Julia Navarro - The Brotherhood Of The Holy Shroud

'Are you asleep, John?"

"No, Kalman, I seem not to have slept in days. The whistling of the arrows and the thunder of the battering rams against the walls have invaded my head, and I cannot sleep."

"They say the city will soon fall. We cannot resist much longer." Months had passed, almost two years, as Edessa fought on.

"I know, Kalman, I know. I am weary with binding the wounds of the soldiers and attending women and children who die in my arms in convulsions or with the plague. My hands are callused from digging graves in the earth to bury their bodies. In the end, Khusro's soldiers will show no mercy to anyone. How is Eulalius? I have not been able to see him… I am sorry."

"No, he wishes you to help those who most need it. He is very frail from this prolonged fast and the pain that grips his bones. His belly is swollen, but he never complains."

John sighed. He seemed never to rest, running from one place to another on the wall, treating the mortal wounds of the soldiers to whom he could no longer give relief because he had no more plants with which to prepare his unguents and potions.

Day and night desperate women came to his door, pleading with him to save their children, and he would spill tears of impotence, for there was nothing he could do for them. They were starving and exhausted, and their lives simply slipped away.

How his life had changed since he left Alexandria. When he dozed off from exhaustion he dreamed of the clean smell of the ocean, the soft hands of Myriam, the hot food his old serving woman prepared for them, his house surrounded by orange trees. During the first months of the siege he had cursed his fate and reproached himself for having come to Edessa in search of a dream, but he no longer did that. He had no strength for that now, and the dream remained buried, perhaps out of reach forever.

John shook off his torpor and rose to his feet. "I will go to see Eulalius," he told the priest.

"It will do him good to see you."

Accompanied by Kalman, he made his way to the room where the bishop lay in bed praying.

"Eulalius…"

"Welcome, John. Sit here beside me."

The physician was pained by the changed aspect of the old bishop. He had shrunk, and the outline of his bones was visible through his almost transparent skin. His pallor presaged death.

The sight of the dying man moved John deeply. He, who had arrived almost arrogantly in Edessa, proud to show Christianity the visage of the Lord, had not had the courage to complete his undertaking. He had thought rarely of the shroud through the long months of the siege, and now, seeing the approach of death upon the face of Eulalius, he knew that death would not be long in coming for him as well.

"Kalman, leave me alone with Eulalius, please."

Weakly, the bishop made a sign to the priest to leave them. Kalman worried as he left the room, for he knew that neither of the men was well. In John, it was clear that grief had left its mark; in Eulalius, it was the flesh that was yielding.

John looked into the eyes of the bishop and, taking him by the hand, sat beside him.

"Forgive me, Eulalius, I have done nothing but ill since I came here, and the worst of my sins has been to not confide in you. I have sinned by pride in not sharing with you the secret of the place where the shroud is hidden. I will tell you now, and you shall decide what we must do. May God forgive me if what I am about to say betrays doubt, but if upon the shroud the visage of our Lord is truly impressed, then he will save us, as he saved Abgar from sure death."

Eulalius listened with amazement to John's revelation of the secret. For more than four hundred years the shroud of Jesus had lain behind the bricks of a niche cut out of the wall above the west gate of the city. It was the only place that had withstood the battering of the Persian army.

The old man struggled to sit up and, weeping, he embraced the Alexandrian.

"Praise God! I feel a great joy in my heart. You must go at once to the wall and rescue the shroud. Ephron and Kalman will help you, but you must go now. I feel that Jesus may still have mercy upon us and work a miracle."

"Eulalius, I cannot present myself before the soldiers who are risking their lives guarding the western gate and tell them that I am seeking a niche hidden in the wall. They will think I am mad, or that I am hiding a treasure… No, I cannot go there."

"You shall go, John."

Suddenly Eulalius's voice was firm and strong again.

So firm, indeed, that John lowered his head, knowing that this time he would obey.

"Let me, then, Eulalius, say that you have sent me."

"It 15 I who have sent you! Before you arrived, in my dream I heard the voice of Jesus' mother telling me that Edessa would be saved. And so it shall be, God willing."

Outside, they could hear the cries and shouts of the soldiers mixed with the crying of the few infants who were still alive. Eulalius sent for Kalman and Ephron.

"I have had a dream. You must go with John to the western gate and-"

"But, Eulalius," Ephron exclaimed, "the soldiers will not let us pass."

"You will go, and you will obey John's orders. Edessa can be saved."

The captain, enraged, ordered the two priests and their companion to leave the area.

"The gate is about to give way, and you want us to go and look for a hidden niche-you are mad! I don't care if the bishop sent you! Begone!"

John stepped forward and told the captain that with or without his help they would climb the wall above the western gate and dig.

Arrows fell all around them, but before the astonished eyes of the soldiers, they remained untouched. Calling upon their last reserves of strength, the soldiers redoubled their efforts to defend that part of the wall, as the three men dug frantically.

"There is something here!" Kalman cried.

Minutes later, John held in his hands a basket darkened by time. He opened it and gently touched the folded cloth.

Without waiting for Kalman or Ephron, he clambered down and began to run toward Eulalius's house.

His father had told him the truth: He and all his fathers before him had been the guardians of the secret of the shroud in which Joseph of Arimathea had laid the body of Jesus.

The bishop trembled with emotion when John entered his chamber. The young man took the shroud from under his tunic and held it out to the bishop, who rose from his bed and went down on his knees in wonder at the face of a man perfectly impressed upon the cloth.

SURROUNDED BY BOOKS, SOFIA. WAS SO AB-sorbed in her reading that she didn't realize Marco had come into the office. She had been there for hours already, taking advantage of the early-morning quiet before their day officially began.

"Whatever it is must be fascinating," he said, "because you haven't even" noticed that I'm here."

"Oh, sorry, Marco," Sofia replied, jumping a bit.

"What are you reading?"

"The history of the shroud."

"But you already know it by heart. Christ, every Italian knows it."

"That's true. But I wanted to dig a little deeper. There might be something in here to give us a lead."

"Something in the history of the shroud?"

"Let's call it speculative research. No stone unturned."

"Interesting. Have you found anything?"

"Not yet. I'm just reading, hoping for the light to come on." Sofia smiled and tapped her forehead.

"How far along are you?"

"The sixth century, when a bishop in Edessa named Eulalius had a dream in which a woman revealed to him where the shroud was. You know that during all that time, the shroud was lost, no one knew where it was. In fact, there was no knowledge that it even existed. But Evagrius-"

"Evagrius? Who's Evagrius?" Minerva dropped her things on a nearby desk and joined them.