The Huguenot Thief

by L. K. CLEMENT

  “Of course, we forgive her.”

  His heart was thumping and his mouth was dry as dirt. She sat unmoving, looking at him. He could now feel sweat trickling down his back between his shoulder blades. Before he could stop himself, his hand went to his collar to loosen it. Why would he react so to her? He stood and pulled open the heavy drapes. Could he open the window? He pulled on the glass, unable to open it, and he turned around, not looking directly at her as he spoke.

  “Pieces of the True Cross,” he said. “That is what our records show.”

  She frowned. “It felt like seeds to me. They were light-colored, like large grains of rice.” She paused. “When I touched them, I felt—I felt something almost electric.” She looked back at him, and he was visibly startled when he saw her eyes. One was green, one brown.

  He sat back down, heavily. “Are you a believer, Ms. Sims?”

  Her gaze did not waver. “A believer in what?” She looked down at her hands and spread them on the table. “I suppose a priest would say I’m an atheist. I don’t go to church.”

  “That is not the criterion to be a believer.”

  She grinned. “Ok, then I suppose, I am a believer. How could you study how life begins and evolves and not believe in something? You know that I am a biologist?”

  “Yes, I do. I googled you after you called me.”

  She said, “Would you tell me what exactly what you do for the Vatican and why you were sent to Charleston?”

  The monsignor did not reply for a moment. “I am assigned to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Our membership includes biologists, physicists, chemists, all manner of academics. I myself am an artist.”

  He could see the surprise in her eyes. Not many knew of the Academy’s existence, or that some priests did indeed have scientific educations. “The academy has its origins in something called the Academy of Lynxes, formed in 1603. Galileo was that academy’s first president.”

  “That Galileo? Didn’t you guys end up arresting him?”

  “Yes, but that house arrest afforded him the opportunity to write his greatest work, Two New Sciences. It was his final work and detailed thirty years of his study of physics. We have one of the few originals at the Vatican.”

  They both were quiet.

  “The modern academy includes scientists from all over the world. We study the most intractable issues facing man, including climate change. People of faith should not fear scientific truths. Many Nobel Prize winners have served on the academy, but I am not surprised you had not heard of us.”

  She tilted her head at him. “Does the academy study relics?”

  The monsignor felt a force from her, an indomitable need for truth that radiated from her body. This was indeed the essence of his life’s work; his desire for relics to be subject to a level of scientific scrutiny that went beyond what the Shroud of Turin had been subjected to. That poor piece of cloth had been optically examined, dated with radiocarbon methods, chemically analyzed, and its pollen studied by the foremost medical forensic scientists. No, Monsignor Ogier wanted to understand the very essence of the Passion; he wanted to examine the Savior’s tears, blood, and sweat held in reliquaries throughout the world.

  “No,” he said simply. “That is a matter of faith. It cannot be studied scientifically.”

  She leaned over the table. “Do you know what is in the MUSC report?”

  He got up and went to his briefcase, retrieving a document that he brought back to the small table. He put on reading glasses and read aloud:

  “The small pearl-like objects, thirty-three in number, are desiccated seeds from a previously unknown variety of Amaranthus caudatus. Cedrus libani fragments are present. Present also was DNA that appears to be male Homo sapiens. More time is needed to study these findings.”

  The priest finished reading, put his glasses on the table, and looked at Amarintha. She was gazing out the window and said, “Pieces of a cedar tree, seeds from an amaranth plant, and some genetic material from a man. Nothing in there sounds promising as a cure for cancer, does it?” She turned her head back to him and asked, “I don’t suppose you would allow me to take a sample of the material back to the CDC? I wouldn’t disclose where it came from.”

  Monsignor Ogier looked back at her, those incredible eyes steady on his. Should he tell her about meeting her father in 1969? Did she know how the reliquary came to be in the Sims family?

  He wanted the examination of the relic to be at the Academy, in Rome, under the auspices of people of faith. The sweat still trickled down his back, but his heart rate had slowed, and he realized he felt calm. Perhaps they could help each other. He would give her one of the seeds.

  He stood, but stepped on a loose lace from his shoe, and crashed to the ground, hitting his head on the point of the metal bedframe. He was on his knees, and he could feel his head bleeding.

  “Monsignor,” Amarintha said as she bent down next to him on the floor. He got up, ignoring her outstretched arms. “Do you want me to call 911?”

  “No, let me just look at it,” he said. He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and saw he had cut his head over his left eyebrow. It was a nasty gouge, and would likely need stitches. Amarintha appeared behind him in the marble

  room.

  She turned him around and said, “Sit down on that stool and let me wipe the blood away. Then I think we need to call a doctor.” He sat down on a stool in the large bathroom, his head aching.

  When she touched his head with her fingers, he felt a heat radiating from her fingertips. The pain vanished. The monsignor looked into her eyes and was alarmed to see them, staring and unfocused. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto him. With difficulty, he rose from the stool, and lowered her to the floor of the bathroom.

  “Ms. Sims, can you hear me?” he asked. He gently tapped her face and then felt her neck for a pulse. It was steady. He tapped her more urgently, but she did not stir.

  The monsignor stood, lifted his robe, stepped over her body, and went to the phone. “This is Monsignor Ogier in room 698. I need you to call 911. My guest has collapsed.”

  He hung up and rushed back to the bathroom, kneeled, put a towel under Amarintha’s head, and rubbed her face with his shaking hands. She did not stir. Her pulse was still steady, and she was breathing, but unresponsive to his touch.

  An old fear—black man with a white woman—fluttered against his gut. Would anyone think he’d attacked her? He needed to clean himself up. He checked Amarintha’s pulse and breathing one more time, tried to wake her again, and when she didn’t respond, he stood.

  Monsignor Ogier wet a washcloth, and carefully wiped away the blood that had dried on his forehead.

  What he saw made him stop breathing. The cut was almost undetectable. He crossed himself, and knelt back down by the woman. He took her hands in his and began to weep as he prayed.

  Four Months Later

  Rome

  Chapter 80

  Monsignor Ogier finished the oral summary of his report. He was tired and longed to sit down—or better yet, excuse himself. His fatigue was his own fault. He had refused offers of help and had written the report alone. “So,” asked someone in the room. “Our Vatican scientists have finished their research? You believe that you have all of the seeds?”

  The monsignor looked around the ornate room. Its walls were of polished dark wood, the floor covered in expensive emerald green carpet. His was the only garb of all black, although two attendees did have on dark suits. He wondered who these men were and quickly realized the suited watchers had to be lawyers. He felt like a black crow mistakenly put into a tropical birdcage.

  “I have all that were in the Sims’ reliquary. I have no way to know whether others exist, or will be found in the future. The ones I have are in a sealed container at the Apostolic Palace.”

  “What type of plant are the seeds from
again?” asked another person.

  “A plant called amaranth, which was widely used in ancient times as a cereal. Its name means ‘everlasting’ in Greek.”

  There was shuffling of papers, then another question. “If I understand your report, the genes activated by the seeds are connected with color of skin and eyes.”

  “Yes. Our scientists believe that the expression of these genes is what gives some people the ability to control inflammation in their own, and others’ bodies. This can lead to spontaneous reversal of many illnesses. Only those with non-standard melanin levels are affected. People with vitiligo, albinism, or different-colored eyes. Mixed-race individuals could likely also have a response to the material.” He coughed. “As the report indicates, the faith of the individual does not seem to be a factor.”

  “People like you,” muttered one of the attendees. The man spoke louder. “You and the scientists are wrong, Monsignor. If a seed from the time of our Lord can cause some people to become healers, it will not be those types of individuals. It will be true believers.”

  The others shifted in their seats. None of them looked at the speaker. He was an old man, among other old men, dying they said, and none of his colleagues wanted to challenge him.

  One of the attendees said, “Perhaps the monsignor could elaborate. You have a theory?”

  Monsignor Ogier swayed a little and touched the surface of the gleaming table. “The FBI gave me a summary of the research of Dr. Kate Strong, the American scholar who was kidnapped and kept in Istanbul. The reliquary, according to the Byzantine records that she translated, had pieces of the True Cross. I believe that when the cross was recovered in Jerusalem, by Saint Helena, in the fourth century, seeds of the amaranth plant must have been gathered as well. Somehow the seeds became more than seeds as they lay in the reliquary. Remember, traces of human DNA were found as well.”

  He closed his eyes and added, “I believe it is our Savior’s DNA, from the True Cross.”

  No one moved or even took a breath.

  “We have a chance, using scientific methods, to scientifically prove that our Lord existed, and gave us the gift of life. Not just eternal life, but a better, disease-free life here on earth.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the room. Why weren’t they full of joy?

  Monsignor Ogier continued, “I found multiple references, both from the Byzantines and our own Church, to the Convent of Corbie’s reliquary. The Byzantines knew miracles had occurred in connection with it. They even noted the connection with pigmentation variations.” He waved his arms. “The priest sent reliquaries corrupted with disease. The Convent of Corbie reliquary did not have any disease agents put into it, because it was already considered unclean. That’s why the priests included it.”

  The monsignor brought his hands to his eyes. “It’s all there in my report.”

  He put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Do we have the right to keep these seeds from being studied? What if we can ease humanity’s suffering? I come to you with the facts, but,” the monsignor raised both hands to encompass the room, “you must make this decision, not I.”

  Monsignor Ogier sat down, and held his head with his hands. He wanted to cry, to shout, but dared not.

  An elderly man at the end of the table sat with his hands on the surface of the grained wood table, hands that had not moved. He said, “Monsignor, you indicate that Amarintha Sims is cured of her cancer. What has happened to her?”

  “She is in a coma at the Centers for Disease Control,” said the monsignor without lifting his head.

  “Let me think, and pray,” was the only reply.

  The thinking and praying lasted quite some time. No one fidgeted. No one got up.

  After twenty minutes, the Pope said, “Destroy the seeds, all of them.”

  Charleston

  Chapter 81

  Ava took the key from Jack, and stood weeping in the front yard of Amarintha’s finished house. Thompson had his arm around the girl’s shoulder, the other arm around Fannie. Sara, Kate, and Richard stood a little ways away, silent, their heads bowed. For four months, he and Jack had done almost nothing but build Amarintha’s house. Neither Ava nor Fannie had come downtown during the entire time the two men labored. This was their first sight of the house.

  Kate and Sara had chosen wall colors, plants for the garden, and made a hundred other decisions they thought would make this house a home for Ava and Fannie. The kitchen had a pot filler at the gas stove because Thompson had found out that Amarintha liked cooking pasta. Over the stove was a giant exhaust hood, because as Ava had told him, “Mama hates the smell of cooking fish in the house.”

  There were custom mahogany shelves for all of Amarintha’s books in a study that had French windows looking over the garden. Thompson had even bought her an antique sleigh bed after finding out from Fannie that Amarintha had always wanted one. He prayed that one day she, and maybe he, would sleep in it.

  When he wasn’t working on the house, Thompson spent as much time as he could with the two women at Fannie’s farm. At first, all three of them would go to Atlanta to see Amarintha, now at the CDC. After a month, they decided to alternate weeks so she would never be alone.

  He didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, what the FBI was doing to find and stop Anton Bunin. He supposed that if the Russian and Zora Vulkov were located, Brook would call him.

  Frank was working to get Thompson a job as a consultant for CPD, but the effort required to learn the vagaries of the American judicial system were beyond him, or so he told Jack. The truth was that Thompson had no energy for law enforcement. When he wasn’t at the site, or at Fannie’s, he was in Atlanta trying to understand Amarintha’s medical condition.

  Amarintha had collapsed in the hotel room of Monsignor Ogier, and after the priest called 911, the paramedics took her to Trident Hospital. Fannie, as her next of kin, had been the first person to be notified, and she called Thompson and said, “Something has happened to Amarintha. I know you’re Ava’s father and so does Ava. Amarintha told us on the boat ride back to Charleston. You’re a member of the family now. Come to the hospital.”

  He had rushed to Trident and found the monsignor, Fannie and Ava huddled in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit. “What happened; what’s wrong?”

  “She came to visit me in my rooms,” said Monsignor Ogier. “She wanted to talk about the reliquary. I was going to let her see it again. I fell and cut my head, and she touched me. Then she collapsed.”

  Thompson had stood there gaping at the man who sat with Fannie and Ava on vinyl couches in a corner of the waiting room. Fannie stood and came over to him, “They’re doing tests. So far, the tests show she didn’t have a stroke or a heart attack.”

  The rest of that day and the next were a blur of hospital food, bad coffee, and doctors’ reports. Fannie got the head of MUSC’s internal medicine, Dr. Frances Kensington, a friend of Amarintha’s, involved in the case. After a week of tests, Dr. Kensington had finally recommended a nursing home. Nothing more could be done, she told them. Amarintha’s brain scans were normal, as were blood tests, and as the doctor said, “She should be awake. Perhaps it’s psychological.”

  In desperation for a second opinion, Thompson called Dr. Gilstrom of the CDC. Gilstrom, deprived of access to the Vatican priest in Rome, agreed to have Amarintha transferred to Atlanta. There she still was, breathing on her own, but fed by tubes, lying in effigy in a brightly lit room where Gilstrom and his team ministered to her.

  There were no secrets between him and Jack, and he, along with Kate, had become close friends. Thompson had spent many hours explaining the sequence of events to Kate, and the motivations of Anton Bunin that led to her kidnapping. She had raged about Adam Chalk for weeks, and according to Jack, refused to go back on her lithium. She would deal with life unmedicated. As she said to Jack, “I endured two weeks of questioning by th
e FBI without drugs. No need for them now.”

  The College had promoted Kate, and she was working with Atay to resurrect the project to study the parchments, although no one could find the originals. Atay, in a moment of genius, had copied Kate’s work onto a thumb drive. According to Atay, he and Istanbul University were ready for her to come back.

  “Oh, Mama,” keened Ava. “I wish you could see this.”

  She couldn’t see it, thought Thompson. Not in her comatose state in a room at the CDC.

  The house was beige stucco, with white trim and black shutters—just as Amarintha had requested. Jack had done the fine finish work himself, imbuing his regard into every carefully laid tile, each polished bit of trim, and every painstakingly selected plank of old pine flooring.

  Ava took the key and opened the door. Thompson and Ava walked through each room, touching the walls, the stair rails, and even the doorknobs. Fannie followed, and Thompson could hear her sniffling. Jack stood just inside the front door, his hands clasped behind him.

  Richard didn’t come in. “I have something in the back yard I want to show everybody. Meet me there when they’re ready,” he said to Kate. He walked back to his own house, his head down.

  Ava wiped her eyes and said, “Mr. Strong, it’s beautiful. You did just what she wanted.” Ava began to sob again. She sank to the floor and brought her hands to her face. Fannie crouched down to hold her, and Sara rushed past her father to join the two Sims women, all of them kneeling on the smooth pine planks. The three of them clutched each other, sounds of crying and murmuring emanating from the huddle. Beyond the living room were French doors that led to a small terrace, and Thompson walked out onto the tiny brick space, attempting not to cry.

  Behind him, Kate touched his shoulder and asked, “Will you live here with them?”