A Book of Bones

by John Connolly

  London had seemed like sanctuary of a kind, as long as one thought of it as salvation and not enforced exile for life. There were other Huguenots here, a small community of those who had lost so much, but had already commenced building new lives in a foreign land, resigned to their banishment. And what did it matter where they lived and worshipped, they proclaimed, for was God not with them wherever they went? And Couvret would nod in agreement, and give thanks to a deity whose power and benignity he had begun to doubt.

  Because if God was truly omnipotent, and had created all things, then how could an abomination such as the Atlas exist, except by His will?

  * * *

  The offer of a position with the lawyer Josias Quayle of London came to Couvret while he was still in Amsterdam, where he was seeking safe passage from the Continent. One Daem, a Frisian mercenary, delivered the message to him at Het Teken van de Eik, the Sign of the Oak, an inn Couvret had chosen more for security than comfort, a decision his bones had come to regret. Of Josias Quayle, Daem could tell Couvret little, except that he was one of many English Protestants that felt compelled to extend the hand of charity to their suffering Huguenot brothers and sisters. Daem urged Couvret not to reject Quayle’s assistance, reminding him that he was a wanted man. As a spy and enforcer for the Protestant Henry of Navarre, Couvret had Catholic blood on his hands, and was rumored to have been involved in the murder of the virulently anti-Huguenot Henry I, Duke of Guise, and his brother, Louis Cardinal de Guise, in December 1588, a rumor that Daem repeated to Couvret at the Oak. Couvret had offered Daem no reply to the allegation, which the latter took as a tacit admission of guilt.

  Yet Daem was not to be trusted. He would accept money from any side, and it was not apparent whose gold was currently lending weight to his purse. Upon making inquiries—for although hunted, and cornered in a foreign city, he had lost none of his skills as an intelligencer—Couvret subsequently learned that Daem had come to Amsterdam on the trail of a clerk named Van Agteren. It was this same Van Agteren who had first told Couvret of the Fractured Atlas, although Couvret saw no reason to share with Daem his knowledge of the man.

  Even had Couvret been disinclined to believe Van Agteren’s account of a book that could seemingly alter its own contents, and reflect its environment in the manner of a mirror; even had he doubted Van Agteren’s story of the death of his lover, torn apart by an unseen force linked to the Atlas; even had he not himself glimpsed a dark form, like a shadow granted independence of its source, in the vicinity of the Oak before Van Agteren’s sudden departure, and later detected a similar presence belowdecks on the Orcades as it carried him to sanctuary in England, one that had left its mark in the form of the shredded primitive drapes on the berth opposite his own; still Couvret could have identified the malevolence of the Atlas as soon as he discovered it among his possessions during the crossing. Van Agteren, he knew, must have placed the book there in an effort to save himself from it, and by doing so had cursed Couvret.

  In his rooms by Holborn, Couvret now recalled picking up the Atlas. He had sensed its otherness, and felt he was handling not an inanimate object, but some living entity that pulsed faintly under the pressure of his palm; and this was before he opened the book and perceived the hold of the ship being replicated before him on a previously blank vellum page, as though some unseen hand were assiduously recording what had so suddenly been revealed to sight. As if this were not strange enough, Couvret’s brief examination of the ink, or whatever other substance was being used to create the impression, indicated that it did not appear to be on the surface of the vellum but within it. Sometimes it manifested itself as strange writing, at others as unfamiliar constellations, or the lineaments of continents as yet unmapped.

  And all the time, it pulsed warmly.

  Van Agteren had tried to destroy this book, and failed. Faced with a similar challenge, Couvret briefly considered throwing it overboard, but something threatening and otherworldly lingered in the dark, and the damaged drapes were a reminder of its physicality. Were Couvret to attempt harm to the Atlas, it would not be tolerated for long; of this he was certain. So Couvret concealed the book between the baseboards of an old Dutch chest, which he assumed to be part of the ship’s cargo, if not its furnishings. He placed with it a Bible, in the hope that God might succeed where man had failed. As he disembarked, he did his best to put the Atlas from his mind, and in this way came to London, and entered the orbit of the lawyer Quayle.

  * * *

  Two days later, upon returning to his lodgings, Couvret found that persons unknown had delivered the old Dutch chest to his rooms. Hidden between the baseboards was the Atlas, but it was no longer wrapped in a muslin shirt, as he had left it, and the Bible was gone, although the bottom of the chest was sprinkled with ash and fragments of burned paper.

  Couvret lifted the Atlas. A drop of blood exploded on the cover and instantly vanished, as though absorbed by the deeper red of its bindings. Another fell, and a third, as Couvret felt the blood coursing down his face. He scrambled for the little sheet of polished metal that served as his mirror, and discovered that he had begun to bleed from the eyes. Moments later, the pain commenced, and he understood that this was his punishment for trying to rid himself of the book. Couvret screamed, but no one came, even though the sounds must have been audible to many. His sight became obscured, but he managed to inch his way to his bed, where he lay until the pain passed, and was relieved not to find himself blind by the end of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  But he could not have said to whom he was speaking, beyond the Atlas itself.

  * * *

  Josias Quayle did not involve himself in criminal cases. He eschewed any such dealings, preferring to limit himself to matters pertaining to wills, the transfer of property, and business transactions of the most intractable and complex of natures—the more recondite and involved, the better. He kept only one clerk, named Kenge, who was as sparing with speech as a miser was with money, and acted as guardian of his master’s door.

  At first Couvret could not understand why Quayle should have seen fit to offer him more than temporary shelter, especially given the differences between the legal systems in France and England. But Quayle, he discovered, acted on behalf of English gentlemen with interests far beyond the shores of their own land. With the French political situation in such turmoil, Quayle was grateful to have someone with knowledge of its institutions, as well as business and familial connections that might be exploited to the benefit of his clients—and, indeed, Quayle himself, since what benefited the patron also profited the lawyer. Couvret might have been a Huguenot, and a fugitive, but he had spent many years moving among the wealthy and powerful, who are always seeking to secure, and improve, their position. For such individuals, the most fanatical of them excepted, a man’s religious beliefs were less important than his usefulness and trustworthiness, to which the Jews could volubly attest. Profit knows no color, and no creed. Thanks to his network of confidants—and aided by the growing unpopularity of the Catholic League in France, and the ascent of Henry of Navarre to the French throne in 1594—Couvret made himself invaluable to the firm of Quayle, and within four years, having immersed himself in the English legal system, was adjudged fit to join the great brotherhood of English lawyers. He was simultaneously, and unexpectedly, made a partner in the firm of Quayle, an arrangement celebrated with a great feast in the Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn.

  Yet even as the legal community of London toasted his success, Couvret was struggling to conceal his unhappiness. Quayle had requested seven years of service from him in return for the provision of sanctuary, an agreement never committed to paper yet one that Couvret, as a gentleman, had no intention of breaching. No one could say that Quayle had not behaved admirably, even generously, toward him. Couvret was now a partner, with comfortable living quarters adjacent to the firm’s offices. He had money and respect. He was also engaged in the cautious ci
rcling of a widow named Thomasin Hockins, whose daughter, Christabell, was barely days older than Couvret’s own Jeanne would have been, had she survived. He was, he would readily have admitted, the envy of many a man in London.

  But Quayle had changed, or perhaps some aspect of his character, previously concealed, was now making itself apparent to his new partner. Couvret had long known that Quayle was not greatly loved in Chancery, being regarded as cold and unyielding even by the norms of his profession. This made him popular with his clients, the majority of whom were of a similar nature to the lawyer. But at the French Church on Threadneedle Street, and the Strangers’ Church at Austin Friars, where Protestants from the Continent came to gather, worship, and exchange gossip, Couvret had long heard darker rumors of Quayle, principal among them being that he was a secret occultist.

  Couvret initially dismissed these whispers as hearsay. By then he had been working with Quayle for almost two years, and had detected no indication of any such interests. Yet the seed of doubt was sown, and the rumors grew increasingly persistent. More than once was Couvret advised to sever his relationship with Quayle for fear that he might become tainted by association. Accusations of sorcery could not only undermine his position, but might lead to torture and death.

  Yet Couvret remained loyal to the man who had offered him sanctuary, and it never once occurred to him that Quayle might have an interest in securing the Atlas.

  * * *

  For the most part, Couvret had largely ceased to be troubled by the Atlas. It occasionally intruded on his thoughts, and sometimes on his dreams, but days, even weeks might go by without his reflecting upon the fact of its existence. After his first four months in London, he had entrusted it for safekeeping to one Gardiol, a Huguenot from Provence who kept a book stall at St. Paul’s, enjoining him only to keep it wrapped in its coverings, and never to admit to its presence in his home. Gardiol, who was aware of Couvret’s past as an intelligencer, assumed it to be some record obtained in the course of this work, and decided it would be better if he remained ignorant of its contents. He stored it behind loose bricks in his cellar, along with certain political tracts that might well have seen him hung, drawn, and quartered for treason had they been discovered.

  Thus the situation might have continued—the book hidden, the partnership achieved, marriage to a wealthy widow completing the picture—had not Quayle, as the lawyers drank their toast to the new partner, and the Old Hall echoed with chatter and laughter, leaned close to Couvret and whispered in his right ear, “What know you of an atlas?”

  * * *

  Gardiol poured a glass of jenever for himself, and one for Couvret. A candle, the sole illumination in the room, flickered on the table between them, itself the only surface not encumbered by books, papers, and vellum, along with assorted quills, inks, and waxes. Gardiol supplemented his income by law-writing—the copying or creation of legal documents—and Couvret encouraged Quayle to engage him for such tasks whenever possible. It was no great imposition, since all of Chancery declared Gardiol’s work to be superior to that of any other, in every respect.

  “You seem ill at ease, my friend,” said Gardiol.

  “I think I was followed here,” said Couvret.

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know.” He took a sip of the jenever. “I don’t believe it was a man.”

  “A woman, then.”

  “Nor a woman, either, nor cat nor dog.”

  Couvret had not glimpsed the shadow in years, not since the Orcades. Now he had seen it three times in as many days, the first as he returned from the Old Hall through the winter darkness, Quayle’s words still echoing, as surely as though the lawyer himself were continuing to whisper them from the shadows.

  “What know you of an atlas?”

  And Couvret had been so discomfited by Quayle’s inquiry that he had answered wrongly, so very wrongly. He should have replied that he was familiar with many atlases, although he had never as yet owned one himself, their construction being a matter of great expertise and expense. Yet now that he was a partner, he might consider commissioning one, or perhaps just a print of his homeland, because he missed it still…

  But instead he had answered, “Nothing.”

  And Quayle had known that he was lying.

  Now, in Gardiol’s rooms, Couvret confessed all to his friend. He gave him an account of the Atlas’s discovery, and the deaths of Van Agteren’s master, the scholar Schuyler, and of Schuyler’s daughter, and Van Agteren’s lover, Eliene, each a victim of the Atlas. He spoke to him of the events on the Orcades, and the chimerical presence he had felt both on the ship and, earlier, in Amsterdam. Finally, he informed him of Quayle’s question in the Old Hall, and the reappearance of the shadow.

  “This Van Agteren, you believed all he told you?” said Gardiol.

  “Not at first. Later, I had no doubt.”

  “Did you suspect him of murder?”

  “Because of what befell his lover and her father? I did, and I have since established that others also suspected him of involvement in those deaths, because he was already being hunted when we met. We had that much in common. It was what drew him to me.”

  “And what changed your mind about these matters?”

  “The shadow. The Atlas.”

  “The same book that you entrusted to me?”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry for it.”

  Gardiol refilled Couvret’s glass; fear did little for a man’s appetite, but much for his thirst.

  “You know that I have long warned you about Quayle,” said Gardiol.

  “You and others, although you accept his money readily enough.”

  Gardiol took the sally in good spirit. “I don’t believe gold and silver take on the aspect of their possessors. Even if they did, it would cease upon any transfer of ownership.”

  “That’s expedient reasoning.”

  “But necessary, if one is not to die in penury. And before you resume your sermonizing, let it be recorded that you have accepted more than gold from Quayle: you have bound yourself to him, and share his sins in the eyes of many.”

  “In yours?”

  “Not in mine. We have known each other too long for that, but you have exposed yourself to his humors. Quayle suffers from an excess of black and yellow biles, and such a combination of choler and melancholy promises only harm to those around him. It may be why he has never married.”

  “He has a woman.”

  “He has a whore,” Gardiol corrected.

  Her name was Zenobia, although Couvret had cause to doubt it was her given name, and she had been sharing Quayle’s bed for some months. Zenobia was small, dark, and barely nineteen. She appeared delicate enough to be snapped like a twig by a pair of moderately strong hands, but one of Couvret’s sources claimed that, some years earlier, she had killed a merchant in Cheapside when he tried to rape her, and he may not have been the first man to suffer at her hands, or the last. She might even have been charged with murder in the Cheapside incident had it not been for Quayle’s intervention. There were suggestions that Quayle had been grooming her since childhood—as ward, lover, and more.

  “I don’t believe she is a whore,” said Couvret, “but if you feel compelled to suggest as much to her face, I’ll make sure that your eulogy mentions all of your accomplishments.”

  Gardiol retreated.

  “What do you know of John Dee?” asked Gardiol.

  “That he is, or was, the Queen’s alchemist,” said Couvret, “and were it not for her protection, he might well have burned at the stake by now.”

  “He will burn in the next world, if even half of what they say about him in this one is true. As it happens, two books of his were offered to me for sale not long ago.”

  “I did not think Dr. Dee would part with his collection so easily.”

  “He did not. While Dee was wandering in Europe, his library at Mortlake was vandalized, and many of his most prized books and instruments were stolen. This would have been
in, oh, 1587 or 1588, I believe. The damage and the losses were discovered only upon his return, and he has been seeking the missing volumes ever since.”

  “And why should this concern us?”

  “The man who tried to sell them to me claimed they had been promised to him by one William Wentworth in the event of the latter’s death.”

  At this Couvret set aside his jenever. William Wentworth had formerly been among Quayle’s familiars, until Couvret suggested it might be wiser to dispense with his services, Wentworth having a reputation for gross illegality that sat uneasily with the duties of a lawyer. Quayle had agreed, albeit with a show of reluctance, although Couvret thought he might secretly have been seeking an excuse to rid himself of this creature. Wentworth took his dismissal badly, although he did not live long enough to nurse a grudge. Within days, he was found poisoned in his room.

  “Wentworth did not strike me as one inclined to make bequests of books,” said Couvret. “He could neither read nor write.”

  “And yet it seems he held in his garret part of Dee’s collection.”