Equinox

by Michael White

  Philip found it almost immediately. They sat at a tiny wooden table in the kitchen end of the main room with the book opened between them. It was entitled Isaac Newton: Biography of a Magus by Liam Ethwiche.

  'Charlie was particularly fond of this book,' Laura said recalling the words Sabrina had used. Then she added. 'The key has a number on it.' It was number 112.

  'A page number, I would imagine,' Philip said and flicked through the book until he reached page 112.

  As they scanned through the first two paragraphs, they noticed the anomaly at almost the same moment. In the middle of a line, the thread was suddenly lost. The final part of the sentence read: Paddington Station, box 14, Geoff's party, sweet pea.

  Philip stood up and walked over to the window. Outside, the grey buildings and the grey sky seemed to merge. Rush hour had started and the traffic was stacking up on New Cross Road. At the end of the street, four lines of vehicles were stationary, their exhausts billowing fumes into the late-afternoon air. He did not notice the spotlessly clean black Toyota parked across the street.

  'Make any sense to you?' he asked.

  'Yeah, it does, actually,' Laura replied. 'Let's go.' She tucked the book under her arm. 'You want to drive, or shall I?'

  Paddington Station was no more than six miles from New Cross as the crow flies but it took them nearly ninety minutes to fight their way through the traffic, including a twenty-minute period during which, thanks to roadworks near Piccadilly Circus, they were immobilised on Pall Mall. The sun had set as they approached the Thames from the south some forty minutes earlier, and as they turned along Praed Street the seedy neon red and lemon glow only accentuated the drabness of the crumbling, pollution-stained buildings on either side, home to cheap jean shops and walk-up peep-shows.

  Inside the station a human tidal wave washed through the concourse. The personal lockers and security boxes were positioned between a ticket office and a cafe called The Commuter's Brew. On the front of each box was a small panel containing a numeric keypad.

  'So, you going to tell me the combination at last, and what "sweet pea" means, Laura?' Philip asked.

  She sighed. 'Do I have a choice?'

  'Not really.'

  Laura leaned back against the boxes, eyeing the commuters as they streamed past. Turning back to Box 14, she mumbled: 'It's my nickname — well, Charlie's nickname for me, anyway'

  Philip snorted.

  'We first met at a party in Oxford in 1982. It was in a big shared house on the Banbury Road owned by the parents of a guy in our year, Geoff. . Geoff Townsend, I think his name was. Anyway, after that night, Charlie always called me "sweet pea".'

  '"Sweet pea"?'

  'I wore a jacket made of peacock feathers to the party.'

  Philip looked at her in disbelief for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  'It was a long time ago.'

  Her earnest expression made him laugh even harder. 'I'm sorry,' Philip managed to say, his face straightening. 'It's just the vision of you in a peacock-feather jacket, it's. .'

  'Priceless?'

  'Well, yes.'

  'The New Romantics were at their height. You remember? You were probably wearing a silk shirt and tucker boots.'

  'I never owned a pair of tucker boots,' Philip said indignantly.

  Now it was Laura's turn to laugh. 'And you had a horrible little plait when I first met you.'

  'It was a real ponytail, actually' Philip grimaced. 'OK. What's the combination?'

  She stared at the keypad and began punching in some numbers. Philip watched. 1…9…8… 2. Then she hit the 'enter' button, took the handle and pulled.

  Inside the box lay a rolled-up sheet of paper tied with a black silk ribbon. Beside it was a CD in a clear plastic case.

  Philip reached in and withdrew the items.

  'A DVD, I guess,' he said. He loosened the ribbon on the scroll. 'And what looks …' He paused. 'Well, this is interesting. Even I know enough Latin to translate that.'

  At the top of the first page was written: Principia Chemicum by Isaacus Neuutonus .

  Laura and Philip barely exchanged a word as they weaved their way out of London, heading west back towards Oxford. The traffic had lightened a little, and within twenty minutes they had reached the A40 which would lead them to the motorway and the fifty-mile stretch home. They were lost in their own thoughts, each of them working through the threads of what they had learned, neither of them yet ready to talk about it. Philip drove as Laura studied the Newton document. It was covered in tiny, precise calligraphy, most of it written in a strange language or elaborately encoded, giving the appearance of gibberish. This was interspersed with lines written in Latin, along with line drawings, odd-looking symbols, and tables and charts dotted around the page seemingly at random. Then, as they left behind the lights of the city and entered the dark monotony of the motorway and the beckoning countryside on either side of the road, it became too dark for her to read.

  'It's obviously a photocopy,' Laura said. 'But what the hell is it about?'

  'I wish now I'd paid more attention in Latin lessons when I was thirteen,' Philip said.

  'Actually, my Latin's pretty good, but this is a complete jumble of languages. And what about all these symbols and coded sections? It looks like word soup to me.'

  'And what on earth was Charlie Tucker doing with a copy of a document written by Isaac Newton? It's not one I've ever heard of.'

  'Me neither. He wrote the Principia Mathematica , of course, but. .' Reaching over to the back seat, Laura grabbed the Newton biography that they had picked up at Charlie's apartment. Switching on the interior light, she began to flick through the pages. 'Biography of a Magus ,' Laura said quietly. 'I remember this book coming out. Caused quite a stir at the time, didn't it?'

  Philip looked puzzled.

  'It's a revisionist work — Newton as some wacko sorcerer or something. . Now I remember,' she added and tapped the opened book with her fingers. 'It hinged on the idea that Newton was a dedicated alchemist.'

  'Yeah,' Philip replied. 'I remember it too. The book came out a few years back. I read a review in The Times'

  'Newton wasn't just an alchemist,' Laura replied and looked up from the book. 'Looks like he was seriously into black magic. Says here: "Newton was an adept in the black arts. Evidence for this astonishing fact may be found among the writings he kept hidden until his death. These were held in secret by his disciples for fear of tarnishing the great man's enormous scientific reputation. It was only in 1936 under the auspices of the economist and Newton scholar John Maynard Keynes that these documents were rediscovered — more than a million words on occult subjects ranging from divination to alchemy.'" 'So he published the legitimate scientific stuff, but kept the risque material well away from prying eyes?'

  'Apparently. He couldn't have let his interest in the occult become known; it would have destroyed his career.'

  'And you think this Principia Chemicum could have been one of his secret works?'

  'Not sure yet.' Laura flicked to the index of the biography in her lap. 'He wrote all his documents in Latin, it was the standard form of the time.' 'But it's odd that he should use the Latinised version of his name. But. . Ah-ha,' she said after a moment. 'Listen. . "Newton's most famous work, his Principia Mathematica is sadly not paired with a Principia Chemicum — what would have been a definitive work describing his alchemical findings. He leaves us clues and hints, but no manuscript offering an account of success in producing the mythical Philosopher's Stone. This is because, like many hundreds of researchers before and after him,

  Newton, for all his extraordinary talents, never did accomplish his ultimate aim. He never did forge the Stone with which he could find the method of producing gold from base metal; he was not offered eternal life, and he never could commune with the Almighty, at least not as a living man.'"

  A few minutes later they entered the cutting into the Chilterns and began the long, steep descent crossing the border from B
uckinghamshire into Oxfordshire. In the dark they could see little of the magnificent panorama that daylight could offer, a patchwork quilt of cultivated fields stretching to the horizon.

  Laura closed the book, flicked off the interior light and switched on the radio. 'Fancy some music?'

  Pushing a preset button marked '1' all they got was static. '2' and '3' were the same. With '4' the car was filled with power chords, a Van Halen track from the mid-1980s. Philip started to head-bang. 'Yeah, baby. .'

  Laura pushed button number five and turned the volume down. A cacophony of atonal sounds cascaded from the speakers. 'Must be Radio 3,' Philip said. 'Concerto for three sinks and a vibrator, anyone?' he quipped. 'For God's sake, let's have Van Halen.'

  'Not likely,' Laura laughed. She switched through a couple of French long-wave stations, some rap coming from a local independent and then found Radio Oxford and what sounded like the tail end of the news.

  . The head of the Estonian delegation, Dr Vambola Kuusk, declared that the meeting had been a great success and that he hoped the European commission would abide by their earlier recommendations.' There was a pause.

  'And now to some local news. Police are becoming increasingly concerned over the whereabouts of Professor James Lightman, Chief Librarian at the Bodleian Library. His car was found around ten o'clock this morning, left abandoned on Norham Gardens in North Oxford. Police say there was no sign of a struggle and that the professor left his briefcase on the passenger seat and that his keys were still in the ignition. We will be providing a phone number at the end of the programme for anyone with information that may help Thames Valley police.'

  Chapter 31

  Oxford: 12 August 1690. Close to midnight.

  For a few seconds, John Wickins thought he was going to pass out with the heat and the pain. In spite of Robert Boyle's soothing balm and careful ministrations, the burn on his arm was almost as painful as it had been that morning, and the headache he had suffered all day was only a little less oppressive.

  He, Boyle and Hooke had passed through the labyrinth, and now they stood gasping for breath in the corridor that led to the chamber beyond. They had glimpsed the three men in front of them just once, as they entered the wine cellar of Hertford College — Newton, du Duillier and another figure, hooded, whose identity they were not certain about, had entered the tunnels ahead of them and disappeared into the maze.

  Now the members of the cabal that had formed around Newton, and who shared his dark secrets,

  had entered the chamber. A faint sliver of light emerged where the door had been left slightly ajar.

  Outside, the three Guardians were pressed against the slimy wet wall of the corridor, each of them trying to hold their breath. They had extinguished their single torch and were preparing for action. From the chamber they could hear a man's voice chanting barely discernible words, long monologues that were punctuated periodically by unintelligible phrases intoned by all three voices. A rivulet of sweat meandered down Wickins's back and he tightened his wet palms on the handle of his blade. To his right stood Hooke, cursing under his breath, his face and tunic soaked with sweat. To his left, Boyle had unsheathed his sword. It caught the narrow beam of light from the opening into the chamber and in this reflected light Wickins could see the old man's faint profile. He was staring ahead at the door, every muscle tensed. As Wickins studied him, Boyle moved away from the wall and took three long, rapid, silent strides towards the chamber. Reaching it, he beckoned to the other two. They crossed the space, and Boyle yanked the door wide open. The three men ran into the room with their swords at the ready.

  The smell of turpentine, sweat and human flesh, the oppressive wet air and the hum of the unholy incantations assaulted their senses. The three members of Newton's cabal, hooded and dressed in heavy black and grey satin robes, stood before the pentagram at the far end of the room. The central figure held aloft a small red orb.

  The Guardians had the element of surprise on their side and Boyle was determined not to squander it. He dashed forward towards the man with the orb, grabbed him around the neck and dragged him away from the pentagram. The ruby sphere fell to the floor and rolled across the stone where it came to rest under the pentagram. Pulling the man to his feet, Boyle pressed his sword to his throat. The other robed figures stood rooted in shock as Hooke and Wickins ran forward and stopped with the tips of their blades only inches from their shrouded faces.

  Boyle released his grip on his captive and whirled the man round. They could all hear him snarl from under his hood. But he was powerless. Boyle had his rapier against the man's Adam's apple. 'All three of you, remove your hoods,' Boyle commanded.

  None of the men moved. 'Remove your hoods,' Boyle repeated. He had not raised his voice, but there was a new venomous intensity to it.

  Slowly, Newton obeyed. His long greying locks were stuck to his damp face. Through the veils of hair his black eyes burned with fury and loathing. 'Who in God's name do you think you are?' he hissed. 'What authority to you have here?'

  Boyle did not flinch, but held Newton's gaze. 'Unlike you,' he said, 'I have every right to be here, Professor Newton.'

  Newton smirked, the skin of his face folding into moist creases. He looked like a caricature of Mephistopheles. 'You interfering fool!' he hissed, his thin voice trembling with pent-up fury. 'I am the Master here. I alone understand the words of the sages. I am the true inheritor of the Light, the Path, the Way'

  With a faint, utterly humourless smile that summed up how little he cared for Newton's opinions, Boyle said, 'John, Robert, let us see who we have here.'

  With the points of their swords never wavering from the throats of the two robed figures, Hooke and Wickins pulled away the hoods and stepped back.

  'James? My brother James?' Boyle reeled back. 'What. .?' The shock had turned the old man's face into a rigid mask; he seemed lost, paralysed.

  It was the opportunity that Newton needed. With a roar he lunged forward, grabbed Boyle's wrist and forced him to drop his sword, which clattered to the floor.

  Newton was the only one moving fast. The other five men seemed to be preserved in aspic. But, after a few moments, they began to recover, and suddenly the chamber was filled with flailing bodies, the clang of steel and rasping shouts.

  Newton spun round and made a lunge for the ruby sphere. As he did so, Wickins caught him by the ankles and the two men toppled to the floor. In a blind rage, Wickins tore at Newton's hair, making him screech. He brought his sword up to Newton's throat.

  'You have betrayed my friendship!' Wickins shouted into Newton's ear. 'I had grown to trust you.'

  But, for all his anger, Wickins was not sure what to do next. Isaac Newton was at his mercy. One thrust of his blade, Wickins reasoned, and the man's life would end, his blood would carpet the floor. But that was not what they had come here to do. In spite of the hatred that Wickins now felt for the Lucasian Professor, he was not a murderer. It was at that moment he spotted the orb. He swept it up with his left hand and thrust it into his tunic. Then he pulled Newton to his feet, keeping his blade against the man's throat and began to step backwards towards the others. But he couldn't see where he was going, stumbled into one of the tall sturdy candleholders and went sprawling.

  Newton dived for Wickins's sword. In a moment he had it in his hand and had whirled round to survey the room. His eyes were ablaze, every sense sharpened, every self-protective instinct empowering him.

  A few feet away Boyle had caught his brother by the throat, forcing him against the wall. At the point of Hooke's sword, Nicolas Fatio du Duillier stood beside him, panting with fury.

  'James, James. . How could you?' Boyle was saying, his voice cracking.

  'Big brother Robert,' he sneered. 'Robert, who has always seen himself as my father. . save me your sanctimoniousness. I need it not.'

  'But why?' Boyle whispered. 'Why?'

  'You know not, Robert? Truly? You know not?'

  Boyle shook his head slowly.

/>   'Where else could I go, dear brother? How could I compete with you? A man who casts such a long shadow'

  Boyle flinched as he felt the point of a sword against his neck.

  'Drop your blade,' Newton hissed. 'Now!'

  Boyle obeyed and turned around. Du Duillier and James Boyle were still facing Hooke's unflinching rapier and Wickins was scrambling to his feet. He dashed forward and plucked Boyle's sword from the stone floor.

  'Another step and I will slice him open!' Newton yelled.

  Wickins kept coming.

  'I mean it.' And he dug his blade into Boyle's neck, drawing blood.

  Wickins stopped. 'You will suffer in hell for this.'

  'No, you are wrong, my old friend,' Newton replied evenly. 'For the Lord knows my motives are true.' He took a deep breath. 'Now, give me the sphere.'

  Wickins remained rooted to the spot.

  'Give me the sphere.'

  'Don't, John,' Boyle gasped.

  'Ignore this old fool. Hand over the orb. Now. Do it, or I swear I shall kill him,' Newton shouted.

  Slowly, Wickins put his hand inside his tunic and his hand encircled the ruby sphere.

  'No! Don't!' Boyle implored. 'Better that I die. .'

  Wickins brought out the ruby sphere. As he did so, Hooke, who had been guarding du Duillier and James Boyle, suddenly flicked his blade towards Newton. Newton caught the movement at the edge of his vision and flinched. It was enough. Robert Boyle sank his teeth into Newton's hand. Newton screamed, but somehow managed to keep hold of his sword.

  Cursing, Newton whirled around and slashed at Hooke's shoulder. Then he was gone, vanishing into the blackness of the corridor.

  Wickins started forward, but Boyle restrained him. 'John, John, let him go. You will never find him in the labyrinth. We must make safe all that is left, the sphere and the documents.' He sounded weary and unbearably sad. 'I must untangle this terrible web and you must make safe the future. As soon as we reach the surface ride with all speed for Cambridge. Get there before Newton — and burn everything.'