The Book of Lost Fragrances: A Novel of Suspense

by M. J. Rose

  The general came closer to inspect the mummies. As he reached down into the coffin, Abu muttered a warning. Napoléon waved off the cautionary words and lifted a small object out of the male mummy’s hand. “How extraordinary,” he said as he extracted an identical piece of pottery from the female’s hand. “They are each holding one of these.” He opened the first pot, then the second. A moment passed. He sniffed the air. Then he lifted each pot to his nose, smelling one and then the other.

  “L’Etoile, they seem to contain an identical perfumed substance.” He gave one of the pots to him. “Is this a pomade? Do you recognize it?”

  The container was small enough to fit in his hand. Glazed white, it was decorated with elaborate coral and turquoise designs and hieroglyphs that encircled its belly. The lost language of the ancients no one could read. But one L’Etoile could surely smell. He touched the waxy surface. So this, here in his hand, was the wellspring of the odor that had drawn L’Etoile toward the chamber.

  He wasn’t prescient. Not a psychic. L’Etoile was sensitive to one thing only: scent. It was why at twenty he’d left Marie-Genevieve and Paris in 1789 for the dry air and heat of Egypt, to study this ancient culture’s magical, mesmerizing smells. But none of what he’d discovered in all that time compared to what he held in his hands.

  Up close, the scent was rich and ripe, and he felt himself float away on its wings, away from the tomb, out into the open, under the sky, under the moon, to a riverbank where he could feel the wind and taste the cool night.

  Something was happening to him.

  He knew who he was—Giles L’Etoile, the son of the finest perfumer and glove maker in Paris. And where he was—with general Napoléon Bonaparte in a tomb under the earth in Alexandria. Yet at the same time, he was transported, sitting beside a woman on the edge of a wide, green river under the shade of date trees. He felt he’d known this woman forever, but at the same time, she was a stranger.

  She was lovely, long and lean with thick, black hair and black eyes that were filled with tears. Her body, enrobed in a thin cotton shift, was wracked with sobs, and the sound of her misery cut through him. Instinctively he knew that something he’d done or hadn’t done was the source, the cause of her pain, and that her suffering was his to quell. He had to make a sacrifice. If he didn’t, her fate would haunt him through eternity.

  He removed the long linen robe he wore over his kilt and dipped a corner into the water so that he could wipe her cheeks. As he leaned over the river, he glimpsed his face in its surface. L’Etoile saw someone he didn’t recognize. A younger man. Twenty-five at most. His skin was darker and more golden than L’Etoile’s. His features were sharp in places where the perfumer’s were round, and his eyes were black-brown instead of light blue.

  “Look,” a voice said from far away, “there is a papyrus here.”

  Dimly, L’Etoile was aware that the voice was familiar: Abu’s. But more pressing was the sudden clatter of horses’ hooves. The woman heard them, too. The panic evident on her face. He dropped the robe and took her hand, raising her up to lead her away from the river and find a place to hide her and keep her safe.

  There was a shout. Someone fell against him. He heard pottery shattering on the alabaster floor. L’Etoile was back in the tomb, and instead of the woman’s lovely, melancholy face, he was looking at Abu, clutching a thick scroll to his chest and staring down at a broken clay pot.

  The scent had sent everyone into a trance, but L’Etoile had come out of it first. All around him, chaos had erupted. Men whispered, wept and screamed, speaking in languages L’Etoile couldn’t understand. They seemed to be battling invisible demons, struggling with hidden foes, comforting and taking comfort from unseen companions.

  What had happened to him? What was happening to the men around him?

  One of the young Egyptian workers was slumped against the wall, smiling and singing a song in some ancient language. Another was lying on the ground moaning; a third was striking out at an invisible assailant. Two of the savants were unaffected but watching in horror. Saurent was kneeling in prayer, a beatific expression on his face, speaking in Latin, reciting a mass. The cartographer was beating on the wall with his fist, crying out a man’s name over and over.

  L’Etoile’s eyes found Napoléon. The general was standing, frozen, by the sarcophagus, staring at a spot on the wall as if it were a window onto a distant vista. His skin was paler than usual, and sweat dotted his brow. He looked sickly.

  There were scents that could cure ills and others that could make you ill, poisons that seduced you with their sweetness before they sucked the breath out of you. L’Etoile’s father had taught him about all of them and warned him about their effects.

  Now, here, he was afraid for himself and for his commander and for the men in this room. Had they all been poisoned by some ancient noxious scent?

  He had to help. Grabbing a small gold box from a pile of treasures against the far wall, he opened it, dumped its contents—gold and colored glass—onto the floor, and then hastily thrust the still-intact clay pot inside. Scooping up the shards of the pot that the general had dropped, L’Etoile added them and slammed the lid shut.

  The scent was still conspicuous, but now that the perfume containers were enclosed, the air slowly began to clear. L’Etoile watched as first one man and then another stood and looked around, each trying to get his bearings.

  There was a loud crash as Napoléon fell onto the wooden coffin, smashing and splintering its cover. The perfumer had heard the rumors that the general suffered from epilepsy, the same nervous disorder that had affected his hero, Julius Caesar. Now froth bubbled from the general’s mouth, and he shook with convulsions.

  His aide-de-camp rushed to his side and bent over him.

  Had the strange perfume brought on this episode? It had certainly affected L’Etoile. The dizziness and disorientation he’d been experiencing since he’d entered this tomb were only now starting to dissipate.

  “This place is cursed!” Abu yelled out as he threw the papyrus scroll back inside the coffin and on top of the desiccated bodies. “We must leave here now!” He rushed out of the inner chamber and down the first corridor.

  “The tomb is cursed,” the young workers repeated with trembling voices as they followed, pushing and shoving each other out through the narrow entryway.

  The savants went next.

  Napoléon’s aide-de-camp helped the general—who had recovered his faculties but was still weak—escorting him out, leaving L’Etoile alone in the burial chamber of the perfumer and the woman who had been entombed with him.

  Bending over the lovers, he grabbed the papyrus scroll that Abu had thrown into the coffin, added it to the contents of the small gold box, and then shoved the box deep inside his satchel.

  About the Author

  M. J. Rose is the internationally bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Reincarnationist, The Memorist, and The Hypnotist. She is a founding board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors, AuthorBuzz.com. She lives in Connecticut and can be reached at www.mjrose.com.

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