The Last Ember Page 21

  At the end of the Via Eudossiana, the carabinieri cars slowed as they passed a fifteenth-century monastery, adjacent to San Pietro in Vincoli, the church of Saint Peter in Chains. Built originally to house monks, the building now contained the faculty of engineering of the University of La Sapienza. A banner hanging between two sixteenth-century columns welcomed engineering professors to an annual robotics conference. At the entrance to the old monastery court, students sat outside on the steps, smoking as they enjoyed a short break from the rain.

  The carabinieri cars pulled in front of the two-story façade of Saint Peter in Chains. Even by Roman standards, the church exuded a deceptive obscurity, sitting at the northern end of an unadorned piazza that had been transformed to a neighborhood parking lot. But Profeta knew the façade was misleading. Behind its unassuming wrought-iron gate and Ionic columns were some of Christendom’s most remarkable treasures. Under the main altar in a reliquary of gold and rock crystal lay the ancient chains that bound Saint Peter in Jerusalem, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.

  “The church’s evacuation is nearly complete,” Rufio said, meeting Profeta and Brandisi as they stepped out of the car. “I was on Janiculum Hill when I received Brandisi’s message to have the church evacuated. We had a false sighting of Dr. Travia.”

  A stream of tourists funneled out of the church like refugees. A policeman argued with a gelato vendor to move his van from the piazza. The vendor’s furor was audible from across the piazza as he stabbed at the permit he wore around his neck as if it were a war medal.

  By the time Profeta stepped inside, all the tourists had exited the church. The long rectangular shape of the church had few windows, and even during the summer months, the interior was dark. Twenty-four columns converged on a single point, where the chains of Saint Peter lay in a brass confessionale beneath the altar. Profeta’s trained eye recognized the ancient marble seat on top of the altar as being from a toilet-bath in ancient Rome, but he knew to say nothing, as the seat was now converted to an episcopal throne over the chains of Saint Peter.

  Profeta stood in the middle of the aisle. “Comandante,” the church rector said from the far side of the aisle, “Father Zicino is ready to receive you.”

  Profeta walked through a small black door to a sconce-lit sacristy. He passed the stored vestments of the priests and attendants and descended a dim hallway lined with portraits of the Renaissance-era priests of San Pietro in Vincoli, among them Francesco della Rovere, who eventually rose to the papacy from this very office. Profeta stepped through a wooden door to find a middle-aged man, more athletic-looking than he had expected. Father Zicino was approaching fifty, still with many years before him to rise politically within the Curia. The priest sat at his desk with a large cross on the wall behind him. His face was clean-shaven beneath well-groomed black hair with gray forelocks. Saint Peter in Chains was an important parish, and Profeta could decipher from Father Zicino’s immaculate office that he was an efficient man. He gestured for Profeta to sit down. He seemed at ease, as though evacuating his church were an everyday occurrence.

  “Yes, Comandante, how may we help you?”

  “My apologies for the disruption, Father,” Profeta said. “We have reason to think your reliquaries could be in danger.”

  “Comandante, this church has been the custodian of some of Christendom’s most valuable belongings for more than one thousand years. The chains of Saint Peter have been safe here since the early fifth century, when Empress Eudossiana placed them here, after her journeys in Jerusalem. They are behind half a foot of plate glass.”

  “Has there been any restoration or any construction here in the church’s sanctuary?”

  “Two years ago, the restoration of Moses.”

  Profeta knew of the restoration of the church’s main attraction. Michelangelo’s Moses, which sat in the church’s southern transept as part of Julius II’s unfinished tomb.

  The Italian company Lottomatica had financed the cleaning of Michelangelo’s statue. Another corporate effort. Profeta was unsure how the Renaissance master would feel about the restoration of his statue becoming a publicity stunt by one of the largest manufacturers of casino gaming equipment.

  “And no construction beneath the church?”

  “Not beneath the church, no.” He paused for a moment. “Although the faculty of engineering has been conducting significant renovations along their eastern wing, the vibrations at times feel as though they are beneath this very church.”

  Profeta looked up from his notepad, and nodded to Brandisi, who slipped out the door. Profeta turned back toward the priest. “May I see the sanctuary again, Father?”

  They walked down the aisle, just the two of them. In the church’s dim interior, the beams of Profeta’s officers’ flashlights crisscrossed as they searched inside each transept for unmarked knapsacks or other potentially dangerous objects.

  Father Zicino pointed at the transept where Michelangelo’s Moses sat in relative darkness. During the day, tourists lined up in front of a small coin box and for one euro could activate a spotlight above the masterpiece for thirty seconds. But in the now empty church, in a dark transept outside the basilica’s central nave, the statue appeared forgotten.

  “He is a little large to steal, don’t you think?” Father Zicino smiled.

  Profeta turned from the statue and stared at the front of the sanctuary.

  “What is below the altar?”

  “Warriors, Comandante.”

  “Warriors?” Profeta repeated, looking around. “I thought the only graves here are the tombs of prior cardinals of this church.”

  “Oh, no, Comandante, beneath the altar is the exception. The Maccabees’ graves,” Father Zicino said.

  Profeta stopped walking. “Maccabees?”

  “Yes, in 1876, a restoration discovered Maccabee graves beneath the altar. The inscriptions revealed that in the sixth century, Pope Pelagius brought the seven Maccabee brothers to be reinterred here. The location of the Maccabees’ graves beneath us is largely unknown, but we think their presence makes this church a fitting location for the tomb of Julius the Second, a man known as—”

  “The warrior pope,” Profeta said. He knew Julius II tried to gain support for a Fourth Crusade to search for reliquaries in Jerusalem.

  “Yes, Comandante,” the priest said through an apologetic smile, “Julius the Second was known for his courage, although some would say violence. He was a great admirer of the Maccabees as defenders of Jerusalem.”

  Profeta was silent a moment. “Josephus,” he finally said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The first-century historian Josephus. He descended from Maccabean heritage—”

  A junior officer interrupted, his rapid boot steps echoing down the aisle. He whispered in Profeta’s ear.

  Profeta turned to Father Zicino. “I’m afraid my men will need to go beneath the altar, Father.”

  “Comandante, I can’t simply open th—”

  “This church is in immediate danger,” Profeta said. “Those vibrations you heard are not from next door.”

  “But we received notice from the engineering school,” Father Zicino said, revealing his administrator’s soul.

  “Those vibrations are from beneath your church.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “My men just went over to inquire, Father. There are no renovations next door.”

  The priest escorted Profeta down a half-flight of steps to the well beneath the altar. He removed a decorative leather box from his frock and set it on the small table, where votive candles burned. From the leather box, he removed a key that resembled a fairy-tale prop. The key rattled inside the small grate’s lock and the ratchet bolt groaned but stopped short. One of the church’s maintenance staff appeared with metal lubricant and, throwing his weight into pulling the grate’s metal lever down, got the lock to drop open.

  Profeta studied the square-sized open hatch beneath the marble altar, duck
ing his head inside. His voice echoed from within. “It’s massive in here,” Profeta said. Rufio crouched beside him, shining his flashlight into the black air beneath the tomb. A narrow brick staircase seemed to descend into infinity.

  Profeta went first, balancing himself against the wall of the stairs as he started down. His flashlight beam revealed an underground chamber hewed with ornate stone columns into the walls. Seven sarcophagi lay inside the room, each one carved with scenes of battle.

  “The remains of the Maccabee brothers,” Profeta said.

  On the far side of the chamber, Profeta noticed some fresh rubble. A crude opening had been hacked through the bare rock. Profeta shined his light into the space. A massive tunnel stretched into the darkness.

  “This tunnel is enormous,” Rufio said. “It’s large enough for—”

  “An emperor’s palace,” Profeta said. “These tunnels were here long before the church was built on top of it. We’re standing in Nero’s palace, the Domus Aurea.”

  44

  Jonathan cupped his palm over his flashlight to diminish its glare, just in case the tour group could see its glow in the corridor.

  The ground steepened and Emili braced herself against the rock walls as they moved down the portico.

  “Watch your feet; the rock is slippery,” Jonathan said.

  Emili’s gray slacks couldn’t have been more inappropriate for spelunking, but she was glad they were wool. The corridors of the Domus Aurea were ten degrees cooler than the surface temperature of Rome.

  “This cistern must be sixty feet high,” Emili said as they entered another chamber.

  “Not a cistern,” Jonathan said. “Look.” Jonathan turned his flashlight’s beam to the wall. A bright ancient fresco of reds and blues jumped out at them. The fresco was a country setting, with birds and trees, painted in remarkable detail, befitting the villa of an emperor.

  Suddenly there was a slow rumble above them, gathering in intensity and volume.

  “What is that?” Emili yelled above the noise.

  Jonathan waited for it to pass. “I think we’re below a metro station. That was a train.”

  Jonathan pointed above them and then to the map of Nero’s palace that Chandler had given them. “This brick architrave here,” he said, looking into the map, “it’s the double barrel vault of the palace’s portico. This is the right way.”

  They walked down a corridor, following the curve of a solid ivory wall until they reached a grand space meant to receive guests. Dust sifted down under the weight of another rattling train. The modern sounds comforted Jonathan as they descended deeper into the corridors. I never thought I would be doing this again, he thought.

  While Emili wiped a thick layer of algae off the wall, to admire a remarkable stucco in the Pompeian style of landscapes, Jonathan felt the floor moving slightly. He pointed his flashlight downward and realized the floor was practically alive with worms, an endless bed of writhing pasta. Pinkish-white worms swarmed over his Ferragamos. One disappeared inside his shoe.

  “This is part of grad school I haven’t missed.”

  Jonathan and Emili penetrated deeper into the palace. The sounds of the passing metro trains faded to a soft, distant thunder. An acrid subterranean breeze singed their nostrils, and they both breathed in soft gasps. The air around them was fifteen hundred years old.

  Jonathan walked in first, into a semicircular room. Seven radial passageways branched out of the curved far wall.

  “How do we know which passageway leads to the map of Jerusalem?”

  “These frescoes,” Jonathan said. He trained his beam on a series of ancient paintings that lined one of the corridors. “They look recently excavated.” In the first painting, the pigment had faded, but the figures were quite clear: a young man, in a neck chain hitched to other prisoners, pulled heavy stones.

  “I don’t recognize the myth,” Emili said. “Sisyphys pushing a boulder?”

  “No,” Jonathan said. “Look at the next painting.” The same young prisoner, Jonathan noticed, the chain still around his neck, but he was now standing before a king, who listened raptly. The prisoner was pointing above his head, where two rows of cows stood side by side among stars in a night sky.

  “In this last frame, a slave has been brought from prison before a king,” Emili said. “It looks like an Egyptian pharaoh.”

  “Yes,” Jonathan said, “and he’s interpreting the pharaoh’s dream, pointing to skinny cows and fat cows.”

  “What Roman myth is it, then?” Emili said.

  “Not Roman,” Jonathan said. “It’s a narrative from the Bible.”

  “The Romans were pagans, Jon.”

  “But the prisoners of Jerusalem weren’t. The young man in the fresco is a prisoner in Egypt interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. Ring any bells?”

  “The biblical story of Joseph,” Emili answered.

  “Exactly. Look at the cows. Pharaoh dreamed of seven fat cows standing beside seven skinny cows, foreshadowing famine in the land.”

  “This must be the right tunnel,” Emili said, picking up her pace.

  As they moved deeper into the corridor, Emili shone her light along the tunnel floor.

  “Jon, look at these tools.” Old, rusted picks and saws with eroded wooden handles lay against the walls. “This equipment hasn’t been used in a hundred years.” Her flashlight caught the grooves of an Italian inscription.

  “In honor of Pope Pius VII. Giuseppe Valadier. 1811,” Jonathan translated, standing behind her.

  “Pope Pius the Seventh is known as the first conservationist pope,” Emili said. “He must have commissioned the papal architect, Giuseppe Valadier, to lead a restoration team here in this corridor.”

  The passage led to a small archway. Jonathan pointed his light above the arch, revealing a stone carving of a large owl perched above it. The owl’s eyes were orblike, glowing gemstones that seemed to follow them through the door.

  “The Vault of Owls,” Emili said, exhilarated. “The map must be in here.”

  They entered a large circular room. In the high vaulted ceiling, the perforations of a steel manhole showered slim rays into the cavern like spotlights, illuminating—to their surprise—a large modern aluminum scaffold constructed against one of the room’s bare rock walls. Among other rusted nineteenth-century excavation tools, the structure’s gleaming metal was as out of place as a stage set from the wrong play.

  “Looks a little modern for an excavation in the 1800s,” Jonathan said.

  “It was just built. There’s scarcely any condensation on the piping,” Emili said. She walked the circumference of the room. “Why build a scaffold when there are no ancient murals to restore?”

  Jonathan pulled on the scaffolding’s lower pipes, testing their sturdiness, and then scampered up several first rungs.

  “Jon, what are you doing?”

  “It’s here, Em. It’s huge!”

  Emili looked around. “There’s nothing on the walls.”

  “The scaffolding’s not meant to look at the walls. It’s to look at the floor.”

  Emili looked under her feet. She could make out the faint colors of an image beneath the green membranous veil of algae. She joined Jonathan on the scaffolding, and took in the size of the floor painting.

  “It’s a painting of Jerusalem,” she said, “Drawn as large as the room.”

  The ancient floor painting portrayed Jerusalem beneath a brilliant blue sky, which was still visible as flaking blue stucco under the algae. Towering walls surrounded large public courtyards, and in the mural’s center stood a large white structure surrounded by a rectangular columned portico.

  “It’s so . . . peaceful,” Emili said, struck by such a soothing landscape of first-century Jerusalem. Repeated European paintings of Roman soldiers burning Jerusalem were her only visual references, most notably Poussin’s seventeenth-century corpse-strewn Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem Under Titus, but never had she seen a rendering of Herod’s Temple
before the destruction in such a pastoral setting.

  “Those concentric colonnades are the priestly courtyards of the Temple Mount,” Jonathan said. He pointed at the center of the painting. “The large, white building there must be the Holy of Holies.” Josephus’s description of the rectangular white marble structure was surprisingly accurate. Like a snowy mountain glittering in the sun.

  Emili looked at the map. “Titus built his baths directly above this wing of the Domus Aurea. He used Jewish slave labor for its construction, just as he did for the Colosseum. The slaves must have spent months sneaking down here to work on this painting,” Emili said.

  “And I think I know why.” Jonathan climbed down from the scaffolding and walked across the fresco. He knelt down and wiped the algae away from the depiction of the Temple’s inner courtyard surrounding the Holy of Holies.

  “This painting must show the path of Josephus’s escape with the menorah . . .” he said softly, “through a hidden gate.”

  “But there’s nothing drawn there.”

  Jonathan twisted the cap face of the flashlight, narrowing the beam until only a small bright circle concentrated on the painting. Tropaeum Illumina, Jonathan remembered the Forma Urbis’s instruction. Illuminate the monument.

  To his astonishment, a small row of red stones became luminescent beneath the thin layer of stucco, shimmering a fiery orange-red glow, lighting an electric path as his flashlight moved.

  An inlaid trail of gemstones beneath the painting.

  “Emili, get down here!” Jonathan said. “It looks like there’s a row of—”

  “Rubies?” Emili said, already standing beside him.

  “Or pyrope,” Jonathan said, “a red mineral, named from the Greek pyropus, meaning fiery-eyed.” Jonathan tilted his head to see the line of stones only millimeters beneath the paint. “Completely hidden,” he said, marveling, “but revealed through light, just like the carving inside the Forma Urbis instructed.”

  “The slaves must have collected these stones from Nero’s gem-studded walls and buried them beneath this stucco to illuminate the path of Josephus’s escape with the menorah,” Emili said, trailing her flashlight’s beam along the stones until the path came to an abrupt stop where water damage had lifted up the stucco. “The flaking surface of the paint exposed the other gemstones, and now they’re gone.” She looked up at Jonathan. “Quae amissa salva. Lost things are safe.”