The Seville Communion by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

entailed. Sometimes he let himself be carried away by the mood that reading it induced, imagining himself as the last survivor from the defeat at Hattin, the Tower of Acre, the dungeons of Chinon, or the fires of Paris: a weary, solitary Knight Templar whose brothers in arms had all died.
    He read a few lines (although he could have recited them from memory): "They are tonsured, covered with dust, black from the sun that scorches them and the chain mail that protects them . . He looked out at the bright street, the people walking beneath the orange trees. A slim young woman, probably foreign, stopped a moment to check her reflection in the half-open cafe window. She looked beautiful as she raised her bare arms gracefully to tie back her hair. Suddenly her eyes met Quart's through the window. For an instant she held his gaze, surprised and curious, before becoming self-conscious. Just then a young man with a camera round his neck and a map in his hand came up and drew her away, slipping an arm round her waist.
    It wasn't exactly envy, or sadness. There was no word to define the desolate feeling familiar to any cleric who beholds the closeness of couples: men and women lawfully playing out the ancient ritual of intimacy, with gestures such as stroking a neck down to the shoulders, a hand following the gentle curve of a hip, a woman placing her fingers over a man's mouth. For Quart, who would have had no difficulty in becoming intimate with many of the beautiful women who crossed his path, the certainty of his self-discipline was even stronger and more painful. He was like an amputee who still feels tingling or discomfort in a limb that is no longer there.
    He looked at his watch, put his book away, and stood up. On his way out he almost bumped into a very fat man dressed in white. The man apologised politely, removing his panama hat, and then watched Quart as he went out into the square. When Quart reached the brick-red baroque building behind a row of orange trees, a caretaker stepped forward to check his identification, but immediately let him through when he saw the dog collar. Quart passed under the main balcony bearing the coat of arms of the archbishops of Seville carved in stone, supported by two double columns, and he entered the courtyard in the shadow of La Giralda. He mounted the magnificent staircase beneath Juan de Espinal's vault with cherubs looking down at the pedestrians with a bored air, killing time in their centuries-old immobility. Upstairs were corridors of offices, busy priests coming and going with the self-assurance of those who know the terrain. They almost all wore suits with round collars, shirt fronts and black or grey shirts, and some wore ties or polo shirts under their jackets. They looked like civil servants rather than priests. Quart didn't see a single cassock.
    Monsignor Corvo's new secretary came to meet him. He was a soft little cleric, bald, very clean-looking and with a gentle manner, in a grey suit and dog collar. He had replaced Father Urbizu, killed by the chunk of cornice from Our Lady of the Tears falling on his head. Without saying a word the secretary led Quart through a reception room. The ceiling was divided into sixty coffers containing biblical scenes and symbols intended to inspire virtue in the Sevillian prelates as they governed the diocese. The room also contained some twenty frescoes and canvases, among them four by Zurbaran, one Murillo and one Mattia Preti depicting St. John the Baptist with his throat slit. As Quart walked along beside the secretary, he wondered why there was always a head on a tray in archbishops' and cardinals' anterooms. This thought was still in his mind when he saw Don Priamo Ferro. The priest of Our Lady of the Tears was standing at one end of the room, stubborn and dark in his old cassock. He was talking to a very young, fair-haired priest with glasses. Quart recognised the young priest as the builder outside the church who had stared at him when