The Source - Michael Cordy [1]
Michael Cordy
London, 2008
Prologue
Rome, 1561
When his eyes scan the small crowd she forces herself not to look away. If he is strong enough to endure this, then she is strong enough to watch.
He hobbles on bandaged feet, charred and broken by the Inquisition's torturers, as the executioner makes him a final offer: recant and be garrotted mercifully before being tied to the stake, or refuse and be burnt alive. His eyes find hers and, defiantly, he shakes his head. She wants to signal her support and her love, but she cannot move. She is mesmerized by what is happening, and in shock from what he has asked her to do.
What she has vowed to do.
The auto de fe is being held at night, in the torchlit courtyard of an anonymous church in the outskirts of Rome. A small group, less than twenty, has gathered round the lone stake. The Holy Mother Church has no desire to publicize this heretic's death – or his heresy. She catches a flash of red in her peripheral vision, but doesn't divert her gaze when the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Prefect Michele Ghislieri, steps forward in his scarlet robes. The Grand Inquisitor has 'relaxed' the heretic to the secular authorities to perform the execution so the Holy Mother Church can abide by its maxim: ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, the Church shrinks from blood. But this is still his show. And with fire there will be no blood.
'Burn his book with him,' the Grand Inquisitor orders. 'Burn the Devil's book with the heretic.' There is a moment of consternation as the executioner and the clerics search him and find nothing. 'Where is it?'
A jolt of fear surges through her but the condemned man stays silent.
'Heretic, surrender the book or face the consequences.'
A bitter laugh. 'What more can you do to me?'
'Burn him,' orders the Inquisitor.
The men drag him to the platform and rope him to the stake. They pile the final bundles of wood around the base, then apply torches. As the fire catches, she prays he will suffocate before the flames reach his flesh. Clutching the crucifix he gave her, she holds his gaze until the acrid smoke obscures his face. Only then does she allow the tears to come. As the smoke rises into the night sky and his flesh starts to burn – to cook – the sweet, disconcertingly familiar smell sickens her. His screams are mercifully short, but she takes little comfort from that.
When the flames are at their height the Grand Inquisitor and his retinue leave. Then the others dissolve gradually into the night. Alone, she waits until only bone, ash and glowing embers are left. Then she approaches the pyre and collects what she can of his remains. As she bends she feels the manuscript concealed in her robes and hopes this 'Devil's book' is worth his torture and agonizing death. And she prays that it justifies the terrifying vow she made to him before he died.
'In time all will be revealed,' she whispers, as she walks off into the dark night. 'Time reveals all.'
PART ONE
The Devil's Book
1
Switzerland, four and a half centuries later
He felt no fear at first, only sadness that it should end like this. He had made a fortune, amassed a portfolio of properties around the world, learnt several languages and bedded more beautiful women than he could remember, yet it seemed meaningless now. He had lived alone and would die alone, unremarked and unremembered, his body fed to animals or buried under concrete in a building site. It would be as if he had never lived, never existed.
'Kneel in the middle of the plastic sheet.'
As he knelt, hands clasped as if in prayer, he noted the surgical saw, Ziploc plastic bag and roll of duct tape by the killer's right foot. He didn't need to look up at the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol in the assassin's left hand to know what was coming. He knew the procedure better than anyone: he had invented it. First there would be two bullets to the head. His left hand would be severed and placed in the Ziploc bag, then his body wrapped in the black plastic sheet and