Sanctus

Chapter 43

The devotional day within the Citadel was divided into twelve different offices, the most important being the four nocturnes. They took place each night when it was believed the absence of God’s light allowed the forces of evil to prosper. It was a theory any police officer, in any major city in the world, would agree with: dark deeds are almost always done under cover of night.

The first of the nocturnes was Vespers, a formal service held in the one place large enough for the entire population of the Citadel to witness the dying of another day — the great cathedral cave in the eastern section of the mountain. The first eight rows were filled with the black cassocks of the spiritual guilds — the priests and librarians who spent their lives in the darkness of the great library. Behind them sat a thin white line of Apothecaria, then twenty rows of brown cassocks, the material guilds — masons, carpenters, and other skilled technicians whose job it was to constantly monitor and maintain the physical well-being of the Citadel.

The russet cassocks of the guards slashed across the body of the congregation, separating the higher guilds at the front from the numerous grey cloaks at the back; the administrative monks who did everything from cooking and cleaning to providing manual labour for the other guilds.

Above the multi-coloured congregation, in their own elevated gallery, sat the green-clad brethren of the Sancti — thirteen in all, including the Abbot, though today there were only eleven. The Abbot was not among them, and neither was Brother Gruber.

When the sun had dipped past the three great casements behind the altar, the large rose window flanked by two triangles representing God’s all-seeing eye, everybody filed out for their last meal in the refectory before retiring to the dormitories.

All, that is, but three men dressed in the red cassocks of the Carmina.

A sandy-haired monk with a flat, impassive face and the build of a middleweight boxer headed across the echoing space towards a door directly below the Sanctus balcony. The other two followed. No one said a word.

Cornelius’s record as an officer in the British Army had singled him out to the Abbot as the group’s natural leader, so he had passed a note to him on the way into Vespers, containing the two other names, instructions and a map. Cornelius glanced at the map as he passed out of the cathedral cave, turning left as instructed and proceeding down the narrow, less trodden tunnels towards the abandoned section of the mountain.

Dusk deepened in the tangled sprawl of the old city. The last of the tourists were ushered from the old town by polite stewards and portcullises clanked emphatically into place, sealing it for the night. To the west, in the section known as the Lost Quarter, the shadows began to take human form as the nightly traffic in flesh resumed its furtive trade.

To the east, Kathryn Mann sat in her living room waiting for her printer to complete its task. She now regretted having programmed it for the highest quality image as she watched it appear line by steady line. The TV news reported large groups of people having gathered in silent tribute to the man they did not yet know as Brother Samuel in America, Europe, Africa, Australia, even China, where public demonstrations, particularly of a religious nature, were not undertaken lightly. A woman interviewed outside the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City was asked why she felt so strongly about the monk’s death.

‘Because we need faith, you know?’ Her voice was taut with emotion. ‘Because we need to know the Church cares for us — and is lookin’ out for us. If one of their own is driven to this, and the Church don’t even say nuthin’ about it. . well, where does that leave us. .?’

People on every continent were saying more or less the same. The monk’s lonely death had clearly touched them. His mountain-top vigil seemed to symbolize their own sense of isolation, and the silence that followed, evidence of a Church that did not care; a Church that had lost its compassion.

Maybe change is happening, she thought as she finally removed the sheet of paper from the printer and stared at the photograph of Liv Adamsen lifted from the police file.

Perhaps the prophecy is coming true after all.

She turned off the TV and grabbed a couple of apples on her way out. The airport was a thirty-minute drive away. She had no idea how long she’d have to wait there.