a night when all the rules were going out the window.
The camerlegno felt his heart filling with rage. "And you... told no one?"
"I confronted His Holiness," Mortati said. "And he confessed. He explained the entire story and asked only that I let my heart guide my decision as to whether or not to reveal his secret."
"And your heart told you to bury the information?"
"He was the runaway favorite for the papacy. People loved him. The scandal would have hurt the church deeply."
"But he fathered a child! He broke his sacred vow of celibacy!" The camerlegno was screaming now. He could hear his mother's voice. A promise to God is the most important promise of all. Never break a promise to God. "The Pope broke his vow!"
Mortati looked delirious with angst. "Carlo, his love... was chaste. He had broken no vow. He didn't explain it to you?"
"Explain what?" The camerlegno remembered running out of the Pope's office while the Pope was calling to him. Let me explain!
Slowly, sadly, Mortati let the tale unfold. Many years ago, the Pope, when he was still just a priest, had fallen in love with a young nun. Both of them had taken vows of celibacy and never even considered breaking their covenant with God. Still, as they fell deeper in love, although they could resist the temptations of the flesh, they both found themselves longing for something they never expected - to participate in God's ultimate miracle of creation - a child. Their child. The yearning, especially in her, became overwhelming. Still, God came first. A year later, when the frustration had reached almost unbearable proportions, she came to him in a whirl of excitement. She had just read an article about a new miracle of science - a process by which two people, without ever having sexual relations, could have a child. She sensed this was a sign from God. The priest could see the happiness in her eyes and agreed. A year later she had a child through the miracle of artificial insemination...
"This cannot... be true," the camerlegno said, panicked, hoping it was the morphine washing over his senses. Certainly he was hearing things.
Mortati now had tears in his eyes. "Carlo, this is why His Holiness has always had an affection for the sciences. He felt he owed a debt to science. Science let him experience the joys of fatherhood without breaking his vow of celibacy. His Holiness told me he had no regrets except one - that his advancing stature in the church prohibited him from being with the woman he loved and seeing his infant grow up."
Camerlegno Carlo Ventresca felt the madness setting in again. He wanted to claw at his flesh. How could I have known?
"The Pope committed no sin, Carlo. He was chaste."
"But..." The camerlegno searched his anguished mind for any kind of rationale. "Think of the jeopardy... of his deeds." His voice felt weak. "What if this whore of his came forward? Or, heaven forbid, his child? Imagine the shame the church would endure."
Mortati's voice was tremulous. "The child has already come forward."
Everything stopped.
"Carlo...?" Mortati crumbled. "His Holiness's child... is you."
At that moment, the camerlegno could feel the fire of faith dim in his heart. He stood trembling on the altar, framed by Michelangelo's towering Last Judgment. He knew he had just glimpsed hell itself. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips wavered, soundless.
"Don't you see?" Mortati choked. "That is why His Holiness came to you in the hospital in Palermo when you were a boy. That is why he took you in and raised you. The nun he loved was Maria... your mother. She left the nunnery to raise you, but she never abandoned her strict devotion to God. When the Pope heard she had died in an explosion and that you, his son, had miraculously survived... he swore to God he would never leave you alone again. Carlo, your parents were both virgins. They kept their vows to God. And still they found a way to bring you into the world. You were their miraculous child."
The camerlegno covered his ears, trying to block out the words. He stood paralyzed on the altar. Then, with his world yanked from beneath him, he fell violently to his knees and let out a wail of anguish.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Time seemed to have lost all meaning inside the four walls of the chapel. Vittoria felt herself slowly breaking free of the paralysis that seemed to have gripped them all.