“O great Teacher of Righteousness, know that I will not fail you. But we beseech that you help us. Help us who seek the truth. Help us who live only to serve your exalted name.
“Most of all, help us to keep the whore in her place.”
The American, alone now, walked down the rue de Rivoli and shouted over the noise of Paris traffic into his cell phone.
“We can’t wait any longer. He’s a complete renegade, totally out of control.”
The voice on the other end echoed his American accent — polished, northeastern, and equally angry.
“Stick to the plan. It accomplishes our goal in a methodical and complete way. And it was created by those far wiser than you,” clipped the elder voice across the miles.
“Those wiser than me aren’t here,” the younger man spat into the phone. “They don’t see what I see. Goddamit, Dad, when are you going to give me some credit?”
“When you earn it. In the meantime, I forbid you to do anything idiotic.”
The younger American flipped his cell phone shut abruptly, swearing as he did so. He had rounded the corner in front of the Hotel Regina, cutting through the place des Pyramides. Looking up, he stopped just in time to avoid a collision with the famous gilded statue of Joan of Arc, sculpted by the great Frémiet.
“Bitch,” he grumbled at the female savior of France, pausing just long enough to spit on her, and not caring who saw him do it.
Paris
June 20, 2005
I. M. PEI’S GLASS PYRAMID gleamed in the morning rays of the French summer sun. Maureen and Peter, both refreshed after a real night of sleep, waited in line with the other tourists to enter the Louvre.
Peter looked around at the patrons waiting in the long queue, clutching their guidebooks. “All this fuss over the Mona Lisa. I’ll never understand it. The most overrated painting on the planet.”
“Agreed. But while they trip over each other to view it, we’ll have the Richelieu wing all to ourselves.”
Maureen and Peter purchased their tickets and double-checked the Louvre floor plan. “Where are we going first?”
Maureen replied, “Nicolas Poussin. I want to see The Shepherds of Arcadia in person before we do anything else.”
They moved through the wing that contained the French masters, scanning the walls for the enigmatic Poussin masterpiece.
Maureen explained, “Tammy told me that this painting has been the center of controversy for several hundred years. Louis XIV fought to obtain it for two decades. When he finally got it, he locked it up in a basement in Versailles where no one else could see it. Strange, isn’t it? Why do you think the king of France would fight so hard to obtain an important piece of art and then hide it from the world?”
“It’s just another in a mounting series of mysteries.” Peter was checking numbers on the guide as he listened. “According to this, that painting should be right about…”
“Here!” Maureen exclaimed. Peter came up behind her and they both stared at the painting for a minute. Maureen broke the silence, turning to Peter.
“I feel so silly. Like I’m waiting for the painting to tell me something.” She turned back to the painting. “Are you trying to tell me something, Shepherdess?”
Peter was struck by a thought. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“Think of what?”
“The idea of a shepherdess. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Maybe Poussin — or at least Sinclair — was indicating the Good Shepherdess?”
“Yes!” Maureen shouted, a little too loud in her excitement over the idea. “Maybe Poussin was showing us Mary Magdalene as the Shepherdess, the leader of the flock. The leader of her own church!”
Peter cringed. “Well, I didn’t exactly say that…”
“You didn’t have to. But look, there’s a Latin inscription on the tomb in this painting.”
“Et in Arcadia ego,” Peter read aloud. “Hmm. Doesn’t make sense.”
“How does it translate?”
“It doesn’t. It’s a grammatical mess.”
“Give me your best guess.”
“It’s either very bad Latin or it’s some kind of code. The literal translation is an incomplete phrase, roughly ‘And in Arcadia I…’It doesn’t really mean anything.”
Maureen attempted to listen, but a woman’s voice began calling out with urgency across the museum, distracting her.
“Sandro! Sandro!”
She looked around for the source of the voice before apologizing to Peter. “Sorry, but that woman is so distracting.”
The voice called out again, louder this time, annoying Maureen. “Who is that?”
Peter looked at her, puzzled. “Who is what?”
“That woman calling…”
“Sandro! Sandro!”
Maureen looked at Peter as the voice grew louder. He clearly didn’t hear it. She turned to watch the other tourists and students who were absorbed in the priceless artwork on the walls. No one else appeared to be aware of the urgent voice calling across the Louvre.
“Oh, God. You don’t hear it, do you? No one else hears it but me.”
Peter looked helpless. “Hear what?”
“There’s a woman’s voice calling across the museum. ‘Sandro! Sandro!’ Come on.”
Maureen grabbed Peter by the sleeve and hurried off in the direction of the voice.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re following that voice. It’s coming from this direction.”
They hurried through the museum corridors, Maureen apologizing over her shoulder as she bumped into various museum patrons. The voice had turned into an urgent whisper, but it was leading her somewhere, and she was determined to follow. They ran back through the Richelieu wing, ignoring the glare of an irritated museum guard, then down some steps and through another corridor, passing the signs that indicated the Denon wing.
“Sandro…Sandro…Sandro…!”
The voice stopped suddenly as Maureen and Peter came up the grand staircase to pass the iconic statue of the goddess Nike in all her winged victory. As they turned the corner to the right at the top of the stairs, they came face-to-face with two of the lesser-known masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Peter made the first observation.
“Botticelli frescoes.”
The realization struck them simultaneously. “Sandro. Alessandro Botticelli.”
Peter looked at the frescoes and then back at Maureen. “Wow, how did you do that?”
Maureen shivered. “I didn’t do anything. I just listened and followed.”
They turned their attention to the nearly life-size figures in the frescoes that stood side by side. Peter translated the plaques for Maureen. “This first fresco is called Venus and the Three Graces presenting gifts to a young woman. The second is called A Young Man is presented by Venus? to the Liberal Arts. Fresco painted for the wedding of Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna Albizzi.”
“Yes, but why is there a question mark after Venus?” Maureen wondered.
Peter shook his head. “They must not be sure that she is the subject.”
The painting was an elegant yet odd depiction of a young man holding the hand of a woman draped in a red cloak. They were facing seven women, three of whom held unusual and incongruous-looking objects; one clutched an enormous and somewhat menacing black scorpion, while the woman next to her held an archer’s bow. Another held an architect’s tool at an awkward angle.
Peter was thinking out loud. “The seven liberal arts. The realms of higher learning. Is it telling us that this was a very educated young man?”
“What are the seven liberal arts?”
Closing his eyes to recall his classical studies, Peter recited, “The trivium, or first three roads of study, are grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The final four, the quadrivium, are mathematics, geometry, music, and cosmology, and they’re inspired by Pythagoras and his perspective that all numbers represented the study of patterns in time and space.”
Maureen smiled at him. “Very impressive. Now what?”
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know how any of it fits into our ever-expanding puzzle.”
Maureen pointed to the scorpion. “Why would a wedding painting depict a woman holding a huge, venomous insect? Which of the liberal arts could that represent?”
“I’m not certain.” Peter had stepped in as near to the fresco as the Louvre barricades would allow and leaned in. “But look closer. The scorpion is darker and more vivid than the rest of the painting. All of the objects the women are holding are. It almost looks like…”
Maureen finished his sentence for him. “Like it was added later.”
“But by whom? By Sandro himself? Or was somebody messing with the master’s frescoes?”
Maureen shook her head, bewildered by the entire encounter.
Over a café crème at the Louvre coffee shop, Maureen went through her purchases with Peter. She had picked up prints of the paintings they had examined, as well as a book on the life and work of Botticelli.
“I’m hoping to find out more about the origins of that fresco.”
“I’m more interested in finding out about the origins of the voice that led you to the fresco.”
Maureen took a sip of her coffee before answering. “But what was it? My subconscious? Divine guidance? Insanity? Ghosts in the Louvre?”
“I wish I could answer that, but I can’t.”
“Some spiritual adviser you are,” Maureen quipped, then turned her attention to the print of the Botticelli as she removed it from its wrapping. As the refracted light of the glass pyramid struck the print, Maureen had an epiphany.
“Wait a minute. Didn’t you say cosmology was one of the liberal arts?” Maureen looked down at the copper ring she wore.
Peter nodded. “Astronomy, cosmology. Study of the stars. Why?”
“My ring. The man in Jerusalem who gave it to me said it was the ring of a cosmologist.”
Peter ran his hands over his face as if doing so would direct his brain toward a solution. “So what is the connection? That we should be looking to the stars for an answer?”
Maureen placed her finger over the enigmatic woman holding the huge black insect, then nearly jumped out of her seat as she shouted, “Scorpio!”
“Sorry?”
“It’s the symbol of the astrological sign Scorpio. And the woman next to her is holding an archer’s bow. The symbol of Sagittarius. Scorpio and Sagittarius are right next to each other in the zodiac.”
“So you think there is some kind of code in the fresco that deals with astronomy?”
Maureen nodded slowly. “At the very least, it may give us a place to start.”
The lights of Paris shone through the window of Maureen’s hotel room, striking the items that lay next to her on the bed. She had fallen asleep reading the Botticelli book, and the Poussin print was faceup, on her other side.
Maureen was unaware of either of these things. She was once again absorbed in a dream.
In a stone-walled room, illuminated dimly by oil lanterns, an ancient woman crouched over a table. The woman wore a faded red shawl over her long, gray hair. Her arthritic hand carefully moved a quill pen across the page.
A large wooden chest was the only other ornament in the chamber. The crone stopped writing, rose from her chair, and moved slowly to the chest. She knelt carefully on brittle joints and opened the heavy lid. Looking back over her shoulder, a smile of serenity and knowing crept across her face. She turned to Maureen and beckoned her to come forward.
Paris
June 21, 2005
IN A CHARMING TRIBUTE to Gallic eccentricity, the oldest bridge in Paris, the Pont Neuf, is often referred to as the “New Bridge.” It is a main artery of Parisian life, crossing the Seine to link the fashionable First Arrondissement with the heart of the Left Bank.
Peter and Maureen passed the statue of Henri IV, one of France’s most beloved kings, on the bridge that was completed during his tolerant reign in 1606. It was a beautiful morning in Paris, filled with the sparkling majesty that is specific to the incomparable City of Light. Despite the perfect setting, Maureen was nervous.
“What time is it?”
“Five minutes later than the last time you asked,” replied Peter, smiling.
“Sorry. I’m starting to get very jumpy about all of this.”
“His letter said to be in the church at midday. It’s just eleven now. We have plenty of time.”
They crossed the Seine and followed a map, toward the winding streets of the Left Bank. From the Pont Neuf they entered the rue Dauphine, walked past the Odeon metro station to the rue Saint-Sulpice, and ended up in the picturesque square of the same name.
The enormous, mismatched bell towers of the church dominated the square, casting shadows over the celebrated fountain built by Visconti in 1844. As Maureen and Peter approached the oversized entrance doors, he felt her hesitate.
“I won’t leave you this time.” Peter put his hand reassuringly on her arm and opened the doors to the cavernous church.
They entered quietly, spotting a group of tourists in the first chapel on the right side. They were British art students, apparently. Their teacher was lecturing in hushed tones on the three Delacroix masterpieces that decorated that area of the church: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Heliodorus Driven from the Temple, and Saint Michael Vanquishing the Devil. On another day, Maureen would have been inclined to view the famous artwork and eavesdrop on a lecture given in English, but she had other things on her mind today.
They moved past the British students and into the belly of the building, both gazing up in awe at the massive, historic structure. Almost instinctively, Maureen approached the altar, which was flanked by a pair of huge paintings. Each was easily thirty feet high. The first was a scene featuring two women — one cloaked in blue, the other in red.
“Mary Magdalene with the Virgin?” Maureen ventured.
“From the clothing colors I would say so. The Vatican decreed that Our Lady only be depicted wearing blue or white.”
“And my lady is always in red.”
Maureen crossed to the companion painting on the opposite side of the altar. “Look at this…”
The painting showed Jesus laid out in his tomb, while Mary Magdalene appeared to prepare His body for burial. The Virgin Mary and two other women wept at the edge of the painting.
“Mary Magdalene prepares Christ’s body for burial? That’s not specifically in the Gospels though, is it?”
“Mark fifteen and sixteen mention that she and other women brought spices to the sepulcher that they might anoint Him, but it does not specifically describe the anointing of the body.”
“Hmm,” Maureen mused aloud. “And here is Mary Magdalene, doing just that. Yet in Hebrew tradition, wasn’t the anointing of the body for burial reserved exclusively for…”
“The wife,” answered an aristocratic male voice with a smooth hint of Scottish burr.
Maureen and Peter turned sharply to the man who had come up behind them with such stealth. His was an arresting presence. He was darkly handsome and impeccably dressed, yet while his clothes and carriage screamed of breeding, there was nothing stuffy about him. In fact, everything about Bérenger Sinclair was just the slightest bit offbeat, totally individual. His hair was perfectly cut, yet too long to ever be accepted in the House of Lords. His silk shirt was Versace rather than Savile Row. The natural arrogance that comes with extreme privilege was tempered by humor — a crooked and almost boyish smile threatened to reveal itself as he spoke. Maureen was instantly fascinated, rooted in place as she listened to him continue with his explanation.
“Only the wife was allowed to prepare her man for burial. Unless he died unmarried, in which case the honor went to his mother. As you’ll see in this painting, the mother of Jesus is present, yet clearly not performing that task. Which can lead to only one conclusion.”
Maureen looked up at the painting, then back at the charisma
tic man standing in front of her.
“That Mary Magdalene was His wife,” Maureen finished.
“Bravo, Miss Paschal.” The Scotsman bowed theatrically. “But forgive me, I have completely forgotten my manners. Lord Bérenger Sinclair, at your service.”
Maureen stepped forward to take his hand, but Sinclair surprised her by holding on to it for a long moment. He didn’t release it immediately; rather he turned her smaller hand over in his larger one, and ran his finger lightly over the ring. He flashed the smile at her again, a tiny bit wicked, and winked.
Maureen was completely disconcerted. In truth, she had wondered many times what this Lord Sinclair would be like in person. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t this. She tried not to sound completely tongue-tied as she spoke.
“You already know who I am.” She turned to introduce Peter. “This is…”
Sinclair cut her off. “Father Peter Healy, of course. Your cousin, if I’m not mistaken? And a very learned man. Welcome to Paris, Father Healy. Of course, you’ve been here before.” He glanced at his fashionable and outrageously expensive Swiss watch. “We have a few minutes. Come, there are things to see here that I think you will find very interesting.”
Sinclair spoke over his shoulder as he hurried across the church. “Incidentally, don’t bother with the guidebook they sell here. Fifty pages that completely ignore the presence of Mary Magdalene. As if by ignoring her she will just go away.”
Maureen and Peter followed his quick pace, stopping beside him at another small side altar. “And as you will see, she is depicted repeatedly in this church, yet pointedly ignored. Here’s a wonderful example.”
Sinclair had led them to a large and elegant marble statue, a Pietà, the classical sculpture of the Virgin Mother holding the broken body of Christ. To the right of the Virgin, Mary Magdalene cradled her head on the Virgin’s shoulder.