The Fifth Gospel(119)

            “I don’t know. Twenty? Thirty?”

            I can only stare at him. My father invited nine Orthodox priests to Turin for the radiocarbon announcement. Four came.

            Gianni nods.

            “Can you tell me exactly how they were dressed? Were they wearing crosses?”

            The details could pinpoint where they came from. The family tree of Orthodoxy splits between Greeks and Slavs. Slavic priests wear crosses around their necks, but Greeks aren’t allowed to.

            “My pickup definitely wore a cross,” Gianni says.

            That suggests a priest from the Slavic tradition, including Serbia and Romania.

            Gianni adds, “On his hat.”

            I’m taken by surprise. “Are you sure?”

            Gianni squeezes his fingers together. “Just a small thing. Fingernail size.”

            This is the sign of a decorated Slavic bishop. Or even a metropolitan, the second-highest of all Eastern ranks. These are Orthodox royalty, outranked only by the ancient brother-bishops of the pope, the patriarchs.

            “Did some of them wear chains around their necks?” I ask. “With little paintings in them?”

            Gianni nods. “Like an amulet with the Madonna in it? Sure, one of my pickups wore that.”

            Then he was right about the little crosses. These medallions are another sign of an Orthodox bishop. I try to hide my amazement. For a bishop to have accepted Simon’s invitation is a coup. I can’t believe my brother was able to broker this.

            And yet the more successful his diplomacy was, the more devastating it makes Ugo’s discovery about 1204. I fear I’m beginning to see the outlines of the prosecution’s case.

            “Go back,” I say. “You said they relocated the meeting to Castel Gandolfo. Where was it originally supposed to be?”

            “In the gardens.”

            “Where in the gardens?”

            If I’m right, then everything is starting to converge.

            “The Casina,” he says.

            This is it. Ugo’s letter was about a meeting at the Casina. They must be the same: the meeting at Castel Gandolfo was the one Ugo and Simon had discussed weeks earlier, in which Ugo was slated to deliver the keynote address about his discovery. The site may have been changed at the last minute, but the gathering had been planned long in advance.

            “Were all the passengers who rode to Castel Gandolfo priests?” I ask.

            Gianni nods.

            So Diego’s calendar was right: this had nothing to do with a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The academy’s scientists would’ve been laymen. This event seems to have revolved entirely around the Orthodox.

            Still, that doesn’t explain why the location was changed.

            “Can’t the Casina hold twenty or thirty people?” I say.

            “Definitely.”

            So the size of the crowd can’t have been the reason. And in a country overrun with grand meeting halls, why choose a new location forty-five minutes away? The only advantage of Castel Gandolfo was the privacy.

            “Why were you told not to keep records?” I ask. “Was someone in particular not supposed to find out about this?”

            This strikes me as an extreme precaution. Almost no one would’ve known those records existed, let alone would’ve had the power to flush them out to track down the location of the meeting.