Egypt.
How in the name of Heaven had he come by it?
And did he know-or had he discovered-its secret?
For over two hundred years, the Marquis di Sant’Angelo-as he had titled himself on the very night he left Florence-had searched for the glass. But ever since the day it had been torn from his neck by the Duke of Castro and handed over to the Pope, it had vanished without a trace. His spies at the Vatican had never been able to discover it, and the marquis had eventually assumed that, like so much of the papal treasure, and so many of his other great works, it had been melted down or dismantled… destroyed by someone who could never have guessed its latent power.
Caterina-his model, his muse, his love-had known. She had discovered it by chance… and to her great misfortune. But as a papal retainer had confided to him years ago-at the tip of Cellini’s dagger-she had died in a shipwreck, fleeing the Duke of Castro’s inquisitors. As proof, the man had shown him the ship’s manifest and passenger lists, left in Cherbourg. She had changed her name, but Cellini recognized well her peculiar and barely legible handwriting. Reports of the ship’s destruction had been widely circulated at the time.
Perhaps the sea had conferred a blessing upon her.
There were times when he wondered if he might not have been better off himself, inhabiting that tomb in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata. Sleeping there, in silence, until the Second Coming.
But what reason was there to believe that Christ was going to return at all? What reason was there to believe in anything?
A hawk, with a rodent clutched in its talons, settled onto a swaying branch and proceeded to devour its screeching prey.
That was the way of the world, he thought. Every living creature was ultimately a banquet for some other. And no one had ever seen more of the grisly and unending spectacle than he had.
Over the centuries, he had uncovered secrets no other man had. He had delved more deeply into arcane matters than anyone else had ever done, even the learned Dr. Strozzi. And he had escaped death, a hundred times. But at what cost?
Life, he had discovered, knew its own limits. When the thread had been meant to be cut, it was cut… and all the time thereafter was only a hollow enactment of things never intended to occur.
Oh, he had lived on, but once he had reached his mortal span-seventy, seventy-five, whatever God had intended-his life had become as great a lie as Cagliostro’s.
Was that, he wondered, why he had always harbored such hatred for the man?
He lifted his hands, still gnarled from his days as the great and applauded artisan, and wondered where, precisely, their genius had gone. On the night the old beggar had been buried in his tomb, it was as if his gifts had been buried then, too. He could sculpt, he could mold, but only as well as some rough, untutored apprentice in his shop might have done-as anyone with ten fingers and two eyes could do. He could not create works worthy of the artist he had once been, and so, over time, he had ceased to try. It was too painful, too degrading, to produce pieces of anything less than transcendent beauty.
The waters of eternity, he thought, the light of the ancient moon
… united in the Medusa, they had granted him the gift he sought. But the gift they bestowed was an empty vessel. It was a life without purpose, and a destiny with no fitting end. He might have laughed if he were not the one who had been tricked.
Chapter 21
As the TGV pulled into the Gare de Lyon in Paris, David helped Olivia up from her bunk-“My head feels as if it’s been hit with a hammer,” she complained-and then wrestled their bags toward the door. When it whooshed open, he helped her out onto the platform while keeping an eye out in all directions.
The bald man and his accomplice, the one who had undoubtedly drugged their drinks, had to be somewhere in the mob disembarking from the train, and for all he knew they were still on the job.
David had slung the shoulder strap of the valise over his neck, and with one arm around her waist, shepherded Olivia to the cab stand, where he barged to the head of the line, pleading that his wife needed to get to a hospital. Once in the taxi, he directed him to the Crillon, where Mrs. Van Owen’s very efficient travel agent had already arranged for their accommodations.
At the hotel, Olivia was sufficiently recovered to navigate through the lobby, and down the hushed corridor to the lavish two-bedroom suite with a bird’s-eye view of the Place de la Concorde. Formerly known as the Place de la Revolution, its stones had once been awash in the blood from the guillotine; Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, had been decapitated, like thousands of others, just a few hundred yards away.
“I need a hot shower,” Olivia said, “and room service.”
“What do you want?”
“Start with a dozen eggs, bacon, croissants, cheese, coffee-very black and very strong-and a gun.”
“I don’t think guns are on the menu.”
“Just so long as I have something to kill them with, if I ever see those two again.”
David placed the order, then quickly tried Gary again on his cell phone. This time the call went through, and even though it was the middle of the night in Chicago, Gary sounded wide-awake.
“I was planning to just leave you a message,” David said.
“That’s okay. I’m up.”
“Where are you?”
“Right now, the den. I’m watching some old movie on TCM.”
“How’s she doing?”
Gary paused, before saying, “Okay, I guess. She goes in daily for treatments, but at least she’s not living in the hospital. She doesn’t have a nurse waking her up every two hours to take another blood sample.”
“How’s Emme holding up?”
“She’s just happy to have her mom at home. For that matter, so am
I.”
“I wish I could be there to help out.”
“Listen, you do what you have to do. Get that promotion. I’ll keep you posted. But Sarah likes knowing you’re out there, going to all those glamorous places. Which one are you in now?”
“Paris.”
“Paris,” Gary said, and David could picture him nodding in approbation. “I’ll have to tell Sarah as soon as she wakes up.”
“I’ll send her a postcard,” David said, “though I hope to be home before it gets there.”
“That’d be great,” Gary replied. “Emme’s been practicing up on the Wii, and I think she wants to whip her uncle David at a game of tennis or Ping-Pong or something.”
“Tell her I’m up for the rematch anytime.”
Hanging up, David stared out the window, feeling the enormous distance between himself and his sister, and feeling, like a magnet, drawn back toward home. But what good would that do her? What good would that do anyone? Anything he could accomplish had to be done right here.
The bedroom door opened, and Olivia emerged in a plush bathrobe, ruffling a towel through her hair, just as the room-service cart arrived. Throwing down a cup of hot coffee before even touching the food, she asked, “So, I’ve been thinking about it. Do you think these two are the same guys who beat up Giorgio in my apartment?”
David had been considering that, too. “Even if they’re not, I’d bet they’re all good friends.”
Olivia began to lift the silver salvers and inspect what was on the plates and in the bread basket. The
