August rose and disappeared into the corridor. When he came back, he sat down at the chess table. August wrote in the notebook and translated. Then read aloud.
When the Holy See was occupied by Sergius IV, when the abbot Alfricus Grammaticus went out of the way, the Master Xenon built the underground Theatre to let it stand for a thousand years until the sun is high just like in Abu Simbel, when the light of the longest day pushes through, it shall be destroyed and never in the same place built again.
”Can you please get my computer, Ludwig?”
Ludwig went down to August's office and came back with the computer.
August opened Wikipedia. Read aloud.
”Sergius IV reigned 1009-1012, but it is not an exact year ...”
He glanced at his notes.
”... Alfricus Grammaticus died 1010th It means that the Theatre ... ”
August paused. ”... Reaches its millennium in 2010, or this year. When is the summer solstice this year? ”
August sat back, startled.
”It's like Victoria says.”
He looked at Ludwig.
”It is June 21 this year.”
He looked at his watch.
”It's June 13 today. In eight days the Theatre disappears.”
Ludwig took a sip of water. The Theatre and Ella ran loops one another in his skull.
”You said you could not find the cipher in the Reproba and Über-pamphlets.”
”That's right.”
”Does that mean you have the pamphlets?”
”Yes, of course. It would have been hard to look for the ciphers without them.”
August smiled.
”Can I see if I find anything?”
August's eyes narrowed.
”If I didn´t find anything, why would you?”
Ludwig had never been particularly cocky but without thinking, he said.
”You certainly did not think I'd beat you in chess, either.”
Something black came over August's eyes, but it disappeared quickly.
”Ok, Ludwig. The coffin is in Victoria's chambers.”
Ludwig hadn´t even taken notice of it but now that August mentioned it he could immediately place it.
August didn´t want to waste a second. They went down into the library.
*
Vienna
June 8
Gruppeninspektor Alexander Wagner tried to remember when he learned a few years before his seven-year old son Felix to fold a fighter plane of paper. The fighters he made now were just lame gliders.
They were gathered in a pile near the trash can at the door.
A little jaded, he read the reports from Stockholm and the 7-Eleven incident which he stuck on earlier. The key persons in the incident were a bunch of guys who had distinguished themselves in the usual way.
A passive collection of spectators spoke about the shock and that everything happened so quickly. All that's awful is not fast, but this really was.
Alexander managed to get into the right parts of the Swedish websites, some items were translated into English. He saw pictures of a pile of roses. He saw children pictures of the victim in the tabloids. There were reports from the victim's home town. Pictures of swings, riding schools, video stores. And there were also wicked portraits of the supposed perpetrators. In order for you to see how fucking wrongly lit they were.4
The idiots of the hills of Södermalm in Stockholm lit the spark in Wagner which he had soaken in water so far. He didn´t ponder why this incident got him moving but he went into action immediately.
He called an old friend who worked at a prison outside Vienna. After some persuasion the friend succumbed. If there was something Alexander could be it was stubborn and he was an expert at persuading people.
Wagner took a patrol car, put on the sirens and drove at high speed to the prison.
The friend let him in and left him alone outside the cell.
Before he left, he tried to calm Wagner.
He did not listen.
He stood still and thought of Felix.
No words penetrated his barrier.
The anger went through him like an earthquake in a city. His hands shook, his legs shook. His face was hot. He put his hand on the handle and started pressing.
He put his forehead against the door.
Released handle.
Clenched his fist and bit on it.
When he came back to the office there was a note on his desk. His boss Simon Bauer thanked Wagner for helping him with the City Hall Offices, but the case had stalled. The plan of the Kunsthistorisches Museum was gone and it did not appear to have any bearing on the matter.
All tracks were cold.
19
Rome
year 1599
No one could say that Rome was particularly glamorous at Michele's time. Especially not if comparing with the emperor´s Rome or before the pillage of Rome 1527. Michele braved the rain and pulled over a broken coat. The rain pattered against the cloak but he did not care. He walked up and sat down on a cold stone at Monte Caprino.
Inside the poor man’s house the residents chattered and he could no longer listen. From the goat hill he had a good view of Rome. A cattle market was still ongoing down on the Forum Romanum. On the other side of the Palatine was the Circus Maximus, once a huge arena, now there was only a barren field and a shed.
Fabrizio and Mario had shown him around and helped him find a place in a house for the poor before they moved on to Genoa with a dispatch. Besides the neighborhoods around Campo de'Fiori and Piazza Navona there was nothing to see in Rome.
They had gone around on Campo Marzio and watched the artists at the church Trinita dei Monti at Platea Trinitatis, which we now call the Piazza di Spagna, and walked past the Aracoeli Church and the Palatine hill where the poor huddled in small sad sheds.
A thick-skinned man would do for a few months without going under in the dilapidated Rome but without the skin on the nose you would not last the night. The poor who constituted the majority of the people in the city screamed for the bread that the fraternities gave out, screamed for the blessing from the Cardinals, who lived in the palaces around Piazza Navona, although they had long forsaken God and hope. They were screaming for mercy and a way out of the hell that Rome had turned into. They screamed for something to believe in. A desire to find peace.
The rest of the city was the same everywhere you looked. It was sheds, brick houses and crumbling churches all around and in the alleys beggars starved to death.
If it were not for the palaces it could have been any city.
Or village, the grass of the countryside was reclaiming large parts. Half the city was grass.
Gone was the pompous, ancient Caesar Rome.
In the great days of Rome the goat hill where Michele now sat was called the Tarpeian Rock. The grandiose Capitol - Caesar, Augustus, Nero waved happily to the mob below. Then they executed highwaymen to the people's delight here, now there were just wandering goats.
Michele went back down to the poor house and picked up his brushes and cloths. He took a detour around Piazza Navona, where most people were in circulation and stood in a small piazza outside a Jesuit-monastery.
The rain stopped and a cold mist lay over the city. He would not get much sold on the piazza when few people moved around there but Michele dared not risk bumping into Sciarra and his men by standing in the Piazza Navona.
He took a seat in a corner of the piazza, so that he saw the stream of people coming from both directions. He set up the easel and began to paint still lifes and landscapes.
After a few hours he looked in his purse. A few scudi he had received. He needed a lot more to make up the debt with Sciarra and it would take years on the piazza.
Four other painters stood in line and painted and the competition for the few monks who were there was fierce.
When afternoon came people started to whisper and tassle around Michele. He painted the Piazza del Popolo from memor
y and added color to the obelisk that stood in the middle of the square. A monk and a few old women stood and pointed to Michele.
They pointed to his painting and whispered.
But none came.
He wondered what it was. He felt uneasy. He packed up and went back to the poor house.
It warmed in his chest when he saw what awaited him inside the workhouse. On his straw gurney was a dispatch from his father as he made it known a few days earlier that he moved into a house at the Palatine Hill in Rome.
The neighboring boy Michele paid for taking care of his father while he was away had written the letter that Fermo dictated. Fermo announced that everything was fine in Caravaggio, the weather had become milder and winter was about to go over into spring.
In the margin the neighbor boy wrote that it had begun to show small black lines on his father's right hand.
Michele put the letter along with his brushes. He went to see the painter Prospero, whom Fabrizio and Mario introduced to him at an inn in a square between the parishes San Andrea delle Fratte and San Lorenzo in Lucina.
The darkness fell. He went uptown. He went to the inn Lion near Platea Trinitatis where artists and the unemployed soldiers from France and Spain lived.
He stood under a lamp of the Lion and awaited Prospero. He drove his fist into his pocket and took out all the money he had. In his hand were a few coins.
Prospero greeted Michele with a pat on the shoulder. They went in and drank wine. It tasted earth but it did nothing. It had yeast, that was all that counted. They stood outside when they had finished their wine.
A calm lay across the piazza but it seethed with life inside the taverns. Opposite each other across the piazza was the Inns Falcon and The More5, the first belonged to the Spaniards and the other the Frenchmen, both full of unemployed soldiers.
Queen Elizabeth had crushed the Armada. The Dog Turks, as they were called in Rome, was still licking their wounds after the defeat at Lepanto. The only war was between France and Spain, and there were many who did not find work.
Tragically, all lived for the violence, there was not much else. A stone smashed the glass on The More, and the Spaniards poured out. They met the Frenchmen on the piazza. The adrenaline pumped. Everyone wanted to get rid of that damn eel that twitched in their chests.
The Spaniards and the Frenchmen were running against each other. Michele and Prospero stayed away.
The gang war was over only after a few minutes. Many of them were tired. Fed up. Some had taken flight in the dark alleys that ran from the piazza, others remained on the ground and coughed blood.
But wherever they were, they all could feel it.
From the alley, the dark catacombs, from the stars above. No matter how strong they were in the fight, they were all just as scared.
Cautiously, they looked at the sky. An almost completely black thundercloud was above them like a bucket of hot water over a torture victim.
Typically they didn´t care about a storm, but this cloud rumbled and inside their skin there was a creeping feeling that it was not thunder. It was the same nasty beast that scared Fabrizio and Mario as far away as Prague.
Somewhere above them they thought they could see Giordano Bruno, magician from Nola.
In their eyes, it was a truth that could not be contested: The Beast was over Rome.
Although we are now sitting on hindsight they did not know then, they were convinced that they lived in the last days.
The beast was Anti-Christ and the dilapidated Rome was Sodom.
Over the piazza a couple of crazy eyes met Michele. Michele thought he looked like Goliath, big as two men he raised himself above the others. It was Marco Sciarra.
His eyes glowed in the dark as the poison teeth of a cobra.
He quickly gathered his men around him and ran across the piazza towards Prospero and Michele.
They ran into an alley and ran for their lives along the rows of houses. With his vast carcass Marco could not keep pace but three of his men kept up the hunt.
Nearby Piazza Navona, they came to a dead end. The men drew their swords against Michele and Prospero, who was unarmed. Inferior they kicked and screamed against Sciarra´s men who cut up Michele's arm and made an incision in the leg of Prospero.
They managed to free themselves and ran all they could against the Tiber. When they reached the piers they threw themselves into the dark water. Marco´s men stayed on the piers. Prospero and Michele barely managed to cross the river to the beach on the other side.
Marco´s men turned and ran back to the piazza. Prospero and Michele rested on the beach near the castle where The Nolan was imprisoned. Prospero said desperately.
”What was that?”
Michele hesitated. He felt that he owed his friend an explanation.
”It was Marco Sciarra and his men. They're after me.”
”Why?”
”In Florence, they won over me in a dice game.”
”Did you borrow money from them?”
”No, not that way. I bet a promissory note from the Monte di Pietà.”
”Is the person not good for the debt that they will recover?”
”You could say that. I forged the promissory note.”
Prospero did not know what to say and kept his mouth shut. He looked at Michele and saw that he knew that he had done something stupid so there was no need to call attention to it.
After a while, Prospero said and nodded to the castle, where a crowd had formed.
”If we had the Nolan´s powers then this wouldn´t have hurt so much.”
”What do you mean?”
”You know what I mean, don´t you?”
Prospero pointed toward the crowd standing outside the castle.
”Half of all those cuckoos are seeking his healing powers.”
”Healing?”
Michele looked at the crowd and the castle.
20
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
June 13
Bellarmine´s disciples had split up. Luca and Marco took the exterior of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and photographed it with large lenses. They had been given the task to think about escape routes.
Trucks came and went from the museum and Luca noted how the deliveries were received and by whom, how they were unloaded, which doors were opened. Marco took the pictures. They were just at for fifteen minutes at a time so as not to attract attention. When they were done, they went to the Hofburg and sat in the park. They waited for a moment, then went back and continued.
Matteo and Juan took the interior. They went through all the rooms in the museum disguised as tourists with compact digital cameras and guidebooks. They stopped in front of paintings and spoke Italian. They paid particular attention to the Egyptian collections many rooms on the lower floor. They checked in the head that the drawing was accurate. Tourist currents flowed through the halls, and they went with.
Stayed no longer than five or ten minutes at a time in Saal XIII. The hall was inaccessible. It laid in the back of one of two corridors where the halls ran in a row.
Matteo memorized where the guards had their stations, how many they were, how often they went their rounds. They were happy about the suggestive lighting the museum had selected. The lighting was subdued and complicated identification with the archaic technology they used with CCTV cameras.
In the basement they laid the up plan based on the great material they had acquired. They checked on the operation lines Matteo had drawn.
In only one day they would use their four invitations to the private event that the museum would hold with Tate Britain.
*
The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg
June 13
They walked up to the coffin which stood at one of the bookcases. Ludwig stood beside. August opened the lid. Ludwig brought a lamp and directed light downwards. August asked.
”What do you know about Thoth Fraternitatis – Thoth´s Brotherhood?”
”No
more than what is generally known. It was a secret society that was established by some lawyers at the Sapienza University in Rome in the late 1500s. They were fascinated with the Theatre, possibly the Theatre´s protectors as well. They wrote a huge corpus about it all. Said to contain that secret pilgrimage route to the Theatre. But it has been gone for quite a while what I understand, yes, if it even existed.”
August leaned forward and opened the chest. On the coffin floor were two pamphlets and a thick corpus that August with some effort picked up.
”Please, Ludwig, read it and find the way.”
Ludwig could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the over 400 years old ink strokes in Corpus Thoth Fraternitatis. He flipped gently. The fascination felt throughout the body. All books and old manuscripts he had studied at the Royal Library couldn´t even begin to measure up to this.
He shoveled away the books from the pile of the Church Fathers and put down the corpus on the table carefully.
He read for a while. Flipped up a dozen pages. Discovered to his dismay that almost all of the text was encrypted. Except for the title page, there was not a sentence in Latin, he could decipher. In the meantime August took up the other two scriptures.
”Do you remember when I was sitting alone down here, after you had shown me the diary notes that Victoria wrote?”
Ludwig saw his fist covered in blood. August continued.
”What I did was I read these two pamphlets, Reproba and Über. I thought I would find something but I did not. Just like 20-30 years ago.”
Ludwig nodded. Now he understood what Victoria meant by the notes, at least parts of them.
August held up the pamphlets.
”I cannot for the life of me figure out what Victoria might have meant. But I'm pretty sure that if we find the cipher, we are a long way to explain what happened to Victoria. The pamphlets are only Thoth´s Brotherhood´s tanks about the Theatre, about the original truth. A lot of text about the secret society.”
August gave the pamphlets to Ludwig. He flipped a little fast through them. Reproba was quite short, while the German one was about twenty pages long.
”Unfortunately, someone scribbled on the front of both so I have no pristine original documents.”