Looking back, Molinari realized that he should have visited Sir Reynard years ago, but their association had been a deep secret from the start. The pattern of subterfuge they developed had solidified into a comfortable routine that kept both of them safe for more than three decades. So perhaps it was just as well.
The cardinal remained on his knee so that Reynard could see him without strain.
“Is he safe?” Reynard asked him. “Yes,” Molinari reported.
Sir Reynard briefly closed his eyes and nodded, relieved to hear the news.
Two muscular attendants in white satin mantles approached the bedside, while the nurse positioned a wheelchair at the edge of the dais. One of them helped Cardinal Molinari to stand, and he stepped off the dais, safely out of the way. The attendants drew back the comforter and sheet, and then lovingly lifted Sir Reynard from his bed and placed him gently in his wheelchair.
Molinari walked beside the chair as the nurse wheeled the Grand Master to a dining table by the windows. One attendant held out a chair for Molinari, and the other offered a steadying hand as the cardinal sat across from Reynard.
Once the two men were comfortable, the attendants poured them tea and set out scones and butter. As they worked, one of the peacocks came up to the window and displayed his tail fan. Sir Reynard clucked and cooed at his pet. The peacock was proud of the attention, and fluttered his fan to show off for the visitor. Molinari quietly clapped his hands and nodded in approval, until the peacock felt sufficiently admired and wandered away to eat the roses.
The men were amused at the display of pride and vanity and sipped their tea, getting a good look at each other at long last. The nurse and the two attendants retired to an adjacent room, leaving the door open. They could see Sir Reynard, but they couldn’t overhear his conversation.
Reynard regarded the cardinal sitting across from him, and reflected on the irony of their lives. “We’ve watched each other grow old, without ever laying an eye on each other,” he said with amusement.
Molinari smiled, and toasted him with his tea. Reynard returned the gesture, and they both took a careful sip.
“I had a visitor today,” Molinari began. Reynard knew whom he was referring to.
“You seem exhausted,” the Grand Master said, and Molinari nodded. “It must have been difficult.”
Molinari nodded again. “It had to be done,” was all he could think of saying.
“And where is he now?” Reynard asked after a pause. Molinari knew he wasn’t referring to Devlin.
“Haiti,” Molinari told him. “At a rural mission, well off the beaten track.”
“Do you think the plan will work?”
Molinari tilted his head to one side and looked down to the table, then back to Reynard. “We’ll know soon enough.”
Reynard nodded. There was nothing more they could do at this point, other than wait and see. He smiled, changing the subject.
“And how are things at the Vatican?”
Molinari smiled back and blew a dizzy sigh. Reynard chuckled, and settled into his wheelchair for an earful of gossip.
When the anecdotes ran dry, their conversation turned to more serious matters, lasting through lunch and well into the afternoon. It had been a long and difficult journey, and there was still a ways to go; there was much to discuss.
Years before, Devlin had met in the dead of night with Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi of Rome, and his Privy Counsel. The nine rabbis spent the better part of a snowy November evening in Toaff’s chambers at the Great Synagogue, listening in sober silence as Devlin laid out his version of the cosmos.
He told them what he said were the true stories of Adam and Eve and the Fall, and the Great War in Heaven, but after hours of chillingly persuasive argument and revelation, it all boiled down to this – the Christ Child would soon be born on the Louisiana bayou on Christmas morning, and if that were to happen, the world would be under His thumb and the Jews would suffer, worse than what Hitler put them through. It was all in the Book of Revelation.
The Jews killed Jesus once before, Devlin reminded them. They must do it again, or Judaism would soon be destroyed. Rabbi Toaff had no doubt that their visitor was truly the Devil himself, but on this last point the chief rabbi of Rome finally ran out of patience.
“You lie,” Toaff told him in a clear, quiet voice. “The Romans killed Jesus, not the Jews. And you damn well know it.”
Devlin was astonished that the man was being so bold and blunt with him. It was clear that the rabbi knew who he really was.
“Your lie is what nearly destroyed Judaism, and what you propose now would surely finish us off for good.”
Devlin’s face began to change as his true identity began to boil to the surface. The Privy Counsel waited breathlessly to be struck dead, but Toaff stared down the Devil himself and continued in the same measured voice.
“You may frighten us, but the return of Christ doesn’t frighten us,” he told Devlin, and then he cracked a dry smile. “Once a Jew, always a Jew.”
Devlin was so furious that he nearly struck all of them blind. He wanted to see their eyes bleeding and he wanted to hear their screams, and he wanted to slowly squeeze the life out of each of them, one by one.
But no; he had something even better in mind. He would track down the Christ Child himself and kill Him with the one weapon that he could use to circumvent the terms of the bet he made with God. Then the world would be his, and Toaff and his Privy Counsel would all live to a ripe old age to regret their decision and see their mistake. Devlin had always planned to let Judaism remain intact after he won the world for his own. They loved God and they never bowed down to Christ, so they were his kind of people. But now, all bets were off. Except the one he made with God, of course. And that one he would win, by hook or by crook.
Devlin smiled back at Toaff, nodded his regal head, and disappeared in a theatrical flash of fire and smoke. Toaff and the Privy Counsel let out a collective, ragged sigh of relief. Several of them voiced the Hebrew prayers that they had been reciting in their heads during Devlin’s visitation. They glanced at each other, and at Rabbi Toaff, all of them unsure of what to say. But Toaff was certain of one thing. If the Devil himself was scheming to kill the returned Christ, then saving the Child had just become the most important thing in all of Judaism.
Toaff turned to Rabbi Molinari, who sat motionless through the entire three hours, his eyes flicking from Devlin to Toaff, absorbing every detail.
“Have you ever been to America, Jacob?”
“Yes, Rabbi,” Molinari said. “My aunt lives in upstate New York. We went every summer until I joined the Col Moschin.”
Rabbi Toaff had always thanked God for sending him an Italian Special Forces commando. One of the more interesting rabbis he had ever met, and he had known hundreds over his long tenure as chief rabbi. Some of the Israelis from the IDF were scary characters, but Molinari always had something different, and that’s why he was on the Privy Counsel. The fight in his eye was strictly in the service of God.
“You’re flying to New Orleans tonight, Molinari. And tell Rabbi Simone to pack his bags, too. You’ll need an assistant.”
Molinari stood at once and almost saluted, but he just nodded and went out the chamber doors at a brisk stride. There wasn’t a moment to lose.
In the ensuing years, as Molinari and Simone kept the Child safe from their new positions within the Catholic Church, Simone eventually got the rest of the story from Nano about that fateful night, and relayed it to Molinari when Nano was transferred to New Orleans and they were transferred to Rome.
When Devlin left the Great Synagogue, he went a mile up the Tiber River, crossed over to the west bank, and passed like a ghost through St. Peter’s Square. He went silently up the thirty-nine steps, through the Filarete doors and directly into the bowels of the basilica. It was after midnight and the place was closed to parishioners, but Devlin didn’t come to pray.
The crucifix dagger was in a vault under the papal throne, and he meant to retrieve it after all these centuries. If the Jews wouldn’t kill the Lamb of God again, then he would do it himself, and woe betide the Privy Counsel for choosing to be on the losing side.
He shoved the throne aside and pried open the vault, but the dagger wasn’t there.
“Can I help you?” came a voice from behind him. Devlin turned, scowling. He had been invisible up to this point, but moving the throne and opening the vault had given him away.
Cardinal Saul marveled as Devlin took solid form right in front of him. Devlin saw that the man wasn’t bewildered or even afraid. This one is different, he thought to himself.
Saul smiled at the visitor; he knew who Devlin was. He had been expecting Devlin for the last few days. The Vatican astrologers had been poring over the musty volumes down in the Vatican Secret Archives for several weeks now. Devlin’s visitation was clearly predicted, as was the birth of the Christ Child. It was all coming to pass, and the Cabal of Cardinals had no intentions of letting the opportunity get away from them. If the Devil could change the course of history, then so could they.
“We are already in your service, my Lord,” Saul said to Devlin with a slight bow of his head. “Be at peace. The future is well in hand.”
Devlin smiled, understanding his drift, and relaxed.
“Come, my Lord, let me introduce you to my associates. We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
Devlin smiled again, and motioned for Saul to show him the way. They walked side by side into the left trancept, heading for a private staircase that would take them into the sub-basement under the Sacristy.
In the broad sweep of history, there were very few people who had ever successfully fooled the Devil. Saul sensed that his name had just been added to the list. St. Peter was surely keeping track, but Saul doubted that his clever accomplishment would get him through the Pearly Gates. Not when it was balanced with sending the dagger to New Orleans. He wondered if Louisiana was really as pleasant as he heard it could be. It was snowing in Rome, an uncomfortable night for playing games with the devil. Perhaps Nano and his entourage were enjoying a bit of sunshine.
Molinari and Simone were whisked across town in Rabbi Toaff’s limo to Fiumicino International, where a Learjet was being fueled for their flight to New Orleans. Molinari’s father Gabriel was their chauffeur, a comfortable job that Molinari arranged for him after his mother Rebecca died and his father’s business fell apart. Gabriel Molinari was a Hassidic Jew, proud of his son’s chosen path after a successful career in the Col Moschin.
Molinari reasoned that there was a good chance he would never see his father again. Despite the stern glances of admonition from young Simone, Molinari told his father what just happened, and what they hoped to accomplish in New Orleans. The man nearly ran off the road, but Molinari knew he was tough enough to live with the truth. They both made it through World War II as Jews in Fascist Italy.
The next time Gabriel heard from his son, it was on a long-distance phone call from a Catholic seminary in New Orleans. The young Molinari expected an argument, but his father was surprisingly sanguine about his son’s conversion, particularly in light of what he heard in the limo on the way to the airport.
Gabriel had always felt affection for Christians. They saved his life during the war, Along with his wife Rebecca and their young son, when Pope Pius XII was cooperating with the Fascists and the Nazis. Their Rosicrucian rescuers told Gabriel that their secret society was founded hundreds of years earlier by a young man who escaped from German executioners dispatched by the Vatican. An evil Pope in league with German butchers was a combination that was quite unsurprising to them. Their secret order had been working for over five hundred years to counteract what they saw as an apostate church that had long since turned away from the grace of God.
Gabriel was more surprised than anything else by his son’s conversion, mostly because the Rosicrucians had schooled the impressionable lad through the entire war, slipping a strong streak of anti-Catholic Christianity into the curriculum whenever they could. But Gabriel reasoned that his son was a good man, he could handle himself, knew what he was doing, and that we all seek God in our own way.
He also knew that the Rosicrucians had their own means of deciphering whatever papers the Cabal of Cardinals held in the Secret Vatican Archives. In fact, the knights of the rose knew that the Church’s books were actually derivative works. The original body of knowledge was locked in the vault below the Fortress of the Three Crowns. The collection of Greek and Latin texts was only one of the treasures they brought with them from Languedoc, where it had all been kept safe and dry through the Dark Ages, when monks were virtually the only people in Europe who even knew how to read.
The Rosicrucians had been using the ancient texts ever since in the course of their own esoteric studies, and were intimately familiar with them. They surely knew as well as the Cabal of Cardinals what the precise date, time, and location of the blessed event would be, as well as the name of the mother.
Over the crackling long-distance phone line, Gabriel advised his son to re-establish a link with their old friends of the rose cross. He would need it for the long road ahead.
The sun cast a golden afternoon light over the garden wall, and bathed the marble floor in a soft ambient luster. After hours of conversation, lunch, espresso, and more conversation, Sir Reynard’s energy was finally beginning to flag. The nurse and attendants had been watching him all afternoon; it was time for the Master’s nap.
They came out of the adjoining room, and one attendant went to the rotunda doors while the nurse and the other attendant approached the dining table. Reynard nodded to them, and Molinari knew that it was time to go.
The attendant lent a hand to Molinari as he got up from the table. His hips were stiff from sitting so long, and he was thankful for the assistance. The young knight went to join his partner by the doors, as the nurse got behind Reynard’s wheelchair and rolled him back from the table.
She wheeled Reynard alongside Molinari, and the three of them crossed the wide marble floor at a leisurely pace. The attendants were opening the doors for Reynard and his guest to pass through. As they approached, Molinari took a moment to savor the canvas hung above the doors. It was Salvador Dali’s “The Crucifixion of St. John of the Cross.” He paused to admire the modern masterpiece.
“That is a truly excellent copy,” he enthused.
Working at the Vatican gave him the opportunity to be surrounded by some of the finest art ever created, and Molinari had developed a discerning eye. Although he wasn’t moved by Dali’s modern pieces, the man’s representational work had a timeless, magic touch. He suspected that Dali and da Vinci would have either been great friends, or jealous rivals. Or both.
Reynard was amused by his remark, and glanced up to him with a merry twinkle in his eye. “It’s not a copy,” he told the cardinal.
Molinari was stunned. He looked back to the canvas, his mouth agape, and stared at it for several precious seconds. When the two old men finally passed under the canvas and through the open doors into the rotunda, the attendants and the nurse swapped glances and allowed themselves a smile.
Molinari looked around the rotunda with fresh eyes. His gaze gravitated toward the fresco of the Three Kings, and stayed there as he and Reynard approached the center of the room.
Molinari paused in mid-step, frowning at the golden crowns depicted in the fresco, and turned to the low pedestal beside him. The crowns under the crystal dome were identical in every respect. He glanced at Reynard, who was watching him and smiling the entire time.
“And are these...?” Molinari asked him, and Reynard nodded, his smile growing. Molinari mirrored his nod, and gazed back at the fresco in wonder.
“The Three Kings are my ancestors,” Reynard told him. “We Rosicrucians go back a long way. You folks are Johnny-come-lately.”
Molinari was speechless, absorbing the image on the softly lit semi-circular wall. The perspective was cleverly rendered so that the tableaux seemed to embrace him, drawing him into the scene as Reynard elaborated for his guest.
“When Herod learned that the Three Kings were seeking the Christ Child, he asked them to bring word of where the boy was so that he could worship the child, too. But they didn’t trust the man. So when Jesus was born, the Kings spirited the family into Egypt. We’ve been safeguarding Christ from the very beginning, my friend.”
Molinari thought back to his theology teacher at the Rosicrucian monastery. The old man’s mind used to wander during his lecture, and he kept diving into arcane details that no young child should be subjected to. One day he explained to little Jacob Molinari that Christian Rosenkreuz didn’t actually start the Rosicrucians, that it was really a secret society he revived from ancient times. Christian Rosenkreuz probably wasn’t even his real name; he probably just made it up and called himself that. A lot of people did that back then, and in any case the historical records were very sketchy. The origins of the Rosicrucians actually went all the way back to the time of Christ and the Essenes, and the Gnostic traditions of Egypt and the seeds of mystical knowledge that eventually grew into Islam.
Or something like that; Molinari couldn’t remember most of the details. He was eight years old at the time and he could barely pay attention. To him, ancient history was just that, ancient history. And besides, he was a Jew. What did he care about Jesus Christ? He just pretended to listen because the Rosicrucians kept him and his parents safe from the Nazis. And they had plenty of food, which was hard to come by if you were a poor Jewish kid growing up in Fascist Italy.
He blinked, snapping out of the swirl of memory, and gazed once again at the three golden crowns displayed atop the pedestal.
“I know this has been an enormous sacrifice,” Reynard said quietly. “An uncomfortable adjustment.”
But Molinari shook his head. “No, not at all.” He turned back to Reynard. “From the moment we learned the truth, we did whatever we had to do to keep close watch over the child, and stay one step ahead of the devil.”
A dry grin creased Reynard’s lips. “And one step ahead of the Church.”
Molinari nodded and looked back to the three golden crowns, lost in troubled thought.
It pained Reynard to see him this way, and he cracked a playful grin to cheer him up. “We like our trinkets, too.”
Molinari turned back and smiled at him, and Reynard returned it. They continued toward the vault doors, moving back through history between the two frescos.
The bolts inside the vault doors slid free and the doors whispered open. In the foyer beyond, the two guards stood ready just beyond the threshold, flanking the open doors. Their eyes were locked on the departing guest, leaving nothing to chance.
Cardinal Molinari carefully lowered himself to his knee and kissed Sir Reynard’s ruby and diamond Rose Croix ring. As he got up and turned to go, Reynard tenderly touched his shoulder.
“One more thing,” Reynard said, and Molinari turned back to him. Reynard smiled.
“We’d like to have the dagger back when this is over, if you don’t mind. We’d feel better if it was in our safekeeping. I’m sure you understand.”
Molinari smiled back, and bowed his head.