The Testament

Taking advantage of Bravo's momentary loss of concentration, Jordan got inside his perimeter of defense, landing a blow to his ribs. Bravo went down onto his knees. Jordan struck out with his foot, but Bravo caught it before it could land, took Jordan off his feet. Bravo fought his way on top of Jordan, swinging his balled right fist into Jordan's face. In so doing, they both moved further over the edge.

Bravo struck again, but this time Jordan was ready, blocking the blow as Bravo had blocked his kick. Twisting Bravo's arm, he reversed their positions. Now it was Jordan who was on top. Very quickly, Bravo realized his intention. Jordan was pushing and shoving, trying to tip Bravo over the edge, to push him into the rock chimney, to be rid of him forever.

Bravo's head and shoulders were already into the chimney. In a moment, he'd be too far over the edge to be able to save himself. It was now or never. He knew he had to put aside his feelings of wanting to save Jordan from himself, of forging by his will alone a new expanded family that would, somehow, expunge the bitter taste of his father's betrayal. As Jordan had said, it was pure arrogance. He couldn't do it: he would fail, and if he persisted, he would certainly die trying.

He looked up into the face of his enemy, absorbed his vicious blow, saw a vulnerable spot and, as Jordan drew his fist back to repeat the blow, used the points of his stiffened fingers to jab Jordan in the spot between his sternum and diaphragm. Bravo struck hard and true, disrupting the important nerve bundle.

Jordan reared back and Bravo rose up, shoving him hard so that his head struck the rock wall. He toppled off Bravo, fell forward, pitching over Bravo's head, down into the chimney.

Bravo flipped over, reflexively reached out in an effort to catch him, but there was no chance, there was never any chance. Jordan was gone.

Je

"Jordan?" she asked.

He shook his head. He felt light-headed, his hands cold and bloodless. He reached for her, as a drowning man reaches a line thrown overboard. She winced, bit her lip so as not to cry out, and through his own pain and misery, he realized that she, too, was hurt.

"Je

"A flesh wound, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

But her blood-soaked shirt told him otherwise. "We've got to get you to a hospital, or at the very least a doctor."

She nodded. "But first, there's something I have to show you." Leading him over to where Camille lay, she lowered herself gingerly until she was squatting, then she went through Camille's clothes until she found what she was looking for, which she displayed in her palm.

Bravo knelt beside her. "Your knife."

"Not quite." Je

"They're identical." He looked at her. "She had a duplicate made. That means-"

"She found my knife."

"At the hotel in Mont St. Michel, while you were unconscious. I went to the bathroom, left her alone with you. I didn't want to leave you, but she assured me it was okay."

"Of course it was, she was poring through my things."

He looked down at Camille's face, pale, porcelain-beautiful even in death. "She slit Father Mosto's throat, not Cornadoro. She jumped me in the corridor outside his office."

"I wonder how much she enjoyed it," Je

"Je

"She must have enjoyed tearing us apart."

Bravo nodded sadly. "That was her plan all along, I can see it now."

With a soft groan, Je

A gorgon, Jordan had called her. In this, too, he wasn't wrong, Bravo mused. But she had been even more than that. He rose at last to stand with his arm around Je

Chapter 33

Sunset shrouded them in its cool embrace. The sky was on fire, layered with tiers of pink clouds. It was a relief to be free of the cavern, of the horrors that had awaited them there.

"The cache," Je

"On the contrary," he said. "I never read you or Camille his last cipher, because he warned me against it."

"What do you mean?" In the soft swirl of shadows in the small meadow, she turned. "Wait, he knew you wouldn't be alone, didn't he?"

"Well, it was a supposition, one that makes good sense when you think about it," Bravo said. "You see, the moment the Knight attack began, he'd taken the precaution of moving the contents of the cache out of its original container. But he was adamant that if I was with anyone-anyone at all-I go to the original burial site. This way, I could draw out whoever was against me. Over the centuries, the power of the Quintessence has had the ability of corrupting even those who thought themselves steadfast. My father was told that it was the origin of all the traitors within the Order."

Je

"Fra Leoni."

An early evening wind had sprung up. All around them, the wildflowers bobbed, bent their heads as if in obeisance.

"He's still alive." Je

"Against all logic, it would seem so."

"Logic has nothing to do with it," Je

He nodded. "I understand that now."

"It's here," he said, kneeling by the Cauldron, the sacred spring of the Orthodox Greeks. From the reddish earth in front of him rose the cracked plinth of an ancient pillar. Je

"Are you all right?" Bravo asked. "You can do this?"

She smiled, and all the pain was erased from her face. "I can do this, I have to do this."

Together, they dug down, lifting handfuls of earth, piling it higher and higher until there appeared beneath the worked stone plinth a small wooden chest. Painted with primary-colored boats, fish and birds, it was wholly unlike the original container she had unearthed in the cavern.

Bravo sat back on his haunches and laughed. "It's the toy chest I had as a kid."

"Oh, Bravo." Je

Silently, reverently, they went back to work, brushing the last of the earth off the top of the chest, digging out the sides. At last, it was revealed, and they lifted it out.

As Bravo reached out to open it, Je

He wiped his sweating face, turned to face his toy chest. He knew what lay within. With a trembling hand, he opened the chest. Here were the secrets the Order had been amassing for centuries-documents, secret treaties, clandestine histories, suppressed memoirs, incriminating financial records. And there, among them, was the Testament of Jesus Christ. He touched it, but did not pick it up. Fu