The Last Cato Read online

  THE LAST CATO

  Over 2.000.000 copies sold worldwide

  Holy relics are disappearing from sacred spots around the world, and the Vatican will do whatever it takes to stop enterprising thieves from stealing what is left of the scattered and miniscule splinters of the True Cross the Catholic Church has in its possession. Dr. Ottavia Salina, a brilliant paleographer, toils at her classified workspace deep within Vatican City, analyzing and restoring some of the world’s most valuable religious artifacts until she is called upon by the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church and commissioned with a mysterious new assignment: she is to decipher the strange tattoos — seven Greek letters and seven crosses — found on an Ethiopian man’s corpse. Next to what was left of the body were three pieces of wood—suspected by Vatican scholars to be fragments of the Vera Cruz, actual splinters from the Cross on which Christ was crucified.

  With the help of the captain of the Pope’s infamous Swiss Guard and a renown archaeologist from Alexandria, Dr. Salina is able to uncover a shocking truth: for hundreds of years, a secret brotherhood which refers to itself as the Staurofilakes, and headed by a mysterious figure called Cato, has been hiding the True Cross and means to gather all remaining fragments for themselves. The markings on the Ethiopian corpse, they soon discover, correspond with each of the Seven Deadly Sins, and are part of the complicated, possibly deadly, initiation ritual used to deem candidates worthy of membership into the brotherhood.

  The Last Cato

  a novel

  TRANSLATED BY PAMELA CARMELL

  About the Author

  Matilde Asensi (born 1962 in Alicante, Spain) is a Spanish journalist and writer, who specializes mainly in historical thrillers. She has more than 20 million readers worldwide and has become the reference of quality bests-sellers in Spanish language. According to the magazine Que Leer she is the ‘Queen of the adventure novels’.

  Her books, of an indubitable quality and proven historical documentation, have been translated to 15 languages. The English translation of The Last Cato won the 2007 International Latino Award in the category ‘best mystery novel’ and an honor mention for ‘best adventure novel’. The following year, Everything Under the Sky won the second place for the International Latino Award.

  In 2011 she received the Honour Award of Historical Novel Ciudad de Zaragoza for her career in this genre. She also was awarded the Premio Juan Ortiz del Barco (1996) and the Premio Felipe Trigo de Relato (1997).

  OTHER BOOKS BY MATILDE ASENSI

  Everything Under the Sky

  Checkmate in Amber

  Iacobus

  Peregrinatio

  The Lost Origin

  THE LAST CATO. Copyright © 2001 by Matilde Asensi.

  Translation copyright © 2006 by Pamela Carmell.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Indiana University Press

  for permission to reprint excerpts from Dante Alighieri’s

  Divine Comedy, translated by Mark Musa.

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  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For

  PASCUAL, ANDRÉS, PABLO, AND JAVIER

  CHAPTER 1

  All things of great beauty—from works of art to sacred objects—suffer the unstoppable effects of the passage of time, just as we do. Their life begins the moment their human creator, aware or not of being in harmony with the infinite, puts the finishing touches on them and surrenders them to the world. Over the centuries, life also brings them closer to old age and death. While Time withers and destroys us, it bestows upon them a new type of beauty that human aging could never dream of. Not for anything in the world would I want to see the Colosseum rebuilt, its walls and terraced seats in perfect condition, or coat the Parthenon with a gaudy paint job, or give the Victory of Samothrace a head.

  Deeply absorbed in my work, I gave those thoughts free rein as my fingertips caressed one of the rough corners of the parchment manuscript in front of me. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that I didn’t hear Dr. William Baker, secretary of the archives, knock at my door, nor did I hear him turn the handle or open the door and look in. When I finally noticed him, he seemed as though he had been standing in the doorway to my office for eternity.

  “Dr. Salina,” Baker whispered, not daring to cross the threshold, “Reverend Father Ramondino has entreated me to request that you proceed to his office immediately.”

  I looked up from the manuscript and took off my glasses to get a better look at the secretary. He had the same perplexed look on his oval face as I had. Baker was a small, compact American. His features reflected his family heritage, and he could have easily passed for southern European. He had thick tortoiseshell glasses and thin hair, part blond, part gray, which he meticulously combed to cover as much of his shiny scalp as possible.

  “Forgive me, Doctor,” I replied sharply, my eyes wide. “Can you please repeat what you just said?”

  “His Most Reverend Father Ramondino wants to see you in his office right away.”

  “The prefect wants to see me? Me?” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Guglielmo Ramondino was the executive director of the Vatican’s Classified Archives, second only to His Excellency Monsignor Oliveira. I could count on one hand the number of times he had summoned me or one of my colleagues to his office.

  Baker let a slight smile come to his lips and nodded.

  “Do you happen to know why he wants to see me?” I asked, backing down.

  “No, Dr. Salina, but I’m certain it’s very important.”

  Still smiling, he closed the door softly and disappeared. By then I was in the throes of an anxiety attack: sweaty palms, dry mouth, racing heart, and trembling legs.

  When I had a better hold of myself, I got down off my stool, turned off the light, and cast a pained glance at the two exquisite Byzantine codices that rested open on my desk. With the help of those manuscripts, I had dedicated the last six months to reconstructing the famous lost text of the Panegyrikon written by Saint Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, and I was on the verge of completing my work. I sighed, resigned, a deep silence surrounding me. My small lab was furnished with an old wooden desk, a pair of tall stools, a crucifix on the wall, and several shelves crammed with books. It was located four floors belowground and formed part of the Hypogeum, the section of the Classified Archives very few people had access to. To the rest of the world and to history, this part of the Vatican was invisible, nonexistent even. Many historians and researchers would have given half their lives to consult the documents that had passed through my hands over the last eight years. But the mere suggestion that someone outside the church could get permission to come here was pure entelechy: A lay person never had access to the Hypogeum—and never would.

  On my desk, in addition to my books, rested piles of notebooks and a low-wattage lamp (to avoid overheating the manuscripts), scalpels, latex gloves, and folders full of high-resolution photographs of the codices’ most damaged pages. The long, swiveled arm of a magnifying glass rose, twisted like a worm, from the far end of my wooden workbench. Hanging from that swayed a large red cardboard hand with stars glued all over it. That hand was a memento from five-year-old Isabella’s last birthday party. Of the twenty-five offspring contributed
to the Lord’s flock by six of my eight brothers and sisters, she was my favorite. My lips drew up a smile as I remembered charming Isabella: “Aunt Ottavia, Aunt Ottavia, let me spank you with this red hand!”

  The prefect! My God! The prefect was waiting for me, and there I stood, frozen like a statue, thinking about Isabella! I tore off my lab coat and hung it on a hook on the wall. I grabbed my ID (a big C was stamped next to a terrible picture of me), went out into the hallway, and locked the door to the lab. My staff worked at a row of desks that extended all the way to the elevator doors, some fifty meters. On the other side of the reinforced concrete wall, office workers filed and refiled hundreds and thousands of records pertaining to the church, its history, its diplomatic negotiations, and its activities from the second century to the present. More than twenty-five kilometers of bookshelves hinted at the massive amount of preserved documents belonging to the Vatican’s Classified Archives. Officially, the archives contained only documents from the last eight centuries; however, documents from a thousand years before were also under its protection and were kept in high-security files found only on the third and fourth underground floors. Originally housed in parishes, monasteries, cathedrals, or archeological excavations, such as the Saint Angelus Castle or the Apostolic Camera, these valuable documents did not see the light of day once they reached the Classified Archives; the same light, along with other equally dangerous elements, could destroy them forever.

  I quickly walked to the elevator, but paused for a moment to watch a member of my staff, Guido Buzzonetti, as he labored over a letter from Güyük, the great khan of the Mongols, sent to Pope Innocent IV in 1246. A small, open bottle of an alkaline solution sat a few millimeters from his right elbow, immediately next to some fragments of the letter.

  “Guido!” I exclaimed, horrified. “Don’t move!”

  Guido looked at me terrified, not even daring to breathe. The blood rushed out of his face and spread to his ears; they looked like two red cloths framing a white shroud. If his arm moved even slightly, the solution would spill on the manuscripts, causing irreparable damage to a rare historical document. All activity around us stopped. You could have cut the silence with a knife…. I grabbed the bottle, capped it, and set it on the far side of the table.

  “Buzzonetti,” I whispered, my eyes boring into him. “Collect your things and report to the vice prefect at once.”

  I had never allowed that kind of slipup in my lab. Buzzonetti was a young Dominican who had studied at the Vatican School of Diplomatic and Archival Paleography, with a specialty in Eastern codification. I myself taught his class in Greek and Byzantine paleography for two years before asking the Reverend Father Pietro Ponzio, vice prefect of the Archives, to offer him a job on my team. But no matter how highly I esteemed Brother Buzzonetti nor how valuable I knew him to be, I couldn’t allow him to continue working at the Hypogeum. Our material was unique, one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable. If, in a thousand or two thousand years, someone wanted to consult the letter from Güyük to Pope Innocent IV, he could. Pure and simple. What would happen to an employee of the Louvre who set an open can of paint on the Mona Lisa’s frame? Ever since I was put in charge of the Vatican’s restoration and paleography lab, I had never allowed this type of carelessness from my team. Everyone knew that. And I wasn’t going to start now.

  As I pressed the elevator button, I was fully conscious of how much my staff disliked me. More than once, I’d felt their reproachful glares boring into my back and had thus learned never to count on their affection. I wasn’t made director of the lab eight years ago to win the love of my subordinates or my superiors. Firing Brother Buzzonetti pained me deeply; only I knew how bad I would feel over the next few months. But making that kind of decision was exactly how I’d gotten where I was.

  The elevator came to a silent stop at my floor and opened its doors, inviting me to step in. I stuck my security key into the control panel, swiped my ID through the electric sensor, and pressed the button that would take me to the ground floor. Seconds later I was standing before huge glass doors. The sunlight streaming in from the San Damaso patio penetrated my brain, blinding and dazing me. In the artificial environment on the lower floors, my senses got so turned around that I couldn’t tell night from day, and on more than one occasion, the first light of the next day had taken me by surprise as I left the archives after long hours engrossed in my work. Still blinking, I glanced distractedly at my watch. It was exactly one o’clock in the afternoon.

  To my surprise, the Reverend Father Guglielmo Ramondino wasn’t waiting for me in his comfortable office. Instead, I found him pacing back and forth in a huge vestibule, a grave look of impatience wrought deeply on his face.

  “Dr. Salina,” he muttered, offering me one hand while gesturing toward the door with his other. “Come with me, please. We have very little time.”

  It was hot in the Belvedere Garden that early March afternoon. Tourists scrambled to peer through the windows of the grand corridors as if we were part of some exotic animal exhibit in a zoo. I’ve always felt strange when I walk through Vatican City’s public areas. Nothing bothers me more than for my gaze to be met by the lens of a camera no matter which way I look. Sadly, some prelates enjoyed flaunting their status as residents of the world’s smallest state, and Father Ramondino was one of them. Dressed like a clergyman and with his jacket open at the breast, his enormous figure was visible for miles around. The path he led me on, toward the Apostolic Palace and the secretary of state’s offices there on the first floor, closely mirrored the route taken by tourists making their rounds. He told me we would be personally received by His Eminence the Most Reverend Cardinal Angelo Sodano (with whom, it seemed, Father Ramondino had a long and close friendship) while he flashed broad smiles right and left as if he were part of an Easter Sunday parade out in the provinces.

  The Swiss Guards posted at the entrance to the diplomatic offices of the Holy See didn’t blink an eye as we passed on through. Nor did the secretary priest who kept track of the office’s comings and goings and who carefully wrote our names, ranks, and occupations in his record book. Rising from his seat, he then led us down a long corridor whose windows looked out over Saint Peter’s Square. The secretary of state was already waiting for us.

  Although I tried to hide it, I was heading toward the prefect with the distinct sensation of having a sharp pain needling my heart. Surely my summons hadn’t been precipitated by mistakes I’d made on my job; still, I mentally recalled everything I’d worked on and any act I might have committed that would have merited a reprimand from the church’s highest authorities.

  The secretary priest finally stopped in a room that was identical to all the rest, the same decorative motifs and frescoes adorning the walls. He asked us to wait a moment, then disappeared behind a door that seemed as light and delicate as a veil of golden leaf.

  “Do you know where we are, Doctor?” The prefect gestured nervously, a smile of deep satisfaction on the lips.

  “More or less, Reverend Father,” I replied, looking around attentively. I detected an unusual fragrance, like still-warm, freshly ironed clothes, combined with varnish and wax.

  “These are the offices of the secretary of state’s Second Section,” he pointed with his chin. “The section that’s in charge of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the rest of the world. It’s headed up by the archbishop secretary, Monsignor François Tournier.”

  “Ah yes, Monsignor Tournier!” I nodded with great conviction. I didn’t have the slightest idea who he was personally, but the name was certainly familiar.

  “Here, Dr. Salina, is the best place to see the spiritual power that the church has over governments and borders.”

  “Why are we here, Reverend Father? Our work has nothing to do with this sort of thing.”

  He looked at me and lowered his voice. “I don’t know why,” he said, clearly agitated. “In any case, I can assure you it has something to do with a matter of the highest importance.�
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  “But Holy Father,” I insisted, obstinate, “I work in the Classified Archives. Any matter of highest importance should be dealt with by you, as prefect, or by His Eminence Monsignor Oliveira. What am I doing here?”

  The prefect looked at me as if he didn’t know how to respond, patted me cheerfully on the shoulder, then left me and walked over to a circle of prelates basking in the warm rays of the sun that streamed through the large windows. It was then that I realized that the scent of freshly ironed clothes was coming from them.

  It was nearly time for lunch, but nobody seemed concerned. Feverish activity was clear along the corridors and offices; a steady stream of ecclesiastic and civil traffic stretched from wall to wall and into every corner. Never having been there before, I entertained myself by observing the sumptuous room, the elegant furniture, the paintings, and the priceless value of the decor. Half an hour before, I’d been working alone, in complete silence, wearing my white lab coat and glasses. Now, here I was surrounded by the highest levels of international diplomatic service of one of the greatest centers of power on earth.

  Suddenly, I heard the creak of a door opening and a tumult of voices which then made everyone’s head turn. Immediately, a boisterous throng of journalists, some with TV cameras and others with handheld tape recorders, appeared in the main hall, bursting out in guffaws and exclamations. Most were foreign, mainly European and African, but there were many Italians, too. Altogether, I’d guess forty or fifty reporters flooded the room in a matter of seconds. Some stopped to greet the priests, bishops, and cardinals who, like me, were ambling around; others hurried toward the exit. Almost all stole glances at me, surprised to find a woman where there usually wasn’t any.

  “Lehmann was dealt quite a blow with one stroke of the pen!” exclaimed a bald journalist wearing thick glasses, standing next to me.