He screamed in terror.
His eyes lost focus as he absorbed the weightless sensation of falling. Labelle kept his grip tight and their combined weight fell fast.
They slammed into a hard surface.
Labelle took the brunt. Surely, one of the many rocky outcroppings that dominated the cliff face.
Then more falling.
More shunting downward in repeated bounces. Eventually, Labelle let go and they dropped separately.
Then a final impact.
Hard. Solid. With no recoil.
And?
Nothingness.
Chapter 72
Fuentes surveyed the burial chamber. Everything appeared as described in The Testimony of John. Save for one addition. A ceramic urn in a wall niche with no markings on its exterior.
揟he Maid of Orl閍ns,?Sister Claire said. 揥e gathered her ashes from the pyre after she burned.?
He made the connection. 揥ith the help of Jan van Eyck??
She nodded. 揌e made that possible. Philip the Good betrayed Joan. Van Eyck disagreed with that but could do nothing to stop it. Instead, he aided us in recovering her ashes. He was close, on the inside. Without him we would not have been able to accomplish that.?
揥hat was she to the maidens??
揙ne of us. She抎 been in training here when she first heard the heavenly voices. She left here to go north and wage war.?
揑ncredible that you have them. But van Eyck felt compelled to leave the world a reminder of his good deed, didn抰 he? In the altarpiece.?
揢nfortunately, he did. Why? No one knows. He just did.?
揌e was unaware of the Virgin抯 remains??
揟hankfully. No, he knew nothing of that.?
揟he Vatican was not aware of what van Eyck did with the altarpiece until 1934.?
揥e抳e known for centuries. But it only became an issue for us梚n 1934.?
He was curious. 揟his order stole the Just Judges??
揥e did. Then it was taken from us and the two maidens who stole it were murdered. We never found their bodies or the panel. The war then intervened and we thought it all gone for good, until a few weeks ago.?
He pointed at the urn. 揟hose ashes have been here since 1431??
She nodded. 揜esting in eternal peace.?
揝he抯 a saint of the church and deserves so much more.?
揝he was murdered by the church.?
揂nd then forgiven,?he said.
揂nd that makes what was done right??
He paused. 揘o, of course not.?He turned back to the larger niche. 揑 suppose resting here, with the Blessed Virgin, is some consolation for our mistake.?
He realized that he could not remove Joan of Arc抯 ashes. Their resurfacing would raise far too many questions. And he抎 come to end all of the inquiries, not to create more. To the world, Jeanne d扐rc, the Maid of Orl閍ns, died at the stake almost six hundred years ago, her ashes tossed into a river, gone, and there they would remain.
He examined the chiseled into the limestone beneath the shelf. There, just as John described. 揅lever. The final number in the Greek numeric system. But Revelation says that Christ was alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.?
揟hough Christ was first, she was, in many ways to the people who buried her, the last. Omega.?
He recalled what John had written. Beneath the resting place, into the rock we carved a symbol of how we regarded her. . 揑 suppose, to them, she was indeed the end.?He examined more closely the Greek etched into the hollow. . Itself to itself. 揂n interesting choice in phrase.?
揘ot at all,?she said. 揝he was a human being who lived and died, returning to the dust from which she came. Not a fiction that the church later created for its own selfish purposes.?
More from The Testimony of John flashed through his brain. In the hollow we left another message that spoke to her life and death.
.
揂ll true, sister,?he muttered. 揃ut that fantasy served us far better than any truth ever could.?
揥hich explains why we have come to this point.?
Yes, it did.
His plan had been to find the tomb and destroy it, thereby silencing the maidens. But now that he was here, standing inside something so ancient, so reverent, he was overcome. He抎 been a priest a long time. He抎 joined the church out of a love for God and a sense of duty to his chosen church. He抎 risen in the ranks thanks to an unwavering devotion to that purpose, one that others had recognized and rewarded. Now he was one step away from the ultimate achievement. Becoming pope. Was God speaking to him? Here? In this holiest of places?
He knelt on the crusty floor.
And bowed his head in prayer.
Kelsey did not know what to say to the abbess.
We want you to join us.
So she asked the obvious. 揥hy??
揧ou抮e the precise type of person we seek.?