Page 93 of The Medici Return

CHAPTER 63

JASON COULD NOT HELP MAKING COMPARISONS BETWEEN THIS STORAGEfacility and the famed Vatican archives. Both harbored caches of precious, one-of-a-kind documents dating back centuries. Both utilized high tech to minimize the effects of time, temperature, and moisture. Both kept their treasures to themselves.

“You are aware of what we are after?” he asked the lay brother.

“I explained earlier today what Cardinal Stamm told me,” Camilla said, “and asked them to make a search.”

“And you are just now telling us this?” Malone asked.

She shrugged. “I did not see the need. Unless something was found.”

Which apparently had happened.

“Cardinal Ghislieri removed a great deal of documents from the Vatican in 1559,” the lay brother said. “He was angry and disillusioned. He’d headed the Inquisition for many years and amassed a great deal of enemies. We have long studied what he left with us, and he definitely was looking for things that could be used against the Holy See.”

“When he took all that, he never thought he would be pope,” Jason said. “But what happened when he was chosen? Why did he not have the documents brought back to the Vatican?”

“We have no idea. All we know is that they never were removed from here.”

“It could have been that Pius V kept some private insurance for himself,” Malone said. “He had control of these documents, and he kept it that way.”

“That was our assessment too,” the lay brother said. “Then, once Pius died in 1572, they were forgotten by Rome.”

“But not by the Carthusians,” Jason noted. “You seem to have taken your caretaker duties quite seriously.”

“This location holds most of the historical records for the Carthusian Order, along with our accounting ledgers dating back centuries. We pride ourselves on good record keeping.”

That he could believe.

It had been Bruno of Cologne, a highly respected eleventh-century scholar, wearied of the political aspects of his role as canon of a cathedral, who led six followers into the Chartreuse Mountains outside of Grenoble, France. There, Bruno and his companions built small log cabins in a semicircle in an Alpine valley four thousand feet above sea level, which became the first charterhouse, later known as La Grande Chartreuse. There were now twenty-one Carthusian monasteries around the world, each perceiving itself as adesert, where God drew His people to speak to their hearts. Carthusians lived stripped of comforts and consolations. Isolation was their mantra. Yet here was a lay brother voluntarily interacting with outsiders.

Doing the unthinkable.

“Why are you doing this?” Jason asked the man.

“I am not a father of the order,” the man said. “I am not bound by their vows. But I have pledged to devote my life in their service. To operate this facility and accomplish my tasks requires resources. Signora Baines has been most helpful in providing those. She asked for this favor, so I granted it.”

A straightforward answer to a simple question. So he asked another. “You said what we want is on that table. What is it?”

“The stories in the history books are true. A loan was madein 1512 to the Holy See by the Medicis. Ten million gold florins. Secured by a Pledge of Christ.”

COTTON MADE HIS WAY ACROSS THE REPOSITORY TOWARD THE TABLE.Sitting atop the pitted wood was a piece of vellum, brown and brittle, about a foot square. The lines of writing were written in a tight scrawl, the black ink faded but legible. It lay inside a stiff plastic sleeve, half an inch or so beneath an elevated sheet of glass that acted as a protector.

He studied the writing. Latin.

The others gathered around the table.

“Can you read it?” Cotton asked the lay brother.

The man nodded.

And they listened as he translated.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ let it be clear to all reading or hearing these presents that we, Julius II, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Province, Servant of the Servants of God, has accepted ten million gold florins provided by God’s humble servant, Giuliano de’ Medici. Desiring to make this act appeasable to the Lord we bind ourselves and the Universal Church to return the full sum to Giuliano de’ Medici, his heirs, successors, and assigns, no earlier than twenty years from this date. We are grateful to be served worthily and praiseworthily by our faithful one which, out of the abundance of piety which exceeds the merits of mere suppliants, we shall repay in a sum much greater than any he be capable of earning. To that end the said repayment shall be accompanied by a gift, to acknowledge and thank such extraordinary generosity, equal to ten percent of the outstanding balance for each year since the date noted herein. We offer this gift freely and voluntarily, with our sincere thanks, and know that the Universal Church willalways and forever honor this pledge without challenge or protest. We trust in the mercy of Almighty God, and the merits and intercessions of the blessed saints, to ensure that this pledge survives for the present and eternal times until fully satisfied. We have caused the faith and testimony of each and every one of the forgoing promises to be made in the name of Christ and on behalf of Christ, in duplicate. On this we, Julius II, do solemnly swear upon our oath given before God, in this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and twelve, on the sixteenth day of the month of July.

At the bottom, beneath the single paragraph, were the wordsFiat et Petut, then beneath those a simple letterG.

He asked the lay brother about both.

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