Rosa moved closer to me and put a hand on my shoulder. At that touch the posture of the strangers around us relaxed a little. There were even smiles. I felt a kind of relief, a forgiveness. I wanted to be accepted here, I realized; I couldn’t bear the thought of exclusion from this close, touching group.

“It’s okay,” said Rosa. “You don’t have to go. I can sort everything out. Tell me where your hotel is—did you say it was near the Forum? I’ll call them—”

But I stuck to my thought of Peter. “Get arse out, get arse out.” I repeated it over and over, an absurd mantra. “Let me go, Rosa.”

“All right,” she said, forcing a smile. “You need a little time. That’s okay.” She led me down the corridor. A part of me was glad to get away from the little knot of bystanders who had seen what I had done, who knew how I had betrayed them; I was glad to walk away from my shame. “Take all the time you want,” Rosa said soothingly. “We’ll always be here. I’ll be here. You know that.”

“Get arse out,” I mumbled.

We came at last to the steel door of a modern high-speed lift. We rode up in silence, Rosa still watching me; in her eyes there was something of the pressure of the gaze of those deep Crypt dwellers, their mute disappointment.

As we rose I’ll swear my ears popped.

I emerged into a sunlit modern office on the Via Cristoforo Colombo. I was nearly blinded by the light, and the dry oxygen-rich air seared into my lungs, making me giddy.

Peter had hired a car. It was waiting for me on the Cristoforo Colombo, outside the Order’s office. Now, to my utter dismay, he insisted on taking me for a drive.

Chapter 47

Chapter 47

“I was full of theories. Basically I thought the Order was just a wacko religious cult. Then, when we met Lucia, and found out about this girl Pina, I started to wonder if it was some kind of bizarre psychosexual organization, perhaps with a religious framework to give it some justification. But now, with what you described about what you found down there, George—and after I discussed it with some of the Slan(t)ers—I think I’ve put it together at last.

“The Order isn’t about religion, or sex, or family. It isn’t about anything its members think it’s about—they don’t know, any more than any one ant knows what an ant colony is for. The Order exists for itself.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I know you don’t. So listen.”