The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  “Where did you get those boxes?” he demanded as he came within a few yards.

  Benedict’s instinct was to set his stone down and answer politely, with proper deference. But the bishop’s earlier action against the little dark-haired child came back to him, flashing in an ugly scene before him. He held the stone high, maintaining eye contact with the bishop.

  “Do not do this!” Andreas was no more than three feet away now.

  It was a direct order and yet Benedict knew in his heart that he could not obey it. He dropped the stone.

  One wood splinter zipped by his cheek, opening a small gash. Andreas made an undignified dive at the boxes, one of which had apparently only been grazed along one edge by the heavy stone. The bishop scooped the object into his arms and rolled aside while Benedict stared in mute dismay.

  The second box had survived intact. The priest reached for the stone once more. It was imperative that he strike another blow, that he destroy at least one of these repugnant objects.

  Before his fingers touched the rough rock, something slammed into him. Andreas had cast aside the rescued box and was now out to save the second one. In a moment of clarity Benedict wondered what an observer would think; two holy men tussling on the ground like children fighting over a toy.

  His head struck something hard on the ground. An incredible stab of pain went through him. His teeth ground together and his vision went black.

  * * *

  Beneath the solid walls of St. Peter’s Basilica, winding under the various buildings of the Vatican, run a series of catacombs and tunnels. The man in white robes carried his parcel with the reverence he had been told it deserved. Velvet wrappings cushioned the item and cords were tied in such a manner as to prevent tampering—sealed with wax in each place they came together, a holy seal pressed into the wax.

  As explained to him, the unseen object had made its way across the south of Spain, through the waters of the Mediterranean, and into Rome under holy edict from Bishop Andreas himself. Two men had died in the course of its journey. This man did not want to become the third.

  He and his two-person entourage located the designated storage place, set the rectangular object inside, and moved a stone in front of it, as prescribed. With a stick of charcoal he made a small symbolic mark on the stone. Only one more step, then his duty would be complete.

  Chapter 3

  OSM

  The man in the brown robe paused at the corner of Via dei Corridori. Ahead lay the shapes of the clustered buildings of the Basilica di San Pietro, marked by the distinctive obelisk rising above them into the evening sky. A chill wind fluttered his robes and moved scraps of ragged cloud across the face of the waning gibbous moon.

  He paused, looked around and, not seeing anyone, turned the corner quickly and entered a narrow stone building beside the piazza. Down a short set of steps he came to a small chamber lit by three candles. Four men waited there—a monsignor, two archbishops and a cardinal. No names were exchanged; all were familiar to each other by reputation and position.

  In front of the cardinal, at the head of the table, sat a cloth-wrapped parcel tied with cords which were sealed with wax. When Father Benedict took his seat their leader broke the wax seals, pulled back the velvet wrapping and revealed a carved wooden box with a dull brown finish and small colored stones mounted on it.

  “I retrieved this from its hiding place. It is time for us to decide what to do.”

  “Only the one box?”

  “It is all that remains.”

  “But I saw two—” The priest paused, the truth dawning. Andreas took this one, apparently making good on his oath to see that it came to a secure place. But the second box? God alone could know where it was now. Andreas may have kept it for himself. Benedict had never forgotten the glitter of raw greed in the older man’s eyes.

  For the benefit of the three younger men, the leader asked Father Benedict to repeat the story of the events of more than ten years ago.

  “It was in Spain, Sevilla to be exact. A band of gypsies was seen practicing unholy acts of magic and witchcraft using this box. At the same time, I discovered another of very similar design. I feared that both boxes might be used in service of the devil’s power. I meant to destroy both boxes but our Bishop Andreas convinced me otherwise.” By knocking me to the ground. “This box survived a blow from a heavy stone building block.”

  The men around the table exchanged furtive glances.

  “In hindsight, I believe his decision was correct. If shattered, small scraps of wood from these artifacts might have been used as talismen by those with evil in their hearts.” He touched his cheek where the splinter that struck him had festered and left a scar. “It was best that the box come here to be locked away and protected by holy men of knowledge and purity.”

  “And the second box?” asked one of the archbishops.

  Benedict shrugged. “I fell, losing consciousness. When I awoke it was gone.”

  More shuffling in their seats. Benedict briefly wondered who in this room, other than himself, knew more than he was saying.

  The cardinal spoke up: “It is the opinion of those in high places within the Church that no good can come from the use of such artifacts. It is our mandate to gather and destroy them.”

  Benedict took a risk in speaking. “We must be cautious of the powers of the box. This one should have been smashed into a thousand pieces by the stone that I cast upon it, yet no harm came to it.”

  A rustle of robes, a flicker of the candles.

  “Perhaps the boxes are linked in some way. The power of one cannot be destroyed because it is receiving help from the other?” suggested another of the men.

  “That idea sounds dangerously pagan in itself,” cautioned the leader.

  “I only meant, Holiness, that somehow with God’s help the boxes are linked. As twins, as two halves of a whole.”

  The leader pushed back the sleeves of his cloak, his expression thoughtful. “Perhaps.”

  “We must place this one back into its hiding place until we locate the other,” suggested the monsignor at the opposite end of the table. “When we have both, we can bring them out and place a holy edict upon them declaring that their destruction is, in itself, the divine will of God.”

  The leader nodded. “A wise idea.”

  The man beside Benedict shifted in his chair. So far, he had not spoken. “And how are we to locate the others?”

  “The one other,” Benedict corrected.

  “There are stories of a third box,” the man insisted.

  Startled silence. Even the leader had nothing to say. After a few moments’ quiet the men became restive.

  Their leader sensed he would lose control unless he proposed an idea. “We will begin with the mission of locating Bishop Andreas. Even though he has left Rome, Vatican records will show where he went. We shall locate the box which he last possessed. Andreas may have knowledge of the third.”

  “Andreas is dead. Whereabouts of the other two boxes are unknown,” stated the quiet one.

  “How do you know this?” Benedict demanded.

  The quiet man fixed him with a hard stare that caused the priest’s skin to itch. “Accept it as fact.”

  The leader cleared his throat. “In that case, we shall begin at the beginning. It is imperative that we control the power of these artifacts of mystery, that they not be allowed into the hands of the populace. Great destruction would ensue.”

  Devastation to the Church itself, Benedict thought. He kept his mouth shut.

  “Begin at the beginning?” the man on the cardinal’s left scoffed. “When there was only the heaven and the earth?”

  The leader saw the meeting quickly spiraling out of his control. He slapped his hand against the table’s polished top. “I mean—we must go about this with a plan. We shall, this night, form an organization with the sole purpose of locating and confiscating any article of a mystical nature, any item that might be used for the proliferation of ideas
outside the beliefs of the one and true Church, as decreed by the Holy Father.”

  Heads nodded. This mission fell well within the undertaking of the Inquisition. There would be no question that their motives were the purest, their objective of the highest calling.

  Their leader saw his advantage increase. “We shall call the organization the Officii Studendi potest Mystici, although we will not in fact study mystical objects but will keep them out of the hands of those who would practice any method of healing, conjuring, or seeing which does not conform to our teachings. We are saving these souls from condemnation,” he added.

  The outspoken monsignor brought up a point. “These artifacts are small—they could have been easily transported—perhaps out of the country, to some other nation.”

  “The reach of the Church knows no national boundaries. It is God’s will that we pursue these abominations wherever they are. I would commission each of you to establish offices of our organization elsewhere. We must be capable of exerting a long reach.”

  “Since the time when Ferdinand and Isabella combined their two nations, there has been talk of Spain sending explorers to establish new trade routes. A man named Columbus is working to secure funding for such a voyage. We must accept the fact that Europe will no longer be the only place for God’s work.”

  “Yes. I am aware of this,” said the cardinal with an impatient wave of his hand. “Already, the Church is making great plans to spread the word of God to new lands. If—Lord help us—these boxes should be carried outside of Europe, then our offices must also extend to every corner of the world.”

  The holy man’s words resonated, the mood lightened, and excited chatter erupted as ideas flowed. Bells from the nearby basilica began to chime, reminding them that the hour was very late.

  As they rose from their chairs the leader cautioned, “Go one by one. It is best that no one, even in this holy part of the city, realize that we are meeting. I myself, shall secure the artifact in a new, safer locatiaon. Secrecy must be our watchword.”

  Benedict walked up the steps, the last to leave. At the end of the street he watched their leader turn a corner. On impulse he hurried forward and followed the one man who would know where the carved box was to be hidden.

  Chapter 4

  Ships Sail

  Frigid rainwater poured from the edge of a parapet, striking Rodrigo del Fuentes on his head, trailing down the back of his neck and the inside of his shirt.

  Damn this country, he thought, ducking away from the deluge. Curses upon the rain and the wet and the mud. A picture of his faraway homeland, with sunny dry hills and olive trees and clean white buildings flashed through his mind. None of this dull gray stone, the local rock which made up the structures and the roads and the roofs and the shoreline. Brightened only by endless green fields, in the rare moments when the sun came out, Rodrigo could see no reason why his king could possibly be so eager to conquer this soggy place. Spain was, by far, more warm and hospitable. He pressed his back against the rough stones of the city wall, edging along, his only wish to be warm and dry once more but knowing that was a faraway dream—at least until he accomplished his mission.

  He’d been in Ireland a mere four days, dropped along the shoreline at the quarter moon by an unnamed sailor who rowed their small dinghy through the glassy sea with the silence of a sleek porpoise. They skirted Galway Bay at low tide and spoke not a word as the sailor indicated the point at which he expected Rodrigo to leap out and slog his way through the remaining few feet of water to the rocky point where he could make landfall without being seen from the nearby watchtowers along the city wall.

  “I shall return at the half moon,” the sailor had told Rodrigo earlier as they launched from the Santa Teresa, which lurked behind a ragged outcrop several miles down the coast. “You will be there, waiting. If not, we sail without you.”

  “El Admiral needs the information I will procure,” Rodrigo said.

  “He wants that information. But he needs for the mission to take place at the right time so that we join the armada in time for the invasion. If you fail, we simply go forward without it. Without you.”

  Rodrigo held his tongue as the dinghy bobbed gently on the waves. What the admiral wanted were maps and diagrams, something only a man who spent time ashore could obtain. Plans for the English fortress and schedules that would inform the Spanish Armada of the opportune time for their planned invasion in the autumn. Privately, he thought it the height of arrogance that the admiral would even consider moving forward with the invasion without the priceless information Rodrigo could deliver. But el admiral was precisely such a man, conceited to the point of— He stifled the thought. He knew better than to voice his opinion, especially on that particular night in that particular small boat. The sailor was a man who did no more than follow orders: drop this unknown man on the shore, pick him up six nights later. No questions, no opinions.

  Now, after scurrying about the walled city for days, poking into corners, stealthily listening to conversations, Rodrigo had a plan. Admittedly, it was a loosely formed plan. He had ascertained the location of the English captain’s office, a moderately sized room in one of the main halls of the government building. He’d heard two men discussing maneuvers that would send all but a small contingent of Irish troops away from the fort tomorrow. It would likely be his only chance to get inside; the dinghy was due to come for him on the following night.

  He watched the steady splatter of rain on the ground at his feet. The boat’s arrival was far from a certainty. There had been no clear night, no smooth sea since his arrival. It would require an act of God to change this weather pattern and no man alive could predict whether that would happen. He tamped down the thought and stared once again at the imposing stone building with its steeply pitched roof.

  “Right ugly old thing, ain’t it?” The female voice behind Rodrigo startled him.

  He whipped around to find a short young woman with vivid blue eyes standing in the rain. Her rough peasant cloak was beaded with moisture and unruly strands of wavy yellow hair poked from beneath her heavy woolen hood. She might have been as young as twelve years, but the work-roughened hand that gripped the edges of her cloak suggested that she was nearer to twenty.

  “You got anything to eat on you?” she queried. “A bit of bread?”

  His mouth opened in surprise but he closed it and shook his head. He understood enough English to know what she’d asked, but any verbal response would give him away.

  “Huh,” the girl said. “I’d wager that them inside that fortress ain’t goin’ hungry.”

  He gave a sympathetic shrug and moved a few steps away.

  She followed. “I’d wager that it’s warm and dry in there, too. I’d be willin’ to grant a favor or two to the gentleman who could get me a bit of supper and a dry indoor corner for the night.” She pulled aside the top of her cloak and revealed a triangle of white flesh above the neckline of her brown homespun dress.

  The temptation lasted no more than a moment. Rodrigo had greater concerns, although he had to admit that he was hungry as well, having last risked walking into a public house for a bowl of stew two days ago. But the last thing he needed was this young woman with the garrulous mouth trailing him through the township. He turned his back and walked away from the building.

  “All right, then,” the woman said, trotting along to match his strides. “Let’s take ourselves somewhere else. I know an old woman what raises chickens. They got nests in a little coop. We could wait by until her lamp goes out and grab up a couple of eggs. Not so tasty as when they’re cooked but they’ll fill your belly.”

  He walked faster. She apparently took it as a sign that he was eager to go along with her plan. She was practically chasing him now and the speed of their movements would surely attract attention. He stopped and spun toward her.

  “¡Vete! No me molestes!”

  She stared at him, speechless at last. Rodrigo realized his critical error. Perhaps a fatal er
ror. He faltered a moment to come up with the English words.

  “Sorry. Sorry. We … we can eat.”

  He reached into a pocket and drew out the small pouch that still contained a few of the local coins. He held them out, hoping she would snatch them from his hand and disappear like a street urchin.

  Her gaze slid up the street and back. No one else was in sight. She gave him a knowing look.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “I’m Meggie.”

  He thrust the coins toward her again.

  “C’mon, I’m not likely to turn you in now, am I? I saw you out here earlier. Yesterday too. If I wanted trouble for you, I’d of told them already. I’m thinkin’ you need my help as much as I need yours.” She studied his face, figuring out that he’d understood only a fraction of what she said.

  Rodrigo’s eyes flicked toward the fortress, for a mere moment.

  “All right, then,” said Meggie, pressing his hand closed around the coins and threading her arm through his. “We’ll have a meal and talk about this.”

  To anyone who might have witnessed the exchange it seemed obvious what was going on: a man offered money, a woman took his arm and walked away with him. Rodrigo thought frantically for a way out of the situation but came up with no answers. For now, let the townspeople and the soldiers in that fort think what they may.

  They walked around a corner, past a row of solid stone buildings, through an alley, until they were well away from the fortress. Meggie pointed out a wooden door and as they approached, Rodrigo caught the scent of richly stewed meat. His mouth watered.

  Meggie handled the conversation, placing an order for two bowls of stew and two pints of stout. The tavern mistress brought their food to the dark corner table they’d located. Meggie had acted as if he were her brother or her friend, and now she picked up her spoon and dug into the food as though she had not eaten in a fortnight. Rodrigo felt himself relax as the stout coursed through him.