The Last Cato Read online

  “But didn’t he tell you anything else?” I asked, dying of curiosity one afternoon when just the two of us were in the lab working on one of the last folios. “Did he give you any details on his life? Did he share any interesting tidbit of information?”

  Farag laughed easily. His white teeth stood out against his dark complexion. “All I recall,” he began, amused, trying to eradicate his Arabic accent, “is that he said that he entered the Swiss Guard because everyone else in his family had done so since his ancestor Commander Kaspar Röist saved Pope Clement VI from Charles V’s troops during the sack of Rome.”

  “Wow! So the captain’s from a family of nobles!”

  “He also told me he was born in Berne and studied at the University of Zurich.”

  “What did he study?”

  “Agricultural engineering.”

  My jaw dropped. “Agricultural engineering?”

  “What’s so strange about that? I’m pretty sure he said he also had a degree in Italian literature from the University of Rome.”

  “I can’t picture him constructing greenhouses for fruits and vegetables,” I said.

  Farag laughed so uproariously he had to wipe away his tears. “You’re impossible!” He looked at me for a second, his eyes shining. Then he shook his head and pointed to the folio we’d been examining. “What do you say we get back to work?”

  “Yes, that would be best. We left off here,” and I pointed with a pen to a place midway down the second column.

  With the occupation of Jerusalem by Cosroes II, king of Persia, in 614, the Brotherhood of the Staurofilakes plunged into a crisis. After his victory, Cosroes took the True Cross to Ctesiphon, the capital of his empire, and laid it at the foot of his throne as a symbol of his own divinity. The weaker members of the brotherhood disappeared, terrified, and the few who remained (under the rule of Cato XXXVI), feeling responsible for the loss of their relic, dedicated themselves to purging their supposed incompetence with terrible fasts, penitence, flagellations, and true sacrifices. Some even died as a result of the wounds they inflicted upon themselves. Fifteen painful years went by, during which Byzantine emperor Heracles continued to fight Cosroes II and finally defeated him in 628. A while later, in an emotional ceremony celebrated on September 14 of that year, the True Cross was returned to Jerusalem, carried through the city by the emperor himself. The Staurofilakes actively participated in the procession and in the solemn act of restoring the relic to its place. From then on, September 14 was commemorated on the liturgical calendars as the Exaltation of the True Cross.

  But the era of anguish hadn’t ended. Only nine years later, in 637, another powerful army arrived at Jerusalem’s doors: the Muslims, commanded by Caliph Omar. By then, the order had a new Cato, the thirtyseventh, originally named Anastasios, who decided he wasn’t going to stand quietly by when danger arrived. When news of the invasion began to spread through the city, Cato XXXVII sent a small team of wellknown Staurofilakes to negotiate with the caliph. A pact was signed in secret, and the safety of the True Cross was guaranteed in exchange for the brotherhood’s collaboration in locating the Christian and Jewish treasures that had carefully been hidden as the advance of the Muslims became known. Omar kept his word, and so did the Staurofilakes. For many years there was peace and cohabitation between the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

  During this peaceful period, the order went through a deep transformation. Having learned from the loss of the True Cross during the Persian invasion and by the good that came from their later accord with the Arabs, the Staurofilakes became more convinced than ever that their strict, simple mission was to protect the Holy Wood. They started to become more withdrawn, more independent from the patriarchs, more invisible, and also much more powerful. Among their ranks they started to enlist men from the best families of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Athens, and from the Italian cities of Florence, Ravenna, Milan, and Rome. They were no longer a group of henchmen, ready to skin alive any pilgrim who dared touch the True Cross. They were clever and intelligent men, more soldiers and diplomats than deacons or monks.

  They succeeded in strengthening the organization by doing what Cato II had proposed back in the fourth century: They set out requirements for admittance. The new aspirants had to know how to read and write, have a command of Latin and Greek, know mathematics, music, astrology, and philosophy; more important, they needed to pass a series of physical tests of resistance and strength. Slowly, the Staurofilakes became an important, estranged institution, always attentive to its sole mission.

  The problems returned with the waves of European pilgrims, people of all classes and conditions—mostly vagabonds, beggars, thieves, hermits, adventurers, and mystics; a picturesque group of people looking for a place to live and die. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the situation grew worse: The caliphs of Jerusalem were no longer as magnanimous as Omar, forbidding Christians to enter the holy sites. In 1009, Caliph al-Hakem, a demented man with whom the patriarch of Jerusalem and the brotherhood had had serious problems, ordered the destruction of all religious sanctuaries that weren’t Muslim. While al-Hakem’s soldiers destroyed church after church, temple after temple, the Staurofilakes scrambled to save the Cross. They hid it in the place they’d prepared in advance for just such an occasion: a secret crypt under the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre itself, where the relic was usually housed. They managed to save it from destruction but at a cost of the lives of several Staurofilakes who fought off the soldiers so their brothers could get to the hiding place.

  The photographic reproduction lab completed the last folio, number 182, on the afternoon of the second Easter Sunday. My staff finished its paleographic analysis two days later, the first week in May. All that was missing was my part, the slowest and least systematic of them all, so we decided to reorganize the team and have the members of my department take care of the translations, allowing me to sit down with Glauser-Röist and Farag to read and interpret the pages that were brought to us from the lab.

  In 1054, to no one’s surprise, the Great Schism in the Christian church came about. Romans and Orthodox Christians openly confronted each other over futile theological questions and distribution of power. Rome insisted that the pope was the only direct successor to Peter. The patriarchs rejected that idea, stating that they were the apostle’s legitimate successors. The Staurofilakes didn’t align themselves with either group, despite the untenable position that left them in. Their sole allegiance was to themselves and to the Cross, and increasingly their attitude toward the rest of the world was one of profound mistrust.

  While Cato LXVI urgently studied ways to protect the order from its critics and from attacks by the two Christian factions, the Holy Land was once again on the brink of war. In the spring of 1097, four large armies of crusaders were concentrated in Constantinople, planning to advance all the way to Jerusalem and liberate the Holy sites from Islamic dominion.

  Again a group of Staurofilakes negotiators surreptitiously left the city, to meet the vast European troops commanded by Gottfried of Bouillon. They caught up with them two months later, laying siege to Antioch after conquering the Turkish troops in Nicea and Dorilea. According to Cato LXVI’s chronicle, Gottfried of Bouillon didn’t accept the brotherhood’s proposal. He told them that the True Cross of the Savior was the real objective of that crusade, whose symbol the soldiers proudly displayed on their clothes. They were not willing to renounce that cross for any Islamic, Jewish, or Christian treasure. He told them that because the Staurofilakes hadn’t joined the Church of Rome during the Great Schism, as soon as he took the city, he would have them excommunicated and dissolve the brotherhood for good.

  The negotiators returned to Jerusalem with the bad news, causing real distress among the guardians of the Cross. On the night of July 3, 1098, Cato LXVI announced the coming dangers to all the Staurofilakes at an assembly in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. With the unanimous support of those present, he p
roposed hiding the relic and keeping silent the order. At that moment, the Staurofilakes ceased to exist publicly.

  A year later, after a month of siege, the crusaders took Jerusalem and literally massacred its entire population. There was so much blood in the streets that the frightened horses reared and whinnied and the soldiers couldn’t walk. In the middle of this carnage, Gottfreid of Bouillon went to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre to take the True Cross with his own hands, but he didn’t find it. He ordered all surviving Staurofilakes to be brought to him, but there were none to be found. He tortured the Orthodox priests until they confessed that there were three disguised Staurofilakes in their midst: Three very young monks— Agapios, Elijah, and Teofanes—had remained in Jerusalem to watch over the relic. Gottfried tortured them, whipping, burning, and dismembering them. Teofanes, the weakest, could not hold out. With his arms and legs tied to horses, in his last moment he shouted that the Holy Wood was hidden in a secret crypt under the basilica. Practically senseless and dragged by Bouillon’s soldiers, he pointed out the place with great difficulty. He was left in the street, to his own fate, where he died, stabbed to death by unknown hands.

  The True Cross became the most important relic of the crusaders who carried it into battle. For more than a hundred years, it was shown to soldiers before battles in order to rouse them; and, for a hundred years, thanks to the Wood of Christ, they remained undefeated. A number of Lignum Crucis were sent to Europe as a gift to kings and popes, monasteries and the noble families of the West. The Holy Wood was divided and distributed as if it were a pie, for wherever there was one of its splinters, riches flowed in the form of pilgrims and devotees. The Staurofilakes watched from a distance, powerless to do anything to stop it. Their concern turned to anger, and they swore to recover what was left of the True Cross at any cost. But at the time the task seemed impossible.

  According to Cato LXXII’s chronicle, some of the brothers infiltrated the crusades so they could watch the movements of the Wood. They feared it would fall into Muslim hands during some major battle or skirmish, for the Arabs and the Turks knew perfectly well the meaning it held for the Christians. They knew that if they seized it, the Christians’ victories would dwindle. At that same time (around 1150), other groups of Staurofilakes left for the principal Christian cities of the East and West. Their plan was to establish relations with influential, powerful people who could mediate in their favor or demand the return of the relic. In time, those who left made contact with some of the many organizations and religious orders that proliferated in medieval Europe and whose foundations were firmly rooted in Christianity. From the European Knights Templar and the Catharists to the Fede Santa, the Massenie du Saint Graal, the Compagnonnage, the Minnesänger, or the Fidei d’Amore—almost all were contacted by Staurofilakes, resulting in an exchange of information or shared interests. Many Staurofilakes entered these orders or organizations, and vice versa. The Staurofilakes also recruited the most prominent, most important young men and princes from the cities where they were based, planning for these boys to mature in the shadow of the brotherhood before occupying the positions of power to which they were destined by family and birth. But for these youngsters to be guardians of the True Cross was something intangible; the Holy Wood was still in Jerusalem, a city that was too far away. Many of them left the brotherhood only a few years after they joined. It was precisely one of those deserters who informed the ecclesiastic authorities of Milan of what he knew about the Staurofilakes. A year later, in Jerusalem and Constantinople, the members of the brotherhood, including Cato LXXV, were arrested in their homes and sent to prison. There they were excommunicated and reminded that Gottfried of Bouillon had dissolved their brotherhood one hundred years before. They were classified as lapsed, and therefore were sentenced to death. All, without exception, were executed.

  The next Cato, who referred to these sad events at the beginning of his portion of the codex, was one of the Staurofilakes from Antioch. He summoned all the brothers to an assembly in that city at the end of 1187. He began his address with the terrible news that was on everyone’s lips: The Ayyubi strongman, Saladin, had defeated the crusaders in the battle of Hattina, in Galilee. According to the Staurofilakes present at the battle, he snatched the relic of the True Cross from the hands of the defeated king, Guy de Lusignan. The Cross of Jesus Christ had fallen into Muslim hands.

  Many important things were decided in that meeting. They selected the brothers who would infiltrate Saladin’s armies (Nikephoros Panteugenos, Sophronios of Teila, Joachim Sandalya, Dionisios of Dara, and Abraham Abdounita) to watch over the True Cross and, if possible, steal it. They agreed that they needed to be more careful about selecting the aspiring Staurofilakes, so that the treason that caused the death of the brothers from Jerusalem and Constantinople and Cato LXXV never took place again. A group of fifteen brothers from the cities of Rome, Ravenna, Athens, Antioch, and Alexandria were put in charge of devising an initiation process sufficiently rigorous so that only the best and most devoted could enter the brotherhood. There was no mercy for those who did not pass these tests; their mouths were sealed forever. A group of twelve Staurofilakes were commissioned to find a safe place where the relic could be hidden as soon as it was recovered. Once the True Cross was back in the brotherhood’s hands, it would never be taken again, and never would any lay person be allowed to touch it or see it. The hiding place would be impregnable. Twelve brothers traveled the world until they found the suitable site. Meanwhile, the rest of the Staurofilakes were focused on urgently recovering the relic. They proudly concluded that eight hundred years of their existence must not end in failure.

  After a few months, the Holy Land had fallen into Saladin’s power and the crusaders were forced to fall back to the coast of Tyrus, in Lebanon. The Staurofilakes were in fact the secret organizers of the Second Crusade.

  In August 1191, Richard the Lionhearted put an end, finally, to the Muslim armies, defeating them in numerous battles. The Muslims agreed to negotiate the return of the True Cross, and a group of envoys from the Christian king, including an undercover Staurofilax, were able to see and venerate the relic. But then Richard, in an absurd and inexplicable gesture, killed two thousand Muslim prisoners, and Saladin broke off talks.

  The Staurofilakes in charge of organizing the initiation tests concluded their work in July 1195. The information was taken to all the brothers via emissaries who traveled to the main cities of the world. A short time later, the first candidate began the tests. Cato LXXVI described them thus:

  So that their souls arrive pure to the True Cross of the Savior and are worthy of prostrating themselves before it, they must purge themselves of all their faults until they are free of all stain. The expiation of the Seven Deadly Sins will take place in the seven cities that boast the terrible distinction of being known to practice them perversely: Rome, for its pride; Ravenna, for its envy; Jerusalem, for its wrath; Athens, for its sloth; Constantinople, for its greed; Alexandria, for its gluttony; and Antioch, for its lust. In each one of these cities, as if they were an earthly purgatory, an aspirant will suffer for his faults in order to enter the secret place we Staurofilakes will call the earthly paradise. The Archangel Michael gave Adam a branch from the Tree of Good and Evil which he planted, and from it was born the tree whose wood was used to build the Cross on which Christ died. So the brothers of one city know what happened in the previous cities, upon finishing each step, the supplicant’s flesh will be marked with a cross, one for each deadly sin erased from his soul, as a souvenir of his expiation. The crosses will match those on the wall of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, in the Holy Place of Sinai, where Moses received from God the Tablets of the Law. If the supplicant arrives at the earthly paradise with seven crosses, he will be admitted as one of us, and he will always display on his body the chrismon and the sacred word that gives meaning to our lives. If he does not, may God have mercy on his soul.

  Seven tests in seven cities,” whispered Farag, im
pressed. “And Alexandria is one of them, for the sin of gluttony.”

  We had spent two days studying the last portion of the manuscript that covered the tumultuous twelfth century. Everything we read pointed to Abi-Ruj Iyasus: the scarifications of the seven crosses of Saint Catherine, the chrismon, and the word Stauros. It was frightening to think that the Staurofilakes still existed 1,659 years after their creation. None of us doubted they were the ones behind the theft of the Ligna Crucis.

  “Where could that earthly paradise be?” I asked, taking off my glasses and rubbing my tired eyes.

  “Perhaps the last folio has the answer,” suggested Farag, picking up the transcript. “Come on. We’re almost finished. Captain?”

  But Captain Glauser-Röist did not move. His eyes were glazed with distraction.

  “Captain…” I looked at Farag, amused. “I believe he’s fallen asleep.”

  “No, no…,” murmured the Rock, “I’m not asleep.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  Farag and I studied him, astonished. The captain had a haggard, dazed look. He jumped to his feet and peered down on us. His mind seemed racing with thoughts.

  “You go ahead. I have to check something.”

  “What’s wrong?” I started to ask, but Glauser-Röist had already run out the door. I turned to Farag, who also had an incredulous look on his face. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  The truth is, there was an explanation for the captain’s odd behavior: We were working under a lot of pressure many hours a day. We hardly slept, and we spent all our time in the artificial atmosphere of the Hypogeum, not seeing the sun or breathing fresh air. What we really needed was a healthy walk in the country or a day at the beach, but we were in a hurry, we pushed the limits of the humanly possible, fearing that at any time we would get the bad news of some new theft of Ligna Crucis. We were simply exhausted.