The Bone Labyrinth (24 page)

His feet slowed, reminded of the task at hand: to hunt for what Father Kircher had removed from those caves. He allowed Lena and Gray to draw abreast of him in the center of the nave. He searched around, noting how few people were here. A pair of tourists—a husband and wife—made a slow ambulation along the perimeter of the pews, where a lone elderly woman, her hair tied in a scarf, knelt with her head bowed in prayer.

The only other person present was a woman in a black nun’s habit. She stood to the side of the altar with her arms crossed, her hands hidden inside her sleeves. Considering the age of this convent, he would have expected to find an old nun in attendance, but instead the woman appeared no older than her twenties. Her hair was tucked and hidden under her wimple, but her bright blue eyes sparked with youth. Her gaze flicked to his Roman collar and gave a demure bow of her head, acknowledging his station.

“Let’s see if she can help us,” Roland said and continued between the pews toward the altar.

“
Dzie dobry,”
she greeted them in Polish, then repeated in Italian. “
Buongiorno
.”

He smiled at her attempt to accommodate all visitors—or at least those that must drop in here the most often. “
Lei parla inglese?”
he asked in Italian.

“Of course, Father, most certainly,” she said, her Polish accent still present. “In fact, I spent two years in Atlantic City. As a blackjack dealer.”

Roland laughed. “Not exactly the usual path to serving our Lord.”

She offered a shy grin, her gaze dropping in embarrassment. “It was a good job, paid well, and it let me see more of the world.”

“I understand,” he said, encouraging her with a warm smile as he made their introductions. “And may I ask your name?”

“Sister Clara.”

“Excellent. Sister Clara, we were hoping you might help us.”

“In any way I can, Father.”

“We’ve traveled all the way from Croatia to study more about this sanctuary. We’re specifically interested in information about the priest who oversaw its reconstruction in the seventeenth century.”

“You mean Father Kircher.”

Roland felt a measure of shock, but then realized any nun here would certainly know this place’s history in detail.

“Yes, precisely,” he answered. “I teach at a Catholic university in Zagreb and did my doctoral thesis on the reverend father. I came here to learn more about his later years, to discover why he became so focused on rebuilding this sanctuary, specifically why he took such a personal involvement. I had hoped that perhaps you and your sisters might know more than could be found in any textbook.”

“Even if it’s just legend or rumor,” Gray added. “Anything that might direct us to discovering more about his work here.”

Sister Clara pointed to the marble floor in front of the altar. “We can perhaps start right here. Father Kircher’s heart is buried at the foot of this altar, per his request to the pope. He wanted the grace of the Madonna to always be shining upon him.”

Lena spoke up. “So Father Kircher was obsessed with the Virgin Mary.”

“
Revered
, I believe is more accurate. It was why he petitioned to rebuild this sanctuary. Because it was the oldest site of worship for the Holy Mother.”

Roland glanced quizzically at Lena, seeing some glimmer of realization shining in her eyes. He pulled her and Gray aside and asked softly, “Lena, what are you thinking?”

“Eve was a woman, the
mother
of us all,” she whispered. “If Father Kircher was seeking a place to venerate her, too . . .”

This would be the perfect place to inter her bones.

“But if you’re right, how might he have hidden such a grave? How would he have marked it?”

Gray offered a solution. “Didn’t you mention that Father Kircher had a great fascination with hieroglyphics, that he even carved some of his own symbols into ancient Egyptian obelisks?”

“That’s correct, but what does that have to do—”

Gray pressed on. “And didn’t he come to believe that hieroglyphics might be the lost language of Adam and Eve?”

Shock and possibility widened in Roland’s eyes. He looked upon the American with more respect.

“Let’s find out,” he said and crossed back to Clara. “Sister, when the reverend father oversaw the reconstruction here, I understand that he laid some of the bricks himself and also had a hand in restoring the artwork and ornamentation.”

“That’s true.”

“Fascinating. And I know this may sound odd. But is there anywhere on these grounds where he might have had hieroglyphics inscribed as decoration?”

Clara’s brows rose in surprise. “As a matter of fact, yes, Father.” She turned to a side door to the church. “Up in the Chapel of Saint Eustace. I can direct you there if you’d like.”

Roland inclined his head, trying to keep calm. “We’d be most grateful.”

She led them past the altar to a small wooden door and held it ajar for them. Sunlight streamed inside from a small courtyard behind the church. A crushed gravel path led through a wild garden of olive trees and rosebushes, set among a scatter of marble statuary.

“If you follow this path,” she instructed, “it will take you to a fork. To the left, steps lead down to Saint Benedict’s cave, but to the right, you’ll find the Scala Santa, the Holy Ladder. Those set of marble steps climb up to the Chapel of Saint Eustace.”

Gray headed out first, nodding to Clara. “Thank you, Sister.”

Clara stopped Roland with a touch on his arm before he left. “You asked about
legends
concerning Father Kircher.” She nodded in the direction of the solitary chapel sitting at the highest point of the summit. “It is said that Father Kircher worked on that building with a single mason. The only other person he ever allowed up there during its construction was a friend, a bishop named Nicolas Steno. According to our records, Bishop Steno and Father Kircher spent much time together here, and in fact it was the bishop who carried Kircher’s heart to the Sanctuary of Mentorella upon the reverend father’s death.”

“That’s indeed most interesting,” Roland said. “Thank you, Sister.”

With a small smile, she bowed her head, retreated back inside, and shut the door.

As he headed after Gray, Lena kept alongside him. “What was that about?”

“Maybe nothing, but I came across the name Nicolas Steno during my studies of Father Kircher. He was a Danish scientist, several decades younger than Father Kircher. They worked in the same circles and became close friends. But what’s most interesting is that Steno’s field of study was what would be called paleontology today. The study of fossils, old bones, et cetera.”

“You’re thinking if Father Kircher took possession of what he considered Eve’s remains that he might have involved his friend.”

They reached the fork in the path and met up with Gray. Roland pointed to the steep stone staircase winding up to the right. “From Sister Clara’s account, it sounded like those two men were up to something secret involving that chapel.”

Gray had stopped to study the other path, the one that led down to a cliff face with a dark vertical cut in it. “That must be the famous grotto.” He pointed to a glass-enclosed shrine at its entrance, full of a jumble of skulls and bones. “But what’s that?”

“An ossuary,” he explained. “According to the guidebook, it holds the relics of monks and friars who once served here. The inscription on its marble pedestal reads:
Remember: what you are, we were. What we are, you will become
.”

“True, I guess, but definitely morbid.” Gray turned toward the flight of marble steps and headed up.

Lena followed but glanced back at the ossuary. “Let’s just hope we don’t
become
that anytime soon.”

Roland smiled.
That was also true
.

Gray led them up the precariously steep ascent of the Scala Santa. Underfoot, the steps were made of white marble, worn smooth by the passage of many sandals, boots, and shoes over the ages. A low wall on the left was all that kept climbers from a fall down the cliff on that side.

“I can see why they call this a Holy
Ladder
,” Lena commented, huffing from the effort.

Roland wheezed, “It’s meant both as a challenge and to humble those pilgrims seeking to reach the chapel.”

“Certainly does its job.”

Roland stared up as he climbed, shading his eyes with a palm. The small tile-roofed chapel looked austere and simple silhouetted against the blue sky, clinging to the spur overlooking the next valley. Four arched windows faced each of the cardinal directions.

Roland found himself winded by the time he reached its door. He stopped to catch his breath, taking in the panorama of white rocky cliffs and fir-covered slopes. A slight breeze carried the fresh scent of pine. He finally faced the door of the chapel, feeling a flicker of unease.

What had Father Kircher hidden here . . . and why?

11:48
A
.
M
.

Lena followed Roland across the threshold into the shadows of the small chapel. After such a difficult climb, she had expected to discover something grand and stately, but the interior was spartan. The only adornment was a small marble altar on the far side, holding a scatter of guttered candles below a simple stone crucifix. The room was little larger than a two-car garage, with arched windows open to views in all directions.

Roland stared up at the roof, at the crisscrossing of stone arches above. “This is the same pattern of brickwork we saw in that chapel in the caverns.”

He was right, which made her wonder. If that cavern chapel had been built to inter the bones of a Neanderthal male, was this same construction some clue about what had been done with the female’s remains?

Roland searched around. “Sister Clara said there were hieroglyphics to be found up here.”

Gray stalked along the perimeter of the room, running his fingers along the walls below the windows, peering closely. “All of these bricks are faintly inscribed with writing. They circle the room, row by row. The topmost appears to be Latin. Below that is Greek.”

Lena joined him as he dropped to a knee.

“This next level is carved with Chinese characters.” Gray glanced back at them. “And at the very bottom are strips of Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

Roland crouched down. “It’s almost like he layered them by age. Going back in time.”

Lena ran her fingertips along that bottommost level, examining the carving, impressed by Father Kircher’s ability to mimic this writing. She worked around the walls, studying the triple lines of hieroglyphics that ran along the walls near the floor.

Roland crawled beside her. “One of Father Kircher’s greatest published works was a three-volume epic titled
Oedipus Aegyptiacus
. It was his major treatise on Egypt, hieroglyphics, and ancient knowledge. He merged Greek myths, Pythagorean mathematics, Arab astrology, biblical accounts, and even alchemy, all in an attempt to comprehend the universal source of all knowledge.”

“Like some grand unifying theory of intelligence,” Lena said.

Roland nodded.

Lena felt a sudden kinship with this historical figure.
Maria and I were researching the same, to discover the true source of human intelligence.

Gray scanned the ribbons of hieroglyphics. “Can you translate any of this?”

Roland frowned. “It’s likely all meaningless. Father Kircher believed he had a discovered a way to decipher hieroglyphics, but in the end, he was deceiving himself.”

“Then what do we hope to gain from all of this?” Lena asked.

With no answer apparent, silence settled over them.

After a few minutes, she was about to admit defeat when Gray stirred. He shifted closer to one section of the wall. “Look over here. In the middle row, at this pair of antelopes. Notice the one on the right with the raised horns.”

He rubbed his thumb there to better reveal a pinkie-sized divot centered between the horns. He glanced back at them. “It’s almost like a hieroglyphic representation of Saint Eustace’s symbol. The stag’s antlers and the cross.”