The Omega Factor(19)
Uncertainty.
A state he did not care for.
It could be fatal. No question. But it could also be an asset, forcing him to be ready to deal with what fate might throw his way—adjusting, adapting, or reversing course altogether. The human brain didn’t mind risk, so long as the odds were known. But when the outcome became ambiguous? Totally unpredictable? That was another matter. Unfortunately, he now found himself squarely within that state.
The ball had started rolling.
But where would it end up?
He entered the Hôtel de la Cité, obtained his room key from the desk clerk, and climbed the stairs to his suite. Andre was staying with a friend who lived below the mount in the modern section of the city. The new Perfectus had said nothing on the drive back from Béziers, but it was clear that a measure of satisfaction had been drawn from what happened.
His phone purred just as he stepped inside the room and closed the door. The curator in Ghent. He answered the FaceTime call and the screen filled with a chaotic scene of smoke, firefighters, and police.
“That looks bad. What’s happening?” he said to the phone’s microphone in English.
“The arsonist was a woman, whom the police killed while she was trying to escape.”
“Have they learned her identity?”
“Not yet. But they’re working on that.”
“Could you scan around? I’d like to see more.”
The image on the phone moved and he recognized the restorer’s workshop, where he’d visited several times, its windows shattered, smoke still seeping out, firefighters surveying the damage. The pan continued until he saw an ambulance parked at the end of a narrow street, Sister Kelsey Deal sitting on the back being treated by paramedics.
“Could you go to her?” he said to the curator.
The image went jittery as his man walked closer to the ambulance and spoke to the paramedic. The nun sat with a blanket draped around her. She spoke a moment with the curator, then faced the camera.
“Monsieur de Foix,” she said. “I am so sorry, but the panel is gone.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
And he meant that.
“I was the restorer. It was entrusted to me. Whatever happens to it is my responsibility.”
“He’s right, sister, it is not your fault,” he heard the curator say from behind the camera. “Nothing that happened is your fault.”
“I tried to stop her,” she said. “But was not able.”
He could see that she was terribly upset. As was he. They were only a few days away from the world learning the panel’s long-held secret.
“I am so sorry this has happened,” he said to her again.
“The curator tells me,” Sister Deal said, “that the remaining panels of the altarpiece are untouched, safe in the cathedral. Just mine was attacked.”
Which made no sense.
Why burn it?
Chapter 11
Kelsey stared at the phone screen and the face of Bernat de Foix. Everything seemed unreal, distant, too dreadful even to contemplate.
The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or, as it was more commonly known, the Ghent Altarpiece, was one of the world’s great works of art, created in the early part of the fifteenth century, at the threshold of the Renaissance, by two brothers, Hubert and Jan van Eyck. It comprised twelve oak panels measuring, when fully opened, twelve feet high by seventeen feet long.
A triptych, it consisted of a large central panel and two wings, one to each side, which could be folded shut. The upper register of seven panels represented heavenly redemption and included images of God, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. They were flanked by panels of angels playing music and, on the far outermost, the naked figures of Adam and Eve. The central panel of the lower register showed a gathering of saints, clergy, and soldiers attendant at an adoration of the Lamb of God. Four other panels showed groupings of people from across the world, making their way to the celebration, all overseen by the dove of the Holy Spirit.
Closed, the rear images were grisaille, grayscale, the images meant to appear like stone sculptures, with no ornaments or jewelry. Opening the altarpiece revealed the vivid earthly reality in which Christ assumed a human form, giving way to the awe-inspiring beauty of the kingdom of heaven, where the Savior was worshiped for all eternity. Hundreds of figures populated the twelve panels. They ranged from elders to bishops, confessors, martyrs, hermits, saints, knights, and judges. The level of detail was amazing and unprecedented, the liberal use of tint and hue nearly overwhelming. Egg-based tempera had been the paint base of choice for the time, but the van Eycks had been revolutionary. They’d used linseed and nut oil. Which permitted more detail and subtlety, as the oil made the paint translucent, capable of layering, adding depth to what had once been flat. Not the first artists to be so bold, but definitely the first to maximize its potential.
The merchant and mayor of Ghent, Jodocus Vijd, and his wife Lysbette commissioned the altarpiece as part of a larger project for a chapel in Saint Bavo’s Cathedral. Most likely Hubert van Eyck conceptualized it, but died in 1426. His brother Jan, the court painter for the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, then finished the commission. Its completion and installation was officially celebrated on May 6, 1432, just in time for the baptism of Philip the Good’s son.
Which began an anything-but-peaceful existence.