by Ellen Datlow
The Israeli took a moment to work out what was being said.
“Light warnings? Lighthouse. The Pharos lighthouse?”
The Egyptian said excitedly, “Yes, yes! By ancient city Alexandria. Yes. Find some very old jar. Very old. Thousands years. No sea get into jar. Papers inside. Old papers. Old before coming of Roman peoples. Many more jars in sea, so I am told.”
Their voices dropped even lower and I found it was hard to catch what was being said. All I could determine was that the Israeli government are interested in any scroll that relates to its own culture. Naturally, they are prepared to pay a great deal of money and the Egyptian was busy lining his own pockets by bringing this information to the attention of the Israeli Ministry of Culture.
The thought occurred to me immediately: Might there be something in the jars that relates to the thorn?
It has been years since Tel Enkish, but once again I have a feeling of fate unfolding: of being watched by the silent past. I am convinced there is something in Cairo for me.
June 19, 1965
My contact here is Abdullah Rashid. He is well known to the professors at the University in Jerusalem and has “supplied” objects and information to them for some years.
Professor Berenstein in Jerusalem is a friend of mine and kindly arranged the surreptitious meeting with this man who is in a position to inspect and copy the contents of the jars. This morning, after “checking my credentials,” Abdullah came to my hotel. Over breakfast he explained that five of the ancient jars had already been taken from the water and two of them opened in controlled conditions. He is cagey about this knowledge of the contents, but has remarked, cryptically, that he believes there is a reference to some thorn tree amongst the first papers to be removed and examined.
The discovery is, as I knew, being kept under tight wraps, and Abdullah was surprised and impressed that I managed to hear about the parchments. It is the intention of the Egyptians to translate the documents and plays themselves, and take full credit before releasing the finds to the world at large. Hence, people like Abdullah are making a great deal of money leaking facsimiles of the parchments.
This is what Abdullah has told me: The discovery so far is of several documents that survived the fire in the Library of Alexandria two thousand years ago. The belief is that before the rioting crowd managed to penetrate the library, strip its shelves, and set the place alight, a number of soldiers loaded saddlebags with whatever the librarians could select to save, and rode from the city to a galley, which pulled offshore. Here, forty glazed amphorae were filled with manuscripts and sealed with wax, linen, more wax, and finally corked with clay. For some reason the jars were thrown overboard near the lighthouse. Perhaps the crew suddenly found themselves in danger and unable to set sail? Nothing more is known of this. Certainly the intention would have been to recover the vessels, once the danger was past, but it must be surmised that there were no survivors who knew of the whereabouts of the jars, or even that they existed. Seawater rotted the rope nets holding them together and then currents carried some of the jars out into the Mediterranean, and stretched them in a line towards Cyprus.
June 20, 1965
Today we saw the recovery operation at work. The shores of Alexandria are always bustling with small craft, mostly feluccas similar to that in which we serenely approached the island. We blended well, since I had dressed in local fashion. It was calm on the blue waters, but the sun bore down on us with unrelenting pressure and its effects have made me quite dizzy. We sailed to Pharos Island, to the northern point, and watched a large rusty dredger assist a team of divers in bringing up the precious artifacts.
Eventually we received our reward. We saw one of the amphorae winched from the water. It was long and slender, encrusted with limpets and barnacles, and dripped a particularly silky, dark green weed, which hung from the bullet-blunt jar like a beard. A crab of gigantic size dangled from this furze by one claw, as if reluctant to release the treasure that had for so long been the property of the ocean.
I asked Abdullah where the amphora would now be taken. He told me, “To the museum.” There it would be opened in controlled conditions.
“Is there no chance I could witness the opening?”
He shook his head and laughed. He told me that only certain government ministers and professors would be there. And some technical assistants, who were highly trusted.
Again the laughter as he prodded his chest.
“People like me,” he said.
Abdullah’s work would be to photograph the opening of the jars, at each stage, then any contents, page by page. Facsimiles would be made from the photographs.
“These facsimiles would be for sale?”
“Not officially of course”—he smiled—“but all things are negotiable, yes?”
June 23, 1965
Abdullah was here, but the news is not good. He has been unable to obtain copies yet, not just for me but for others, as he must not be caught compromising his position at the museum. He has photographed several manuscripts so far.
It is a mixed bag, apparently, and includes two pieces by Plato, a play by Flatus called Servius Pompus, and twenty pages of a manuscript by Julius Caesar, entitled His Secret Dialogues with the Priests of Gaul on the Nature of their Magic and Rituals.
The final piece of parchment contains an even more exquisite original hand: that (it is believed) of Homer himself. It is a fragment of his Iliad, and consists of half of the Death of Hector, all the Funeral of Patroclus, and a third or so of the Funeral Games. It is a manifestly ancient hand, and the Egyptians are quite convinced that it is the writings of Homer, adding weight to the argument that Homer was one man, and not a collective of writers.
All of this would be enough to excite me beyond tolerance, but Abdullah, aware of the nature of my search, has now told me something that holds me breathless in anticipation: that the Iliad fragment contains reference to a “blood thorn.”
That is the facsimile I want. I have told him that no matter what else he obtains, he must get that fragment of unknown Homer. My enthusiasm has no doubt put up the price of those lines of verse, but I am sure I am being skillfully teased into such a state by Abdullah. He could probably produce the goods now, but is jigging the price up with his procrastination, pretending he is being watched too closely. I can play the game too, and have let him see me packing my suitcase, and looking anxiously at my diary.
October 1, 1965
I am back at the cottage in Scarfell, the place of my birth. I have come here because I feel I have been summoned home. I have been at Cambridge for most of the summer, but the voice of something dark, something omnipresent, has called me here … home to the cottage, to the wild valley, to the tree.
I have translated much that Abdullah was able to sell me. And indeed, the documents make fascinating reading.
The “new” play by Titus Maccius Plautus (200 B.C.) is hilarious. Servius Pompus is completely typical, dealing with a common legionary in Fabius’ army who is convinced he is of noble birth, and treats his comrades like dirt. His ultimate discovery that he is slave-born earns him a permanent position: on a cart, collecting the dung left behind by Hannibal’s elephants.
The fragment of Caesar is most atypical however and very strange, detailing as it does the legendary and magic matter of the Celtic inhabitants of Europe, and there is a fascinating revelation concerning the coded language that existed within the arrangement of the stones on the landscape.
All that is for another paper. For the moment, it is the Homeric verse that excites me, for in this fragment of the epic cycle of the Greeks on the shores of Asia Minor there is a reference to the resurrection that confirms me in two beliefs: that there has been a deliberate effort to obliterate this knowledge from the world, and that someone—or some thing—is guiding my search to build again that knowledge from the clues I am gradually discovering.
The autumn day is dark as I write this, with huge columns of thunderous cloud drifti
ng over Scarfell from the west. I am working by lamplight. I am chilled to the bone. The great rugged face of the fell surrounds me, and the solitary thorn—black against the darkness—seems to lean towards me through the small leaded windows that show its sinister form. That tree has known eternity. I sense now that it has seen me learn of Achilles, and his unsure use of the ancient magic.
Here then is my crude translation of the passage of the Iliad that is relevant. It is from the “Funeral of Patroclus,” Achilles’ great friend. While Achilles sulked in his tent, during the siege of Troy, Patroclus donned the man’s armour and fought in his place, only to be killed by the Trojan hero Hector. After Patroclus’s body had been burned on the funeral pyre …
… then they gathered the noble dust of their comrade
And with ashes from the fire filled a golden vase.
And the vase was double-sealed with fat
Then placed reverently in the hut of the gallant Patroclus,
And those who saw it there laid soft linens
Over the gold tomb, as a mark of respect.
Now the divine Achilles fashioned the barrow for his friend.
A ring of stone was laid upon the earth of the shore
And clear spring water was sprinkled amongst the stones.
Then rich dark soil was carried from the fields and piled upon the stones.
Until it was higher than the storm-soaked cedar.
Prince Achilles walked about the barrow of Patroclus
And wept upon the fertile ground which held his friend
While Nestor, son of Neleus, was sent a Dream from Heaven.
The Dream Messenger came from Zeus, the Cloud-compeller
Whose words reached the ears of the excellent Achilles
Who pulled the blood thorn from the wall of Troy
And placed the thorn tree on the tear-soaked mound.
In its branches he placed the sword and shield of Patroclus
And in so doing pierced his own flesh with the thorn,
Offering lifeblood as his blood for life.
Here, the fragment returns to the story content as we know it: the funeral games for Patroclus and the final reckoning between Achilles and the Trojan champion, Hector. My translation leaves a great deal to be desired. The metre of Homer’s verse in the original seems very crude, not at all as we have become used to it, and perhaps later generations than Homer have “cleaned up” the old man’s act, as it were. But there is power in the words, and an odd obsession with “earth.” When Homer wrote them, I am sure he was powered by the magic of Zeus, a magic that Achilles had attempted to invoke.
Poor Achilles. I believe I understand his error. The whole ritual of the burial, of course, was intended to bring Patroclus back to life!
His mistake was in following the normal Mycenaean custom of burning the body of his friend upon the pyre. Patroclus never rose again. He couldn’t. It is apparent to me that Zeus tried to warn him not to follow custom, not to place the body of his friend upon the burning faggots, because several lines previously (as the body of Patroclus was laid upon the pyre), Homer had written:
Now in the honouring of Patroclus there was unkind delay,
No fire would take upon the wood below the hero.
Then the excellent Achilles walked about the pyre and mourned anew
But through his grief-eyes he saw the answer to the fire
And raised his arms and prayed to all the winds
And offered splendid sacrifice to the two gods
Boreas from the North and Zephyr of the Western Gale.
He made them rich libations from a golden cup
And implored them blow among the kindling
So that the honouring fire might grow in strength and honoured ash be made of brave Patroclus.
No fire would take and Achilles failed to see the chance that his god was offering him. Zeus was keeping the wind from the flames, but seeing his warnings go unheeded, he turned away from Achilles in a passing pique.
Nothing else in this fragment seems to relate to the subject of the thorn, or its means of operation. Abdullah has promised to send me more material when and if he can, but since nothing has arrived for several months, already I suspect that the knowledge of the lost amphorae and their precious contents is being suppressed.
What can I learn from Homer? That there was a genuine belief in the power of the thorn to raise the dead? That some “pricking of the flesh” is important? Achilles pricks his arm: his blood for life. But this is not the only life hinted at in the two references I have so far found: a child was given to the tree, according to the Gilgamesh fragment. I feel the darkness closing in.
March 11, 1970
The stone lintel is bound to the tree! Bonded to it. Tied! It is a frightening thought. This morning I tried to dislodge the stone from its position, scraping at the cement that binds it to the rest of the coarse stone of the cottage. I discovered that the ragthorn’s roots are in the house itself. It is clear to me now that my great-uncle had a far better understanding of the importance of the tree and stone than I have so far imagined. Why did he drag back the Gilgamesh stone to England? Why did he embed it in the way he did: as part of a door, part of a house. Is the “doorway” symbolic? A divide through which one passes from one world to another? Obviously the hidden side of the lintel contains words of great importance, words that he decided had to be concealed from the curious eyes of his contemporaries.
The stone is not a tomb’s marker, it is the tomb itself: the tomb of lost knowledge!
All this has occurred to me recently and this morning I began to extract the lintel from its resting place. I used proper tools and a great deal of brute strength. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was scraping through plant tissue! A thorny root stabbed out at me, then hung there, quivering and slowly curling. It has frightened me deeply. The whole lintel is covered and protected—on its hidden face—by an extension from the ragthorn that grows at the end of the garden, a menacing and evil presence. I could sever the root to the cottage, but I feel a chill of fear on each occasion that I ponder this possibility. Even now, as I write, I feel I am drawing a terrible darkness closer.
The tree has come to inhabit the house itself. There is a thick tendril of dark root running along the wall in the kitchen.
The chimney stack is webbed with tree roots. I lifted a floorboard and a thin tendril of the ragthorn jerked away from the sudden light. The floor is covered with tiny feelers.
Webbed in tree. And all centering on the stone lintel, the ancient monolith.
No wonder I feel watched. Was it my uncle’s doing? Or was he merely obeying the instructions of a more sinister authority?
September 22, 1970
I have received a message from the British Museum, forwarded from my rooms in Cambridge by my research assistant, David Wilkins. He alone knows where I live. He is an able student, a keen researcher, and I have confided in him to a considerable degree. On my behalf he is searching the dusty archives of Cambridge for other references to the “ragthorn” or to resurrection. I am convinced that many such references must exist, and that it is a part of my new purpose to elicit them, and to use them.
“Has the museum any record of William Alexander, or any knowledge of the whereabouts of his papers?” I had asked in 1967, without result.
The new letter reads quite simply thus: “We have remembered your earlier enquiry concerning the effects, records, papers, and letters of William Alexander and are pleased to inform you that a small string-bound, wax-sealed file has been discovered, a fragment of his known effects that has clearly been overlooked during the process of reinstatement of said effects to the rightful owner. We would be most pleased to offer you the opportunity to break the seal on this file, and to review the contents, prior to discussing a mutually suitable arrangement for their final disposal.”
September 25, 1970
I wonder now whether or not William Alexander intended this file to be discovered. I w
ould like to think that in his aging bones, he felt someone coming behind, a soul-mate, a follower, who would become as entranced with his work as he was himself. Considering what I believe now, however, I think it more likely that he intended at some time to recover the file in person, and perhaps after most people believed him gone.
Today I have spoken to my great-uncle. Or rather … he has spoken to me. He is as close to me now, as I sit here in my room in the Bonnington Hotel writing these notes, as close to me as if he were here in person. He has left a fragment of his work, a teasing, thrilling fragment.
What did he do with the rest of his papers? I wonder.
The man was born in 1832. There is no record of his death. The year is 1970. It is autumn. I tremble to think of this, but I wonder if a man, born before the reign of Victoria had begun, is still walking abroad, still soaking up the rain and the wind and the sun of the England that birthed him, or of the Bible lands that so captured his heart.
This is a summary, then, of the day’s events and discoveries:
This morning I entered the labyrinthine heart of the British Museum: those deep dark corridors and rooms that have been burrowed into the bruised London clay below the building. I was conducted to a small book- lined room, heavy with history, heady with the smell of parchment and manuscript. A man of sober demeanor and middle age received us. He had been working under a single pool of desk lamplight, imprisoned by it like some frugal monk. On my arrival he favoured me with room lighting, so that his desk was no longer a captive of the lamp. He was, despite his dour looks, a cheerful soul, and was as delighted by his discovery of William Alexander as I would become of my discovery of his remaining notes. Alexander, it seems, was an old rogue. He had a formidable reputation. He was known as an eccentric man, of extravagant tastes, and frontiersman’s manners. He had shocked the denizens of the nineteenth-century archaeological establishment with his rough Yorkshire speech, his outlandish manners. If it were not for the fact that he produced priceless historical artifacts from lands closed to most Europeans, he might have been ostracized by society from the outset.