The Lost Testament

3

Until his terminal illness had forced him to cease work within the Vatican, Adolfo Gianni had been the Prefect in charge of the Secret Archives, and of the staff of priests appointed to work there. The archives weren’t a collection of dusty books and manuscripts ranged on shelves in a darkened room, but were bright and busy most of the time, people coming and going throughout the hours of daylight, and often late into the evening as well.

When it became clear that Father Gianni would not be able to continue with his work, another very senior cleric, Father Antonio Morini, had been appointed in his place, and had been spending most of his time in the archive ever since, improving his knowledge of the way the system worked and familiarizing himself with his new employment. Francis Gregory knew exactly where he would find his new superior.

He knocked twice on the Prefect’s door, waited a few seconds, then opened it and stepped into the office.

The man sitting behind the desk was heavily built, his broad shoulders straining at the fabric of his habit, with a ruddy, round face, topped by a thatch of greying hair. He looked more like a farmer than a senior Vatican official.

Morini looked up as the young man entered his office and gave him a slight sad smile.

‘Has he finally slipped away?’ he asked.

Gregory shook his head.

‘Not yet, Father, but I think the end is very near. I offered him the Viaticum, but he declined, at least for the moment. Instead, he asked me — in fact, he told me — to summon you to his bedside.’

‘Perhaps he wants me to personally administer the last rites to him?’ Morini wondered.

Again Gregory shook his head.

‘Possibly, but I think it’s something else, something that he wants to talk to you about.’

Morini nodded, glanced at the papers covering the desk in front of him, and then stood up.

‘I could do without the interruption, but of course in these sad circumstances I will speak with Father Gianni if that is his wish.’

Morini closed and then locked the door of his office — some of the documents he had been studying were fairly sensitive and, even within the Vatican, curious eyes were to be discouraged — and the two clerics strode away down the corridor.

A few minutes later, Gregory opened the door to Gianni’s room and stood to one side as Father Morini stepped into the chamber. The dying cleric’s eyes were closed and he did not appear to have moved, but Gregory noticed that there were flecks of blood around his mouth that had not been there before. The medically trained nun was still in attendance, and as they entered she was again altering the dosage of the opiates the old man was receiving. Seeing Morini, she dipped her head in respectful salute and retreated to sit on a chair in one corner.

Morini crossed the short distance to the head of the single bed and looked down. He reached out and took hold of Gianni’s right hand and applied gentle pressure.

The dying man opened his eyes and looked up, summoning a weak smile.

‘Thank you for coming, Antonio,’ he said.

Then he glanced around the room and noticed the two other people in attendance there. He gestured to Morini to bend forward slightly and murmured into his ear.

‘You must be my confessor, Antonio, and what I have to tell you is for your ears alone,’ he muttered. ‘Please ask the others to leave the room.’

Morini nodded. Like every other Roman Catholic priest, he fully appreciated the sanctity of the confessional.

‘The Father would like me to take his confession,’ he said, turning to Gregory. ‘Can you and the Sister please give us a few minutes alone?’

When the door closed behind Gregory and the nun, Morini again turned to face the old man, and knelt down beside the bed so that his head was as close as possible to Gianni’s.

‘We are quite alone now, my old friend — just you and me and the heavenly Father. I will gladly hear your confession and grant absolution.’

Gianni nodded, the movement of his head barely perceptible.

But what he said next was not at all what Morini had expected.

Gianni clutched the younger man’s hand with a grip that was surprisingly firm and began to speak in a low and weak voice.

‘I am not confessing my sins, Antonio. I attended to that matter regarding my departure from this world some two weeks ago. I didn’t believe I could commit any important sins just by lying here, except perhaps being guilty of sloth.’

Morini smiled at the feeble joke.

‘So how can I help you?’ he asked.

‘What I have to tell you is a confession of sorts, I suppose, but it is far from personal, and involves my professional position here in the Vatican hierarchy, a position that you now occupy. I have some important information to impart to you, and you must solemnly swear never to share what I have to say with anyone else, inside or outside the Vatican.’

Gianni sank backwards onto his pillow. The effort of speaking at all was clearly taking its toll on his ravaged body.

Morini stared at him, wondering if the opiates — or even the disease itself — had deranged the old man, if he was hearing drug-or pain-induced ramblings with no basis whatsoever in fact. But Gianni neither looked nor sounded as if that were the case. His voice was weak and slightly slurred, but his eyes were bright with intelligence.

‘What information?’

‘First you must swear never to reveal what I’m about to tell you.’

Morini shook his head in slight irritation, then did as the old man asked.

‘I swear by Almighty God that I will tell no one anything I learn in this room. I would never breach the secrets of the confessional under any circumstances, and I will accord whatever you tell me here exactly the same status.’

‘Good. How long have you been here, in the holy city?’

Morini looked slightly taken aback at the question.

‘Just under twenty years,’ he replied. ‘Why?’

‘I arrived here in the mid-seventies, and I became Prefect at the end of the nineties. Even now I still remember having an interview, a very similar interview to this one, in fact, with my predecessor. Who also, if I recall correctly, had contracted a form of cancer. Perhaps the disease is one of the risks of this particular job.’

Gianni paused for breath, and perhaps to order his thoughts before he continued.

‘I have a good idea what you’re thinking at this precise moment, because when I was in your position I, too, wondered if my predecessor as Prefect was deluded or suffering from some kind of mental instability in addition to his other infirmities. But he wasn’t, and neither am I.

‘I’m quite sure, Antonio, that you know most of the history of the Vatican and of the Church that we both serve, but there is one incident that took place almost half a century ago that only received a limited amount of publicity at the time, and that has been virtually forgotten about today. You’ve probably never even heard of it, but it was perhaps the most dangerous event ever to take place here in the Holy See.’

‘Dangerous? Dangerous to whom?’

The old man’s grip tightened on Morini’s hand.

‘To everyone. To the very foundations of our Church, and to the faith espoused by countless millions of followers of our true religion around the world.’

Morini felt a sudden chill run through his body. Whatever he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it.

‘You’d better tell me exactly what you mean,’ he said.

What the old man had to say didn’t take long. But the implications of what he said were shattering.