Cotton played the prior’s message over and over through his mind, focusing on the last two lines. Pride crowned, another shielded. Three blushes bloomed to ranks and file. He walked the floor, eyes down, taking in the collage of images.
“There are over four hundred tombs,” the curator said. “Even I’m not familiar with aspects of them all.”
He noticed something toward the front of the nave, just before the steps up to the main altar. “There are two here identical. One to the left of the steps, the other there, to the right.”
“Two knights,” the curator said, “both named Francesco Carafa, both from Naples. One died in 1632, the other in 1679. For some reason, which remains unknown, the latter Carafa chose to have his tomb identical to the former.”
A curiosity, for sure, but not relevant to the present dilemma.
He ambled away from the twin tombs and continued to study the memorials. The others did the same. Each trying to find some connection between the words and the floor. Something caught his attention.
Three lion heads on a shield.
Crowned.
Then it hit him.
He’d been thinking in the wrong direction.
Pride crowned.
He’d thought pride an emotion or a reaction of some sort. Instead it was something much more tangible. A group of lions. Their social unit.
A pride.
He smiled.
That prior had been clever with words.
“It’s here,” he called out. “The grave of François de Mores Ventavon.”
He read out loud more of the Latin on the tomb as the others headed his way. “He was granted by his Religion the Commandery of Marseilles, the Priorship of the Venerable Tonge of Provence and, his last office, the Priory of Saint-Gilles. Three titles.” He pointed at the marble memorial. “Three lions crowned. Pride crowned.”
“You could be right,” Pollux Gallo said.
He thought of the next two words and said, “We need to find a lion on a shield.”
Kastor had never been fond of puzzles, much less one over two hundred years old. But he knew the Secreti. They’d not kept the Nostra Trinità safe for centuries by acting stupid. The threat from Napoleon would have been the greatest danger they’d ever faced. That damn Frenchman changed everything.
The knights were never the same after 1798.
While serving as head of the ecclesiastical court, he’d first heard the stories of Constantine’s Gift. The keeper of the Vatican archives had told him of how the 3rd century was a time of chaos. Plague ravaged towns, civil wars raged, corruption ran rampant, twenty-five different men sat on the Roman throne within fifty years. Finally, in 324, Constantine eliminated all contenders and assumed absolute control. Trying to change, or even influence, entrenched religious beliefs proved impossible, even for an emperor. So Constantine cultivated his own religion, one named for a Jew who’d supposedly died on a cross and left behind a group of disciples to spread a message of love and hope.
Christians.
He issued imperial decrees that allowed them to finally worship without oppression. He supported them financially, building basilicas, granting tax exemptions to clergy, and promoting Christians to high public office. He returned confiscated property, then built the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the first St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. To this day Constantine the Great held a special place within the Roman Catholic Church.
One he hoped to emulate as pope.
“Over here.”
They all hustled to where Malone stood, his finger pointed down at another of the marble tombs.
“Another lion shielded,” Malone said.
Kastor nearly smiled.
They were close.