Veil of the Goddess

by Rob Preece

  Zack looked down at the narrow canals. “We could swim across that."

  "That would be a bit obvious, wouldn't it? Besides, we'd just be on another little island."

  A policeman carried his submachine gun on the ready as he patrolled the far side of the canal and Zack and Ivy retreated into a tourist shop to escape his prying eyes.

  "We can't wait here like frogs hypnotized by a cobra,” Zack protested. “We've got to move."

  Ivy started giggling. “I've got an idea."

  He followed her gaze. “Oh, no. Not going to happen."

  * * * *

  Zack looked quite charming in his striped shirt and white gondolier hat. Its wide brim hid his dark eyes and the broad red ribbon around the crown gave him a rakish appeal.

  "I'm not going to sing,” he promised.

  "Don't be a sissy. Didn't your mother play operas when you were growing up? I'll bet you have a pretty voice."

  She'd found a wig pair of skinny pants and a halter top for herself. A big floppy hat and a cheap camera completed the outfit. She thought she looked like a tourist from somewhere in Northern Europe. Germany, maybe, or Scandinavia. Definitely nothing like an American. And the Foundation and cops would be looking for an American couple or a pair of Greek sailors, not for a single European woman who insisted on being rowed around the city by a handsome Italian gondolier.

  At least she hoped so.

  Obtaining a gondola was a lot trickier. Stealing one was the obvious solution but it didn't take a genius to guess that the owner would report the theft to the authorities, which would blow their disguise. And purchasing one was way beyond their resources. One question established that a gondola cost as much as an SUV, although Ivy did have to admit it would probably get better mileage.

  They pooled what was left of their cash, threw in the fake ID's Cejno had provided them, and finally convinced a lazy gondolier that he would be happier renting them the boat and getting drunk than waiting for a fare. Ivy credited their persuasiveness to the power of the Veil, although Zack insisted it had more to do with her feminine charms. They even convinced the slacking gondolier to throw in a phone call—and warned the freighter Captain to offload the Cross onto one of the ship's launches, setting up a rendezvous for that evening.

  "Home, Iago,” she ordered as they stepped into the narrow vessel.

  "We're going to look pretty silly when I tip this thing over and we all get wet,” Zack said.

  "You're right. So don't do that. We've got about four hours to kill so let's just get to the Grand Canal and blend in with the other gondolas."

  The broad-striped shirt clung to Zack's muscles as he stood in the stern of the gondola and navigated his way through crowds of outboards, the other tourist-bearing gondolas, and the larger boats that brought groceries, supplies, and everything else into the city of canals and islands.

  A police outboard roared by them, its engines leaving a wake behind that rocked their gondola and nearly made a prophet out of Zack.

  "Hey, you're supposed to know what you're doing."

  "Yeah? Well, you're supposed to be paying me. So maybe neither of us should complain."

  The disguise must have been convincing, though, because no one gave them a second look as Zack slowly rowed through the dozens of canals of Venice.

  Ivy snapped pictures of the major Venice landmarks—the palazzos, the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ which connected the Doge's palace to his prisons, a view of the Cathedral from the canals, and the famous bell tower, while Zack gradually became more comfortable with the single oar used to propel the long slender boat through the filthy waters of the canals.

  The police were out in force and several helicopters circled the city, foretelling an even more active U.S. military presence. Ivy could almost feel their eyes glaze over when they saw the single European woman, alone on the gondola. To them, the olive-skinned gondolier was an object, not even noticeable.

  As dusk began to fall, the other gondoliers steered their boats toward the docks, leaving only a few of the most romantic to tour by darkness.

  Ivy lit the lantern at the bow of their gondola. It was time to connect with the men from their ship.

  Which was easier said than done.

  They'd arranged to meet at the dock near the train station, a central point connecting Venice to the Italian mainland. But the Captain had sent out the sailors as soon as Ivy had called, wanting the Cross off his ship before the Foundation Agents renewed their search—and tore apart more of his precious cargo.

  Apparently the launch's crew had decided they'd be conspicuous just waiting at the pier and had gone into a local bar for drinks.

  The freighter's launch was indistinguishable from dozens of other small boats tied up at the station's pier. Searching all of them would invite certain attention from the local cops.

  "I can check out the local bars,” Zack offered. “The sailors will probably be in one of the closer ones."

  "You can't leave me on the gondola alone, Zack. And it would look suspicious if the two of us went barhopping dressed like this. Besides, we don't need the sailors. All we need is the launch."

  "Surely they wouldn't have left the Cross unprotected."

  "You think they took two big hunks of timber bar-hopping? That wouldn't look suspicious?"

  He shut up and she closed her eyes for focus.

  Just about all of the boats tied to the pier had some sort of religious glow. Italy remained a Catholic nation and Christian medallions, tiny statues, and other testaments of faith were scattered around most of the boats and nearby homes.

  But the glorious shine from the Cross stood out like a searchlight next to a thousand flickering candles. She pointed toward the identifying glow. “It's there."

  The Captain must have been having some guilt feelings. In addition to sending the Cross, he'd even thrown in a waterproof bag filled with a food and a couple of hundred Euros. It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd had to do.

  They transferred the Cross to the bottom of their gondola and ate some of the bread and olives the Captain had left for them, Zack wolfishly gulping his meal down.

  "All that rowing take something out of you?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I can see why the gondoliers charge so much. You owe me for this."

  Zack finished off his loaf of bread, then rowed away from the train station pier. “Okay, so what now?"

  The Foundation and Italian Police were still everywhere around the city bringing Venice's normally wild nightlife to a low ebb. Zack and Ivy considered checking into one of the many two-star hotels carved into the ancient palaces of Venice, but finally decided to stay with the gondola, tying the boat to a pier and pulling a tarp over the cockpit.

  "Just us, the Cross, and the Veil,” Zack murmured as he shifted his weight looking for comfort. “Pretty romantic."

  Ivy suppressed her sigh. Just a little bit of romance wouldn't have been completely out of place, would it?

  Chapter 21

  Dense fog shrouded the ancient city. Zack and Ivy ate the last of the bread, cheese, and olives the Captain had sent them, then set off.

  In most cities, a boat would be a horribly impractical way to travel. In Venice, though, just about every building is accessible by water. Hundreds of docks, piers, and water gates had let medieval Venetians step from gondola to the palaces of their friends or rivals. Many of those gates remained open and available.

  The challenge was to discover which of those gates was right, and which represented another trap. Ivy had guessed wrong when she'd decided on the Orthodox Church the previous afternoon—almost fatally wrong. Luck, rather than any particular skill or virtue, had kept them alive, if on the run. If she guessed wrong again, Ivy didn't think they'd survive the experience.

  Zack seemed endlessly patient as she had him row through the smaller canals, the literal backwaters of the city. At this time of the morning, most of the traffic was motorized—small boats delivering merchandise and hauling away trash,
but the fog protected them from prying eyes on the shores.

  Their gondola raised a few eyes—tourists normally didn't wake up that early—but no whistles blew. After spending all night searching, maybe the cops were tired, too.

  "Can't you use your second sight?” Zack suggested.

  "And look for what? A mystical glowing banner that says ‘enemies of The Foundation welcomed here?’”

  "Hey, don't bite my head off. I'm on your side, remember."

  "Sorry.” Things would have been easier if she could just look for the red glow of the monotheistic religions. But she'd already learned that even within any one splinter of the red world, there were huge differences of opinion. The Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople had feared and opposed the Foundation and his support had eased their way through Greece. The local Orthodox Priest in Venice had been a member or sympathizer. Yet their colors had been the same. The rare spots of other colors might be hotbeds of anti-Foundation activity, but they could also be remnants of the pre-Roman population of the swamps that had become the city of Venice or a local palm-reading establishment.

  Ivy kept her eyes closed, letting her untrained but increasingly powerful senses reach out around her. Ultimately, though, she guided Zack through canals and open waterways by instinct and hunch rather than reason.

  "Straight ahead,” she said.

  The teak and mahogany gondola gave a loud complaint as Zack ran it up onto the stone pier of a neighborhood church.

  "Sorry, bad advice,” she said.

  "Thick as the fog is, it's amazing we haven't run into more things.” He shoved the gondola away from the building.

  A sense of wrongness hit her as they distanced themselves from the pier. “Wait, Zack. There's something about this place."

  "Something good, or something bad?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Physically, the church was indistinguishable from the hundreds of others scattered around Venice. For generations, each neighborhood had built and maintained their own church, supported a priest or two to tend to their souls’ needs, and gathered what small treasures of faith—relics, paintings, statues—that had been collected by the parishioners and bequeathed to their local Church in their old age or death.

  The ever-present red glow of monotheism, though, was overlaid with the powerful blue that Ivy associated with the adoration of Mary.

  "Remember how that Agent Jones worried about a ‘fetish of Mary?’”

  "You think Marianism may be some sort of key to opposition?” Zack had followed her logic, but doubt was heavy in his voice.

  "We've noticed before that Mary, Queen of Heaven has distinct similarities with the ancient Goddess. Maybe those Catholics who have been drawn to Mary are following in that ancient tradition. Maybe they are part of what the Foundation is working against. The Greek priest did say the Foundation battled heretical Catholics, didn't he?"

  "You're making some big logic jumps, Ivy."

  She knew that. Things hadn't worked out very well the last time they'd taken chances, but that didn't mean they could afford to play it safe. For them, there were no safe choices.

  "I'm going in. Want to come with me, or stay here and guard the Cross?"

  "Nobody's going to steal a couple of old timbers. We're a team. We stick together."

  Someone might just steal an unguarded gondola—taking the timbers along. Still, the risk of dragging the Cross with them into a public church seemed greater.

  A youthful priest seemed to have just ended mass as they arrived.

  A few elderly women in traditional black dresses gathered around the priest, pressing food on him and seeking his advice on the infirmities of old age. A couple of children, too young for school and left with grandmothers, orbited beyond. The church was otherwise deserted.

  The parish church lacked some of the extreme decoration of Saint Mark's or the Orthodox Church they'd visited the previous day but the more simple paintings and statues nevertheless shone with the authentic passion of the artists and radiated a quiet holiness that, to Ivy's sensitized other-sight, bathed the church in a light that echoed and complemented the vivid stained glass images.

  A childhood memory of churchgoing returned to her and she crossed herself as she entered the church, then sat in a pew to wait. Her second sight didn't give her any indication of special focal points within the church beyond the usual Stations of the Cross and the carved wooden altar. It didn't seem likely that they'd find any long-forgotten relics in the old, but far from ancient structure. Still, there was a rightness to the church that her instincts told her to trust.

  One of the parishioners turned and scowled at her and Ivy realized she was a mess. She'd lost her wig and hadn't combed the four-day fuzz of hair that poked straight up from her head She hadn't brushed her teeth in over twenty-four hours. Her sleeveless top, tied at the waist to expose more abdomen than was appropriate for a church. And an obvious tourist who snuck her gondolier into a church could only be viewed with suspicion.

  The priest was younger than most of the priests she knew back home, handsome, and completely Italian. No wonder there were so many older women hanging out at his church. With his thick black hair, soulful brown eyes, and muscular arms, if he hadn't received a calling, he might have made it big in the movie business.

  He patted a little girl on the head, exchanged a few words with one of the older parishioners who lapped up his words as if she had been starving for attention, and then he headed toward Ivy and Zack.

  Ivy's grammar school Latin was little help when he opened up on Zack, obviously blasting him for something.

  Zack nodded, grinned at the priest, then turned to Ivy. “He says gondoliers should know better than to try to pick up on rich tourists and trick them into marriage,” Zack said. “I can't speak the language but it's close enough to Spanish that I can make out most of the words."

  The priest frowned. “You are the Americans?"

  Uh-oh. Her muscles tensed, then cramped as she went into panic mode. He knew about them. They'd walked into a trap.

  * * * *

  "There are those in the priesthood who forget the Lord's first message,” the priest told them. “I hope I am not one of them. I am not your judge. Tell me why you've come."

  The priest's name was Father Paulo. After a brief explanation, he let them bring in the Cross and hide it in a storage room along with various broken pews and water-damaged artworks.

  That taken care of, the priest sent a former altar boy to return the gondola, made them each a cup of truly excellent espresso coffee, and ushered them into the parish house where he with an ancient priest who looked up from his computer when they came in, then ignored them.

  Father Paulo waited until they'd had a chance to sip on their coffee and munch a couple of cookies, then shook his head slowly. “I will not judge you, but I need to know that you are not a danger to yourself or those around you. Why should I believe you are not complete kooks?"

  "We might be,” Zack answered. “But people have been trying to kill us for weeks now. They've spent countless dollars, redirected entire carrier groups, and threatened the sovereignty of at least one allied nation, and conducted high-seas piracy. I'd say those are things worth worrying about."

  "If your story is true,” Paulo agreed. “Can you even prove that these particular pieces of wood really are the True Cross?"

  "It brought Ivy back from the dead,” Zack insisted.

  Paulo waved away that objection. “Perhaps. Or perhaps your entire story is a concocted fiction."

  The ancient priest interrupted with a burst of Italian much too fast for Ivy to catch.

  "Oh.” Paulo took a sip of his coffee. “Father Francis tells me that there has been chatter on the loops he follows. There are also somewhat veiled orders from the Vatican that we provide what support we can to the efforts of this Foundation. That much of your story, at least, is confirmed."

  Zack appeared to relax but Ivy had spent too much time with him to be fooled. H
e was coiled, ready to erupt from his chair, to continue their flight—although Ivy had no idea where they would go next.

  "Do you plan to follow those instructions?” Ivy tried to keep her voice soft, unthreatening.

  "A Priest promises obedience to any lawful orders from his superiors and the Pope,” Paulo admitted. “Still, online hints can hardly be called proper orders. Father Francis and I are left with a certain amount of discretion in deciding the proper response."

  Ivy nodded, then considered next steps. “I didn't pick your church at random. There's something here that speaks not just of God, but of the Queen of Heaven."

  Paulo laughed. “Naturally. We are the Church of Mary of the Sailors. As Catholics, you know that Mary is venerated above all other saints. Neither she, nor any saint is worshipped, of course, because worship is due only to the Lord."

  His answer reflected official Catholic doctrine, but Ivy didn't think it was the entire truth.

  "Yesterday, we had the misfortune to meet with an Orthodox Priest who told us that the Foundation was dedicated to scourging both pagans and heretics. He specifically mentioned Marian heretics."

  Paulo's grin was unconvincing. “Every Christian abhors the heresies that lead men from Grace."

  "Except that not all Christians agree on what constitutes a heresy, or on what leads men, or women, from Grace."

  Father Francis interrupted with another burst of Italian.

  "He thinks we're here to entrap them,” Zack translated, his Spanish letting him get the old priest's meaning.

  Ivy laughed. It was hard to imagine two more unlikely inquisitors than herself and Zack. “I suspect the Vatican has more serious problems than worrying about whether a couple of its parish priests are paying a bit too much devotion to the Mother of God."