"So Richard decided he'd better head home," Drew said.
"But he was stopped. On his way through Europe from the Holy Land, he was captured by the Austrians and held for ransom. The problem was, how to pay it. Richard's brother, John, didn't want his brother released. John did everything possible to prevent the ransom from being paid. He sent agents pretending to be from Richard and had them collect valuables intended to be part of the ransom. But those valuables went into John's own treasury. Meanwhile Richard rotted in prison. At last, in desperation, Richard found a way to guarantee that his subjects would know which ransom collectors were truly from him and not from John."
"The ring? Am I right?"
"Yes. The ring. Almost identical to the one I wear." Father Stanislaw rubbed its insignia again. "Richard gave his ring to a trusted assistant. His subjects had learned to identify the ring with him. By showing it, the assistant could prove that the valuables he collected would help get Richard out of prison and not go into John's treasury."
Drew shook his head.
"You see a problem with that tactic?" Father Stanis-law asked.
"To stop his brother, all John had to do was order a jeweler to make a copy of the ring."
"John had mental limitations. He never thought of it. If he had, he might have gained the throne. Instead, with the aid of the ring, Richard's assistant collected the ransom, and Richard was released. He returned to England and crushed his brother. Because of his ring. With a slight distinction, this ring. It had importance. It was a password. It possessed a power."
Drew became more uneasy; he sensed a disturbing undertone to the story.
Father Stanislaw continued. "Richard refused to abide by John's agreement with the French. He took his army to the mainland and reclaimed his territories. But there, one of his new subjects, a French peasant, saw him walking outside the walls of a castle one day and shot him with an arrow. The wound was in the shoulder. It should not have been fatal, but unskilled treatment made it mortal. Dying, Richard insisted that his attacker be brought before him. 'Why did you kill me?' Richard asked. The peasant answered, 'Because you would have raped my wife and starved my children.' Richard objected, 'My subjects love me. All I wanted was the land. I would have let you live in peace.' But the peasant answered, 'No, your brother would have let us live in peace.' And Richard, understanding how this simple man had been used by his enemies, said 'God help you. You know not what you've done. I forgive you. Let this man go away unhurt.' It is said that the priest who was present at Richard's deathbed exhorted him to repentance and restitution for his sins, but Richard drove the priest away and died without benefit of the sacraments."
"And the peasant?" Drew asked. "Was he allowed to go away unharmed?"
Father Stanislaw stepped closer to Drew in the darkness. "That's the point of my story. After Richard died, his angry associates debated what to do about their lord's final wish. They wanted to question the peasant to learn if anyone else had been involved in the assassination. But before they did, a priest went to hear the peasant's confession. The peasant died shortly after his confessor left. It seems he committed suicide by swallowing poison, though no one discovered how he got the poison."
"From the priest?" Drew asked.
"Would it help if I said that the priest who heard the peasant's confession was also the priest whose medical treatment failed to save Richard's life?"
Drew's spine tingled. "The priest was Father Jerome?"
"No. His Mideastern features would have betrayed him. But the priest was trained by Father Jerome."
"And why did he kill... "
"To keep the peasant from revealing that King Philip had hired him. Only a priest would not be suspected of silencing Richard's assassin. In this way, a Franco-English war was averted."
"That's not what I meant. Why a priest? Why did Father Jerome let himself become involved?"
"In exchange for his service - and his assistant's service - Father Jerome gained some of England's land in France for the Church to which he'd converted."
Drew felt sick. "And the Church went along with it?"
"The Church, the Pope and his associates, never knew. They have never known. The fraternity of the stone is an order located on the Atlantic coast of France, in one of the regions once claimed by England. Its symbol is this ring. The intersecting sword and cross."
"Religion and violence?" Drew was appalled.
"The symbol of a warrior for God. Holy terror. Through the years, using the example of Father Jerome, the fraternity has intervened for the Church whenever the profane world has threatened it. Soldiers for Christ. Church militant. We fight Satan with Satan's tactics. In Richard's time. And even more today."
As he'd felt last night when Uncle Ray had died, Drew wanted to vomit. The revelation put him on guard. The priest was telling him things Drew shouldn't know.
"The three men who helped you last night - you noticed their rings - are members of the fraternity," Father Stanislaw said. "I emphasize that our order is distinct from the members of Opus Dei who've been assisting us. Opus Dei is the intelligence branch of the Church. We are - "
"The Church's assassins." Drew was outraged. "Except the Church doesn't know about it."
"Though we do have the Church's sanction."
"That doesn't make sense. Sanction? How? If the Church doesn't know."
"By tradition. Just as each Pope inherits the mandate given by Christ to Peter, so we inherit the absolution given to Father Jerome by the Pope at the time of the Third Crusade. A Pope is infallible. If it was justifiable to kill for the Church at that time, it must be equally justifiable to kill for the Church at other times."
"I don't want to hear any more."
"But I thought you'd find it interesting." Father Stanislaw rubbed his ring. "After all, you did ask for an explanation of the stone. Given your reaction, you realize now why I waited."
"Till we knew each other better."
"Yes."
The cemetery was silent in the deepening night. Drew sensed what was coming.
"Join us," Father Stanislaw said.
In spite of his premonition, Drew wasn't able to prepare himself. He reacted automatically - with disgust. "Become an assassin for God?"
"To some degree, you already are. Since you left the monastery, you've killed several men. To protect the Church."
"I had a different motive."
"What, to stay alive? To get even with those who'd attacked you? You're a complex man. Those reasons aren't sufficient. A Carthusian, who once was a killer but for the wrong reasons, you could use your skills now for the right reasons. To safeguard the Holy See. To defend Christ's mission on earth."
"To defend Christ's mission?" Drew couldn't contain his anger any longer. "Maybe I read a different New Testament than you did. Didn't Christ say something about turning the other cheek, about the peaceful inheriting the earth?"
"But that was before his Crucifixion. The world, my friend, is a desperate place. Without the fraternity, the Church would long ago have failed. History, which is the record of God's will, has justified our cause."
"I pass," Drew said.
"But you can't."
"Killing? I want nothing more to do with it. What I want is peace."
"But in this world, peace isn't possible. Only a long hard fight. Till Judgment Day."
"You're wrong. But I'll pray for your soul."
Father Stanislaw inhaled sharply. "Three times I saved your life."
"I know that. I promised I'd do anything to save your life in return."
"You aren't remembering correctly. Last night, you promised you'd return the favors in kind. Remember how I phrased the demand? Return the favors in kind! And now I'm asking you to fulfill your promise. To keep your word. Join us. Not to save my life - to save the life of the Church. Use your talents for the good of the Lord."
"I wonder," Drew said bitterly. "Which Lord is that?"
"God. I'm asking you to serve God!"
Father Stanislaw shuddered. "Then you vindicate the Ayatollah?"
"No more than I vindicate you. Or Ray. To kill in self-defense I can understand. I've done it myself in the last two weeks. But to kill for the sake of a principle? That's inexcusable."
"Then we don't disagree."
Drew felt his heart pounding. "How can you say that?"
"Because we protect the Church," Father Stanislaw said, "it is self-defense."
"The Church shouldn't need protecting. If God stands behind it - or any other religion - He'll make sure it survives. Without violence. He sent you a test. You failed. I told you, I'll pray for your soul."
Drew walked away.
"I'm not finished yet!" Father Stanislaw said.
Drew kept walking.
Father Stanislaw followed. "You can't refuse my offer!"
"I did." In the shadows, gravestone led to gravestone.
Father Stanislaw kept after him. "There's something I haven't told you."
"It won't make a difference."
"Remember, I said this ring was almost identical to Richard's? The ruby's the same. The gold band and setting. The insignia. The intersecting sword and cross."
Drew passed a mausoleum.
"But there's a crucial difference." Father Stanislaw walked close behind him. "The stone tilts up. And beneath the stone, there's a tiny compartment. Within, there's a capsule. The poison is instantaneous. Because if one of the order should ever be captured, he must guarantee that no outsider can threaten us. Our secret must be kept. I can think of no other instance in which suicide would be justified. Surely you understand what I'm telling you. If we're prepared to kill ourselves to protect the order's secret, we're prepared to go to other extremes."
Drew continued through the dark.
"My friend, if you don't stop right now and agree to join us, I'll be forced to kill you. No outsider can ever know about us."
Drew didn't turn. "You want me to make it easy for you? I'm supposed to try to fight? So you'll feel justified? Like hell. In the back - that's how you'll have to kill me. And you'll be doing me a favor. Because if I die refusing you, I'll have a good chance of saving my soul."
"Don't force me to do this," Father Stanislaw said. "I've grown to like you. Even to admire you."
Drew didn't stop.
"Your choice is final?"
Walking, Drew studied murky tombstones.
"Very well then." Father Stanislaw sighed.
"You know I'm not a threat to you. I'd never tell."
"Oh, certainly, I have no doubt. You'll never tell."
Drew felt an icy tickle between his shoulderblades, where the knife or the bullet would strike. Self-defense, he thought. It's not a sin if I protect myself.
The spit of a silenced pistol was terribly close behind him. He dove to the right, scrambling around a marble angel of death, drawing his Mauser.
Instead of another spit, he heard a groan. He reversed his direction, spinning the opposite way around the angel, risking exposure to fire.
The risk was needless.
Father Stanislaw sagged toward the grassy mound of a grave. His silenced pistol went off. With a muffled report, it tore up grass on top of the grave. He fell across the grass, his head toward the gravestone. Trembled. And lay still.
Drew tensed, scanning the darkness.
A shadow moved. He held his breath, crouching.
The shadow emerged, coming closer.
Jake.
EPILOGUE
'AND FOR YOUR PENANCE... "
THE WANDERERS
1
An hour later, Drew entered the townhouse in Beacon Hill. "We'd better get going," he told Arlene.
She seemed surprised. "Right now?"
"Our business is finished. It's safer not to stay in town."
The woman who'd taken care of Father Stanislaw asked if the priest would be returning.
"No. He's been called away on an urgent matter. He asked me to thank you for all your kindness. He thanks your friends and the man who lent us this house. I've put the sports car in the garage." Drew gave her the keys to the car and the house. "May God be with you."
"And with your spirit."
"Deo gratias."
2
"What's going on?" Arlene demanded. "Why the rush?"
In the night, Drew walked with her around the corner.
She stopped, confused, when she saw where the Oldsmobile was parked. "But you said Father Stanislaw had been called away."
"In an ultimate sense, he was. He's dead." "He's what?"
"Someone shot him." Drew gestured toward the Oldsmobile's trunk. "The body's in there." "Shot him?" "Saved my life." "But who?"
Drew opened the passenger door. Jake grinned. "Sis, how about a hug?" She burst into tears.
3
Jake had changed little. His mustache was still as red as ever, his hair thick, crinkly, and red, his forehead high, handsome. He wore outdoor clothes. Hiking boots. A nylon pack sat beside him.
"They wanted my death to look like an accident - to keep you from asking questions, Sis. I was supposed to take a fall while I was climbing. They forgot how good I am." Jake grinned. "I made the idiots with me take the fall and got my ass away from there."
"I wish you'd told me. You could have sent a message to me somehow and let me know where you were, so I wouldn't worry."
"But suppose they questioned you? If they gave you amytal, even though you're my sister, you'd have had to tell them where I was the same as they used amytal to make me tell them Drew was still alive and in the monastery. I couldn't risk contacting you. I kept checking for news about a hit on the monastery. Nothing in the papers or on television. I started to wonder. Had something gone wrong with the hit? Had Drew survived? I couldn't go to you, Sis, but I knew there was one place Drew would go if he was out. Maybe not right away, but eventually. The same place I found him in seventy-nine."
"My parents' graves."
"And now we're together," she said. But for how long? Drew wondered.
4
Leaving Boston, they drove the Oldsmobile back to Pennsylvania, to Bethlehem, to Arlene's Firebird where they'd left it at a long-term parking garage. The journey, three hundred miles, took most of the night. Along the way they stopped near the grave of Stuart Little to bury Father Stanislaw in the dark on a cold, high, wooded slope.
Before they covered the body, they removed his priest's clothes, a St. Christopher medal around his neck, and his ring. As Drew had done when he'd lowered Uncle Ray's body into the Bay, he silently recited the prayers for the dead. Maybe God is truly forgiving, he thought. Maybe He makes allowance for those who worship Him too fervently. As a gentle rain began to fall - possibly in blessing - Drew turned away.
In Bethlehem, at 4 a.m., Arlene roused a sleepy garage attendant, redeemed her Firebird, and followed Drew and Jake in the Oldsmobile to a secluded bank of the Lehigh River. In the rain and dark, they pushed the priest's car and its weapons down a steep embankment into a deep part of the river. With its windows open, the car sank quickly.
Drew
pulled Father Stanislaw's ring from his pocket, traced his finger along the intersecting cross and sword on the ruby, and hurled it far out into the river. In the gloom, he never saw where it disappeared.
The rain fell harder, obscuring dawn. They headed east, crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, where finally exhaustion forced them to pull in at a roadside rest area. Drew slept fitfully, squirming from nightmares, until the blaring horn of a passing semi-truck startled the three of them fully awake, upright, just after 11 a.m. Weary, anxious, they continued eastward.
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