Its Father is the Sun. Its Mother is the Moon.
The Wind has carried it in his belly.
Its nourishment is the Earth.
It rises from Earth to Heaven,
and then it descends again to the Earth,
and receives Power from above and from below.
Thus you will have Glory of the whole World.
All obscurity will be clear to you.
This is the strong Power of all Power
In this way was the world created.
From this there will be amazing applications,
because this is the Pattern.
Therefore am I called Thrice-Great Hermes,
having the three parts of the wisdom of the whole World.
THE EMERALD TABLET OF HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
Antica Torre, Santa Trinità District
Florence
present day
AT THE EDGE of the river Arno lies a district known as Santa Trinità, an area named for the Holy Trinity. A secretive and mysterious community of monks with ties to the Order built a monastery there in the tenth century, under the patronage of Siegfried of Lucca, Matilda of Canossa’s legendary great-great-grandfather. The monks were not only sympathetic to the origins of the Order, some of them were descended from the most powerful bloodline families themselves and were sworn members. Here, the teachings of the Libro Rosso were preserved, the sanctity of union and the truth of the Trinity were understood as cornerstones to the true teachings.
The antique towers of the Gianfigliazza family had stood guard over the edge of the neighborhood known as Santa Trinità for almost eight hundred years. Today, both towers existed in perfect restored condition, straddling either side of the fashionable shopping street named for the family of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s mother, the Via Tornabuoni. One tower had been converted into a fashion museum as well as the flagship store of the ultrachic Italian designer Salvatore Ferragamo. The other tower contained a hotel as well as a series of private apartments. On one floor of the south tower were the living quarters of Petra Gianfigliazza; the apartment was also the current headquarters of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher.
A stunning and stylish blonde, Petra had purchased this apartment in the tower in an effort to reclaim her family’s ancestral property in Florence using the money she had saved while working as a fashion model in Milan. She was too old to model now, although still more beautiful than most of the girls half her age who were working the runways these days. The fashion world had changed too much for her taste over the years with its unhealthy emphasis on girls who were encouraged to starve themselves and use artificial stimulants to stunt their appetites. She had worked in it for as long as she could stand. Thus Petra had been delighted when Destino had phoned to tell her that he wanted to return to Florence from France. She had not seen him in a few years, although they kept in close contact and had since she was a child and his devoted student. Her family still owned some of the property not far from Montevecchio, where Destino stored the artifacts of the Order and had last lived while in Florence.
Since his return to Italy, Destino most often stayed in Montevecchio. Petra worried about him out there on his own in that old house. He had aged tremendously since she had seen him last and was indeed looking very frail. She was relieved when he had decided that staying in the city was a better idea once Maureen and her friends arrived. There would be many sights in Florence to show them pertaining to the Order, and it would be far easier if they were all here in one place. Petra was just glad that she could keep an eye on him at the same time.
And now, after Vittoria Buondelmonti’s latest rogue antics, Petra was feeling more protective of Destino than ever. She had attempted to reach Vittoria after her outrageous behavior in New York and her tawdry public claims that Bérenger Sinclair had fathered her child. Vittoria had not returned her calls. Yet. But she would eventually. Petra had been Vittoria’s mentor on the runway but also in the Order, as they both came from ancient Tuscan families with related heritage. Their relationship made Vittoria’s erratic actions of the last week all the more upsetting.
Meanwhile, Petra had protected Destino from the news. Her beloved teacher’s health was more fragile than ever, and she didn’t want to send him into shock over recent events. Destino loved all his students as if they were his own children, so when one went off the rails, as it appeared Vittoria had, he became extremely distressed. Petra feared that Vittoria’s obvious attempt to destroy Maureen and Bérenger’s relationship would have a profound effect on Destino. She knew she couldn’t keep it from him much longer, as Maureen was certainly bound to ask him for advice in the matter, if Bérenger didn’t. Petra would have to alert him before that happened, but she needed to have this out with Vittoria first.
Destino currently shared Petra’s spacious apartment, while Maureen and her friends were installed in the adjoining hotel. They were able to hold meetings either in Petra’s living room or on the roof deck of the tower, with its stunning views of the Duomo on one side and the Ponte Vecchio on the other.
It was here, on the roof deck, that Destino and Petra, the modern leaders of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, first met with Maureen’s little group, which included Tammy, Roland, and Peter. Bérenger was conspicuously absent, having flown to Scotland to investigate the allegations against his brother. No one had heard from him in the last twenty-four hours, and they were all getting anxious about the events within Sinclair manor.
The group, sans Bérenger, was assembled now in the Florentine sunshine. The church of Santa Trinità, where Countess Matilda had trained a thousand years earlier—trained with the same man who sat before them, if he was to be believed—was visible immediately below them.
Petra, a flawless hostess, had selected local wines and cheeses to provide for her guests. She introduced herself quite humbly as Destino’s secretary and for the moment appeared very content to stay in the background. But for all her deference, she was a powerful presence of whom everyone in attendance was very aware.
Destino opened their meeting in the same way he had done for two thousand years—with the prayer of the Order:
We honor God while praying for a time
when these teachings will be welcomed
in peace by all people
and there will be no more martyrs.
He then began the lesson.
“My children, the fully realized man or woman, the anthropos, knows what his or her promise is and works consciously toward fulfilling it. Less enlightened beings wander the earth with a spiritual aimlessness. They do not realize that they made a promise, so they cannot keep it. But you all do realize it, whether consciously or not, which is why you are here.
“Our mission is to keep our promise, which was to restore the golden age by returning the true teachings to the world. Lorenzo and his own ‘family of spirit’ prepared the way for us. Despite the greatness and beauty that emerged from their lives, they were unsuccessful in fulfilling the mission completely. We will study the life of Lorenzo and we will learn from it. We will understand what failed and what succeeded, so that we may continue the work of restoring beauty to the world.
“That you have all come sends the message to our mother and father in heaven that their children are grateful and obedient, and fully prepared to carry out their mission on earth. I am certain that heaven is rejoicing today. The time returns.”
“The time returns,” they all said in unison. And as Peter Healy raised his glass to participate in the toast, he was aware of Petra Gianfigliazza’s brown eyes examining him very, very closely.
Peter opened his copy of the Libro Rosso translations, paging through it until he found the passages that Petra had instructed them to study. He thought about her for a moment, about everything that had happened in the last few days. Petra Gianfigliazza was an impressive woman, and her devotion to Destino was a beautiful thing to observe. As a man who had spent most of his life in the priesthood, he had never had a female teacher before.
And make no mistake, Petra Gianfigliazza was a teacher. She may have been introduced as Destino’s secretary, but it was immediately clear to everyone that she was a force within the Order for the new millennium.
He opened to the pages about Solomon and Sheba, and read.
And so it was that the Queen of the South became known as the Queen of Sheba, which was to say, the Wise Queen of the people of Sabea. Her given name was Makeda, which in her own tongue was “the fiery one.” She was a priestess-queen, dedicated to a goddess of the sun who was known to shine beauty and abundance upon the joyous people known as Sabeans.
The people of Sabea were wise above most others in the world, with an understanding of the influence of the stars and the sanctity of numbers that came from their heavenly deities. The queen was the founder of great schools to teach such art and architecture, and the sculptors that served her were able to create images of gods and men in stone that were of exceptional beauty. Her people were literate and committed to the written word and the glory of writing. Poetry and song flourished within her compassionate realm.
It came to pass that the great King Solomon learned of this unparalleled Queen Makeda by virtue of a prophet who advised him, “A woman who is your equal and counterpart reigns in a faraway land of the South. You would learn much from her, and she from you. Meeting her is your destiny.” He did not, at first, believe that such a woman could exist, but his curiosity caused him to send an invitation for her, a request to visit his own kingdom on holy Mount Sion. The messengers who came to Sabea to advise the great and fiery Queen Makeda of Solomon’s invitation discovered that his wisdom was already legendary in her land, as was the splendor of his court, and she had awareness of him. Her own prophetesses had foreseen that she would one day travel far to find the king with whom she would perform the hieros-gamos, the sacred marriage that combined the body with the mind and spirit in the act of divine union. He would be the twin brother of her soul, and she would become his sister-bride, halves of the same whole, complete only in their coming together.
But the Queen of Sheba was not a woman easily won and would not give herself in so sacred a union to any but the man she would recognize as a part of her soul. As she made the great trek to Mount Sion with her camel train, Makeda devised a series of tests and questions that she would put to the king. His answers to these would help her to determine if he was her equal, her own soul’s twin, conceived as one at the dawn of eternity.
For those with ears to hear, let them hear it.
THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON AND SHEBA, PART ONE,
AS PRESERVED IN THE LIBRO ROSSO
Peter paused before reading on to part two. There was that phrase at the end, “her own soul’s twin, conceived as one at the dawn of eternity.” It struck him and tugged at something deep within him. He had never allowed himself to consider this concept of soul mates and predestined love. As a priest, all his love was for God, and for God’s son and his holy mother. He had taken vows of celibacy at a very early age and kept them completely. For most of his life, Peter felt that he was one of those singular people, created by God for a purpose and to complete specific tasks. It was very rare that he felt otherwise. But in the deepest reaches of his soul, if he was to be completely honest with himself, he did have moments of doubt. They were brief, but they were there. They cropped up when he saw the happiness of a couple strolling together hand in hand across the Pont Neuf in Paris, or a young family playing in the park. Those moments made him question if he was missing out on something, some aspect of life that God may have wanted him to experience.
But God couldn’t have it both ways, could he? If it was Peter’s calling to be a priest, then it was not his calling to fall in love or have a family. At least, that was what he had believed for most of his life.
Spending eighteen months in a French prison had given Father Peter Healy a lot of time to think. The Arques Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the document he had risked his life and freedom for, proved that Jesus knew human love and celebrated it. Peter believed that completely and had believed it even when he was still firmly committed to his vocation and his Catholicism. He wrestled with it, certainly, but had found a way to live with the idea that did not infringe upon his vows. However, these teachings of the Libro Rosso, which included a gospel asserted to be written in Jesus’ own hand, were emphatic that the primary reason for human incarnation was to experience love in all its forms, human and divine, platonic and erotic.
The more he read, the more the teaching resonated with him.
Over the last four years, almost everything that Peter had once held to be the truth had crumbled. Was he even a priest anymore? The Vatican hadn’t stripped him of his collar, but he hadn’t worn one since he was released from jail and did not have any desire to do so. He was not interested in teaching at the moment, and certainly not in a Catholic environment. Peter Healy was now a man without a vocation. He had followed Maureen and the others because they were not only his family in blood and spirit, they were also his colleagues in a greater en-
deavor.
Peter was still trying to determine what his own role was in that larger mission that Destino spoke of earlier today. The mission that Petra obviously embraced with joy and intensity. He understood that he had made a promise, and he was here to keep it—but what, specifically, was that promise? He would continue to study what she had assigned him, more intrigued by the moment in where this story was taking him at this pivotal time in his turbulent life.
He read on:
Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, arrived in Sion with gifts to the great King Solomon. She came to him without guile, for she was a woman of purity and truth, incapable of pretense or deception. Thus it was that Makeda told Solomon all that was in her mind and her heart. She knew upon coming into his presence and looking in his eyes that he was a part of her, from the beginning to the end of eternity.
Solomon was mightily taken by Makeda’s beauty and presence and disarmed in total by her honesty. The wisdom he saw in her eyes reflected his own, and he knew immediately that the prophets were correct. Here was the woman who was his equal. How could she be else, when she was the other half of his soul?
And it was then that the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon came together in the hieros-gamos, the marriage that unites the bride and the bridegroom in a spiritual matrimony found only within divine law. The Goddess of Makeda blended with the God of Solomon in a union most sacred, the blending of the masculine
and the feminine into one whole being. It was through Solomon and Sheba that El and Asherah came together once again in the flesh.
They stayed in the bridal chamber for the full cycle of the moon in a place of trust and consciousness, allowing nothing to come between them in their union, and it is said that during this time the secrets of the universe were revealed through them. Together, they found the mysteries that God would share with the world, for those with ears to hear.
Solomon wrote over a thousand songs following the inspiration of Makeda, but none as worthy as the Song of Songs, which carries within it the secrets of the hieros-gamos, of how God is found through this union. It is said that Solomon had many wives, yet there was only one who was a part of his soul. While Makeda was never his wife by the laws of men, she was his only wife by the laws of God and nature, which is to say the law of Love.
When Makeda departed from holy Mount Sion, it was with a heavy heart to leave her one beloved. Such has been the fate of many twinned souls in history, to come together at intervals and discover the deepest secrets of love, but to be ultimately separated by their destinies. Perhaps it is love’s greatest trial and mystery—the understanding that there is no separation between true beloveds, regardless of physical circumstance, time or distance, life or death.
Once the hieros-gamos is consummated between predestined souls, the lovers are never apart in their spirits.
For those with ears to hear, let them hear it.
THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON AND SHEBA, PART TWO
, AS PRESERVED IN THE LIBRO ROSSO
Peter closed the book and stood up. He needed to think, and he needed to walk. The layers within the story of Solomon and Sheba were deep—and for him, somewhat disturbing. They inspired him to question everything he had ever believed about himself. He remembered the fixed stare he received from Petra Gianfigliazza at the moment she had also given him his homework assignment. She knew that she was challenging him with these passages, knew that she had given him something to think about that he had never focused on before. No doubt Destino had briefed her well on all the personalities that were coming to Florence, but it was an intuitive choice all the same.
Peter put on his shoes and decided to take a stroll along the Arno. Florence at night was stunning, and perhaps it was just what he needed to help him assimilate.
Peter pushed the enormous wooden security door that kept the outside world away from the private residents in the Antica Torre. As he opened the door, he saw a young woman running across the street toward him, waving.
“Hold the door, please!”
She was out of breath but managed to smile at him as she grabbed the door to keep it open. “I forgot my key,” she explained, pointing at the magnetic lock that secured the entrance. “The magnets. They demagnetize my credit cards so I cannot carry the key in my handbag. I have to keep it separate. It’s such a nuisance!”
Peter nodded at her, preoccupied by all that was swirling through his head. “Good night,” he said politely, as the young woman waved at him and entered the building, headed toward the elevator.
Had he not been so distracted, Peter might have noticed that the door where the woman had held it was covered in blood.
It was a magical night in Florence. The air was silky with the essence of late spring, and a slight breeze blew in from the Arno. Tamara and Roland sat on the roof deck of the Antica Torre, breathing in the atmosphere as the iconic rooftops of Florence came to life under the full moon. If ever a place had been created for two people in love to spend a quiet evening, it was this special terrace.