De l'Orme let him find his own way.
After a few minutes, Santos put his head inside de l'Orme's chamber. 'There you are,' he said.
'Come in,' said de l'Orme. 'I didn't know if you'd make it before nightfall.'
'Here I am,' said Santos. 'And look, you have our supper. I brought nothing.'
'Sit, you must be tired.'
'It was a long trip,' Santos admitted.
'You've been busy.'
'I came as quickly as I could. Is he buried, then?'
'Today. In the cemetery.'
'It was good?'
'They treated him as one of their own. He would have been pleased.'
'I didn't like him much. But you loved him, I know. Are you all right?'
'Certainly,' said de l'Orme. He made himself rise and opened his arms and gave Santos an embrace. The smell of the younger man's sweat and the barren Mosaic desert was good. Santos had the sun trapped in his pores, it seemed.
'He led a full life,' Santos sympathized.
'Who knows what more he might have discovered?' said de l'Orme. He gave the broad back a tap and they parted the embrace. De l'Orme sat carefully on his three-legged wooden stool. Santos lowered his satchel to the floor and took the stool de l'Orme had arranged on the far side of the table.
'And now? Where do we go from here? What do we do?'
'Let's eat,' said de l'Orme. 'We can discuss tomorrow over our meal.'
'Olives. Goat cheese. An orange. Bread. A jug of wine,' Santos said. 'All the makings for a Last Supper.'
'If you wish to mock Christ, that's your business. But don't mock your food,' de l'Orme said. 'You don't need to eat if you're not hungry.'
'Just a little joke. I'm famished.'
'There should be a candle, too,' said de l'Orme. 'It must be dark. But I had no matches.'
'It's still twilight,' said Santos. 'There's light enough. I prefer the atmosphere.'
'Then pour the wine.'
'What could have brought him here, I wonder,' said Santos. 'You told me Thomas had finished with the search.'
'It's clear now, Thomas was never going to be finished with the search.'
'Was there something here he was looking for?' De l'Orme could hear Santos's puzzlement. He was really asking why de l'Orme had instructed him to come all this way.
'I thought at first he had come for the Codex Sinaiticus,' de l'Orme answered. Santos would know that the Codex was one of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament. It totaled three thousand volumes, only a few of which still remained in this library.
'But now I think otherwise.'
'Yes?'
'I believe Satan lured him here,' de l'Orme answered.
'Lured him? How?'
'Perhaps with his presence. Or a message. I don't know.'
'He has a sense of theater, then,' Santos remarked between bites of food. 'The
mountain of God.'
'So it appears.'
'You're not hungry?'
'I have no appetite tonight.'
The monks were hard at work in the church. Their deep chant reverberated through the stone. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy. Domine Deus.
'Are you crying for Thomas?' Santos suddenly asked.
De l'Orme made no move to wipe away the tears flowing down his cheeks. 'No,' he said. 'For you.'
'Me? But why? I'm here with you now.'
'Yes.'
Santos grew quieter. 'You're not happy with me.'
'It's not that.'
'Then what? Tell me.'
'You are dying,' said de l'Orme.
'But you're mistaken.' Santos laughed with relief. 'I'm perfectly well.'
'No,' said de l'Orme. 'I poisoned your wine.'
'What a terrible joke.'
'No joke.'
Just then Santos clutched his stomach. He stood, and his wooden stool cracked on the slabs. 'What have you done?' he gasped.
There was no drama to it. He did not fall to the floor. Gently he knelt on the stone and laid himself down. 'Is it true?' he asked.
'Yes,' said de l'Orme. 'Ever since Bordubur I've suspected you of mischief.'
'What?'
'It was you who defaced the carving. And who killed that poor guard.'
'No.' Santos's protest was little more than a respiration.
'No? Who, then? Me? Thomas? There was no one else. But you.'
Santos groaned. His beloved white shirt would be soiled from the floor, de l'Orme imagined.
'It is you who have set about dismantling your image among man,' he continued. The respiration threaded up from the floor.
'I can't explain how you were able to choose me so long ago,' said de l'Orme. 'All I
know is that I was your pathway to Thomas. I led you to him.'
Santos rallied, for the space of one breath. '...all wrong,' he whispered.
'What's your name?' asked de l'Orme. But it was too late.
Santos, or Satan, was no more.
He had meant to keep his vigil over the body all night. Santos weighed too much for him to lift onto the cot, and so when the air grew cold and he could not stay awake any longer, de l'Orme wrapped the blanket around himself and lay on the floor beside the corpse. In the morning he would explain his murder to the monks. Beyond that, he didn't care.
And so he fell asleep, shoulder to shoulder with his victim. The incision across his abdomen woke him.
The pain was so sudden and extreme, he registered it as a bad dream, nothing to panic
