Jenny closed her eyes and her brow wrinkled. She spoke three words, badly, as it turned out. Nevertheless, Bravo recognized the language.
'It's Seljuk,' he said, adding, 'The Seljuk were the dominant tribe in Turkey in the thirteenth century, and twice successfully invaded the important trading city of Trebizond that the Greeks had founded along the south coast of the Black Sea to supply Europe with silks, spices and, perhaps most importantly, alum-the substance used to bind dyes to cloth.'
Jenny asked him to repeat the words until she could speak them correctly.
'Thank you,' she said.
'Anytime. Now tell me about the rest of your initiation.'
Jenny let out a breath. 'Zorzi dug his knuckles into the small of my back until the pain was so great that I gasped and tears came to my eyes.
' 'Thus, like your sisters,' your father chanted in Latin, 'do you come in suffering and in pain to the Order.''
'That sounds suspiciously like part of the medieval vow for taking the veil,' Bravo said.
'Bingo.' Jenny nodded. 'The initiation was taken directly from the one administered to Venetian women in the sixteen hundreds when they became nuns. They were, in effect, made to witness their own funeral.'
'So it seems that throughout its history the Order did accept women,' Bravo said.
'It would seem so, though you and I know that history records it otherwise.'
He thought about the injustice of this for some time. At length, he leaned closer to her and said, 'There's something bothering me.' He liked her scent; it made him pleasantly woozy, and he was only too happy to surrender himself to this voluptuous feeling. 'You haven't once tried to contact anyone in the Order, and when I asked you about its resources you were evasive. Why?'
She was silent for some time, but her eyes were busy, as if she was trying to work out a particularly knotty problem. At length, she turned to him and said very softly, 'It was your father's contention-and my own father's as well, I believe-that there is a traitor within the Haute Cour, someone who has been on the inside for some time, someone trusted, a sleeper, if you will.'
'Obviously, you believe it as well.'
'I had believed our people to be absolutely safe, untouchable. A traitor is the logical explanation for why the Knights suddenly have been so successful in assassinating five members of the Haute Cour, including your father.'
'So, bottom line, we're cut off from our best resources.'
'That's what it comes down to.' Her eyes were hooded.
'There's something else, isn't there?'
'Yes. Dexter was so certain the traitor existed that he moved the cache of secrets without telling the other members of the Haute Cour.'
'That would be just like my father.' Bravo put his head back against the seat, and for a moment his eyes lost their focus. 'I miss him.' He shook his head. 'But it's a strange thing-looking back on it, we had what you might call a… difficult relationship.'
'Why?'
'He demanded so much from me and I didn't understand his motivations.'
But he'd hesitated a fraction too long. Was there was something more he wasn't telling her? Jenny would hardly have been surprised. There were whole sections of her own personal history that she couldn't tell him.
'I know a little of your father,' Bravo said, 'but what about your mother? I didn't see any sign of her in the house.'
Jenny looked away for a moment, as she was wont to do when he'd posed a particularly thorny question. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and deliberately. 'My mother left some time ago. She lives in Taos now. She's a potter, she has a Navajo teacher who I think is also her lover, though she hasn't said as much. Not that she would, that wouldn't be like her at all.' She paused, then, almost as an afterthought, she said, 'She's learning to speak the language, so she tells me.'
'She wants to speak to her lover in his own tongue.'
'What a romantic you're turning out to be,' Jenny said with a bleak smile. 'Sadly, no. More likely it's simply because the language is exceptionally difficult to learn. My mother tends to define herself by challenges.'
'Did your father take her leaving badly?'
'Yes, but to tell you the truth I'm not sure of the reason. Did he love her or simply rely on her? You know men. They can accomplish anything in business, but they're helpless as lambs in the house. My father couldn't make himself a cup of tea, and as for using the dishwasher… well, a week after she moved out I had to clean up a ton of suds when he used Dawn instead of Cascade.' She shifted in her seat, settling herself more comfortably. She had her shoes off and was curled up with her knees bent and her feet beneath her. 'Of course, shortly after that he found someone else, as he was bound to do. He couldn't live alone and I couldn't keep taking care of him, even he knew that much.'
'Did they like each other-your parents?' he said.
'Who can say? My father was in his own world, and my mother-I'll tell you a story about my mother. When I was sixteen I fell in love with this guy. We were living in San Diego then. He was a freshman in college, two years older than I was, sweet and kind, and Hispanic. My mother found out about the relationship and stopped it cold.'
'How did she do that?'
'She shipped me across country to a boarding school in New Hampshire, where I stayed for two years. I learned to ski and hate boys. I came home after that, but it was too late, he was gone.'
'You didn't write to him or-?'
She gave him a wry, bitter smile. 'You don't know my mother.'
With a soft chime the seat belt light came on, and the same flight attendant came around and asked Jenny to buckle up.
'You trust this man you called?' Jenny said when they were alone again.
'Jordan? With my life. He and I are as close as brothers-closer, even, since we don't have all that sibling- rivalry baggage.'
Jenny nodded. 'I know what you mean. My sister Rebecca and I were always at it with each other. We're fraternal twins but look very much alike. I can't tell you how many times we stole each other's boyfriends, but when it came to standing up for each other against our parents-especially my mother, who was always trying to play one of us against the other-there was never any question of where our loyalty lay.' She sighed. 'I miss her. I missed her when I was in New Hampshire. Separating us was another side of my mother's cruelty. She hated us ganging up on her.' She sighed. 'Becca lives in Seattle now with her partner and two kids. We don't get to see each other as much as we'd like.' She turned to him. 'How is Emma? She was hurt in the explosion that killed your father, wasn't she?'
'Emma is blind,' Bravo said shortly. 'She seems fine, but who really knows?'
'Dead? Both of them?' Jordan grunted. 'Surprised isn't the right word. I already suspected as much.' Phone to his ear, he stared at a small medieval painting of the Madonna and Child. It was wrought with an obvious fervor, which in his opinion lent it an unearthly power. 'What I can't fathom is why you waited so long to inform me.'
A discreet electronic beep accompanied a light that had begun flashing on Jordan's console. He turned back immediately, saw that the call was coming in on the encrypted line. Only one person was authorized to call him on that line, and right now it was the last person he wanted to speak with. Nevertheless, he knew he had no choice.
'The cleanup?' he said, acutely aware that he had to cut the current conversation short. 'Yes, yes, of course. As always, it's understood that police involvement is to be avoided at all costs. But I want you out of Washington immediately. Back here, yes.' He was staring at the blinking light. Mustn't keep the caller waiting, he thought. 'There will be more work for you, I suspect. I have another call, contact me when you arrive.'
He hung up without another word, changed to the encrypted-line receiver. 'Cardinal Canesi, forgive me.' Felix Canesi was the pope's right-hand man. 'A business call from Beijing. You know the Chinese, their formalities are endless.'
