The Omega Factor(56)
The mother superior stepped forward and told the two younger women, “Make the call. Now.”
Sisters Isabel and Ellen fled the room.
He faced the older woman. “Are you going to talk to me?”
She nodded. “I am. And you are correct. Nothing about this is good.”
Chapter 36
Vilamur entered the rectory.
On the drive back to Toulouse from Montségur he’d processed everything. Why this? Why now? Just when everything was falling into place. After all the years that had passed, Bernat de Foix appears? Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Galatians 6:7. Quite apt. And Cathars. Back? Existing? How was that possible?
He’d meant what he’d told de Foix. Cathars were pedantic fools, who regarded the Holy Roman Church, much the same as everything else, as evil, allied to the wrong god. Like there were two different gods? Really? Polytheism had been gone for a long time.
But so had Cathars.
The idiots rejected the entire material world, considered having children offensive, and regarded the church as satanic. For them, anyone who attached great value to things was, at best, mistaken, and, at worst, a disciple of the devil. Sadly, the church of the thirteenth century had certainly provided more than enough support for that conclusion. Popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests of that time all lived in great luxury. They said one thing and did another, elevating hypocrisy into an art form. Even worse, the church had openly encouraged the worship of material objects such as relics and venerated the cross. And for good reason. Both were revenue producers. Cathars liked to quote Matthew. Watch out for the false prophets who come to you in the guise of lambs, when within lurk voracious wolves. Only their fruit will tell them apart.
Hence the label the Cathars created for papists.
The Church of Wolves.
And there was much truth to those assertions.
Just like there was to him being Bernat de Foix’s biological father.
He’d known Rene. A beautiful woman with curly auburn hair and a bosom he’d greatly admired. She’d been one of his parishioners in Pau over forty years ago. He’d served that parish a long time and there’d been many women. Ten? Twenty? Hard to say. All of them had been married since, after all, those were the safest to pursue. Something about the white collar attracted them. Not a one had ever been forced to do a thing contrary to their desires. All grown adults. Nearly all with children. And when it came time to end things, they all ended easily.
Except for Rene.
She’d birthed a child.
And kept that to herself for ten years.
Amazing.
When the worldwide revelations of clergy sexual abuse were first exposed he’d worried that something from his past might resurface. But nothing had. Whatever happened was long over and none of the women involved wanted any attention brought to it.
He’d chosen them carefully.
Rene had seemed the perfect example.
She’d worked at a local department store. A devout Catholic, active in the church, who regularly took confession. That was where he’d learned about the unhappiness in her marriage. A simple matter from there to lure her into his bed, her vulnerability easy to exploit. Their relationship had been a long one, more so than the others. They’d both seemed to enjoy it and, for a while, he’d devoted himself solely to her. But the inevitable end came and he moved on. She’d taken it fine, just like all of the others, and never created a problem. But what were they going to say? None really wanted to leave their husbands. They just wanted a diversion, the attention, the pleasure, for however long it might last. Then Rene had come back.
With a ten-year old son.
He and Bernat de Foix had swapped saliva samples, each depositing damp swabs into their respective glass vials. But he had no need for a DNA test. He knew then and now.
That man was his son.
“What do you want from me?” he’d asked de Foix, before leaving.
“A great deal, Archbishop. A great, great deal.”
None of that had sounded promising.
He assumed de Foix would run the DNA test, not quite as sure about parentage as he wanted him to believe. That should buy a day, maybe two.
Then what?
“You have a visitor,” the housekeeper said, interrupting his thoughts.
He stood in the rectory’s foyer.
The older woman had been with him a long time and they got along reasonably well. He’d always made a point to never alienate, abuse, or sleep with his staff. They were vital to an orderly progression of things. Parishioners came and went. Diocese employees stayed around a long time.
“Who is it?”
She told him.
And he headed straight for his office.
Hector Cardinal Fuentes rose from the chair as he entered the room. “Archbishop Vilamur, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Eminence, I thought you said you would be here tomorrow.”
“The opportunity presented itself to come immediately, so I took it.”
No way that fortuitous occurrence was going to be good for him.
Fuentes was a husky man with bearish shoulders, a thick chest, and meaty arms. He had a broad nose and a heavy shelf of thick eyebrows under close-cropped auburn hair. Well groomed, the face, the eyes, the creases in the skin all conveyed a perpetually intense look, which, he assumed, fit this man’s mood more often than not. Cardinals by and large were an aloof group. There were only 221 on the planet, 128 of them below the age of eighty and eligible to elect a pope. Fuentes appeared to be one of the younger ones. Mid-to late sixties, possibly. The question for the moment, though, was what was he doing here? And what did he want?