The Devil Will Come

written by his French contemporary, St Bernard of Clairvaux, the great twelfth-century theologian whom Malachy visited on his journeys from Ireland to Rome. Indeed, on his last such visit to Clairvaux Malachy fell ill and literally died in St Bernard’s arms.

Malachy’s prophecy was unknown, or at least unpublished, during his lifetime. It was the Benedictine historian Arnold de Wyon who first published it in 1595 in his book Lignum Vitae, naming St Malachy as its author. According to de Wyon’s account, in 1139 Malachy was summoned to Rome by Pope Innocent II for an audience. While there he experienced a vision of future popes which he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases. His manuscript stayed unknown until it was mysteriously discovered within the Roman Archive in 1590.

Malachy’s prophecies were short and abstruse. Beginning with Celestine II who was elected in the year 1130, he foresaw an unbroken chain of 112 popes lasting until the end of the papacy – or, as some believed, until the end of the world.

Each pope was assigned a mystical title, pithy and evocative: From a castle of the Tiber. Dragon pressed down. Out of the leonine rose. Angel of the grove. Religion destroyed. From a solar eclipse. Over the centuries, those who tried to interpret and explain these symbolical prophecies always succeeded in finding something about each pope embedded in Malachy’s titles, perhaps related to their country of origin, their name, their coat of arms, their birthplace, their talents.

Elisabetta skipped through the list with rapt fascination. The prophecy concerning Urban VIII was Lilium et Rosa, the Lily and the Rose. He was a native of Florence and a fleur-de-lis figured on the arms of Florence; he had three bees emblazoned on his escutcheon, and bees, of course, gather honey from the lilies and roses.

Marcellus II was Frumentum Flacidum, trifling grain. He was trifling, perhaps, because he was pope for only a very short time, and his coat of arms featured a stag and ears of wheat.

Innocent XII was Raftrum in Porta, rake in the door. His given name, Rastrello, meant lake in Italian.

Benedict XV was Religio Depopulata, religions laid waste. During his reign, World War I killed twenty million people in Europe, the 1918 flu pandemic killed one hundred million, and the October Revolution in Russia cast aside Christianity in favor of atheism.

In 1958, following the death of Pius XII, Cardinal Spellman from Boston had a little fun with Malachy’s prediction that the next Pope would be Pastor et Nauta, shepherd and sailor. During the Conclave that would elect John XXIII, Spellman rented a boat, filled it with sheep and sailed up and down the Tiber. As it happened, Angelo Roncalli, the Cardinal named as the new Pope, had been patriarch of Venice, a maritime city famous for its waterways.

Pope John Paul II was De Labore Solis, which literally means ‘the labor of the sun’, though labor solis was also a common Latin expression for solar eclipse. Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born on 18 May 1920, the day of a partial solar eclipse over the Indian Ocean, and was buried on 8 April 2005, a day which saw a solar eclipse over the southwestern Pacific and South America.

And Malachy’s prophetic chain led all the way to the 267th and penultimate pope who was now freshly interred within three nested coffins in a crypt beneath the Basilica of St Pietro.

The 268th pope, to be chosen at the Conclave which would begin tomorrow, would be the last. Malachy called him Petrus Romanus and gave him the longest title:

In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, et Iudex tremendus iudicabit populum suum. Finis.

During the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, the seat will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed his sheep in many tribulations; and when these things are finished, the seven-hilled city will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge his people. The End.

To Elisabetta, the vague nature of these prophecies reminded her of the quatrains of Nostradamus, notions concocted by a charlatan so that people might find one or two snippets from a pope’s life to connect the man to his title. In fact, diverse scholars claimed Malachy’s Prophecy was no more than an elaborate sixteenth-century hoax intended – unsuccessfully – to help Cardinal Girolamo Simoncelli reach the papacy.

Yet here, embedded within Marlowe’s Faustus, was the coded message: MALACHY IS KING HAIL LEMURES – a message important enough for these Lemures to tattoo over their sacrums.

Elisabetta’s training in anthropology kicked in. The documented use of tattoos reached all the way to the Neolithic period, and probably even further than that. Tattoos were evidence of rites of passage, marks of status and rank, cultural affiliation, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion. The symbolism and importance of tattoos varied from culture to culture, but she was certain of one thing: these sacral tattoos were important to the Lemures.

So it stood to reason that Malachy was important to them too, perhaps forming the basis of some kind of belief system. And Marlowe must have either known of them or been one himself!

HAIL LEMURES. Elisabetta fingered her crucifix.

She wanted to reach out to Father Tremblay but realized she didn’t have a contact number for him.

There was a sound at the front door, someone fumbling at the lock.

She approached cautiously. The door swung open and Micaela burst in. ‘Sorry I’m late. I had a patient to see.’

They kissed and Elisabetta put the kettle on.

‘Where’s Papa?’

‘A retirement dinner for someone in his department.’

Micaela frowned. ‘I’m sure he was thrilled about that. Arturo’s coming later – do you mind?’

‘Of course not.’

Micaela stripped off her jacket. She was looking stylishly professional in a blue skirt and silk top and seemed compelled to comment on the sartorial gulf between herself and her sister. ‘For heaven’s sake, Elisabetta, why are you wearing your habit around the house? Aren’t you off duty?’

Elisabetta held up her left hand, showing off her gold wedding band. ‘Still married, remember?’

‘So how’s Christ been treating you in His role as a husband?’ Micaela asked dryly.

Elisabetta remembered her recent daydream about Marco. ‘Better, I think, than I’ve been treating Him in my role as a wife.’ She changed the subject abruptly. ‘Did you hear about Zazo?’

Micaela knew; he’d called her. She went into a rant, heaping invectives upon the Vatican, stupid bosses and assholes in general. Elisabetta halted her diatribe. ‘If you calm down, I’ll tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘Papa solved the tattoo code.’

‘Tell me!’

They were interrupted by the sound of the buzzer. Micaela said it was probably Arturo and scrambled to answer it but she came back shaking her head. ‘It wasn’t him. It’s a Father Tremblay. He said you’re expecting him. Is it okay?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘But what?’

‘Please don’t comment on the way he looks, all right?’

Elisabetta greeted Father Tremblay at the door and showed him into the kitchen where, upon seeing Micaela, he immediately apologized for intruding. Elisabetta assured him that it wasn’t a problem and hastened to add that she wanted to speak with him anyway. She introduced him. Micaela looked him up and down and promptly asked, ignoring Elisabetta’s request, ‘You have Marfan’s, don’t you?’

‘Don’t be so rude!’ Elisabetta scolded.

‘I’m not rude, I’m a doctor.’

‘It’s okay,’ Tremblay said, his ears glowing with visible embarrassment. ‘Yes, I do – you’re a good diagnostician.’

‘I knew it,’ Micaela said, satisfied.

At the kitchen table it was left to Elisabetta to explain to Micaela Father Tremblay’s involvement in the affair