The Seville Communion by Arturo Pérez-Reverte Page A

he met Father Ferro and Gris Marsala. The two priests stopped talking and looked at him, Father Ferro expressionless, the young man sullen, defiant. Quart nodded briefly at them, but neither responded. They had obviously been waiting some time and had not been offered a chair.
    His Grace Don Aquilino Corvo, archbishop of Seville, liked to adopt a pose rather like the Gentleman with his Hand on his Chest that hangs in the Prado. Against, his dark suit he would rest his white hand bearing the emblem of his rank: a ring with a large yellow stone. Thinning hair, a long angular face, and the gold cross on his chest all reminded one of the painting, an impression the archbishop was happy to go along with. Aquilino Corvo was a pedigree prelate, the result of a careful process of ecclesiastical selection. Skilful, manipulative, accustomed to sailing on stormy seas, he had not been appointed archbishop by chance. He enjoyed considerable support within the nunciature of Madrid, had the backing of Opus Dei, and had excellent relations with both the government and the opposition in the Junta de Andalucia. None of this prevented him from engaging in marginal, even personal activities. He was, for instance, a bullfighting aficionado and always had a front-row seat when Curro Maestral or Espartaco were appearing. He was also a supporter of both local football clubs, Betis and Sevilla, out of pastoral neutrality as well as prudence, his eleventh commandment being "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". Last but not least, he detested Lorenzo Quart.
    As Quart had expected after his reception from the secretary, the first part of the meeting was cold but polite. Quart handed over his credentials - a letter from the cardinal secretary of state and another from Monsignor Spada. He gave the archbishop some general information on his mission, facts with which the archbishop was already well acquainted. The archbishop offered him his unconditional support and asked to be kept informed of his progress. Quart knew that in fact the archbishop would do everything possible to sabotage his mission. Corvo, under no illusion that Quart would tell him anything, would have exchanged a year in purgatory for a front-row seat if the special envoy from Rome slipped on a banana skin. But they were professionals and knew the rules, at least as far as appearances went. They eyed each other across the desk like fencers waiting to strike.
    The shadow of their last meeting in that office hung over them. It was a couple of years ago, His Grace had just been appointed archbishop. Quart had handed him a thick report listing the lapses in security during the Holy Father's visit to Seville during the previous ecclesiastical year. A married priest, suspended a divinis , had tried to stab the Pontiff while ostensibly handing him a memorandum on celibacy. An explosive device was found in the convent where His Holiness was staying, in a basket of clean clothes delicately embroidered for the occasion by the nuns. And thanks to continuous leaks to the press from the archbishop's palace, the schedule and itinerary for the Pope's visit was entered with horrifying precision in the diaries of all the Islamic terrorists in the Mediterranean. It was the IEA, and specifically Quart, who stepped in quickly, changing all His Grace's original security arrangements, as the Curia scolded the archbishop. In despair, the nuncio mentioned the matter to His Holiness, in terms that nearly cost Monsignor Corvo his recently awarded rank and in addition almost gave him an apoplectic fit. Once he'd got over this setback, the archbishop proved to be an excellent prelate. But in a most unpriestly way he allowed this early crisis, the humiliation, and the part Quart had played in it to gnaw away at him and disturb his equanimity. That very morning he confided the loss of equanimity to his long-suffering confessor, an elderly cleric at the cathedral who heard him on the first Friday of every