Eric Lustbader - The Testament

Jenny joined him, and they stood for a moment gazing out at the vaporous morning through which the palazzi's rich colors-ocher, umber, burnt sienna and rose-pulsed like an earthbound sun.

Showered and dressed, they went downstairs. They were grateful to see that Berio hadn't yet made his appearance, and they went quickly out of the hotel, into the picturesque piazetta lined with shops still shuttered. He took her to a small cafe on a tiny side street. It was dark and gloomy inside, as if time had collected in the low rafters. He chose a table near one of the small wood-framed windows that looked out onto a canal.

While they waited for their breakfast to arrive, he opened the newspaper he'd bought and, as was his habit, scanned it.

All at once he looked up. "It's official. The pope has the flu."

"If they've gone public, his illness has grown near-terminal," Jenny said. "The Vatican cabal will be putting ever more pressure on the Knights."

"Not to mention global resources and influence." He folded the paper and looked at her. "We're running out of time, Jenny."

She nodded grimly. "We've got to get you to the cache before the Knights can find it."

Pushing the paper away, he handed her the Michelin guide to Venice and told her to turn to a certain page. Venice was divided into seven sestieri, or districts, each one with its own character. She opened the guide book to I Mendicoli, an outer section of the Dorsoduro district, a working-class section little frequented by tourists. I Mendicoli meant "the beggars": its original inhabitants-fishermen and artisans-were extremely poor.

As she read, Bravo took out the coin he'd found in the underwater safe in St. Malo. He looked at it front and back, held it on edge, ran his thumb along the ridged edge, smiling. Again, he thought of the system of cryptography his father had taught him and was immensely grateful both for the lessons and his studiousness.

Jenny looked at him inquiringly. "What should I be looking for?"

"Turn the page," he instructed.

At once, she came upon a photo of the Church of l'Angelo Nicolo`. Just below was a detail of a painting: San Nicolo` dei Mendicoli by Giambattista Tiepolo.

"This is the centerpiece of the church," he said. "Now look at the face on the coin."

She did. It was a copy of the centerpiece, the face of San Nicolo`.

Bravo turned the coin over, showed her the letters on its obverse: Mh Euah Poqchaq Ntceo.

His sly smile turned into a grin. "At first, I thought this coin was old, but then I saw these."

Their breakfast came and they ate ravenously, clearing the dishes away as quickly as they could.

Bravo wrote the nonsense words onto a scrap of paper. On the line below, he wrote a simple equation: 54-42=8.

"There are fifty-four ridges on the edge of this coin," he told her. "There are, as you know, twenty-one letters in the ancient Latin alphabet. Double that, you get forty-two." He pointed to the first letter of the phrase. "My father started out using the code Caesar devised, moving each letter of the original message by four to encrypt it, so alpha becomes delta and so on."

"That's a pretty easy code to break," she said.

He nodded. "That's where the equation comes in. Only the first letter is substituted this way. From then on, eight is the key."

"So the second letter is substituted for the eighth letter in the alphabet."

"Yes, and then we work forward. The third letter of the text uses nine, the fourth letter ten, until we reach twenty-one. Then we go back to eight, and so on."

"So what did your father write?"

Bravo finished up the decoding, then showed her the result.

"In alms cabinet purse." She shook her head. "Do you know what that means?"

"I think we'll have to go to I Mendicoli to find out." He paid the bill and they left the cafe.

With the rising of the sun, dawn had dissolved into a morning already hot and wet. By now the children were at school and the college-age art students on their way to classes in astonishing medieval buildings, sketchpads tucked neatly under their arms as they jabbered away on cell phones.

"God, it stinks," Jenny said as they passed over a canal.

Bravo laughed. "Ah, yes, the stench of Venice is an acquired taste."

"Count me out."

"Given time, you'll change your mind, I guarantee," he said.

Several times Jenny slowed, looking around as if unsure how to proceed, even though it was Bravo who was leading the way.

"What's the matter, don't you trust me?" he said. "You look like you're lost."

"I have a feeling we're being followed. Normally, I'd be able to check reflections in shop windows or in cars' side mirrors, but here that's impossible. At this hour there are few shops and, of course, there are no cars. I've been trying to use the canals, but because it's in motion water is a notoriously unreliable reflective surface."

They moved on, in the midst of a shroud of anxiety. Smells came to them of fermentation-the lees of wine-the whiff of an unseen woman's perfume, the distinct scent of the pale Istrian stone, borne aloft as if on St. Michel's gauzy wings against the deep-green water, from which emanated the ever-present rankness of decay. Even in brightest day, there was about Venice an acute sense of mystery. One was always turning a corner, hearing footfalls approaching or retreating, coming from narrow alleys into ancient campi in which could be seen clumps of elderly men speaking in hushed tones or a dark figure, furtively exiting the square.

Their first stop was in San Polo, where the Rialto Bridge spanned the Grand Canal just as it has since 1172, when the first boat bridge was built. Up until the nineteenth century the Rialto was the only link between the two sides of the city. As they crossed, shops on either side of the bridge were opening, their doors thrown wide and tourist-friendly signs put in windows and beside doorways.

The Banco Veneziana was just past the Erberia, an outdoor market that dated back to the time of Casanova. Here were sold herbs and all manner of produce brought in each morning from the small out islands that dotted the lagoon. The bright spicy scents of green herbs mingled with the heady odors of blood oranges, castradure (baby artichokes) and spareselle (pencil-thin asparagus), as well as perfumed sprays of fresh flowers. As they worked their way through the happily chattering crowds, Jenny, clearly uncomfortable, kept an eye out for tails, which was made more difficult amid the dense bustle of the wholesalers, packing up to make room for the arriving retailers.

The bank was in an arcaded building of the Venetian-Byzantine style-the front was a mass of slender arched and columned windows-that had been rebuilt following the great fire of 1514 that had devastated it as it swept through the city. Like many buildings in Venice, the architecture was full of ornamental filigrees, intricately carved stone statues and stylized Gothic cornerstones. Inside, marble walls rose up to a domed ceiling into which had been set a marvelous mosaic of Venetian ships at full sail.

Behind the high banquette, they found a slim, middle-aged gentleman. Bravo spoke to him for a moment, and he handed over a form on which Bravo was required to write nothing more than the account number he had decoded from his father's dog-eared notebook, not even his name.

The banker took the form and disappeared for not more than three minutes. When he returned, he opened a section of the banquette. He allowed Bravo through, but not Jenny. He was polite and apologetic, but quite firm.

"I trust you understand, signorina," he said. "It is the policy of the bank to allow entrance only to the account holder. It is a question of possible coercion, you see."

"I understand completely, signore," she said with a smile. And to Bravo, "I'll be outside, looking for our friend." She meant Michael Berio, whom she suspected of following them.