The Blood Gospel (Page 125)

But Rhun knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“You guys are nuts,” Jordan said, interrupting his thoughts. “Erin did all the heavy lifting on this. And Bathory is dead. If the book is so smart, why would it set an impossible task?”

“The Warrior has wisdom,” Eleazar said. “Perhaps he speaks truth. Prophecy is often a two-edged sword that cuts down all who attempt to interpret it.”

Erin looked unconvinced.

Eleazar bowed his head, his gaze fixing on Rhun.

Rhun knew that all was not lost.

“I have another matter to discuss with Father Korza,” Eleazar said to the others. “If we might have a moment alone.”

“Of course,” Erin said, and moved off with Jordan.

When the two were no longer in sight, Eleazar spoke again, in a whisper. “Thou must forsake this woman, Rhun. I have seen thy heart, but it cannot be.”

Rhun heard truth in those words; it settled in his bones. “I shall.”

Eleazar stared long and hard at Rhun, as if peeling away his flesh and baring his bones. The feeling was not entirely fanciful, as Eleazar’s next words proved. “Is there another of the line of the Woman of Learning?”

Rhun bowed from those penetrating eyes. He knew what was asked. He must own all his sins, unearth all his secrets, or all the world might be lost.

He faced Eleazar with tears in his eyes. “You ask too much.”

“It must be done, my son.” Eleazar’s voice held pity. “We cannot hide from our past forever.”

Rhun knew how much Eleazar had also given up for the world—and knew it was time for Eleazar to face that past, too.

Rhun reached into the deep pocket inside his cassock and drew out the doll he had retrieved from the dusty tomb in Masada. It was a tattered thing, sewn from leather, long gone hard, with one eye missing. He placed the bit of the painful past into Eleazar’s open palm.

Eleazar had lived for so long that he was more like a statue than any of the Cloistered Ones, resolute, unmoving, more like marble than flesh.

But now those stone fingers shook, barely able to hold aloft the tiny, frail toy. Instead, Eleazar brought it to his chest and cradled it close, as if it were a living child, one he mourned deeply.

“Did she suffer?” he asked.

Rhun thought about the small body hanging on the wall in Masada, pinned by silver bolts that would have burned inside her until she expired.

“She died serving Christ. Her soul is at peace.”

Rhun stood and left the Risen One to his grief.

As Rhun turned away, he caught a glimpse of marble breaking.

Eleazar bowed his head.

A tear fell and spattered mournfully upon the doll’s stained face.

66

October 29, 6:15 A.M., CET

The sanctuary below St. Peter’s Basilica, Italy

Rhun ran through the darkness with unearthly speed, a hammer clenched in his hand. It had been many centuries since his feet had walked these pitch-dark tunnels, but the way opened before him as if his body had always known that it would return here.

He descended deeper than the temple of the Cloistered Ones, deeper than most dared venture. Here he had hidden his greatest secret. He had lied to Bernard; he had broken his vows; he had done penance for it, but never enough.

And now his sin was the only thing that might save them.

He stopped before a featureless wall, ran one hand across it, felt no seam. He had covered it well, four hundred years before.

Rhun raised the hammer above his head and struck the wall. Stone shuddered under the blow. It gave. A mere hairsbreadth, but it gave.

He struck again and again. Bricks crumbled until a small opening appeared. Barely large enough to admit him. That was all he needed.

He climbed through the rough stone, not caring how it scratched his skin. He had to reach the dark room beyond.

Once there, he lit a candle he had brought along with him. The scent of honey and beeswax unfolded in the chamber, driving back the odors of stone, decay, and staleness.

The pale yellow flame reflected off the polished surface of a black marble coffin.

He worked the lid off and lowered it to the rough stone floor of the cell.

The smell of sacramental wine bloomed free. The wet black surface drank the light.

Before he drew out the contents, Rhun cupped his hand and drank of the wine. He would need every ounce of holy fortification for the task ahead. But before the strength, as always, came the penance.

Rhun walked to Rome. Weeks of trekking day and night through cold dark mountain passes had shredded his shoes and then his feet. When he could walk no farther, he sought sanctuary in remote mountain churches, drinking a mouthful of wine before driving himself out into the wild again.

Bernard met him in Rome and took him deep under St. Peter’s Basilica, where only the eldest of their kind dared to go. There Rhun did his penance. He fasted. He prayed. He mortified himself. None of his actions lightened the stain of his sin.

A decade later, Bernard sent him out into the world of men again, this time on a new mission to Čachtice Castle, a final penance to rid the world of what his sin created.

Armed men around him kept their swords drawn. Fear shone in their faces, beat through their racing hearts. They were right to be afraid.

The Palatine and Counts led, casting nervous glances back at their men, as if they feared that their men could not save them. They could not. But Rhun could. He prayed that he would not have to. That the stories were false. That his corrupted love had not caused this.

But he had also heard other stories … of macabre experiments in the dead of night, hinting that there remained some dark purpose to her atrocities, some semblance of her intelligence, of her healing arts, turned to foul intention. That scared him most of all—that some part of her true nature still existed within that monster, degraded now to evil ends.

As they reached the entrance to the castle, men shifted, quick breaths forming clouds in cold air.

The Palatine knocked on a stout oak door built to withstand battering rams. For a moment Rhun prayed that no one would answer, and they would be forced to lay siege to the castle, but Anna opened it. Her birthmark still stained her face, but she was otherwise unrecognizable. Gaunt as a skeleton and covered in scars, she wore only a stained chemise against the biting cold.

The Palatine forced the door open wide. Darkness cloaked the interior, but Rhun smelled what they would find there. Deep underneath that, he also caught the odor of rotten chamomile.

Count Zríni fumbled to light a torch, the burning pitch smell a sharp note in the bouquet of death.

The Palatine took the torch and stepped into the castle. Torchlight fell on a young girl lying stone-cold on the floor. Bruises marred her white flesh. Frozen blood coated her wrists, her neck, the inside of her thighs.