The Medici Return (Cotton Malone #19)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

E RIC ARRIVED BACK AT HIS R OME RESIDENCE, A SPACIOUS APARTMENT on the Via Sistina, in an elegant neighborhood located near the Spanish Steps. The rent was outrageous, but the party paid the bill as a perk for his job as secretary. He’d followed a familiar maze of twisting streets and urban chaos back from the Vatican, leaving one nation and entering another. Above him, the Italian sky loomed sodden and sullen. Featureless. A battleship gray without a hint that a sun existed.

Like his mood.

He’d kept his composure, which had not been easy considering Cardinal Richter’s negativity. It galled him how righteous the church tried to be, considering that, for centuries, though it projected itself as above politics, above kings, queens, and emperors, above reproach, nothing could be further from the truth. The church had always been heavily involved in secular matters. Especially Italian politics. It was a practice that dated back to the earliest times and Emperor Constantine who, in the 4th century, called the bishops of all the various Christian factions to Nicaea and ordered them to hammer out one doctrine, one religion, one faith. Once done, he proclaimed that form of Christianity the empire’s choice, and from that the Roman Catholic Church was born. Which grew and prospered, provided it kept Constantine, and the emperors who came after him, happy. Which it did. Masterfully.

So to say the church was unconcerned with politics? That was a lie.

But he had his own problems with lies.

He’d run a bluff, one he’d hoped would have borne fruit.

But it had not.

It was memorialized in two writings. Identical. Both signed by the pope. One was kept with the church, the other with the Medici.

He’d told Richter that he had the Medici copy. But he did not. And if forced, he could not press the collection of the debt or apply any pressure without that writing.

A disconcerting thought.

He entered the kitchen and decided he was more thirsty than hungry, so he found a drink in the refrigerator. His favorite. An obscure cola that some called Beverly. Why that name? He had no idea. Once made by the Coca-Cola Company as an apéritif, it was now only bottled for a few select American markets. He’d become friendly with the Italian producer who kept him supplied. Most hated its sharp citrus bitterness, which came from grapefruit rind, but he’d acquired a taste for it as a child.

He sipped the drink and found his phone.

Going to the Vatican had been a calculated act. He’d delayed the visit for as long as possible. But time was running out. Campaigning was about to begin. Everybody would want the church on their side, and he had assured party leaders that he would obtain the support. So he’d made a move, trying to leap to the front of the parade. And failed. Badly.

But he still had three days to rectify things.

His grandmother had been the first to explain the ancient connection. Was it a wild story? Or fact? He prided himself on being a realist, harboring no false illusions about how the world worked. And contrary to what opponents like Cardinal Richter might say, he was sincere in what he said, firm in his beliefs, and dedicated to a cause he thought just. The media loved to call the National Freedom Party a populist organization.

But it was more.

Much more.

Like him.

The sun shone bright, the air heavy with the scent of new-mown hay. One of those mornings steeped in dewy freshness when sounds and sights were brought near, and the Dolomites appeared taller than usual. The Tofana di Mezzo, the third highest peak, rarely seen without a turban of clouds, rose sharp and clear in the distance against the azure sky.

He walked with his grandmother, hand in hand, his nine-year-old eyes focused on the village cemetery that lay opposite the church. Its gate stood ajar, the space beyond crowded with a weed-grown wilderness and ancient trees. A confusion of rough stone heaps marked most of the graves, the markers long since collapsed. A few marble tablets and iron crosses stood near the outer walls recording the names of the better-class dead. Everywhere was coarse deep grass, thistles, nettles, loose stones, broken pottery, and trampled clay. Not a flower in sight, not a touch of poetry or pathos in the place. Nothing but indifference, irreverence, and neglect.

And the silence of the dead.

“Why are we here?” he asked her.

“It is time you see something.”

She led him farther into the cemetery. They passed a battered alms box bearing an inscription— WE IMPLORE CHARITY IN THE NAME OF THE BLESSED MARY . Clearly, no one had left anything inside it for a long time. His nonna stopped before a collection of stones lying among the wiry grass.

An unmarked grave.

“There is where he is buried,” she said.

He was both puzzled and intrigued. “Who’s there?”

“An ancestor of our family. Remember what I am telling you, Eric. Never forget.”

He was excited to hear what she was about to say.

“You carry royal blood in your veins, just like me. It stretches back centuries. The man in this grave was Gregorio Cappello. He lived here in the mountains a long, long time ago. He died in 1786.”

He was amazed. “How do you know that?”

“My father told me. Now I am telling you.”

“Was he an important man?”

“He was Medici.”

“What is that?”

His grandmother stared down at him. “It is your bloodline. Your heritage. You, Eric, are Medici.”

He’d had no idea at the time what that meant. So he’d questioned his nonna, trying to learn more. But as usual, she’d been evasive.

“How do you know this?” he asked.

“Take the soldier. What is it that allows him, with courage, to face the rifle’s mouth? It is faith. The painter, what inspires the frescoes and the images? Faith. Think of the patience and labor required to build a grand building. What supported the workmen through their trying task? Faith. The engineers who began the Mont Cenis tunnel at opposite ends of the great mountain. After years of digging, they met in the middle. To what power must we attribute such perseverance, crowned with success? It is the supreme and vivifying power of faith. It is faith that we know we are Medici.”

Forty years ago there’d been no way to know for sure. DNA testing was just getting started. But today? That was a different story. He’d run a genealogy but had not been able to obtain any information before 1810. Five years back he’d raised money and financed a renovation of that cemetery. It now looked much different. The graves were restored, the remains disinterred then reverently reburied. His efforts had made the national media, and he’d garnered some praise for the humanitarian effort. Along the way it had been easy to retrieve enough bone and tissue samples to run a DNA analysis, which had confirmed that he was, without a doubt, genetically related to Gregorio Cappello, the person in the grave his grandmother had shown him.

So it was not some fanciful story.

But were they both Medici?

Faith would not be enough to answer that question.

He had to know for sure.

And there was only one way to find out.