The Quest: A Novel

fill in the blanks between when the Grail left Glastonbury and when it is mentioned in primary source documents as being in Ethiopia.”
    A far simpler explanation, Purcell thought, was that the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper had never left Jerusalem. But the Brits liked their story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and the Holy Grail, and people like Mercado worked it into the legend. In the end, it didn’t matter how it got to Ethiopia, assuming it did, and assuming it existed.
    Purcell said, “You understand, Henry, that we are not trying to locate the Holy Grail or even figure out how it got to Ethiopia. We have been told by a credible source—Father Armano—that it’s sitting in the black monastery. Now all we have to do is go find this place.”
    “And I’ve explained to you that our journey—spiritual and intellectual—begins here.”
    “I’m not arguing with you, Henry. I just want this part of the journey to end before lunch.”
    “If we do find the Grail, it would be important if we could establish its provenance, as you would do with any ancient object—to establish its authenticity.”
    “If we find the Grail, Henry, we will know it is authentic. Especially if it has a lance dripping blood into it. And even if it doesn’t, we will know it when we see it. We will
feel
it. That much I believe. And that’s what
you
should believe. So it doesn’t matter how it got there, and
we
don’t have to prove anything to anyone.” He said, “Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself.”
    Mercado looked at him and said, “I didn’t know you spoke Latin.”
    “Neither did I.”
    Both men stayed silent. Then Mercado asked, “But did I make my case?”
    “You did an excellent job.” He asked Mercado, “Did you do all this on company time? Or are you doing it
for
the company?”
    Mercado did not reply.
    Purcell closed his notebook and said, “Well, I have enough to write the story. Now let’s find the black monastery so I can write the end.”
    Purcell stood, and Mercado said to him, “For a writer, a journey of a thousand miles begins in a library and ends at the typewriter.”
    “We should be so lucky as to end this journey at a typewriter.”
    They left the room and Mercado said something in Italian to a monk, who walked toward the reading room with a large key in his hand.
    They walked out into the December sunshine, then headed into the Vatican gardens toward the Ethiopian College, where Purcell hoped they’d find a map with a notation saying,
Black monastery—home of the Holy Grail
.
    They should be that lucky. Or not.

Chapter 19
    P riests and nuns strolled the garden paths, and Purcell thought that wherever they had come from, they had arrived here at the center of their world and their faith. Their spiritual journey would never end, until they were called home, but their physical journey had ended and they seemed at peace with themselves.
    He and Henry, on the other hand, had a ways to go to find whatever they were looking for. And Vivian, too, who had seemed happy just to be out of Ethiopia and to be with him, had not gotten Ethiopia, Henry, or Father Armano out of her head. But if everything went right, three troubled souls would come together in Rome and make their peace and begin their journey.
    Mercado spoke as they walked. “The next significant mention of the Grail in Ethiopia is dated 1527.”
    “Are we back in the library?”
    “Yes. I found a report, written in Latin by a Portuguese Jesuit named Alvarez, written for Pope Clement VII. Father Alvarez says to Pope Clement that he has just returned from Ethiopia and while there he met another Portuguese gentleman, an explorer named Juscelino Alancar, who had reached the Ethiopian emperor’s court at Axum with his expedition forty years earlier. Father Alvarez further states that Alancar had been treated well, but he and his men had been put under house arrest by the Coptic pope for the remainder of their lives.”
    “That seems to be a recurring theme in Ethiopia.”
    “I also learned that as a result of Alancar’s visit to Axum, a number of Ethiopians, most of them Coptic monks, made a pilgrimage to Rome to see the Holy City and were welcomed by Pope Sixtus IV, who granted them the use of the Church of Saint Stephen, near Saint Peter’s Basilica, and this was the founding of the Ethiopian College that we are about to visit.”
    “Very generous of the pope. What did he want in