changed out of his black cassock, donned for an earlier meeting with the Vatican’s secretary of state. He regretted his choice of garment, too heavy and warm for the arduous climb. But finally he reached his assistant and wiped his damp forehead with a handkerchief.
“This way,
“
Beyond the tarp, the upper chamber was oven-hot, as if the stones of the tower still retained heat from the two-year-old fire. But it was just the midday sun baking the tallest tower of the Vatican. Rome was going through an especially scorching heat wave. Vigor prayed for a bit of a breeze, for the Torre dei Venti to prove its namesake with a gust of wind.
But Vigor also knew most of the sweat from his brow had nothing to do with the heat or the long climb in a cassock. Since the fires, he had avoided coming all the way up here, directing from afar. Even now he kept his back to one of the chambers off to the side.
He once had had another assistant, before Claudio.
It hadn’t been only books that had been lost to the flames here.
“There you are!” a voice boomed.
Dr. Balthazar Pinosso, overseer of the Meridian Room’s restoration project, strode across the circular chamber. The man was a giant, nearly seven feet tall, dressed almost like a surgeon in white with paper-booted feet. He had a respirator pushed to the top of his head. Vigor knew him well. Balthazar was dean of the art history department at the Gregorian University, where Vigor had once served as the head of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology.
“Prefect Verona, thank you for coming so promptly.” The large man glanced at his wristwatch and rolled his eyes, silently and amusingly commenting on his slow climb.
Vigor appreciated his gentle teasing. After he’d assumed the high mantle of the archives, few dared to speak to him beyond reverential tones. “If I was as long-legged as you, Balthazar, I could have taken two stairs at a time and gotten here well ahead of poor Claudio.”
“Then best we finish here so you can return for your usual afternoon nap. I’d hate to disturb such diligent labors.”
Despite the man’s joviality, Vigor recognized a bit of tension in his eyes. He also noted that Balthazar had dismissed all the men and women who worked alongside him on the restoration. Recognizing this, Vigor waved Claudio back toward the stair.
“Could you give us a few moments of privacy, Claudio?”
“Certainly,
Once his assistant had retreated back to the stairs and vanished through the drape of plastic tarp, Vigor returned his attention to his former colleague. “Balthazar, why this urgency?”
“Come. I’ll show you.”
As the man stepped toward the far side of the chamber, Vigor saw that the room’s restorations were nearing completion. All along the circular walls and ceilings, Nicolo Circignani’s famous frescoes depicted scenes from the Bible, with cherubs and clouds above. A few scenes were still crisscrossed with silk grids, awaiting further work. But most of the repairs were already complete. Even the carving of the zodiac on the floor had been cleaned and polished down to its bare marble. Off to the side, a single spear of light pierced a quarter-size hole in the wall, spiking down atop the room’s slab floor, illuminating the white marble meridian line that ran across the dark floor, turning the chamber into a sixteenth-century solar observatory.
On the far side, Balthazar parted a drape to reveal a small side closet. It even looked like the original stout door was still intact, evident from the charring on its thick wooden surface.
The tall historian tapped one of the bronze bolts that pegged the door. “We discovered the door has a bronze core. Lucky for that. It preserved what was in this room.”
Despite Vigor’s trepidation at being here, his curiosity was piqued. “What was in there?”
Balthazar pulled the door open. It was a cramped, windowless space, stone-walled, barely room for two people to stand abreast. Two shelves rose on either side, floor to ceiling, crowded with leather-bound books. Despite the reek of fresh paint, the mustiness of the chamber wafted out, proving the power of antiquity over human effort.
“The contents were inventoried when we first took over here and cleared the closet,” Balthazar explained. “But nothing of great significance was found. Mostly crumbling historical texts of an astronomical and nautical nature.” He sighed loudly and a tad apologetically as he stepped inside. “I’m afraid I should have been more careful, what with all the day laborers. But I was focused on the Meridian. We kept one of the Swiss guards posted up here at night. I thought all was secure.”
Vigor followed the larger man into the closet.
“We also used the room to store some of our tools.” Balthazar waved to the bottom shelf of one rack. “To keep them from getting underfoot.”
Vigor shook his head, growing tired from the heat and the heaviness of his heart. “I don’t understand. Why then was I summoned?”
Something like a grumble echoed from the man’s chest. “A week ago,” he said, “one of the guards chased away someone snooping about.” Balthazar waved a hand to encompass the closet. “In here.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?” Vigor asked. “Was anything stolen?”
“No, that’s just it. You were in Milan, and the guard scared off the stranger. I just assumed it was a common thief, taking advantage of the confusion here, with the comings and goings of work crews. Afterward, I posted a second guard up here, just in case.”
Vigor waved for him to continue.
“But this morning one of the art restorers was returning a lamp to the closet. He had it still switched on when he entered.”
Balthazar reached behind Vigor and shifted the door closed, shutting out the light from the other room. He then clicked on a small hand lamp. It bathed the room in purple, lighting up his white coveralls. “We use ultraviolet light during art restoration projects. It can help bring forth details the naked eye can miss.”
Balthazar pointed to the marble floor.
But Vigor had already noted what had appeared under the lamp’s glow. A shape, painted crudely, shone on the center of the floor.
A curled dragon, nearly turned upon its own tail.
Vigor’s breath choked in his throat. He even stumbled back a step, trapped between horror and disbelief. His ears roared with the memory of blood and screams.
Balthazar placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. “Are you all right? Maybe I should have better prepared you.”
Vigor stepped out of the man’s grip. “I…I’m fine.”
To prove this, he knelt closer to inspect the glowing mark, a mark he knew too well. The sigil of Ordinis Draconis. The Imperial Royal Dragon Court.
Balthazar met his eye, the whites glowing under the ultraviolet. It was the Dragon Court that had burned this tower two years ago, aided by the traitorous former prefect of the Secret Archives, Prefetto Alberto, now dead. It was a story Vigor had thought long ended, finally put to rest, especially now with the tower’s phoenix-like rise from the smoke and ashes.
What was the mark doing here?
Vigor knelt with a crick of his left knee. The mark looked hastily sketched. Just a crude approximation.
Balthazar hovered at his shoulder. “I studied it with a magnifying loupe. I found a drop of restoration paste
“The thief…” Vigor mumbled, remembering the start of the story.
“Perhaps not just a common thief after all.”
Vigor massaged his knee. The mark could only be of dire import.
