Eric van Lustbader by The Testament

Author:The Testament
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“I can only imagine the enormous pressure you’ve been under,” Jordan Muhlmann said as he and Cardinal Felix Canesi stood outside the specially outfitted hospital suite in the private, guarded wing inside Rome’s Vatican City. “Seeing to the pontiff’s needs, keeping the press corps in the dark, suppressing the inflammatory rumors that his holiness is on the point of death, holding news conferences, creating ‘new’ speeches by piecing together snippets of the pontiff’s unpublished remarks, as well as keeping our friends on the inner council calm.”

Cardinal Canesi showed his teeth. “Everything is running smoothly enough and it will continue to run smoothly, God willing, if you do your part.”

“How could I not?” Jordan said, smiling. “The special relationship between the Holy See and my organization has existed for centuries.”

“Yes. It was the Vatican that brought the Knights of St. Clement into existence, it was the Vatican that underwrote your niissions. You serve at our pleasure.”

There was nothing threatening in Cardinal Canesi’s tone, but then there needn’t be. He held the weight of history and of holy tradition in the palm of his hand. He wanted to make sure Jordan knew from whose hand he was eating.

“And how is the Holy Father?” Jordan said.

“The pontiff is on oxygen. His heart is laboring, his lungs are slowly filling with fluid. I can feel his death, Jordan. It creeps along my own flesh on its way to take him.”

Jordan’s eyes blazed. “Death will not take him, this I swear, your eminence! We are making progress, the Quintessence will be in your hands within days.”

“I am pleased by your faith and by your unswerving commitment, Jordan. I could not have hoped for a better ally.” Cardinal Canesi was a homely man. His legs were bandy, his head was oversized; it sat on his rounded shoulders seemingly without benefit of a neck. “It is most gracious of you to take the time to come, to pay your respects in person. Your presence has lifted his spirits considerably.”

“For him I would travel twice around the circumference of the world,” Jordan said with a reverence that privately disgusted him.

“Before you enter, you must be gowned and your feet and hands covered.” Canesi guided him across the hall and into a dressing room. It was small and windowless. A line of pale green gowns hung on pegs. The cardinal took two down, handed one to Jordan, and slipped the other on.

Out the small window, enormous crowds of the faithful came and went across the acres of marble, their foolish placards held high for the news cameras, their eyes lifted as their lips moved in prayer. Here was the power in faith, Jordan thought, the manifestation of Canesi’s power. But it was a power from another, an antique age. It was cracked, worn, hollowed out. There was nothing left of it but the facade. The crippled girl guided by her mother, the emaciated man in a wheelchair pushed by his son, they had come here along with all the others to be healed, to be saved, but Jordan knew the truth: they were doomed, just like Canesi.

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