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.Nowhere in the scrolls does it say we have a feudanywhere.But look, don't worry.""Why not?""Chiun told me he'll show me how to deal with him.""I hope he's right, Remo.This morning someone kidnapped the pope.The Italianpolice, who cannot enter the Vatican, report that for the first time incenturies the Swiss Guards are ready to fight a war.""Good.Sounds like Mr.Arieson.Now we'll let Chiun show me how to handlethis."For Rome, Chiun packed a black kimono with silver embroidery, a gift from thefinest Italian family to the House of Sinanju several centuries before.There was a florid parchment in the folds which read:"To a house we have learned to appreciate-your good and faithful friends theBorgias.""We haven't used this kimono since we worked in Italy," said Chiun on thesmall hovercraft taking them to the waiting aircraft carrier where they wouldpick up their military flight to Rome."A good family, the Borgias.Exceptthey suffered from a do-it-yourself complex.They couldn't leave well enoughalone.Lucretia Borgia used poison, and because she thought that the goodnessof an assassination lay only in killing someone, the whole family ended upwith a bad reputation in history.How many times have we seen a successfulruling family fall because they can't leave well enough alone? So many thinkthey can do it themselves just because we make it look easy.""What are you going to do with Arieson?" asked Remo."You'll see," said Chiun."I'd feel a lot better if I knew.""I'd feel a lot better if you knew, too.But you don't, do you?"Before they went to the Vatican, Chiun insisted on walking the streets ofRome.Some of the ancient marblework had been preserved, the old Forum lookinglike a partial skeleton of marble, withered in the adjacent modern street.They passed the old home of the Vestal Virgins, pagan priestesses, on whoseexample modern convent life in the Catholic Church was modeled.And then, ofcourse, the bitter little remnants of the old temples to the old gods thatwere no more.Before Christianity there were only these gods in what was called thePage 60ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlcivilized world.For every attribute-love, drinking, war, the sea-there was aspecial god.From Venus to Neptune these gods ruled the daily lives of thepeople and received their offerings.But with the advent of Christianity, with the promise of eternal life, with agod who had died for his people, an unseen God from the Hebrews, the greattemples became empty, and the last priests lived alone without followers,without offerings, tending the statues of their cults.And when the priests were gone, when the coffers built up over hundreds andhundreds of years were finally empty, either Christians set up their churchesin these pagan temples, or as Remo saw now, the buildings just decayed.Standing before the site of the Great Temple of jupiter, where once thousandswould crowd in for feasts, Remo saw just a worn simple marble slab in the dirtof Rome with a bronze inscription saying there had been a huge temple here."They were good cults," said Chiun."You knew where they stood.It was clean.You gave a god something, he gave you something back.None of this sufferingfor love, and an affliction as some kind of reward.We never thoughtChristianity would catch on, but see, here we are, and it has.""I was raised by nuns in an orphanage.I'm going to feel funny in theVatican.""Don't.Remember, the Borgias were once popes and we have worked there.Ah,Rome, who would have thought you would last so long," said Chiun, waving ahand at the city on the Tiber which had once ruled the world, and now was onlybad traffic and picturesque marble remnants.And of course, the Vatican, thegreat Vatican, where once a fighting arena had stood.Outside the large columns, Italian police and soldiers had sealed off theentire state-within-a-state.From St.Peter's, little groups of men could beseen hacking away at each other.Some wore striped pantaloons and velvet hats.They were the Swiss Guards, who protected the post.Once they had actuallyfought other little armies, but now they were only ceremonial.Until, as Remo found out, the morning when they threw over their papalbanners, shouted to hell with peace, and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with agroup of Turks brought in by a strange man with a muscled neck whose evesseemed to glow.This they learned from the carabinieri, who warned Remo and Chiun not toenter."It's terrible, terrible what's happening in that holy site," said thecarabinieri."But we cannot enter.""Why not?" asked Remo."The Vatican is another state.Someone has to invite us in.We have not beeninvited.And no one will do anything in there until the pope is free.""Is he a prisoner?""We think so," said the carabinieri.A head went rolling along St.Peter's courtyard, lopped off by a Turkishscimitar."Horrible," said Chiun.The carabinieri covered his eyes."Horrible," he agreed."Yes, amateurs making a mess of things.Well, that's to be expected withwhat's let loose.Come, Remo.This is not the way to enter the Vatican.Youcan just tell Mr.Arieson is inside.Look at that enthusiasm for a badstroke."The way to enter the Vatican was the way Augustus Caesar would enter thearena."Through tunnels, protected from his citizens in case they rioted.These tunnels later became part of the catacombs of Rome.The catacomb Remo and Chiun wanted was underneath a restaurant.Chumcalculated where the entrance used to be according to his old lessons, towhich, he stressed, he devoted himself as a child, unlike Remo, and sent afingernail into old plaster.Vibrating it within the rhythms of the molecules,he collapsed the entire wall, to the despairing shouts of the restaurantowner, who had stored olives and garlic and fresh tomatoes down there in thebasement.They were all ruined now [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]