She stood, and let him lead her out of the hall. She looked back once to see Carausias’s eyes on her, rheumy, but a mirror of her own coldness.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

The elevator, having risen up through the nested levels of the Crypt, delivered Lucia and Rosa Poole to a small front office. Rosa nodded to the staff. They walked out to the street, emerging into thin November sunlight. They both squinted at the brightness. Rosa donned small fashionable-looking sunglasses, while Lucia pulled on her heavy blue-tinted spectacles, of the kind issued to every member of the Order.

This was a modern district of residences, shops, and businesses, just off the Via Cristoforo Colombo, a broad, traffic-heavy avenue that snaked south from the center of Rome, running roughly parallel to the ancient Appian Way. Rosa led Lucia to a small taxi rank; they had to wait a couple of minutes for a cab to arrive. The air was clear, crisp, not very cold.

Lucia wasn’t sure where Rosa was taking her. The older woman had barely spoken two sentences to her since calling for her in the scrinium. But there was no escape, any more than from her periods.

Lucia suppressed a sigh. She had forgiven Pina for what had felt like another betrayal. Pina had only done what would have had to be done eventually; in her way she had tried her best to help. Lucia just had to endure whatever was to come.

The cab took them north toward the city center. They passed a breach in the massive, ugly old Aurelian Wall and headed northeast, driving through the areas dominated by the old imperial ruins, to the Piazza Venezia.

The Venezia was the heart of the Roman traffic system. It was just a broad field of tarmac sprawling before the Vittoriano, the grandiose Vittorio Emanuele monument erected to celebrate Italy’s national unity, a mound of pillars and marble that loomed over the skyline, even dominating the imperial relics. The Venezia was crowded with traffic that seemed to be flying in every direction, and Lucia quailed when the cabdriver launched his vehicle into the mob, horn honking briskly. Gradually, as cars edged this way and that, nobody apparently giving way to anybody else, a route forward opened up, bit by bit, and the driver made his way to the exit he wanted, for the west-running Via del Plebiscito.

To Lucia’s surprise, Rosa took her hand in her own. Rosa smiled, her eyes hidden. “Listen, I know how you feel. I know how difficult this is for you.”