Saint Pierre wasn’t big—closer in size to a chapel than a cathedral—but the design was ornate and complex. The doors and windows were framed by high, pointed arches. Above them, flanking the doorway, were two slender towers capped by steep, bristling stone spires.
The wooden doors—two sets of double doors—were immense: tall, thick, and elaborately carved with figures. The panels of the doors themselves featured saints, the Virgin Mary, and an angel. The most striking figure, though, was carved into a pillar that flanked one of the doors. Almost life-size, the figure was a stylized likeness of an American Indian or Aztec chief, complete with headdress. Although construction of the church had begun 150 years before Columbus stumbled upon America, the building wasn’t finished until the 1550s. The doors—a final touch—reflected Europeans’ fascination with the exotic discoveries being made in the New World.
Inside, the high, fluted notes of a pipe organ echoed and faded as we slipped into the cool, dim interior. Father Mike dipped his finger in a basin of holy water just inside the door, then touched his forehead, bowed, and crossed himself before sliding into a pew near the back. I followed, feeling out of place yet glad of the distraction and the man’s easy company.
Behind the priest, high above the altar, a large painting showed Jesus handing Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Above the painting was a huge sunburst, easily ten feet in diameter, carved from wood but covered in gold. At its center was a stained-glass window depicting a dove, its wings spread, its beak stretching straight up, streaking toward heaven like a rocket.
The organ music was replaced by high, pure soprano voices chanting in close harmony. I’d long since stopped believing in angels, but the ethereal music that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves was almost enough to make me reconsider. The service itself alternated between French and Latin, which I couldn’t have followed even if I’d tried. Yet despite being an outsider and a foreigner, on many different levels, I found solace in the sounds and sights and smells of the vaulted stone sanctuary, the gilded altar paintings, the drifting incense, and the ancient rituals.
But spiritual solace wouldn’t help me save Miranda; for that, action was needed. What was it Eckhart had said? “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” I waved a slight good-bye to Father Mike and slipped from the pew. He started to rise and follow me, but I laid a hand on his shoulder and shook my head. His kind company and his attentive ear had helped, but now I needed to be alone again.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door, I emerged into the square. The sun had dropped below the rooftops by now, and every table at L’épicerie was taken. My eye caught a flash of movement three stories overhead, and I looked up to see a cat, its fur the black-and-white hues of priests and nuns, tiptoeing along a ledge three stories above the restaurant. At the end of the ledge, where the wall of the building intersected the church, the cat crouched and then leaped up through an open window: a study in grace, agility, and fearlessness atop a perilous tightrope.
Wafting across the pavement, accompanied by the clanking of silverware and the clinking of wineglasses, came the distinctive scent of seared flesh. Unless I was mistaken, it was lamb.
My mind flashed to the image of the lamb chiseled on the ossuary. What was the story in the New Testament, the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep in order to search for one other sheep, which was missing? What was the moral of that story? Something, I dimly recalled, about there being more rejoicing in Heaven when that one lost lamb was found than over the other ninety-nine, the ones that weren’t in danger.
Where was the ossuary? And, far more urgent to me, where was Miranda—and could we save her?
CHAPTER 38
AVIGNON
1342
SIMONE HAS ALL BUT CEASED TO PAINT.