The Repository

Summer, 1995. Vatican City.

 

Etienne. Piero took a deep uncertain breath as he approached the cardinal’s office. What could he want? The question that had left him tossing each night, unable to sleep, or think about anything else, since he'd received the phone call two days before. And not a summons to any cardinal either, but the most senior member of the Papal Curia. The second most powerful man in the Vatican – in many ways more powerful than the Holy Father himself. And the directive came with explicit instructions from Etienne’s secretary that Piero share the summons with no one.

He flattened his frock, nervously brushing out invisible creases, let out a final deep breath, then knocked on the door.

The cardinal’s distinctive voice bid him entry.

    He wiped his sweating hand on his vestments and turned the brass handle. The man standing behind the cardinal’s desk wore casual clothes, and it took him a moment before he realized that it was, in fact, the cardinal. He glanced around the vast office to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, that the cardinal wasn’t somewhere else in the room, that the man behind his desk wasn’t his twin. The cardinal in civilian clothes was a scenario he hadn’t imagined in the two sleepless nights prior.

    The scene caused Piero to hesitate on the threshold, as though he'd seen something profane, and he made to withdraw. “Forgive me…” he said lowering his head and backing out.

    Etienne was an austere figure he had only seen in liturgical settings, wearing a mitre, mozzeta, or pallium, and the man who gestured him forward was different but the same. Unrecognisable, and yet familiar.

   “Come in,” said Etienne kindly cutting off his apology, and Piero closed the door gently behind him, keeping his gaze lowered. He had no idea of what protocol to follow as the cardinal was not in his robes. He erred on the side of conservation and kneeled.

    The most famous man in the Vatican could walk streets of Rome and draw not a single glance. The young priest thought as he stepped forward.  At the conclave four years earlier the expectation was that he would be elected to the Papal See. He wasn’t, and instead the elderly and little-known Archbishop of Mexico City was installed. It was a political move, in the fifth round of voting, a gesture to shore up support for the church in Latin and South America. But the former archbishop was meek and withdrawn. It was Etienne that the people of Rome knew.

“Your Eminence,” he said finally, keeping his head bowed and trying to gather his thoughts that lay shattered on the ground.

Etienne crossed the room and Piero kneeled on one knee. The cardinal extended a hand, allowing the young priest to kiss his ring, but then eschewed formality.

    “Piero,” he said addressing the young man by his first name, counter to church protocol, “stand up, please.”

The young priest rose, now further bewildered and set on edge.

    "Please, take a seat," Etienne said jovially, seeking to reassure him, and gesturing for him to take a seat on an armchair at the other end of the room, one of a pair that stood before a packed bookcase on the far wall of Etienne’s extensive office. The ceilings stood five metres above them, and frescoes adorned huge central panels. They were framed where the ceiling met the walls in gilded filigree.

    As they made for the chairs and the cardinal spoke.

    “A long time ago,” he said, then repeated himself with emphasis and a nostalgic chuckle. “A long time ago I was a young man like you, and my name was Paolo Scholari.” He looked up at Piero and smiled. “It's still my real name, but it seems to fit me less and less well. As though my clerical responsibilities have expanded to the point that I can no longer fit into the secular outfits I wore as a young man.” He turned and took a seat, and motioned for Piero to sit. “I’ve grown ecclesiastically fat.”

    The young priest nodded solemnly, struck silent and completely unprepared for how Etienne had initiated the meeting. He had tried to conceive of every scenario that might transpire with the cardinal, but he hadn’t come close to envisaging the meeting progressing as it had. The cardinal noticed his nervousness and made a wan affectionate smile.

    “I have become Cardinal Etienne and that young man Paolo seems to disappear into the past.” He looked up at the young priest. “I sometimes wonder now whether that young man isn’t just a figment of my imagination. My sister tells me he isn’t, but everyone in my hometown is gone, and so she is the only one who can reassure me…”

Piero listened intently, uncertain of where the cardinal’s lament was leading. Etienne returned to himself and smiled.

    “I’m being wistful. Age causes one to mourn their lost youth.” He turned his words directly at the young priest.

    “I have church business for you,” he said, his smile remaining but decreasing. “I’m sure you have no interest in my childhood. As I age I become reflective…” He paused again, then went on. “But Piero, I will ask you to call my Paolo when we meet, if you are willing to assist me.”

    The young clergyman tried to remain composed, but the elderly man’s words were unsettling him. For a young priest to address a cardinal by his first name was more than unorthodox. The cardinal went on.

    “Please,” he said, sensing the young man’s disquiet. “Don’t be unnerved. If you are prepared to assist me, I need you to speak to me frankly, so we must speak as equals, not as elements in the pyramidal hierarchy of the church.”

Finally, dry as his mouth was, Piero was able to speak.

    “Your Eminence,” he caught on his words, “church protocol...I will find your request extremely difficult to comply with…”

    The cardinal laughed, heartily. “Yes,” he said. “Should I have been in your shoes, no doubt, I’d have found such an appeal impossible.”

Piero dipped his head forward deferentially, trying to hide his unease.

    “Perhaps time we may prevail against the protocols though.” The cardinal paused, the laughter in his voice subsided.  He spoke seriously. “You have been noticed Piero, by several people in the church, for your diligence, your devotion, your curiosity.” The cardinal pointed to him, and his voice raised up an octave. “And the flexibility of your mind. Intellectual flexibility and extreme devotion are faculties that don’t often go well together, and, sadly, we lack them in the modern Church.”

    Piero suddenly realised that he was about to be tapped on the shoulder for something, and his concentration sharpened. The cardinal went on.

    “Most of the people who join the church are good, Piero.” He said. “But the church attracts bad people too, some of them are bad from the start, and join the church as a vehicle to commit their evil. Priests are installed in positions of trust, in some ways it is beyond rebuke…” He paused for a moment then looked at the young priest. Piero nodded.

    “But good men can turn bad in the church too. Extreme devotion can lead to extreme action. There are elements that are hidden, parasitic and secretive sects in the church, who have moved so far away from Church doctrine, and who use the establishment to survive, who swim hidden in the waters of our great institution. They are twisted – but they are devoted, and they believe that what they are doing is right. They are insidious too, and turn good priests – priests with good intentions – bad.”

    Piero’s eyes had narrowed. It was not what he was expecting.

    “Young Piero, young priest.” The cardinal said, looking at him with compassion. “If you accept you will not take up parish duties, you will exist outside of the formal structure of the church, and you will report to me directly. Some of these sects have been alive and using the church since they days after the death of Christ. And the most dangerous one is strengthening, after centuries of slumber it seems to be reawakening. I want you to hunt down its members, they will be almost impossible to find, and they are dangerous.”

    Piero now felt a total rupture within him. He already knew that he would accept the cardinal’s assignment. Somehow, he found himself drawn to it without any hesitation. He would exercise his devotion in the real world, he would spare himself the years of liturgy in a parish.

    “Before I can tell you more,” the Cardinal went on with a pained tone. “You have to accept. I know that is totally unsatisfactory. But it is necessary.”

    “I accept.” Piero said and a momentous plunging emptied him, and he was filled with foreboding. Those two words, he inexplicably knew, had fundamentally changed the direction of his life. But the sense of foreboding evaporated as quickly as it emerged, and in the empty space motes of gold flashed. Flashes of excitement, anticipation, anxiety.

The Cardinal nodded slowly, scrutinising the young man before him. He made a small meditative smile, and then, in a low exact voice: “I want you to find the Heirax.”