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quickly made
his way to the stone guardrail, lifting the hem of his garment as he did so,
and then laid a hand on the railing. The drop to the street below appeared farther
simply by illusion alone. The height was no more than thirty feet. But for some
reason it looked twice that.
    He looked over
the edge and noted that the blood was gone, the bricks no longer holding any
tell-tale sign that the pontiff’s life had leeched out onto the surface below.
    “A shame, isn’t
it? That the pontiff should lose his life so early during his tenure.”
    Vessucci
started. He did not hear Cardinal Angullo enter the chamber, nor the closing of
the doors after the guards let him in. The face that measured Vessucci was oddly
hatchet-thin with a snout-like nose and grim lips fashioned above a weak chin. His
eyes were so dark they seemed without pupil. And when he spoke, he did so in a discordant
twang similar to the strings of an instrument being plucked.
    Vessucci
returned the same arduous glare. “Quite,” he simply said.
    “Are you here to
reminisce of a time that once was? When you and Pope Pius once stood here talking
about the Church . . . And of the dark secrets it held during his reign.”
    Vessucci
immediately understood the cardinal’s insinuation. He was talking about the Vatican Knights. The Church’s clandestine op-group of elite commandos who were summarily
disbanded under Gregory’s rule, the pope declaring them an abomination to the
Catholic faith despite the good they proffered to those who were weak and
innocent. “The only darkness is the truth of what really happened to Pope
Gregory,” he returned.
    “Oh?”
    Vessucci turned
his gaze upon the plaza of Vatican City, then patted the railing with his hand.
“I have stood here many times overlooking this city with Pope Pius,” he said.
“As I’m sure you have with Pope Gregory.”
    “I have, yes.”
    Vessucci looked
at the railing, and at the carvings of angels and cherubs. “Then you know as
well as I do that it is quite difficult for a man to fall over this railing,
since it is raised to a level to bar a man from leaning too far forward.”
    “It is quite obvious
to me, Bonasero, that the railing is not high enough.”
    The cardinal
drew closer. The railing reached to the point of his abdomen.
    But Angullo
intuited his action. “Pope Gregory was taller than you,” he said.
    “True. But not
tall enough for the brunt of his weight to carry him over the side.” He turned
to Angullo. “Unless he was pushed, perhaps?”
    The cardinal
cocked his head to one side the same way a dog would when trying to grasp the
meaning of an uncertain moment. “If I didn’t know better, Bonasero, I would say
that you were insinuating that the good pontiff was murdered. And that you, at
least by the tone of your voice, believe that it was by my hand.”
    Vessucci stood
back from the railing. “Every shiny surface has a little tarnish underneath,
Giuseppe. All I’m saying is that the case was closed much too quickly without
the benefit of a full objective examination, simply for the belief that nothing
truly reprehensible can happen at the Vatican.”
    “Come on,
Bonasero. Do you really believe that Pope Gregory met his death by the hand of
another rather than by the hand of Fate? He fell. Accidents happen.”
    “To fall over
this railing is highly improbable, since the railing was constructed exactly
for that reason—as a safeguard to keep one from falling over its edge.” He
shook his head. “No, Giuseppe. Either he took his own life . . .” He let his
words trail. But a heartbeat later, said: “Or someone aided him in his fall.”
    The cardinal was
taken aback. “What you say, Bonasero, is nothing but absolute nonsense—this talk
of murder and suicide. Gregory was sound of mind the night of his death. He
would never put the Church in such a position by taking his own life.”
    “Exactly. And
that leaves us with the other option, doesn’t