Free Magnificat by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Page B

Renxin,” said Cardinal van Hooven.
    Cardinal Cadini’s smile returned. “So I suppose we will have to repose our trust in God.”
    Cardinal van Hooven crossed himself.
    * * *
    As the shots rang in his dream, Cardinal Mendosa came awake with a strangled shout of protest. He thrashed twice against his bedding as if attempting to break restraints, and then he gave a short, shuddering sigh as he came back to himself.
    Sweating, his breathing fast and his pulse banging at his temples, he tried to lie back. A dream, a dream, he repeated to himself. Most Holy God, it had been dreadful. Not again tonight, he vowed. Not if I have to stare at the ceiling counting cracks until daylight. He could not stand to see it again. He knew it was folly to close his eyes, and when he did he saw once more the profile of the Asian Pope with head and face obliterated by bullets as he himself lunged a second too late to knock the Pontiff out of the line of fire. He stared straight up, trying to block the image from his mind, at the same time puzzling over the dream: was it that he feared the Chinese Pope would not be acceptable to Catholics, and that the Papacy itself would be destroyed? It seemed a possible metaphor, for he had never in any dream yet caught sight of the face of the Asian Pope; which bothered him, for in his previous experiences he had seen everything all too clearly. Surely it could not be a vision, for how could a Pope be assassinated in the middle of Saint Peter’s Basilica? That was the most inconceivable of all.
    He pummeled his pillow into a wedge and propped it under his shoulders, hoping that this would help keep him awake. His head felt swollen and he was not quite at home in his body. He wondered if he ought to get up and pray, but settled for reciting the familiar words of Psalm 104: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord, my God, You are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and glory, robed in light as with a cloak. You have spread out the heavens like a tent-cloth. You have constructed Your palace upon the waters. You make the clouds Your chariot; you travel on the wings of the wind. You make the winds Your messengers, and flaming fire Your ministers.…” It was incorrect to pray this way, according to Church dogma. But did it matter to God if he was lying down or kneeling? Did God know the difference? Or care? Questions like that had got him into trouble with the nuns when he was a boy, and he suspected he might still raise some eyebrows in the Curia.
    A bell sounded and Cardinal Mendosa decided it was Matins, the old Vigil hour which through history was moved gradually from midnight to dawn to midmorning. Matins and Lauds, he remembered, one named for the hour, the other from the opening of the Psalm.
    The Pope’s hair was black and long enough to be caught at the back of the neck.
    Cardinal Mendosa deliberately bit the inside of his cheek to keep from drifting back into sleep. Who, in the name of every Saint, Power, Throne, Dominion, Seraph, Cherub, Angel, Archangel, and demon in Hell, was that elusive Chinese? Why had they not been able to find him? And if they found him, he went on with the more sensible part of his mind, what then? What to do next? Would Premier Zuo consent to having one of his people become Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, an institution whose existence the People’s Republic found so objectionable they refused to recognize its diplomatic existence? And the rest of the public-relations-conscious world, what would it make of a Pope taken from rural China? There had already been great resistance to the Church: would this foreigner not cause more open conflict and defection, not only by the laity but the clergy as well?
    With a resigned sigh Cardinal Mendosa got out of bed and made his way to the prie-dieu. Two of the three candles he had lit were still burning, and as he knelt the second winked out.
    “An omen?” Cardinal Mendosa asked the darkness. “Or a breeze?” He crossed