by Lazlo Ferran
“Hm.” He seemed miles away. “Oh yes. Yes dear boy. It is genuine as far as I can tell. The ink looks authentic and the vellum. It talks about what we are interested in.”
“Alright,” I said. “I am prepared to make you an offer. 7,500 Guineas.”
“Well that would be fine Mr er?” Neither of us answered him. “That would be fine if I didn’t know how interested you are in this.” He was relishing this and I knew he would want to go a lot higher. I decided to try a gambit of my own.
“Well if the man who wanted to buy this was also hoping to, one day, buy the whole document, then he would be a fool to offer over what he could afford for the first few sheets.”
The man laughed. “Touché!”
Henry smiled at me. He had noticed not only my ploy, but that I had already learned from him to use the word document, as a sign of respect, rather than ‘book’. A book was an object, a document was a historical record, something much more vital.
“Point taken Sir. But I do believe you are prepared to offer a little more.”
“8,200.”
“Um. A serious offer. But I would have to leave now if that was your limit. André. Would you?” He pointed to the document and André took it gently from Henry, placed it back in the case and closed it. Henry looked a little flustered.
“Really, I cannot go much higher. But 8,400 I think is a very fair offer.”
“André. Another glass of Champagne for us all.” He sipped his and considered the offer. He took so long, I almost offered him more but managed to stop myself.
“Are you serious about the rest of the document, sir?”
“Yes. I would at least like to see it.”
“How do you know I have it?”
“I don’t. Do you?”
“I have access to it. A buyer who was to offer 8,500 for a single leaf would secure a viewing, say within a week?”
Now I smiled. He was probably now exploring how much he could get for the whole document. I waited for a very long time, considering this.
“8,500 it is then. And an appointment within one week?”
“Done, Sir.”
I reached over to shake his hand but he pulled away. I knew then that he wasn’t blind.
The exchange took place with me carefully counting out the money without revealing how much I had left. Then with the precious document in its case tucked securely under my arm I helped Henry while he rose stiffly from the seat with the aid of his stick. We clambered awkwardly out of the caravan and walked back to the car. The second bodyguard watched us while we started the car, turned around, and drove off.
We talked excitedly as we drove. Henry told me that the first paragraph had given him a possible explanation for the phases of strange deaths, from crushing, every sixty years.
“It says something about the heartbeat of God.”
“Yes. Go on!”
“Well, it says the victims of these demons called Warg are usually, but not always, crushed, and that they are summoned by the Devil.” He looked at my face for a reaction.
“Well none of that is really surprising, although it is a bit vague and par for the course for 13th Century superstition, don’t you think?”
“Yes but the really good bit is this. It says, and I am not sure of this so I need to get home and check my Latin, it says that the serpents appear as if from water in the air! I feel sure that the next paragraph will reveal more. I caught a few words but that André fellow took it back from me before I could really see anything much.”
We argued about what this might mean for a while, and after stopping for petrol, perhaps two hours later, I could bare it no longer.
“I really need to know what it says. Let’s stop now and read it. I can’t wait.” I pulled the car over at the next entrance to a field, and we stopped right in front of the old wooden gate. The sun was lowering in the West, although it was still early and a cloud, like a bloody gash, stretched across the sky just above the horizon. I opened the boot, passed the case to Henry, and then paced up and down in the early evening while Henry read the pages of ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’.
“It says here something about an order called – Ordo Lupus. Yes. Notice that it distinguished between wolf and warg. Did you also notice how it said serpents earlier when talking about the water in the air?”
“No, I don’t read Latin, remember?”
“Yes, sorry. It also mentions something about a counter-brotherhood of some sort, and a Catholic priesthood who were violently opposed to both, believing them both heretical. There is something else about some kind of potent symbol or something but I cannot really make much of it.”
“Tantalising but it doesn’t really help us very much. I guess that’s just what he wanted, the old scoundrel. Did you notice he wasn’t even blind?”
“Oh yes. It’s just a ruse, so that he can watch us better. I have seen other dealers do all sorts of strange things to get an edge. Didn’t you feel me kick you under the table?”
“Don’t you think it’s an awfully big coincidence that this one page just happens to have information about the Warg, the one thing I am most interested in? How did he know that?”
“Yes, it is too much for a coincidence, but you haven’t noticed the most significant thing about recent events at all, have you?”
“Haven’t I? What’s that?”
“Well it’s so obvious I am not surprised you haven’t seen it.”
He was being coy so I walked over to the driver’s side door and stuck my head in. Henry looked at me sheepishly.
“Go on.”
“Well I don’t like to point this out to you really because I know how you are suffering inside. At least I think I know. I haven’t lost a child myself, both of mine are grown up and married, but I lost many friends during the war and I am sure your suffering is worse.” He chose his words carefully and I was touched.
“Henry. Just say it. Right now I badly need to understand things – understand just something. Anything to make sense of all this.”
“Alright, dear boy. Well, what struck me was that this serpent targeted your daughter at all. I mean, why you? You say you can sense evil and I believe you. From what you say, your grandfather had connections to this society, Ordo Lupus, who seem to be opposed to these Warg. So why somebody close to you?”
“Yes. Yes, I never thought of that. I see what you mean. Perhaps that means something?” My heart lifted just a little, at the thought, for the first time since starting down this mysterious road to explain Annie’s death. At the same time, a cold thrill ran down my spine. What was I dealing with here? Was a demon actually baiting me?
“Henry. You’re a genius! Now let’s get home and have some of that excellent sherry of yours.” The countryside in the dimming light suddenly seemed threatening.
Henry, even with the aid of his Latin reference books, could deduce no more from the four pages of ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’, but he received an invitation for me to view the whole book seven days later.
Henry telephoned the evening before the meeting was to take place. “I have some bad news dear boy. The meeting has been cancelled. Mr Kalmus has sold to somebody else.”
“Somebody else! Well, who?”
“I don’t know yet. I am trying to find out.”
“Why the hell did he sell? I don’t get it. Why offer it to us and then just sell.” Shit! I wondered if I could sue for breach of contract. The viewing had been part of the deal, hadn’t it? But then how do you sue someone working on the black market?
***
“Hi, Henry. What have you found out?” I was answering an answer-phone message from Henry a few months later.
“Well, I never did find out who the buyer actually was, but a friend has told me something very interesting. Apparently the Bibliothèque Nationale now has a copy. Now I know they didn’t have a copy a few years ago but I don’t know how recently they acquired it. They have kept very quiet about it and considering that most expe
rts think there are only three copies in existence and possibly just the one, it is most unusual.”
“So is it possible to see it?”
“Well yes apparently it is. It’s held at the François-Mitterrand Library in Paris. You have to go there and see it.”
Chapter Two
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“In the roof space above the Cathedral I wait. From the corner of my eye I notice something white protruding from my jacket pocket. Glancing at it, I see it’s the envelope with the divorce papers, which I had so hurriedly stuffed in my pocket on the day I left Nevers. I had completely forgotten that it was there. I pull the crumpled envelope from the pocket and lean up against the cool stone of the sarcophagus to read the contents once more. Divorce papers, neatly typed and held together by a single staple; cold and seemingly indifferent but hidden within it were, encrypted – as women’s true feelings often are – the final thoughts of me from my wife. I notice a pink mark on the corner of a sheet. ‘Nail polish’, I think to myself. But Rose never wore pink nail polish and neither did my secretary, Cosette? Ayshea did, however. So that was what she meant when she said, ‘I know something perhaps you didn’t know.’
I read again the statement on a single sheet which Rose has added to the end of the rest of the papers. She writes, ‘I never had any wish that it would come to this and no wish now to cause you any pain or even discomfort, but it seemed to me that we could no longer find the common ground which a couple need to stand upon, in order that we could exist as a couple.
‘Throughout your unusual life you have experienced things in a way others could not have. I remember you telling me how you had felt scarred by the suicide attempt of the teacher at school, how you felt the tremendous weight of guilt that someone who had knowledge of a disaster before it happened but could do nothing to prevent it.’
Yes. That had deeply affected me, I remember.”
I arrived at 8 am, outside 58 Rue de Richelieu, Paris, the location of the main Bibliothèque Nationale de France library, and found myself third in a queue in the bright sunlight. A middle-aged man in a suit, with a bang of slick dark hair over his forehead, was first, and a young, and rather gorgeous dark-haired beauty was second. I contemplated speaking to both, but then thought better of it. If either of them were researching my book, alerting them in any way might have made it even harder to obtain it. Standing in the queue, I was vaguely aware that I was attracted to the girl in front, but I was also irritated by this. I just wanted to get hold of the book and go home. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted that she was wearing one of those afghan coats with long fur trim and jeans with cowboy boots. Underneath the coat was a tight fitting, black jumper. She had a nice figure but I dismissed it. “Way too young and silly”, I said to myself. I thought she was about twenty-five.
When we were finally let in, I walked through the main library room, with its delicately scalloped roof supported by thin spiral columns, and was surprised to find that the research room was a huge rotunda, much like the British Library in London. I asked one of the librarians in French how to go about requesting a book and was given a form to complete. Returning it, completed, I was given a ticket with a table number, and told to wait there for the book. I waited, and waited. After two hours I went back to the counter and asked, politely in French, if the book would take much longer to arrive. My question was met with the most imperious French disdain and a side-swiping “Please be patient Monsieur,” in English. At 1 pm, finally, I saw a librarian walking towards me but without any book that I could see. She leaned over and quietly said, close to my face, “Je suis monsieur désolé. Ce livre a été demandé par quelqu’un d’autre. Veuillez essayer encore un autre jour.” Incredibly, I was handed back my form with a note. The book had been reserved!
In my impatience, waiting for the book, I had grabbed another book, a French translation of ‘The Gardnerian Book of Shadows’ by Gerald Gardner, to scan, hardly taking in any words at all. Although I had frequently glanced at the two ahead of me in the queue earlier, I wondered if perhaps I had missed something and that one of them, somehow, had priority over myself and even now was reading it!
After a heated and pointless exchange in broken French with the librarian, during which she claimed ignorance of the book’s whereabouts, hunching her shoulders apologetically, I prepared to leave. I was fuming. I grabbed my bag and stuffed my research paper and pens into it, and looked for my two competitors. I wasn’t going to leave without making a final effort to find the book.
The library was busy but I spotted the man with the dark hair quite quickly. I walked purposefully toward the man, from the opposite side of the reading desk, so that he could see me approach. He didn’t even glance at me so I stood at the desk and coughed once. He looked up, quite annoyed, and for a moment I felt embarrassed by my impertinence. In my most formal French I explained my predicament, and with a heartfelt apology backed with a little annoyance of my own, I asked if he knew who might have borrowed the book for the last two days. With a look of quiet victory on his face, he raised his book from the desk so that I could see its title – something about Napoleon and the early years after the French Revolution. I apologized for bothering him. It took longer to find the girl because she had taken off the coat. She was right over the other side of the large rotunda and while I approached I was grumbling to myself that the man had looked so smug.
I approached her from the front too, although a young man was sitting on the opposite side of the bench, but at the last moment I swerved to approach her from the side. It was an unconscious decision and not in order to avoid letting the man overhear. I wondered why I had done IT but then the girl was already looking up at me. For a moment I was astonished at her beauty and forgot to say anything at all.
“Oui?” she said.
I had noticed her long black hair before, but now she fixed me with two gorgeous eyes of cinnamon.
This time my politeness was genuine as I explained my predicament. I also told her I had come from the South of France just to see the book, and as I proceeded with my plea, I looked deep into her eyes and tried to persuade her to help me.
She smiled, and, just like the man had done, she raised the book so that I could see its title. I was familiar with the book, ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ which was published in the 15th Century and basically a Catholic Priest’s guide to torturing and putting to death of witches. It was a very scholarly book and I immediately assumed she was some kind of historian.
“Pardonnez-moi,” I said and walked back to the enquiries desk. I left my Nevers address, and explained that if I didn’t come back tomorrow, could they please contact me when the book became available.
I decided to spend the afternoon sight-seeing, but in the Louvre. I looked at many paintings and saw none. There was too much troubling me.
I went back the following morning to the library and still the book was not available even though I listened to the books ordered by the two people ahead of me in the queue. This time, though, the librarian, a much older woman, looked kindly at me and I decided to try one last tactic.
“Parlez-vous Anglais?”
“Yes Sir. Not too well these days but we can speak in English.”
“This book has been reserved somehow for the last two days even though I spoke to the people who were ahead of me on both days and none had borrowed it. Today, I also know nobody in front of me borrowed it. Could you please find out where it is? Is that possible?”
As if flattered that I had called on her professional pride for help, she smiled at me. “Wait here Sir. I will see what I can find out.”
After only a few minutes she returned holding a slip of paper; the ‘fantôme’ as they call it. This was the card that occupies the place of the book while it is being borrowed, and is the triplicate of the forms that are filled out.
“I cannot tell you who has borrowed this Monsieur, but I know this man. I have met him many times and h
e is a serious academic. Would you like me to speak WITH him?”
“Yes please. That would be very nice of you.”
“What shall I say?”
“Well if I could borrow it for just one hour, I am sure that would be enough for me.”
“Alright. I will try. Wait here.”
Again she was gone a short while and returned with a hardly-constrained smile.
“The researcher said you can have it for two hours while he has lunch. In about fifteen minutes.”
“Great. Could I just make a telephone call?”
“Of course. You can use this telephone but make it brief.”
“Henry. It’s me. I have the book but for only two hours. What should I copy? I had thought I would have more time to compare notes with you.”
“Well dear boy. Just copy everything you can but if I was you, I would look for the missing page and start there.”
“How will I find the missing page?”
“I don’t know dear boy.”
I put the telephone down and had an idea. I called over the librarian again.
“There are some page missing in this book. Could you ask the researcher to mark this place and in return, I can copy the missing page for him?”
Her eyebrows raised right up, but she went back through the door again. She returned, this time accompanied by a very serious looking gentleman; balding, with red hair, and glasses, in a tweed suit with a waistcoat.
He leaned over the desk, close to my ear and in very well-spoken English he asked, “You know about the missing page?”
“Not only do I know about it, but I have access to a copy.”
“Remarkable. The library, under my direction only recently acquired this book. Do you realise what that is worth?”
I lied. “Not exactly but I guess it’s worth something.”
He pulled away and we both gave each other a long stare, each weighing the other.
“I see. Yes to me it definitely is. I am writing a book, a serious book about ‘De Secretis Scientia Occultis’, and I have competition, so it would be very useful for me to see it. What would you want in return?”