The Quest: A Novel

said, “Father—can you speak?”
    He nodded, then said in a weak voice, “I have seen it… it was very bright. It was the sun in Berini. I went home… it was so beautiful…”
    No one responded.
    “My sister, Anna… you must go to her and tell her. She wishes to hear from you.”
    Mercado said, “We will go to her.”
    He nodded, then seemed to remember what he needed them toknow. He licked his cracked lips and spoke. “So then… I was taken into the jungle and given over to some soldiers of the emperor’s army. I thought I was being released… being exchanged, perhaps, for Ethiopian prisoners who were held by our army… but I was taken to a local ras, a prince named Theodore who kept a small garrison in the jungle…” He paused in thought, then continued, “That was almost forty years ago. And last night I walked out of that fortress.” Father Armano looked at Mercado, Purcell, and Vivian and said, “So now you know it, and I can rest in peace. You must go to Berini and tell them what happened to Giuseppe Armano. And go also to the Vatican. Tell them I found the black monastery… and saw the relic.”
    Purcell felt that he had missed something in the story or the translation. He looked at Vivian, but she only shrugged.
    Mercado asked, “Father, what was in the monastery?”
    Father Armano looked up. “You will never find it. And you should not look for it.”
    “What was it that you saw?”
    Father Armano did not reply directly, but said, “My head was bleeding from the blow of the club. The iron helmet took the blow, but still I cut my head somehow. They touched some of it to my head and the pain was gone and the wound healed immediately… and the monks said I was one of the blessed. One who believed…”
    Purcell listened to the translation and said, “Maybe he didn’t understand the question, Henry.”
    Mercado let out a breath of exasperation. “Frank—” He turned to the priest. “Please tell us what it was, Father.”
    The priest smiled. “Of course you want to know what it was. But it has caused so much suffering already. It is blessed and cursed at the same time. Cursed, not of itself, but cursed because of the greed and treachery of men. It should stay where it is. It is meant to stay hidden until men become less evil… The monks said this to me.”
    “What
was
it?” asked Mercado firmly.
    He asked for water. Vivian gave him all he wanted, and he drank too much of it, but no one stopped him. The priest closed his eyes, then said in a soft voice, “The Holy Grail… the sacred vessel which Christ himself used at the Last Supper… It is filled with his mostprecious blood. It can heal mortal wounds and calm troubled souls. If you believe. And the lance that the Roman soldier, Longinus, used to pierce the side of our Lord… it hangs above the Grail, and the lance drips a never-ending flow of blood into the Grail. I have seen this, and I have experienced this miracle.” He looked at Mercado. “Do you believe this, Henry?”
    Mercado did not reply.
    The priest said, in a surprisingly clear voice, “If you find it, you will believe in it. But I would advise you to leave here. Go to Rome, to the Vatican, and tell them I found it, and that it is safe where it was. And then forget all that I have said.” He asked, “Will you do this?”
    No one replied.
    “And go to Berini.” Father Armano blessed them, then recited the Lord’s Prayer in Latin and closed his eyes.
    The sun was yellow now and small birds, nesting in the cavernous lobby ceiling, flew around the ruined vaults overhead and made morning noises at the new sun.
    They knelt around the old priest and spoke to him, but he did not answer, and within the next quarter hour he died peacefully.
    Vivian bent over and kissed the old priest’s cold forehead.

Chapter 5
    H enry Mercado retrieved a short spade from the Jeep, and Frank Purcell carried the body of the dead priest, wrapped in the blanket, into the courtyard of the spa.
    Vivian chose a spot in the overgrown garden near the dry fountain, and Purcell dug a grave deep enough to keep the jackals from the body.
    Purcell, Mercado, and Vivian lowered the body into the grave and took turns filling it with the red African earth. When they were done, Mercado said a short prayer over the grave.
    Vivian wiped her sweating face, then picked up her camera and took photographs of the unmarked grave and the surrounding ruins. They had agreed not to make notes of this