A small distance beyond, the far eastern boundary of the Villa Galli Rubris was fenced by a low stone wall. An opening in the barrier was lit by torches and blocked by a large wooden sawhorse, rather than a gate. The mute rang a handbell until two men came out of a cottage alongside and moved the obstruction aside.
It was almost totally dark as the carriage lurched on, with just enough twilight left to make out the black outline of the villa buildings in the near distance, which were set behind a higher wall. Torches blazed in holders on the gatehouse, their smoky light reflecting off the underside of a bronze rooster that surmounted the roof. Brenos half smiled. Behan had chosen his accomplice well. The very openness of the cockerel images would allay suspicion, should an outsider see and question the Gallican League symbol.
Several guards armed with lances patrolled the gate. After being admitted, Mutus drove the carriage past a two-level barn structure and another barracks-like building. To their left was the gateway to the villa compound. The driver stopped at the near end of a courtyard, which led into the main villa buildings. Smoking torches on a three-sided portico revealed a fountain in the center, but it was turned off. Brenos frowned, aware of an unpleasant smell of chicken dung that hung on the damp air.
When Mutus turned toward the abbot, Brenos saw the dancing flicker of torch flames animating the driver’s face. A shiver ran down his neck; the man’s coarse features resembled the blank grin of a Culdees monk who had gone mad after being possessed by demons. He jumped from the carriage. A guard materialized from the portico shadows, motioning for the abbot to come with him. As Brenos followed, he felt reassured at the presence of so many sentries. Smyrna had his own army. That would be useful in controlling the turmoil that would be sure to follow the disclosure of the will.
The guard led the way across the courtyard, toward the portico of the villa’s central building. After opening the door to a darkened atrium, he motioned the abbot inside. Brenos could hear the splash of water falling into a pool from a roof opening, and through the gloom he thought he could see a figure standing by one of the columns. The guard indicated the door of a room immediately to the right, then walked away and was lost in the portico shadows.
Brenos entered a small reception area that was illuminated by a single oil lamp set on a bronze stand. Three chairs and a round table were the only furnishings. A curtained doorway was on the right. The walls were undecorated except for six masks that hung on the side opposite the door. Drawn to them, Brenos studied the effigies and realized that each carved and painted female face was the personification of a city, with her headdress forming a wall and gate.
As he read their names, cut over the gate entrances, he was surprised to recognize the code names of the Gallican League affiliate cities: EPHESVS, PERGAMVM, THIATIRA, SARDIS, PHILADELPHIA, AND LAODICIA. Yet there should have been seven masks. The second peg, where the smyrna mask should have hung, was empty.
As Brenos waited, trying to control his nervousness, he again wondered how Behan had found his accomplice. The monk would have gone to the library not only to read, but to glean information from palace gossipers, both freemen and slaves. He would also have visited the bishop’s residence and churches, where presbyters and deacons might voice their complaints to a simple monk, a “holy fool for Christ.”
Behan undoubtedly must have heard about Smyrna in this way. The man would be someone disaffected with his status in government or business, perhaps even the army. Once Behan had been convinced the man had resources and position, could be trusted, and would cooperate, he would describe the mission of the Gallican League and the unimaginable power that would come from being part of the conspiracy. There was rivalry even among bishops and abbots—how much more so in an ambitious layman? Smyrna’s letter had implied that he was familiar with palace government. Good, he would have the administrative skills for implementing the League’s plan to set up a theocracy—God’s kingdom on the earth.
A century ago the Emperor Constantine had had such a vision, but his sons squandered his legacy in deadly squabbles over territory. Then, an apostate emperor tried to revive the worship of pagan idols again. Two subsequent dynasties had failed to stem the tide of barbarians and heretics inundating the empires, and the present weak emperor and his mother had turned Ravenna into the lair of the Harlot, of whom John had warned in his Revelation.
A rustling of the curtain that closed off the door opening interrupted the abbot’s thoughts. He turned away from the masks. A tall, bizarre figure wearing a black robe with the outline of a skeleton embroidered on the front swept in through one side of the curtains. The Smyrna mask concealed its human face, and the two bony hands held wooden paddles with the Greek letters A and Ω painted on them.
Alpha and Omega? Brenos felt his skin pucker at the unexpected entrance of this supernatural apparition before he made the connection. John’s vision to the Angel for the church at Smyrna was of Alpha and Omega, Christ the First and Last, He who had died and come back from the grave again. Clever I suppose, yet I had expected to meet a sophisticated accomplice, not some theatrical phantom in a satanic costume.
The figure posed a moment, holding up the two paddles, then asked in a voice that was muffled by the hollow headpiece, “Brenos of Slana, Abbot of the monastery of Culdees?”
“Yes…yes, that is who I am,” he stammered, recovering
