Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60
C OTTON STARED OUT THE CAR WINDOW AND ADMIRED S ANTA M ARIA di Castello. The monastery looked like a medieval fortress, gray, walled, tower-crowned, isolated, and inviolate, seated nobly atop a hill overlooking a darkened wooded valley. Floodlights bathed the outer walls in a rich amber glow. He, Richter, and Camilla had left Siena with Cotton driving the car Stamm had provided to them yesterday. He was following her directions, heading toward the northeast, deeper into Tuscany.
They wound their way up on a road that clung to the hilltops and clamored along the narrow necks connecting them. Finally, they came to an open gate that formed a boundary between the monastery and the outside world and drove through. No other vehicles were there. Lights in the buildings were all off, the facility apparently closed for the night. A cowled figure in a white robe stood in the dark, illuminated only by the car’s headlights.
They parked and exited.
Camilla approached the monk and spoke in a whispered tone, then walked over to where he and Richter stood. Cotton was still rattled and sore from the horse race, adrenaline coursing through him, keeping him on edge.
“We can have access now,” she said.
She’d explained to them along the way that the prior had not sanctioned their visit.
“So we’re trespassing?” he’d asked.
“We are… arriving uninvited,” she said.
She’d also explained more of her connection.
The Chartreuse liqueur produced by Carthusian monks for more than three centuries had always been surrounded by a veil of mystery. Only two friars were entrusted with the recipe, which was inscribed on a seventeenth-century manuscript that was kept locked away. Over time the monks developed what would become their core product—a digestif known as Green Chartreuse. Yellow Chartreuse came later, lower in alcohol, sweeter in taste. The monks eventually developed a host of other alcoholic beverages, the sales of which had long provided a steady income to the Carthusian Order. About a million bottles a year, with annual sales of around twenty million euros. Half of the liqueur was exported, especially to the United States, the rest sold in Europe.
Which was where Camilla came in.
She facilitated those exports, along with providing huge swaths of farmland for the plants needed in production.
“Are we in trouble being here?” Richter had asked her.
“Only if we get caught.”
J ASON NEVER THOUGHT HE WOULD FIND HIMSELF INSIDE A C ARTHUSIAN monastery. There were two in Italy. One north of Pisa, the other south of Milan. The Carthusians were a bit of an anomaly. They had long retained a unique form of liturgy known as the Carthusian Rite, and they had been resistant to the changes that had enveloped the rest of the modern Catholic Church. Rome had always left them alone. They were founded in the eleventh century, their motto part of their maxim, Stat crux dum volvitur orbis , the cross is steady while the world turns.
Their monasteries were generally small communities of hermits with a number of individual living cells built around a large cloister. The focus of Carthusian life was contemplation with an emphasis on solitude, silence, and humility. It took seven years for a brother to pronounce his final vows. The Carthusians were one of the best-run and best-funded monastic orders in the world, with charterhouses on three continents. Until yesterday he’d not been familiar with this site, which had stayed isolated and protected. Smaller too. Normally the charterhouses were huge complexes. Here, the main church stood across the courtyard, facing east as required. Beyond that living quarters would be arranged around the cloister. Next to the church would be the refectory, a typically elongated rectangle furnished with tables and benches. Close to the refectory would be the kitchen and storerooms. He knew there were no guesthouses. No need, as the Carthusians did not allow visitors. Which begged the question. How were they here?
“This place is only a repository?” he asked Camilla.
She nodded. “A distillery is located at the larger charterhouse near the Adriatic coast. They have other distilleries across Europe. This location is where their records and documents are preserved. Some say, but no one knows for sure, that the recipes for their famed liqueurs are locked away right here.”
“It’s that important to them?” Malone asked.
“So important that they have never copyrighted or trademarked their liqueurs, for having to reveal their secrets.”
The monk stood silent in the dark, like a shadow.
Camilla motioned toward him. “He and I enjoy a close working relationship. We understand each other. But the prior and I are not as close. Thankfully, he is eighty kilometers away at the main charterhouse, near Pisa.”
“And what would happen if he discovers our trespass?” Jason asked.
“I assure you, that would not be good.”
C OTTON HAD BUILT A CAREER AROUND NOT WAITING FOR THE RIGHT opportunity. Instead, he preferred to create it. But he’d never forgotten what his grandfather taught him as a teenager. He’d been asked to join the high school baseball team but had turned the coach down. His mother had not liked that decision at all and made her displeasure known to him.
His grandfather told him a story.
“There was a young man who wanted to marry a farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he did what every good young man should do and went to the farmer to ask permission. The farmer looked him over and said, ‘Son, go stand out in that field and I’m going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three, you can marry my daughter.’ That sounded easy, so the young man stood in the pasture. The barn door opened and out ran the biggest, meanest-looking bull he’d ever seen. He decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through the pasture and out the back gate. The barn door opened again. And wow, another big, fierce bull, pawing the ground, grunting, slinging slobber, came rushing out. Whatever the third bull was like, it had to be better than this one. So he ran to the fence and let the second bull pass through the pasture and out the back gate. The door opened a third time, and a smile came across the young man’s face. The third bull was small and scrawny. This was the one. So the bull came running by and he jumped at the exact moment to grab the tail, then realized somethin’. The bull had no tail.”
He’d gotten the point of the story.
Never let a good opportunity pass you by, as they seldom came knocking twice. Lost opportunities were only a gateway to regret. Which, more than anything else, explained why he’d ridden a horse in the Palio. What he was doing here, in the middle of the night, at an ancient monastery violating an assortment of centuries-old rules also seemed the precise definition of opportunity.
And he had no intention of allowing it to pass by.
But he was no fool either.
Not in the least.