about to enter.
'It is done, Sire,' von Lomello declared.
The count was an irritating man who ensured that the royal palatinate remained properly maintained in the emperor's absence. Which, in Otto's case, seemed most of the time. As emperor he had never cared for the German forests, or for Aachen's hot springs, frigid winters, and total lack of civility. He preferred the warmth and culture of Rome.
Workers carried off the last of the shattered floor stones.
They hadn't known exactly where to excavate. The crypt had been sealed long ago with nothing to indicate the precise spot. The idea had been to hide its occupant from the coming Viking invasions, and the ploy worked. When the Normans sacked the chapel in 881, they found nothing. But von Lomello had mounted an exploratory mission before Otto's arrival and had managed to isolate a promising location.
Luckily, the count had been right.
Otto had no time for mistakes.
After all, it was an apocalyptic year, the first of a new millennium when many believed Christ would come in judgment.
Workers busied themselves. Two bishops watched in silence. The tomb they were about to enter had not been opened since January 29, 814, the day on which the Most Serene Augustus Crowned by God the Great Peaceful Emperor, Governing the Roman Empire, King of the Franks and Lombards Through the Mercy of God, died. By then he was already wise beyond mortals, an inspirer of miracles, the protector of Jerusalem, a clairvoyant, a man of iron, a bishop of bishops. One poet proclaimed that no one would be nearer to the apostolic band than he. In life he'd been called Carolus. Magnus first became attached to his name in reference to his great height, but now indicated greatness. His French label, though, was the one used most commonly, a merger of Carolus and Magnus into a name presently uttered with heads bowed and voices low, as if speaking of God.
Charlemagne.
Workers drew back from the black yaw in the floor and von Lomello inspected their labor. A strange odor crept into the vestibule-sweet, musty, sickly. Otto had sniffed tainted meat, spoiled milk, and human waste. This waft was distinct. Like long ago. Air that had stood guard over things men were not meant to see.
A torch was lit and one of the workmen stretched his arm into the hole. When the man nodded a wooden ladder was brought from outside.
Today was the feast of the Pentecost, and earlier the chapel had been filled with worshipers. Otto was on pilgrimage. He'd just come from the tomb of his old friend Adalbert, bishop of Prague, buried at Gnesen, where, as emperor, he'd raised that city to the dignity of an archbishopric. Now he'd come to gaze at the mortal remains of Charlemagne.
'I'll go first,' Otto said to them.
He was a mere twenty years old, a man of commanding height, the son of a German king and a Greek mother. Crowned Holy Roman Emperor at age three, he'd reigned under the guardianship of his mother for the first eight years and his grandmother for three more. The past six he'd ruled alone. His goal was to reestablish a Renovatio Imperii, a Christian Roman Empire, with Teutons, Latins, and Slavs all, as in the time of Charlemagne, under the common rule of emperor and pope. What lay below might help elevate that dream into reality.
He stepped onto the ladder and von Lomello handed him a torch. Eight rungs passed before his eyes until his feet found hard earth. The air was bland and tepid, like that of a cave, the strange odor nearly overpowering, but he told himself that it was nothing more than the scent of power.
The torch revealed a chamber sheathed in marble and mortar, similar in size to the vestibule above. Von Lomello and the two bishops descended the ladder.
Then he saw.
Beneath a canopy, Charlemagne waited upon a marble throne.
The corpse was wrapped in purple and held a scepter in a gloved left hand. The king sat as a living person, one shoulder leaned against the throne, the head raised by a golden chain attached to the diadem. The face was covered by a sheer cloth. Decay was evident, but none of the limbs had fallen away save for the tip of his nose.
Otto dropped to his knees in reverence. The others quickly joined him. He was entranced. He'd never expected such a sight. He'd heard tales but had never paid them much heed. Emperors needed legends.
'It is said that a piece of the cross was laid in the diadem,' von Lomello whispered.
Otto had heard the same. The throne rested atop a slab of carved marble, its three visible sides lively with carved reliefs. Men. Horses. A chariot. A two-headed hell-hound. Women holding baskets of flowers. All Roman. Otto had seen other examples of such magnificence in Italy. He took its presence here, in a Christian tomb, as a sign that what he envisioned for his empire was right.
A shield and sword rested to one side. He knew about the shield. Pope Leo himself had consecrated it the day Charlemagne was crowned emperor two hundred years ago, and upon it was emblazoned the royal seal. Otto had seen the symbol on documents in the imperial library.
Otto rose to his feet.
One of the reasons he'd come was for the scepter and crown, expecting nothing to greet him but bones.
But things had changed.
He noticed bound sheets resting on the emperor's lap. Carefully, he approached the dais and recognized an illuminated parchment, its writing and artwork faded but still legible. He asked, 'Can any of you read Latin?'
One of the bishops nodded and Otto motioned for him to approach. Two fingers of the corpse's gloved left hand pointed to a passage on the page.
The bishop cocked his head and studied. 'It's the Gospel of Mark.'
'Read it.'
'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'
Otto glared at the corpse. The pope had told him the symbols of Carolus Magnus would be ideal tools for reestablishing the splendor of the Holy Roman Empire. Nothing enwrapped power with greater mystique than the past, and he was staring straight at a glorious past. Einhard had described this man as towering, athletic, massive in shoulder, great-chested like a steed, blue-eyed, tawny of hair, ruddy of countenance, abnormally active, incapable of fatigue, having a spirit of energy and mastership that even when in repose, as now, overawed the timid and the quiescent. He finally understood the truth of those words.
The other purpose of his visit flashed through his mind.
He stared around the crypt.
His grandmother, who'd died a few months ago, told him the story that his grandfather, Otto I, told her. Something only emperors knew. Of how Carolus Magnus had ordered certain things be entombed with him. Many knew of the sword, the shield, and the piece of the True Cross. The passage from Mark, though, was a surprise.
Then he saw it. What he'd truly come for. Resting on a marble table.
He stepped close, handed the torch to von Lomello, and stared at a small volume coated in dust. On its cover was imposed a symbol, one his grandmother had described.
Carefully, he lifted the cover. On the pages he saw symbols, strange drawings, and an indecipherable script.
'What is it, Sire?' von Lomello asked. 'What language is that?'
Normally he would not have allowed such an inquiry. Emperors did not accept questions. But the joy of actually finding what his grandmother had told him existed filled him with immeasurable relief. The pope thought crowns and scepters conveyed power, but if his grandmother was to be believed, these strange words and symbols were even more powerful. So he answered the count in the same way she'd answered him.
'It is the language of heaven.'
Malone listened with a skeptical ear.
'It is said Otto cut off the fingernails, removed a tooth, had the tip of the nose replaced with gold, then sealed the tomb.'
'You sound like you don't believe the story,' he told her.
'That time wasn't labeled the Dark Ages without reason. Who knows?'
On the last page of the book he noticed the same design that she'd described from the shield in the tomb-a
