“Maybe I should have mentioned that we need short answers to our questions,” Shawn said. “We’ve been in the air for hours, and I think we’ll be landing sometime soon.”
Kitteredge smiled indulgently. No doubt people had been saying this sort of thing to him for years, and he took it as a welcome joke. At least, that’s what Gus told himself. Still, he felt it would be prudent to jump in with a question of his own before Shawn offered one that ended any possibility of useful conversation for the duration of the flight.
“One thing’s been troubling me, Professor,” Gus started before Kitteredge cut him off.
“Langston,” he reminded Gus.
“Langston,” Gus said, again feeling that silent little surge of pride.
“Like that’s any better,” Shawn said. “It’s almost as bad as being named Flaxman.”
“Yes, there’s one thing I don’t understand, Langston,” Gus said quickly, before the professor had a chance to notice that Shawn was speaking, too. “We’re following clues you believe Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted into his picture that would lead to the location of the sword Excalibur.”
“That’s right,” Kitteredge said.
“But that only makes sense if he and Morris actually found the sword,” Gus continued, checking his logic as he went to make sure he was on track.
“Also correct,” Kitteredge said.
“So if they had Excalibur, why didn’t they do what they’d set out to do?” Gus said. “Why didn’t they use it to become kings of England, or if that didn’t work out for them, at least sell it for unbelievable amounts of money?”
Gus shot a glance at the seat next to him and saw Shawn was nodding his approval of the question. And from Kitteredge’s pleased expression, it looked like Gus had hit on something the professor was eager to explain.
“That is an excellent question,” Kitteredge said. “But in order to explain it fully, you need to have a basic understanding of the Victorian view of the Arthurian legends as exemplified by Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Although to be entirely accurate, it must be said that this element was certainly present all the way back to Malory.”
It was possible that Shawn did not mean for his groan to be so loud it filled the entire cabin. Not probable, but there was a small chance. Either way, it served to break Kitteredge’s attention away from the lecture he was about to launch into.
“Don’t worry,” Kitteredge said. “I’m not going to drag you down into the weeds of Balin and Balan or Pelleas and Ettare. This is just a quick introduction. And you probably know a lot of it already.”
“I remember when Wart got turned into an owl,” Shawn said. “And then there was something about a sword, and then his mother was raped and killed, and he spent years pushing a big log around in a circle. Although that last part might have been from Conan the Barbarian.”
“We know the basics about King Arthur,” Gus said. “Camelot, Round Table, Merlin, jousting.”
“And the knights who say ni,” Shawn said.
Kitteredge nodded, clearly mentally adjusting his lecture for his current audience. Gus hoped he wasn’t expanding it too far.
“The details of the Round Table and its knights aren’t important to us now,” Kitteredge said. “But the Victorian approach to it is. In Tennyson’s eyes, and those of so many other poets and painters, Arthur was the image of the ideal man who attempted to build the perfect kingdom of justice, beauty, and truth on Earth. But despite all his grand intentions and brilliant efforts, he failed because of simple human weakness.
“Arthur, as I’m sure you are aware, was married to Queen Guenevere. He loved her with all his heart. And she loved him, too-but only with half of hers. Because when she first came to Arthur from her father, it was Lancelot-the bravest, purest, and most beautiful of the Round Table knights-who brought her. And on that journey Lancelot and Guenevere fell in love. For years they tried to deny their feelings, but ultimately they proved to be all too human. And when Arthur found out about the adultery, it tore his perfect kingdom apart.”
Kitteredge stopped as if he had finished his story and was waiting for someone else to take over.
“And this has what to do with what we’re talking about now?” Shawn finally prompted.
“Oh, right,” Kitteredge said. “Morris and Rossetti. I told you that I’ve come to the conclusion that Morris saw himself as a latter-day Arthur. Some of that comes from the clues I’ve found scattered in his writings, but its psychological truth is indisputable. Time after time in his life, he set up situations where he would be the benevolent ruler of a Round Table of artists, writers, and artisans. In his last years, he even set up what was essentially a small town for his laborers to live in. And as long as Morris was Arthur, Rossetti was his Lancelot-the brave, pure warrior for truth and beauty.
“But it gets really interesting once we introduce Morris’ wife. Jane Burden was the model for many of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings, including Rossetti’s indelible Proserpine, and she was definitely what they called a stunner. It was Rossetti who discovered Jane when he and Morris and several of their friends were painting a series of murals at the Oxford Union. He persuaded her to sit for his portrait of Guenevere. And then he delivered her to Morris.
“Is it possible that Rossetti was in love with Jane even then? I’d say so. But he had been seriously involved for many years with Lizzie Siddal, the other significant model of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whom he would marry within a few years. So he handed his model for Guenevere over to his friend Morris, who fell in love with her instantly and married her a year and a half later.”
Gus could sense that Shawn was getting bored with the story, if only because he was fidgeting so much he was making Gus’ seat shimmy. But Gus had a sense where this story was going, and he leaned in, fascinated.
“Did they have an affair?” Gus said. “Rossetti and Jane?”
“There is officially some controversy about that,” Kitteredge said. “There are those who insist that their love was never consummated. But those people are, not to put too fine a point on it, fools. Of course they were having an affair. Probably from the second year of her marriage and straight through nearly until his death twenty-five years later. There was a long period where the three of them were even sharing a house together.”
Now even Shawn was looking interested. “And Morris never figured it out?”
“That’s another question on which there is much controversy,” Kitteredge said. “I believe he chose not to know, chose to ignore the signs, because he was so focused on creating an ideal society he couldn’t admit just how far from that ideal he and his colleagues lived. Instead, he focused on his schemes to restore England to what he believed it once had been-schemes that in public were focused on the political but-if my thesis is correct-secretly involved the search for Excalibur.
“And then something happened. In 1871, Morris, who had spent the past few years studying the Icelandic language, took his first trip to Iceland. Officially the purpose was to explore the country that had produced the sagas he’d spent several years translating into English. But I believe there was a second, secret reason for the voyage.”
“To find Excalibur?” Gus said.
Kitteredge gave him another of those “good student” nods. “My belief is that he found clues to its location in the saga of Grettir the Strong, one of the old Icelandic texts he translated. He was gone for several weeks, and his letters from that period suggest he was on the verge of a major change in his life. They are phrased as if he’s merely talking about an alteration in mood brought about by the beauty of the Icelandic wilderness, but if you read between the lines, it’s not hard to see how he might have been preparing himself for the changes that would be set into motion once he returned home with the sword. Those changes were never to come.”
Kitteredge paused, as if he’d timed his lecture to end on a cliffhanger at the precise moment of the class-ending bell rang.
“Why?�
� Shawn said. Gus glanced over and saw that Shawn was apparently as wrapped up in the tale as he was.
“You must understand that so much of this is my conjecture,” Kitteredge said. “Based on exhaustive research, of course, but so far without objective proof. Until we find that sword.”
“Okay, we understand,” Shawn said. “Let’s have it.”
“Morris returned to Kelmscott House, where Rossetti and Jane had been living as man and wife in his absence,” Kitteredge said. “Who knows what happens that changes the way we see the world? Who can understand why the scales suddenly fall from our eyes? Perhaps it was simply the extended absence that gave Morris the perspective to see what he had been unable or unwilling to see before. But he returned home and could no longer deny the fact that was before him-that his best friend and wife were lovers.”
“Okay,” Shawn said, “I can see kicking Rossetti out of the king thing after that, but Morris still had the sword, didn’t he? He could have sold it-or even cut his so-called buddy in half with it.”
Kitteredge waited for an answer, and after a moment Gus realized what it had to be. “But it wasn’t just his friend sleeping with his wife,” Gus said. “It was repeating the tragic history of Camelot.”
Kitteredge nodded so enthusiastically he nearly fell out of his chair. “When Arthur let his kingdom be destroyed over Lancelot and Guenevere’s adultery, at least he could say he never dreamed that the accusation would have that effect,” he said. “But Morris had studied Arthur, had modeled his life on the king’s. He had read Tennyson’s Idylls and could say to himself, ‘We see where the mistakes were made; we can avoid them and finally build a real Camelot, one that will stand the ages.’ But now he had indisputable proof that no matter how much he knew, no matter how aware he was, there was simply no escaping human frailty. It’s every bit as much a part of us as is our grandeur. And so the dream of building a perfect society must always remain just that-a dream. He was no more fit to rule the Britons than any other schmuck off the street. I believe he confronted Rossetti and then told him the entire project was off. They were going to hide the sword and pretend they had never heard of it.”
For a moment there was no sound in the airplane’s cabin besides the low whoosh of the engines. Then Shawn shook off the mood Kitteredge’s tale had cast.
“That’s a great story, but it’s got a lot of holes,” Shawn said.
“If we had more time, I could go into the research that led me to these conclusions,” Kitteredge said.
“The only conclusion I care about is the one to Clay Filkins’ life,” Shawn said. “There’s nothing in that entire fairy tale about your Cabal or the mysterious Mr. Pollycracker.”
“Polidori,” Gus corrected him, then realized that the rest of what Shawn had said was right. “What about the Cabal? You said they were secretly supporting the search for the sword?”
“That is my working hypothesis,” Kitteredge said. “But not just the sword. They needed a figurehead to wield it for them; that’s why they chose Morris as their tool to recover it, why they gave him the initial clues to its existence and then stayed out of his way as he, too, became obsessed with the hunt.”
“They must have been mighty ticked when he gave it up,” Shawn said.
“You could say that,” Kitteredge said. “I believe it was no coincidence that shortly after Morris renounced his claim on the sword, Rossetti took ill and began the downward spiral that led quickly to his death.”
“What happened to them after that?” Gus said.
“You have to understand,” Kitteredge said, “that this is a shadowy and secretive organization. They show their heads above water only when there is a matter important enough to force them to take the risk. So I have lost track of them for many years after that. They allowed Morris to live on, possibly hoping he’d change his mind and lead them to Excalibur. And I’ve found no signs of their activity for more than a hundred years afterward. Until I began to discover the truth about the sword. Then they came after me.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Gus leaned forward in his seat as far as the belt would let him. “How? How did they come after you?”
Kitteredge let out a deep sigh. “There, too, I can point to no concrete proof that will convince someone eager not to believe. Their existence is a matter of shadows and rumors. Or at least it was until they made contact with me several years back.”
“What kind of contact?” Gus said.
“Was it a phone call, or more of a ‘stick a sword through a guy and leave him on the floor’ kind of thing?” Shawn said.
“It was an infiltration,” Kitteredge said. “Polidori sent a spy into my class. His son, or so young Chip Polidori claimed.”
“Chip?” Shawn said incredulously. “The greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind, and they send an operative named Chip?”
“That was what he claimed,” Kitteredge said. “I have no reason to assume it was his real name, or even that he was actually related to the man he called his father. He used his time at the university to get close to me, eventually convincing me to take him on as one of my research assistants. This was at a key point in my investigation, when I was just beginning to realize what was at stake, and I’m afraid that in my enthusiasm I was too eager to share my discoveries. I let slip to this young man that I believed I’d found a lead on the location of Excalibur.”
“What did he do?” Gus said.
“He did nothing I could prove,” Kitteredge said. “They are too smart for that. But when I shortly thereafter made my first trip to London to locate the sword based on the clues I had discovered in several of Morris’ longer poems, they started to act directly to impede my progress. One of my suitcases was rerouted by the airline and sent to Mombasa. My hotel reservation was canceled with no explanation. A pickpocket managed to steal my passport, and I spent much of my trip at the American embassy trying to have it replaced. And the day of my appointment at the British Library, there was a twenty-four-hour tube strike that essentially shut down all of central London.”
“That’s all?” Gus said.
“Airline, hotels, labor unions, and street crime,” Kitteredge said. “This Cabal clearly had fingers in all four areas. Isn’t that enough?”
Gus felt a cold chill of fear pierce his heart. It wasn’t the first time he’d had a sensation like this when listening to Kitteredge talk about the Cabal, but previously it had come from imagining the global reach of the terrible conspiracy. This time it was a completely different kind of alarm.
“But that could all have been coincidence, couldn’t it?” Gus said. “Airlines lose suitcases all the time, hotels screw up reservations, pickpockets steal things. And disgruntled employees go out on strike. There’s no way to say they’re connected.”
Gus shot a panicked look at Shawn, looking for some reinforcement. But Shawn just shrugged.
“That’s exactly what they want us to think,” Kitteredge said. “They continue to thrive because people don’t want to believe there are forces so great and so evil at work in the world. But they showed themselves to me. Oh, yes, they exposed themselves. By the time I was finally able to access the archives at the British Library, where I believed I would find my next lead in Morris’ manuscript of the first part of his mammoth Earthly Paradise, it was clear that someone had been there shortly before me.”
“The library wouldn’t have those papers if people weren’t interested in them,” Gus said. “And I’m sure you’re not the only scholar in the world to make an appointment that week.”
“Not the only scholar, no,” Kitteredge said. “But I was able to see the log of people who’d had access in the previous two days. And at the exact period during which I was marooned at the embassy, a man named Paul Dorrington was searching in Morris’ manuscripts.”
Gus stared at Kitteredge blankly, waiting for an explanation from the professor. Instead, it came from Shawn.
“Paul Dorrington,” Shawn said. “A fake name, but
one left deliberately to tell you they’d been there first. Paul Dorrington. Polidori.”
“Exactly,” Kitteredge said.
“The names aren’t even all that similar,” Gus said, feeling the veins throbbing in his temples. “It’s probably all a coincidence.”
“The second time is coincidence,” Shawn said.
“ What?” Gus nearly screamed.
“First time is happenstance, second time is coincidence, third time is enemy action,” Shawn said. “And while Goldfinger never said what came next, I think we’re about to find out.”
Kitteredge nearly applauded; he was so pleased with Shawn’s insight. He was about to speak when Malko’s voice crackled over the intercom.
“We’re about to start our final descent, so if you need to move around the cabin, this would be a good time to do it,” he said.
Kitteredge unbuckled his seat belt and stood up, his head brushing the cabin’s ceiling. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to freshen up before we land,” he said.
Gus waited until the professor had disappeared into the lavatory before daring to open his mouth. Then he turned to Shawn, his face ashen.
“Did you hear that?” Gus said.
“Everyone makes noises in the bathroom,” Shawn said. “The polite thing is simply to ignore it.”
Gus stared at Shawn, trying to figure out if the cabin pressure change had turned his brains into cream of mushroom soup. “What he was saying,” Gus said. “Did you hear what he was saying?”
“I thought the story about Morris and Rossetti and the wife was quite poignant,” Shawn said. “And as a parallel for the original Arthurian legend, quite a fascinating bit of literary detective work.”
“Yeah, that stuff was great,” Gus said. “Really hung together well. Made perfect sense. And then he started talking about other stuff, and how it all hung together and made perfect sense.”
“And?” Shawn said.
“And he’s insane!” Gus nearly shouted. “He’s taking random incidents that have absolutely nothing to do with each other and stringing them together to create evidence that there’s a conspiracy out to get him!”
A Fatal Frame of Mind p-4 Page 18