“Exactly,” Shawn said, still smiling. “Simon was more Paul than Peter; some thought he had more in common with Peter in his early life as far as we know, since he grew up in less-than-prosperous surroundings in Samaria, while Peter did the same in neighboring Galilee. Anyway, I find all this fascinating, and I’ve unrolled only two pages. What I find so fascinating is Simon’s idea of adding to Jesus of Nazareth’s mission, giving Jesus the credit for doing the redeeming about sin, while he, Simon, would take on the issue of knowledge. What I’m wondering is whether Simon in his gospel, when I get it completely unrolled and translated, might actually redeem himself from being the convenient whipping boy down through the ages.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” James said. The last thing James wanted at this point was for Simon Magus to redeem himself. “His perfidy is canonical and unchangeable, and certainly not by something he might have written himself.”

“Dinner, everybody,” Sana said, coming in from the kitchen and sipping a glass of wine.

The men struggled to their feet, and while Shawn tossed a couple of logs on the fire to keep it going, James and Jack followed Sana to the very back of the house, where there was a dining table in an attached greenhouse-like structure. “This ossuary mess keeps getting worse,” James mumbled to Jack, when he and Jack were sitting and when he knew neither Shawn nor Sana could hear.

Jack nodded, but from his perspective it was the opposite, although he did not let on to James, whom he could tell was clearly more anxious now than when he’d arrived.

A few minutes later they were all seated, and Shawn asked James for a blessing, which he was happy to provide. It was a pleasant setting, and both James and Jack commented that one would never know they were in the middle of the West Village in New York City, as quiet as it was. There was not a single siren in the distance. Shawn had switched on a group of lights that illuminated their carefully planned and enchantingly serene Japanese garden bordered by a rough-hewn cedar fence. Nothing of the enormity of New York was even vaguely visible.

“A toast to our hostess!” Jack said, lifting his wine goblet and nodding toward Sana at the right end of the table. Shawn was at the left end and James directly across. In front of each person was a plate of grilled meat with a curiously orange-colored, pungent-smelling sauce, couscous with slivered almonds, and an artichoke with a vinaigrette dip.

“We’re eating lamb loin with Indian spices,” Sana announced. “Unfortunately, the lamb got to marinate for only slightly less than two hours, whereas the minimum is supposed to be a full two hours, but I did the best I could with the time I had after getting my samples into the incubator to dry overnight.”