"Eulalius, I cannot present myself before the soldiers who are risking their lives guarding the western gate and tell them that I am seeking a niche hidden in the wall. They will think I am mad, or that I am hiding a treasure… No, I cannot go there."

"You shall go, John."

Suddenly Eulalius's voice was firm and strong again.

So firm, indeed, that John lowered his head, knowing that this time he would obey.

"Let me, then, Eulalius, say that you have sent me."

"It 15 I who have sent you! Before you arrived, in my dream I heard the voice of Jesus' mother telling me that Edessa would be saved. And so it shall be, God willing."

Outside, they could hear the cries and shouts of the soldiers mixed with the crying of the few infants who were still alive. Eulalius sent for Kalman and Ephron.

"I have had a dream. You must go with John to the western gate and-"

"But, Eulalius," Ephron exclaimed, "the soldiers will not let us pass."

"You will go, and you will obey John's orders. Edessa can be saved."

The captain, enraged, ordered the two priests and their companion to leave the area.

"The gate is about to give way, and you want us to go and look for a hidden niche-you are mad! I don't care if the bishop sent you! Begone!"

John stepped forward and told the captain that with or without his help they would climb the wall above the western gate and dig.

Arrows fell all around them, but before the astonished eyes of the soldiers, they remained untouched. Calling upon their last reserves of strength, the soldiers redoubled their efforts to defend that part of the wall, as the three men dug frantically.

"There is something here!" Kalman cried.

Minutes later, John held in his hands a basket darkened by time. He opened it and gently touched the folded cloth.

Without waiting for Kalman or Ephron, he clambered down and began to run toward Eulalius's house.

His father had told him the truth: He and all his fathers before him had been the guardians of the secret of the shroud in which Joseph of Arimathea had laid the body of Jesus.

The bishop trembled with emotion when John entered his chamber. The young man took the shroud from under his tunic and held it out to the bishop, who rose from his bed and went down on his knees in wonder at the face of a man perfectly impressed upon the cloth.

SURROUNDED BY BOOKS, SOFIA. WAS SO AB-sorbed in her reading that she didn't realize Marco had come into the office. She had been there for hours already, taking advantage of the early-morning quiet before their day officially began.

"Whatever it is must be fascinating," he said, "because you haven't even" noticed that I'm here."

"Oh, sorry, Marco," Sofia replied, jumping a bit.

"What are you reading?"

"The history of the shroud."

"But you already know it by heart. Christ, every Italian knows it."

"That's true. But I wanted to dig a little deeper. There might be something in here to give us a lead."

"Something in the history of the shroud?"

"Let's call it speculative research. No stone unturned."

"Interesting. Have you found anything?"

"Not yet. I'm just reading, hoping for the light to come on." Sofia smiled and tapped her forehead.

"How far along are you?"

"The sixth century, when a bishop in Edessa named Eulalius had a dream in which a woman revealed to him where the shroud was. You know that during all that time, the shroud was lost, no one knew where it was. In fact, there was no knowledge that it even existed. But Evagrius-"

"Evagrius? Who's Evagrius?" Minerva dropped her things on a nearby desk and joined them.

"Evagrius Ponticus. According to Evagrius in his Historia Ecclesiasticus, in 544 Edessa had been besieged by the army of the Persian king Khusro, but the city somehow fought back against the Persians and won- all, supposedly, thanks to the Mandylion, which the city bore in procession along the battlements and-"

"But who the hell is Evagrius and what the hell is the Mandylion?" Minerva insisted.

"If you'd let me finish," Sofia said with barely concealed impatience, "you might find out."

"Sorry." Minerva raised her hands and cringed.

Marco smiled. "Sofia," he explained, "is going over the history of the shroud, and we were talking about its appearance in Edessa in 544, when the city was under siege by the Persians. The Edessans were desperate, about to surrender or be overrun. No matter how many fire-tipped arrows they shot at the Persians, the siege engines wouldn't catch fire."

"So what happened?" Minerva asked.

"Well, according to Evagrius," Sofia continued, raising her eyebrows at Marco and giving him a nod in acknowledgment, "Eulalius, bishop of Edessa, had a dream in which a woman revealed to him where the shroud was hidden. They went to look for it, and they found it at the western gate of the city, in a niche hollowed out in the wall. The discovery restored the city's faith, and the shroud was carried in procession along the battlements on top of the walls, while the defenders continued to shoot their fiery arrows at the Persian siege machines. But this time the engines did catch fire, and the Persians wound up abandoning their siege."

"Nice story, but is it true?" Minerva asked.

"Think about it, Minerva. There are any number of things that for long periods were regarded by historians as legends passed down through the ages but that have turned out to be accounts of events that actually happened. The best examples are Troy, Mycenae, Knossos… cities that for hundreds of years were believed to belong to the world of myth but whose historical existence was finally demonstrated by Schliemann, Evans, and other archaeologists," Sofia replied.

"But whatever else happened, the bishop must have known the shroud was there, right? No matter how credulous you want to be, you can't believe that business about the dream, can you?"

"Well, that's the story that's come down to us," Marco answered, "but you're probably right. Eulalius had to know where the shroud was hidden, or maybe he had it put there so that he could pull it out at the right moment and say a miracle had occurred. Who knows the truth of what happened fifteen hundred years ago? As for your question about the Mandylion, it's thought to be a small cloth that was draped over Christ at death, which bore the image of his face. Many consider it to be the shroud but folded to show only the face, not the full body."

Just then Pietro, Giuseppe, and Antonino came in, arguing heatedly about soccer.

Marco called everyone together to update them on the release of the mute in Turin.

Pietro looked at Sofia out of the corner of his eye. The two had been avoiding each other as much as possible, and although they tried to maintain a professional, civil relationship, they were clearly uncomfortable together. It was obvious that Pietro was still in love with Sofia and that she was beginning to shun him. Marco and the others did their best to keep them apart.

'All right, then," Marco began. "The parole board will be back at the Turin jail in a few days. When they come to the mute's cell, the warden, the social worker, and the prison psychologist will be asked for their current assessment of him. All three will agree that he's a petty thief who presents no danger to himself or society and has been in long enough."

"Too easy," Pietro broke in.

"No, it won't look that way," Marco explained. "They'll go through the motions. The social worker will propose that he be sent to a special center, a psychiatric unit, for evaluation on whether he's capable of living on his own. We'll see whether he gets nervous over the idea of being locked up in a psychiatric hospital or stays cool. The next step will be silence. We'll let him stew for a while and have the guards observe his reactions. If all goes well, a month later the board will go back to the jail again, make their final decision, and two weeks later he'll be freed. Sofia, I want you to go to Turin with Giuseppe and start putting the team there together. Tell me what we're going to need.