Book Of Hours: Unholy Error

By J. S. Anderson

Once again in its long life, the Book of Hours was in danger. And Alphaios had put it there...

While recreating a resplendent fifteenth century Book of Hours as a gift for the pope, Brother Alphaios and archivist Inaki Arriaga discover shreds of an ancient parchment thrust into its covers. Though warned away by a visibly shaken Prior Bartholomew about the danger it holds, they pursue the few haunting words that remain, only to stumble on a dark secret that could undermine the very foundation of Catholicism. Now they are torn in a battle between the Church, which wants to destroy the parchment or bury it forever, and its owner, real estate mogul Salton Motice, who wants to use it for nefarious purposes.

Meanwhile, the brothers of St. Ambrose learn that Motice intends to buy their midtown cloister and replace it with a skyscraper. The monks will be displaced from their home of nearly two centuries with no certainty at all about their future.

Drawn ever further from the cloister into the chaotic city, Alphaios again encounters some of its most intriguing residents—a strange young woman obsessed with painting enormous replicas of master artworks under one of the city’s great bridges, and a couple who, decades later, are still coping with having to flee from despots in their own country and almost certain death.

Through it all, Brother Alphaios wrestles with allegiance to his religious vows as he searches for a way to protect the document for the terrible truth it tells.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. S. Anderson
• Release date: Oct 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781943588329

J. S. Anderson

J. S. Anderson lives and writes in Longview, Washington. He has a lifelong interest in western religions and cultures. An aficionado of art, good food, and music (vocal music and the blues draw him most), he enjoys remarkable architecture and learning about the creative, artistic, and cultural forces that contributed to significant buildings and their surroundings. An amateur photographer, he is drawn to colors and enjoys finding the odd picture and the unusual point of view. Check out his web page a: www.jsandersonauthor.com.

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Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

In the spring of 1252, he knew there was a conspiracy to kill him. He’d had enemies for years, long before Pope Gregory IX made him Inquisitor General for northern Italy, but both his popularity and methods assured him a ready supply of informers. Besides, God had given him the ability to foresee momentous events.

He pulled the long black cape closer around him. The morning air was chilly.

He would die at the hands of heretics. It seemed fitting, for though born apostate, he’d been doing Dominic’s work—God’s work—preaching to the faithful and rooting out religious fallacy for most of his forty-seven years.

He rolled the stretched and chalked piece of sheepskin into a coil and tied it with a strip of leather. He slid it into the quiver-like tube he’d had the tanner make and sealed it closed with wax and the imprint of his ring. He fitted it into the long, narrow space in the wall he’d had his brother Friar Patrizio create and asked him to lift the stone back into place. He prostrated himself and confessed his sins. He rose, gathered his black robe around him, said Mass, and started out for Milan.

He was set upon in the early afternoon, in a grove of trees near Barlassina. The blow of a falcastrum, a brush axe, knocked him to the ground. The assassin then turned and mortally wounded Patrizio. Knowing death was imminent, he commended himself to God and began to utter the Apostle’s Creed:

"Credo in Unum Deum . . ."

"I believe in One God . . ."

He was unable to finish before more blows opened his skull.

Their bodies, torn and lifeless, were found an hour later by two of their brothers who had paused for a longer lunch.

CHAPTER 1

Brother Alphaios mounted the steps and entered the foyer of the private library, shrugged off and hung up the old wool coat, and set the open umbrella on the black-and-white tiled floor to dry.

Come on up and take a look. Inaki Arriaga was at the top of the open stairwell. I have them out.

There were still several months of work ahead of them before the book of hours would be ready for binding, but Alphaios, curious about its external appearance, had prevailed upon his colleague to get its covers from the archive.

He climbed the stairs to the second story and entered the archivist’s office. Inaki had removed the unruly, ever-present stacks of books and papers from the big round table and set them along the walls of the corridor. On it now, side by side and resting on black felt, lay the two cover boards for the most resplendent, most luminous book of hours Brother Alphaios had ever seen. At fourteen inches by twenty-three, it was also one of the largest and almost certainly meant for use on a lectern. Intended to guide the faithful through the Church’s liturgical calendar and the rituals of daily prayer, it had instead been hidden away since its very creation some six hundred years ago.

Such books were abridged versions of the breviaries used by priests and, like this one, were often personalized to meet the wishes of their patrons. In a very religious world, they had been far and away the best sellers of the Middle Ages.

But this book was different. Between these ruined covers were views that, to put it mildly, were more than a facet or two away from the doctrine of the medieval Church. Had this been widely known at the time it was created, it may well have been destroyed and anybody associated with it burned at the stake. It had somehow survived and now lay downstairs in the scriptorium, disassembled, too damaged for restoration. Their task, his and Inaki’s, was to recreate the book—make not just a faithful copy but an exact one, the book as it had been before time and worms and mold had turned text and painted images into shapeless smears.

Constructed of animal hide stretched over now-rotten and warped boards perhaps three-eighths of an inch thick, the covers before them were clearly no longer usable. Much of the leather was decomposed or eaten away, leaving ragged edges and nearly a third of the underlying wood exposed. Two hinged clasps and several raised metal studs intended to keep the covers from resting directly on surfaces had disintegrated. Their remains, now vacuum wrapped, lay to the side.

All in all, these relics were nondescript—remarkably so given the enormous beauty they had once contained. The leather that remained appeared to be slightly padded, and a small corner of whitish material peeked out from under what had been the front cover. But there were no pigments, no jewels, not even any decorative patterns pressed into its surface. The grade of leather didn’t seem to be particularly fine. Even the end papers, the sheets of vellum that dressed the insides of the boards and covered the binding strips, were undecorated. This cover was not just utilitarian, but drab, a shawl meant to hide a young woman’s beauty. A burqa.

They hid it inside its own covers.

Didn’t know what to think at first, said Inaki, but I agree. By the time they bound it, they must have known they’d have to hide it. Or at least mask what was inside.

What did the scholars have to say when it was found in Venice?

"Nothing much about the covers. They measured them, described them, preserved what was left. That’s about it. Their focus was on the contents, but they hardly got started there before the courts decided it belonged to the owners of the palazzo rather than the Church. Until Cardinal Ricci decided he wanted it recreated as a gift for Gregory XXVII, that was it."

Whoever had stored, maybe hidden, the book along the Grand Canal in Venice had had the wisdom to wrap it in canvas and wax. Without that precaution, nothing at all would remain of it. Where’s the canvas? Alphaios asked.

Still in the other room.

I’d like to see that, too. What are Ricci’s plans for them?

Inaki glanced at him. He was disappointed. Wasn’t specific, but it was clear he was hoping for something more decorative. More exquisite.

I can see why, given what’s inside, and since it’s for the pope. But we’d be denying a good part of its history if we’re faithful to the inside of the book but not the covers.

Agreed. He also wants us to consider a title page and frontispiece.

This book, magnificent though it was, had no title page, and in fact no title. No title, no date, no dedication, no royal crest. And no frontispiece. Now that they knew—or at least had a reasonable degree of certainty—about the circumstances of its birth, it wasn’t a mystery at all why such identifiers hadn’t been included.

Been worrying about it, Inaki continued. We’ve relied on a number of conclusions from our research to recreate some pages. But are we certain enough to assert them on a title page? Blanca I of Navarra? The scriptorium at Leyre? Four illuminators we don’t even have real names for?

Alphaios shook his head. For me, the question is simpler than that. If the book had a damaged title page we couldn’t make out, even a damaged frontispiece, then it would be a serious question. But it doesn’t, so my answer is no. If not in the original, not in the copy. Our restoration notes will document all that. That’s more than sufficient.

Agreed. That’ll be my answer.

Inaki stepped out of the room and in just moments returned with a large box of some weight. It bore an inventory number and a date in 1972. He set it on a chair and lifted off the lid. Inside was a stiff, grayish piece of canvas heaped with broken fragments of wax. It appeared unremarkable, and taking it out would not only take considerable time, but would require a larger workspace than they had here.

Has it been inspected for artifacts? asked Alphaios.

Not yet, but it’s timely. I’ll ask for initial assessments from the university, some that don’t require manipulating it. Age and ink analysis. If those reveal anything of interest, we can go further. It’d be great if there were plant or insect matter. What’s next for you?

Still painting the scene of Jesus at the well. Alphaios looked up from the box. Longest conversation Jesus ever had, at least as told in the Bible.

Inaki shrugged, indifferent.

And with a woman. Fitting for our book, don’t you think? It’ll take another week or so, then we’ll move on.

He let his eyes roam once more across the remains of the cover. The bit of white peeking from under the ragged leather again caught his eye. He stepped over to Inaki’s desk, withdrew a pair of cotton gloves from a box, and found a stylus. Gloves on, he turned back to the table, leaned over it, and, with the long tool, gently lifted the leather where the bit of underlayment showed. It’s parchment. Pretty crumpled up.

No surprise, really, said Inaki. Easy to use and good longevity.

But for what? Padding? Wouldn’t have been done. The curve would defeat the purpose of the metal studs. He bent closer. I can see something written. Maybe part of a character or a number on a fold. Can you get me some better light?

The archivist reached into a lower drawer of his desk and produced a broad-beamed flashlight.

Alphaios lifted the leather higher. "Hold it steady. There, right there. There’re some gray marks, looks like faded ink. Parts of maybe . . . two letters."

Must have been a cast-off.

Cast off from what? He turned his head and looked up. Have they been photographed? The covers?

Yes. And we have them here. First thing they did was photograph everything.

Good. He slid the stylus between the leather and the wrinkled parchment, reaching as far under and across its width as he could. The pressure increased as he approached the edges, but he could not detect any places where the two materials were adhered. After completing this exercise, he inserted the stylus below the parchment—between it and the wooden board—and repeated the process.

He straightened up, then turned the cover over and looked at its construction. Have a knife?

Why? What’re you going to do?

Open it enough to get the parchment out. At Inaki’s hesitation, he continued. I know you have one, Inaki. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll just go downstairs and get mine.

Okay, okay. Inaki reached back into his desk and took out a slender box cutter. Then what?

What do you think? Look, after all the work we’ve done to figure out where the book came from, this might give us another clue.

Inaki handed him the knife. Don’t ruin anything.

He grinned. What kind of work do you think I do, Inaki? Give me a fresh blade. This one’s been used.

He turned the cover over again, resting it face down. With Inaki again holding the light, he laid the knife flat and carefully lifted what was left of the end paper from the edges of the leather, then set about separating the leather from the board. In several areas, he was unsuccessful. Instead of cutting through it, though, he turned the cover back over and worked at lifting it some more. Finally, he reached in and tugged gently at the piece of padding. He wiggled it when it became stuck, and finally it emerged. As far as he could tell, all of it came out.

Inaki crowded in beside him to look at the piece of gray-white vellum that lay on his table. It was badly wrinkled and stained and looked naked, even faintly obscene against the black felt. It had been folded repeatedly and asymmetrically, as if done casually or even carelessly. But what interested Alphaios most was the faded gray-brown text that moved erratically across the wrinkles and against the folds. It was Latin, but as no more than a word or two were evident or uninterrupted on the surface, there was little sense to make of it.

He pondered it for a few moments, then glanced at the other cover. He looked at Inaki and raised his eyebrows. The archivist nodded.

When he was done, one more piece of wrinkled vellum lay in front of them. His heart beat hard in his chest. Whatever these fragments were, they had not been seen, had not even been exposed to light, for centuries. Perhaps not since the early fourteen hundreds, more than half a millennium ago.

We’ll have to flatten them out, said Inaki. He must have been sharing Alphaios’s thoughts, for his voice was suddenly thick and the muscles of his face working to quell rising emotion. That means we’ll have to add back in some humidity. Otherwise, they’ll just break apart. We can’t do it here.

Agreed. And it’ll be a slow process. Do you know where we can have it done?

Also Metro U. Documents section. I know Ben Card, the director, from when I was managing rare-book auctions. I’ll give him a call. What do you suppose they are?

I’ve no idea. Scribbles? Discarded work? Probably nothing more. But maybe, maybe a clue to Jeremiah or one of the other illuminators. It was highly unlikely, but his heart was racing nonetheless. Call them, he said, and let Cardinal Ricci know what we’ve found.

CHAPTER 2

It had been a full seven days since he’d seen Inaki, and on that occasion, his friend had turned and walked away without even a greeting. It had been still longer since they’d found the pale parchments stuffed into the covers of the book or walked to the forbidden little patio café—he in his loose, rust-brown habit, rope belt, and blocky shoes—and relished its coffee and camaraderie.

Alphaios could hear the archivist’s footsteps climb the stairs from time to time and walk across the wooden floor above, so knew when he was in the building. It was unusual, though, for Inaki not to visit several times a day to check on the progress of the current illumination or wrestle with some problem with the book. His monastic life of simple silence notwithstanding, Alphaios missed his friend’s observations and quick intelligence.

Was it something about the parchments? Perhaps the manner in which he’d retrieved them? No, his methods had been appropriate, and no damage was done. Inaki had been anxious but not critical, and they’d never before quarreled over restorative technique. But if not the pieces of parchment, what? Something with the library? His family?

The scriptorium ran the full width of the expansive old brownstone that comprised the private library and boasted a wall of tall, south-facing windows. Better yet, unlike the Monastery of St. Ambrose, there were no high-rise buildings soaring above it to block out the sun, and today he could take advantage of the glorious light that filled the room.

A great, disheveled bear of a man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt who called himself XM, a calligrapher turned tattoo artist turned scribe, was at his desk completing a page left unfinished the day before. As usual, he wore headphones over his pegged and stretched ears as he worked—the term gauged, which he used to describe them, as abstruse as his reason for doing so—and listened to music that seemed no more than thudding, disharmonious clatter.

The book of hours was an immense undertaking, but most of its pages were now completed and approved.

Approved. The word still made Alphaios uncomfortable, for there was one exception that could prove troublesome.

Was that the reason for Inaki’s distance?

He stood at his worktable under the great windows, copying into a versal—a large and ornate capital G—a tiny picture of Jonah being spit out onto the land. Vomited out, the scripture read. The unknown master artist he’d taken to calling Jeremiah had painted this miniature and had taken full license with the graphic biblical language. It was no soft, languid beach upon which the fish thrust Jonah, but an outcropping of treacherous rocks on a turbulent coast—yet another unpleasant reminder that the Lord’s task for him in Nineveh was yet to be done.

Across the reach of six centuries, Jeremiah had become his teacher, his mentor, and his friend.

He lay down his brush. It was his finest, and the pigments he had mixed yesterday were rich and dense, a brilliant trio of yellow ochre, celestial blue, and the tender green of new growth not yet hardened by a desert sun. But though he’d repeatedly studied the little painting, he found himself having to refer to it again and again.

The difficulty came not from scant light or skill, but lack of focus. Where was Inaki?

He cleaned the brush and put the bifolium away. Not yet ready to give up entirely, he lifted from its drawer another leaf of parchment on which the scribes had completed their work. It, too, awaited his brushes. He carried it to his worktable for inspection, lifted it into the air, and turned it back and forth in the light. He could see no sign that a pen knife had been used to scrape away any errors in the text. Good. This was Kenny’s work. Kenny, with his fitted sweaters and creased wool slacks and leather shoulder bag, so different from XM, was as demanding of his own work as Alphaios. Still, he would compare every letter Kenny had copied against the original, and every space around every letter, before he would let himself paint the little picture of a harried Martha of Bethany frowning unhappily at her sister just beyond the frame.

Some twenty minutes later, just as Alphaios saw XM rise and prepare to leave, the buzzer at the front door sounded. Though it was not particularly loud through the closed door of the scriptorium, it caused him to look up. He frowned in annoyance, but continued his inspection. The buzzer sounded again, then a third time.

XM, can you get that on your way out? Tell whoever it is we’re closed.

XM gave him a small wave and left. Moments later he returned. Uh, Bro, you have a guest.

Alphaios looked up sharply. Visitors to the library were rare, and no one was permitted in the scriptorium except those working on the book. The gift was to be a secret, and Cardinal Ricci had warned them there were to be no visitors, no leaks, no photos, and no souvenirs finding their way into public hands.

The scribe moved aside to reveal the tall, brown-haired figure of Bartholomew, prior of the Monastery of St. Ambrose. He wore the same shapeless, brown communal habit and rope cincture as Alphaios over what had once been an athletic frame, and his lower legs, too, were bare no matter the weather. He did not, though, wear a bare circle of skin at the crown of his head. The tonsure, which Alphaios did wear, was an ancient sign of slavery that monks and priests alike had once embraced as a symbol of their submission to God. It was optional now and more common among monks in Italy than here in the United States. Though of a serious mien, in contemporary clothes, the prior might have been considered handsome.

Prior Bartholomew. What brings you here? Though he was Alphaios’s superior at the monastery, he had no involvement at all with the book of hours. Not only that, Alphaios knew him to be supremely uncomfortable outside the walls of the cloister. Has something happened?

Not at all, my brother. Cardinal Ricci asked me to come by. He’d like to come himself, but his duties in Italy won’t permit it anytime soon. May I come in? He said you’d be reluctant but that I should try.

Alphaios could feel the blood leave his face. He had high regard for Bartholomew, who moderated rather than governed the daily life of the monks. It was not an easy or straightforward task: Their pursuit of salvation was not so imperforate as to eliminate entirely the petty jealousies and personal ambitions some of the brothers still carried with them. A number of them, in fact, seemed quite determined to be contrary and ungenerous of spirit.

He’d come to the library only once before. On that occasion, Cardinal Ricci had traveled from Rome to review the progress on the book. He had been urbane, knowledgeable, and kind. He’d invited Bartholomew to join him, and both of them had been deeply touched, even overwhelmed by the beauty of the pages they’d been shown. The prior’s unexpected appearance had been a joy.

The presence of the cold and officious Monsignor Continetti, Ricci’s aide-de-camp, had not.

But why had Ricci sent the prior now? Inaki was avoiding him, and now this?

Of course. Come in. I was just reviewing a bifolium for errors. He nodded to XM that he was free to go. We’re using sheepskin. Cut to size and folded once, it gives us two leafs. Thus its name. Bartholomew surely knew this, but small talk seemed a safe harbor for the moment. Two leafs, four pages.

And if I recall, there’s special craft beyond that, too, said Bartholomew. Something about matching the hues of flesh sides and hair sides. How many of them do you put together?

Four. In this particular book, four of them are gathered and sewn together into a quire. That gives us sixteen pages. Then that quire is attached to others. And the quires have to be designed to match parchment sides, too. It’s all about symmetry. He tried a grin. The beauty of asymmetry was a later development.

The prior moved to the worktable, bent forward, and looked closely at the lettered parchment. It did not yet bear its picture or colors, but even the plainest pages of this book carried a solemn weight about them. It’s truly remarkable.

I hope my inspection confirms your view. If not, it’ll feed the dragon.

The prior gave him a puzzled look.

Alphaios tipped his head toward the back corner of the room. It’s what we call the shredder.

Work on the book was progressing smoothly, if minute planning, careful preparation, copying unique letters and tiny paintings, and accepting only the very best work could be called smooth. Means of making mistakes were legion: a poorly cut nib or a slip of the quill, ink bleeding through the parchment, the wrong text for the page, repeated or missing words or lines or even paragraphs, misplaced punctuation, wrong positioning at the baseline, varying degrees of lean from vertical, shape, size, and more. Creating absolutely perfect letterforms and pages was difficult enough, but in this book flaws and anomalies on the original were to be honored and duplicated. The task was to remake what had been damaged by water and time, not to perfect what was already magnificent.

Erasures were anathema, so imperfect work was summarily destroyed, no matter how many hours or days of faultless lettering or painting may have preceded it. All of them, he as well as the scribes, had experienced the ignominy, the self-reproach, of seeing hours of work fed into the dragon’s maw.

May I see the other side? Bartholomew reached out to turn the parchment over.

Gloves, Prior. You must use gloves. What is it that interests the cardinal? Alphaios gently grasped the edges of the bifolium and turned it.

He’s curious about a painting. I’d forgotten how big the sheets are. How many pages did you tell us?

Alphaios could use the numbers to momentarily quell his rising anxiety. It was made for use on a lectern. Three hundred and thirty-two pages. Twenty-two of them have full-page paintings, not counting the calendar. A hundred and twenty-two more pages with paintings somewhere in the text field or on the borders. More than four hundred oversized, decorated capital letters known as versals. Let me show you something.

He led the prior to one of the cabinets and opened a wide, thin drawer. Inside was a bifolium, part of which was covered by formless smudges of paint and ink and mold. You likely remember seeing some of these on your other visit. Twenty-eight pages look just like this one—all or significant parts of them completely unreadable. We’ve had to figure out the text and determine what images might have been painted on them. He paused, distracted by the question he knew was coming. We’ve done a lot of research and made some judgments.

He’d created the painting Bartholomew had come to see, then changed it after Cardinal Ricci’s commission of art historians had approved it. He’d added one tiny stroke of his brush with his own potent touch of heterodoxy. He’d done it over Inaki’s fervent objections, done it because he believed Jeremiah would approve. He’d done it because there was one reason this magnificent book had been hidden away for so many centuries—its utterly nonorthodox, iconoclastic, and distinctly feminine point of view. All were religious heresy in fifteenth century Europe, and worthy of death by fire at the stake.

Inaki had been unsettled about what he’d done, and now Prior Bartholomew would see it, too. If his alteration were received poorly by the cardinal or especially by Pope Gregory, it would ruin his reputation and Inaki’s as well. After his initial protests, though, Inaki had kept his concerns to himself and not let them interfere with the work going forward. But was there some link between his absence from the scriptorium and Bartholomew’s visit?

The prior looked up from the bifolium. The cardinal referred to it, I believe, as the royal wink.

What else could it have been? Alphaios swallowed hard. Of course. Let me put this away and I’ll get it for you. He felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he closed the drawer and went to another. "Here, we mostly call it Jeremiah’s Wink."

The painting laid out before them, the two men stood shoulder to shoulder staring down at it. Alphaios could sense rather than see Bartholomew’s eyes move across the parchment, taking in the sparkling, crushed-gold frame and the royal retinue kneeling in obeisance before a pope, unmistakable in his resplendent white. The king’s robe was of purple velvet, the queen’s gown a royal red—a more restrained red than the crimson cassocks of the two cardinals attending the pope. One nobleman kneeling behind the king, perhaps a duke, wore a cape of rich seal gray, another of leaf and forest green in a diamond pattern. Next to the queen was a young woman in sky blue. She was standing, her head high, still grasping the sides of her dress as she prepared to kneel. One of her eyes, the one closest to the viewer, was closed.

Alphaios could not draw his eyes away from the angel floating just above the pope’s right shoulder. When the commission approved the work, the princess had been winking. The angel had not.

In the distance to the left, beyond newly harvested shocks of grain, was a tall-towered, crenellated castle with festive flags stirring in a breeze. To the right, mid-distance, a carpenter toiled on the rafters of a small house on barren ground, while a child offered a drink to a parched and crippled traveler.

Prior Bartholomew stood silent for long minutes, not moving, not speaking. Finally, in a husky voice, he said, It’s amazing. Your Jeremiah did this?

Whatever might be coming, Alphaios could not blame someone else for his own transgressions. It had been almost four months since he’d taken his brush and added the wink to the angel—a female angel. That alone might have been anathema, for there was only one suggestion in the entire Bible of a female figure with wings. Even then, she was not referred to as an angel, and her wings were said to be those of a stork—a bird believed unclean.

But it was the wink that lifted what may have been simply curious and debatable to an undeniable collusion between the princess and one of God’s own heavenly host. A joke above, over, the heads of pontiff and king. Worse yet, a joke between women. Few men in the Middle Ages would have been sympathetic to such an image.

No. But he certainly would have. We found a journal with a reference to a lavish book with such a picture. We couldn’t place it elsewhere and believe it to have been here in ours. Jeremiah’s view is quite unorthodox. He would have done something much like it, but this painting is mine.

It’s wonderful, Alphaios. Beautifully done. His eyes stayed on the image. But for all the nobility, all the pomp and wealth and ceremony, my eyes keep returning to the little scene of Joseph and Jesus.

Alphaios’s head swung toward the prior in surprise and pleasure at his insight.

Jesus as a young boy, already at work among the weak and infirm. It’d be hard to picture a more distinct contrast between the Church and simple Christian charity.

He was taken aback. This was far different than he’d expected. Still, he needed to know. And the wink?

Bartholomew turned to him and smiled. "I like it, Alphaios. I like it. And I don’t see how the book could possibly have survived if the righteous fishers of heresy had come across this. It would have been burned, all of it. It wouldn’t have found many defenders among royalty, either.