The Quest: A Novel

but there was a meandering ribbon of spongy higher ground that passed through the swampy expanse of terrain. The mud was sucking at their boots, and Vivian took off her boots and socks and walked barefoot through the muck. Purcell and Mercado did the same.
    Vivian noticed now that Purcell had blood on his pant leg, and she asked him, “Did you get hit there?”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Let me see that.”
    “I’ve already seen it.”
    She insisted they stop, and Purcell sat on the trunk of a fallen tree while Vivian knelt in the mud, extended Purcell’s leg, and examined his wound.
    He said, “It’s really okay.”
    She had an iodine bottle in her pocket and she dabbed some of it on his wound, then sat beside him on the tree trunk.
    They looked around at the swamp. Without saying it, they all knew that Father Armano had never mentioned a swamp.
    Vivian said to Mercado, “Sit down, Henry.”
    He sat slowly on the tree trunk and grimaced in pain.
    Purcell said, “I think I left a piece of metal in you.”
    “Indeed you did.”
    They all smiled, but it was a tired and forced smile. The shock and horror of what had happened was still very much with them, and it was time to say something.
    Purcell said to them, “Edmund Gann was a very brave man.”
    Mercado said, “He was a soldier and a gentleman… a knight.”
    Vivian said, “I know that he is with Miriam now.”
    “Indeed he is,” Mercado said.
    Vivian put her arm around Purcell and squeezed him closer to her. “
You
are a very brave man, Frank Purcell.” She told Henry, “He threw himself over me when the hand grenade exploded.”
    Mercado nodded.
    Vivian put her hand on Mercado’s shoulder. “What did you say to Getachu in Amharic?”
    “The usual—that his mother was a diseased prostitute who should have smothered him at birth.”
    Vivian said, “A bit rough, Henry.” She smiled.
    Mercado said, “I hope he is now burning in hell.”
    No one spoke for a minute, then Mercado asked Vivian, “Do you still have Father Armano’s skull?”
    “I do.”
    “Well, we are going to take him where he wanted to go.” He stood. “Ready?”
    Vivian and Purcell stood, and Vivian assured them, “The stream is ahead of us.”
    They continued on.
    The ground was rising now, and the marshland was again turning to tropical jungle. What looked like a beaten path began to materialize in front of them.
    Vivian suddenly stopped and said, “Listen.”
    They stopped and listened, but neither Purcell nor Mercado could hear anything.
    Mercado asked, “What do you hear?”
    “Water.” She moved to her right and the men followed.
    Running down the slope was a small stream, choked with water lilies and vines. It was, Purcell thought, a stream from the hills that emptied into the marsh basin.
    Vivian knelt down and put her hand into the flowing water. She turned to Purcell and Mercado, silently inviting them to do the same.
    They knelt beside the stream and let the water run over their hands.
    Vivian said, “This is the stream. Do we follow it? Or do we follow the path?”
    Purcell thought the path and the stream seemed to run parallel, but they might diverge.
    Mercado said, “Ruscello. He said it twice. Il Ruscello. The stream.”
    Vivian nodded and stood. They all stepped, still barefoot, into the cool, shallow water and walked upstream.
    Without looking at his watch, Purcell knew they had been walking about five hours, and it was close to noon—a half day’s walk from the meeting place of the monks and the Falashas. And it had been mostly due west, even through the meandering path in the swamp. It seemed simple enough, after you’ve done it, and he tried to imagine Father Armano on his patrol with the sergeant named Giovanni, walking from the black rock—which the priest and the soldiers had no way of knowing was a meeting place of Coptic Christians and Jews. Giovanni had then taken his patrol to the giant cedar, and through the jungle, to the swamp, and to the stream, all of which the sergeant had found by accident on a previous patrol. And they had arrived again at the black monastery—but this time they entered by the reed basket, and only Father Armano came out of there alive.
    And when the priest was healed of his wounds—by nature or by faith—he was given over to the Royalist soldiers and taken by the same route, or maybe another route, to his prison in the fortress, and there he remained for nearly forty years. And whatever he had seen in that