“Nectar of the gods,” Shawn announced loudly, as he came in from the kitchen with a crystal goblet nearly filled with ruby-red claret. “Your Eminence,” he said with a bow, handing James the stemware.

“How gallant,” James remarked, taking the wine. After holding up the glass in the form of a toast to his two friends, he swirled the goblet, took a whiff of the wine’s full aroma, and then tasted it. “Truly the nectar of the gods,” he agreed.

At that point the three men took seats at the points of an equilateral triangle, with James and Shawn on opposite sides of the fireplace and Jack on the sofa directly in front.

“Is Sana going to join us?” James asked.

“I believe she will after finishing the final preparations for dinner. Or maybe she’ll just give a yell when all is ready.”

“James,” Jack said. “It’s great to see you in mufti. In my mind you look better in jeans, shirt, and sweater than those Renaissance prince costumes. They are too intimidating.”

“Here, here!” Shawn said in agreement, motioning with his scotch as if making a toast.

“If it were up to me, this is how I’d dress most every day!” James said, settling back into his club chair and putting his feet up on the hassock, pretending to be relaxed instead of as tense as he was. “So bring me up to date about the contents of the ossuary!”

“It is turning out to be better and better,” Shawn said, looking back and forth between the others. “I haven’t even told you yet, Jack, but I was able to unroll with great difficulty two pages of the first scroll of the Gospel of Simon, and it is terrific. Unfortunately, at that pace it might take more than a month to do all three.”

“In what possible way is it terrific?” James asked, studying his cuticles as if not particularly interested.

Shawn sat forward, and the firelight sparkled off the surface of his eyes. “It was like being transported mystically back to the first century as a witness to the struggles of the early Church.”

“You could more effectively do that with Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, and with a good bit more confidence in the accuracy of the material,” James said, taking a sip of his wine.

“Not the same by any stretch of the imagination,” Shawn said. “I was hearing directly from a man who was there and believed himself to be intimately involved.”

“How so? By trying to buy Peter’s powers from the Holy Ghost?” James laughed.

“James, I already know your opinion about the ossuary and its contents,” Shawn gently chided. “But I think you should hear more. You’re not going to change my mind by mocking what we have learned so far before you have even heard it.”