The Omega scroll

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T he Cardinal Secretary of State to the Vatican stood at his second-floor window in the Apostolic Palace and stared out over the Piazza San Pietro. Cardinal Lorenzo Petroni had two things on his mind. Of the two, the Pope’s failing health was perhaps the more urgent but the woman was now by far the more dangerous.

The most powerful cardinal in the Catholic Church was tall and thin and cut an elegant but formidable figure. His soutane, edged in scarlet, was immaculate. A pale angular face with features at once delicate and steely; eyes blue and piercing. His fine black hair streaked with distinguished grey.

Below him the early dusk of winter had already enveloped the great square of St Peter’s, and although the rain had stopped the cobblestones were still wet, glistening in the soft reflected light from the Vatican buildings. A lone scrap of paper bowled across the now deserted piazza, disappearing into the surrounds of Bernini’s Colonnade, the wind growling around the columns as it had for over three hundred years.

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