The Devil's Library

by Tom Pugh

  Durant flinched.

  “I understand,” said Vescosi. “You’ve been searching for so long.” He leaned forward. “She gave her true name and age. Is it possible that she finally wants to be found?”

  “Where has she been?”

  “My correspondent had instructions to observe her from a distance.”

  “But he heard her speak.”

  “Overheard her. He wrote that she looks older than her years, with a careworn expression and marks of illness around the eyes.”

  Durant felt sick. He hadn’t asked. Had he hoped to find freedom from the hope and guilt which had kept him roaming the continent for all these years?

  “Where is she?”

  Vescosi looked down at his open palms. “I’ll tell you when we find the Devil’s Library.”

  The Frenchman stared in disbelief.

  “I’ve spent my whole life searching for the Library. If it is your daughter, a short delay will hardly make a difference. Not after so many years.”

  “I might be killed.”

  “And? I thought you were a devotee of Lucretius, for whom the soul dies when the body dies.”

  Vescosi might look like an absent-minded scholar, but there was clearly a core of steel at his centre. Durant shouldn’t have been surprised – this man had spent his life waging secret war against the might of the Roman Church. He pictured his hands around the old man’s neck, and knew immediately that he couldn’t do it. “You gave Longstaff a choice.”

  “Not really. There was never a danger he’d leave. He’s looking for a home, and believes he’s found one in you, and possibly in Aurélie. He’d never forgive himself for sailing north while the two of you rode into danger. Nor could you, I suspect, though you’re the kind of man who might discover that too late. Well?”

  Wearily, Durant shook his head.

  “The books in the Devil’s Library were written by men,” said Vescosi. “Help me return them to their rightful owners, then go to your daughter knowing that you’ve made a difference.”

  *

  Longstaff and Aurélie walked through a forest of beech trees towards the sound of washing bats. A broad-shouldered woman, sleeves rolled to the elbows, kneading linens against a wooden board. Two more beating shirts and shifts at a trestle table, while water boiled in a nearby kettle.

  Longstaff cleared his throat. The women started in terror. They would have run, but for Aurélie’s intervention.

  “We’re travellers,” she said, “passing through. We want to buy food?”

  “We’d be grateful for anything you can spare,” Longstaff put a few coins on the trestle table. “We’ll wait over here.”

  He lay down beside the stream as the youngest woman took his money and disappeared into the trees. Aurélie walked to the table.

  “I can take her place.”

  “No need.”

  “Let her if she wants,” said the broad-shouldered woman. “What would you rather, see her sit idly?”

  Aurélie picked up the bat, slapped the wet shirt on the table. The woman stared in disbelief. Watching from the riverbank through half-closed eyes, Longstaff grinned.

  Three silent peasants arrived with bread and cheese, armed with spades and pitchforks.

  “Thank you,” Longstaff rose to his feet. The men didn’t speak, setting the provisions on the table and stepping back.

  Longstaff dipped his head. “Say goodbye, Aurélie. It’s time to go.”

  They walked away, not looking round until they were deep in the forest. Aurélie started laughing.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she put her arm through his.

  “Never used a washing bat before?”

  She shook her head. “Too busy reading.”

  “And,” Longstaff couldn’t resist asking – she hadn’t said a word about it – “what does Aristarchus’ book say?”

  “I assumed you knew,” she looked at him. “You don’t read Greek?”

  He spread his hands. “Just a humble soldier.”

  “Who speaks Italian, German, and English.”

  “I lived in all three places, but I was never a scholar.”

  “What were you, Matthew?”

  He sighed. “A child, a merchant’s ward, a soldier, a freebooter.”

  “More lives than I’ve known, however good my Greek. I’m glad you decided to come with us.”

  CHAPTER 32

  They left the road behind. Rolling meadows gave way to a broken shepherds’ trail and Longstaff spurred ahead of Aurélie’s horse, leading along the cliff-face until they came to a steep valley. They climbed throughout the afternoon, following the path of a stream, sinking to their knees at the top and drinking the cold water.

  “Naples!” Vescosi pointed to a grey smudge on the horizon. “We have a friend in the city, if necessary.” He tapped Aurélie on the shoulder. “You remember, the young man who showed such an interest in our experiments with lenses?”

  She nodded. “Giambattista della Porta.”

  Durant stretched, joints cracking along his back. He hadn’t said a word in hours, riding at the rear of the party with his head bowed.

  “I’ve heard the food is wonderful,” he said. “They have a dish; slices of aubergine fried and baked with tomato, mozzarella and basil.”

  Longstaff laughed – this was more like the Durant he’d come to know.

  “Continue south and we’d come to the ruins of Herculaneum,” continued Vescosi, “where Memmius had his summer house. Where Lucretius once entertained his patron with tales of the Devil’s Library, only a few years before the town was buried in larva. But our destination lies west, across the Phlegræn Field.”

  They looked towards the lowering sun. The meadows grew dry and dusty before disappearing into a barren plateau of black rock. “We’ll camp here,” continued Vescosi. “We could all do with a decent meal and a good night’s sleep.”

  Durant gathered wood for a fire, Aurélie saw to the horses and Longstaff watched Vescosi pace restlessly beside the stream.

  “What aren’t you telling us, signore?”

  The Otiosi leader looked at him, stretching his injured shoulder.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” persisted Longstaff. “Why is Spina so desperate to find these books?”

  “I told you. The scrolls will give the Church a huge advantage over anyone challenging their authority.”

  Longstaff shook his head impatiently. “Spina’s no fool. Safer to kill me and Durant, burn the palimpsest and forget the whole thing.”

  “Perhaps he intends to destroy the Library.”

  “A lot of trouble to destroy something no one’s heard of in a thousand years.”

  Vescosi stared towards the Phlegræn Field, glowing red in the setting sun. He sighed, then gestured for Aurélie and Durant to draw near.

  “My great-uncle knew more than Cosimo de Medici realised, and Spina told me more. All those volumes, the accumulated knowledge of centuries; he couldn’t care less. He’s after a single volume, and there’s nothing he won’t do to get it,” Vescosi looked at Aurélie. “I entered my innermost soul and beheld truth. The seeds are God; immutable, indivisible, infinite in number, eternal.”

  “Lucretius?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “St. Benedict. His family were members of the cult who built and maintained the Library. They believed they were descended from the first men, who had left paradise of their own free will, in search of the knowledge that would allow them to return as equals. According to the legend, their God, Aal, gave them a book at the gates of paradise, showing them how to return if they ever succeeded. They preserved this book across the centuries, recopying it when necessary. Only two men in every generation knew how to read it and Benedict was one,” Vescosi sighed. “You’ve all read Lucretius. You know his theory of ‘atoms’. Benedict claimed he could see them, manipulate them at will. He did not work miracles through prayer, but through the conscious application of techniques described in the Book of
Aal.”

  Aurélie stared at him, clearly hurt he hadn’t confided in her sooner.

  “And?” Durant raised his head. “Does the book exist?”

  “How should I know?” Vescosi stared at his palms. “Perhaps. Plato described the material world as a precipitate of our mental processes. It’s not real, in other words, except in as far as we perceive it. And if it’s only an illusion, it can be altered. Think of the miracle of transubstantiation – bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ through a process the Church describes in very similar terms. Every culture has tales of levitation, healing by touch. They can’t all be invention.”

  “Lucretius also described the seeds of things as immutable,” offered Durant quietly, “infinite in number and eternal. I believe there is a pattern, he wrote, which can be understood by man.”

  “That’s the question,” Vescosi smiled at the Frenchman. “What might be possible if we learn to read God’s pattern? St. Benedict was a gentle man, devoting his life to curing the sick and lame, but Gregorio Spina is cast from a different mould. He believes the Book of Aal will show him how to destroy this world and usher in the Last Days, as foretold by St. John. The final battle between Christ and Satan; sinnners will be sent to Hell, the righteous to heaven, and no more need for this poor world of ours.” He pulled at the tufts of hair behind his ears. “I will call for a sword, saith the Lord God, and set every man against his brother. I will plead with pestilence and with blood and rain upon his bands, an overflowing rain of hailstones, fire and brimstone.”

  He sat beside the fire, removing the Otiosi papers from his robe. “No sense in taking them further. We’ll hide them here,” he stared at each of them in turn. “If anything happens to me, Sir Nicholas Bacon is well placed to carry on my work.”

  CHAPTER 33

  They broke camp at dawn, riding west. The green meadows grew dry and dusty as the morning wore on, before disappearing into the ‘fields devoured by fire’, a hellish landscape of craters, pools of boiling mud, fountains of steam rising from holes in the hard crust. The stench of sulphur filled their mouths like dust, as Longstaff led them into a winding split in the rock. It was even hotter here, the going harder – the horses had to navigate countless small landslides – but hidden from prying eyes.

  Vescosi broke the silence. “Centuries ago, people came here to consult the Sibyl in the caves beneath Jupiter’s temple. She ‘sang the fates and wrote her prophesies on oak leaves’. She lived for a thousand years, poor woman – a poisoned gift if ever there was one, unaccompanied by youth – and was already a withered crone when she offered nine books of prophesy to the king of Rome. Twice, Tarquin refused. Twice the Sibyl burned three books, doubling her price each time. Tarquin bought the last three. He learned how to win the favour of the Gods and grew his small city into the greatest Empire the world has ever known.

  “A library of books,” he added in a faraway voice. “Magical books which enable men to speak with the gods. The Church adopted the Sibyl as a prophet, claiming she foretold the coming of Christ. Michaelangelo painted her in the Sistine Chapel, sitting beside an open book. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner.” He began to quote. Longstaff didn’t recognize the verses. Later, Durant told him they were by the Roman poet Virgil.

  Aeneas

  Makes for the hilltop, where aloft sits throned

  Jupiter, and a cavern vast, the far

  Lone haunt of the dread Sibyl, into whom

  The Delian bard his mighty mind and soul

  Breathes, and unlocks the future

  The Mighty face of the Euboean rock

  Scooped into a cavern, whither lead

  A hundred wide ways, and a hundred gates;

  Aye, and from which as many voices rush,

  The answers of the Sibyl.

  Sparrow dropped to her belly, a low growl at the back of her throat. Longstaff caught the stench of rotting meat. He raised a hand for silence and dropped the other to the hilt of his sword. They dismounted, crept silently forwards, climbed up the deep trench and peered over the lip of rock.

  A single, petrified tree stood on the blasted plateau, a man hanging by his wrists from a low branch. There was still flesh on the bones. Scavengers – wolves and wild dogs most likely – had made a bloody mess of his legs and a Heretic’s Fork had been fastened round his neck. A thin collar held the long, double-ended fork in place, the tines at one end fixed in what had once been his jaw, the tines at the other embedded in his chest.

  Longstaff couldn’t imagine what crime would merit such a terrible death. Durant spat in disgust. “Spina is using human scarecrows,” he sounded furious. “Whatever he’s doing here, he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Look at the stain on the rock,” said Longstaff. “Poor bastard bled to death here. They left him with cuts on his legs and feet – hanged him high enough to keep the torso out of reach of scavengers.”

  “Any sign of who he might have been?”

  Longstaff stared at a few wisps of white hair, still clinging to the man’s shrivelled scalp.

  “Someone old.”

  Vescosi pointed past the corpse, at a tall conical hill rising from the flat landscape like a crookback’s hunch.

  “I suspect Spina and his men are on the far side. If I’m right, they’re looking in the wrong place. We need to visit the Temple of Jupiter on top of that hill.”

  Longstaff looked up; four hours to sunset. He could see a line of trees less than three miles away, bunched together where the plateau of volcanic rock came to an end.

  “Follow me.” They retraced their steps along the trench until it opened into a wide basin.

  “What do you propose, signore?” asked Vescosi.

  “We stay here until nightfall,” Longstaff looked at Durant. “When it’s dark, take them into the trees north of the hill.”

  “And you?”

  “Wait for my signal, Gaetan. I’ll let you know if it’s safe to approach.”

  They watered the horses and made themselves comfortable on their sleeping blankets. They were all restless, feeling the weight of the savage landscape.

  Longstaff’s head hurt. He felt sealed away from the world, as if this shallow basin of rock were a womb. He looked around. Durant’s tired eyes were hidden in shadow. Aurélie’s cheeks were smudged with tears.

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “This place,” said Vescosi, shaking his head clear. “The Roman geographer Strabo. He claimed it was the gases here which allowed the Sibyl to slip between worlds.” He took a blanket from his horse and tore it into strips, dipping them in water. “Quickly, cover your faces.”

  Matthew Longstaff wasn’t a superstitious man, but this landscape made him uneasy. He loped towards the hill, moving quickly, putting Aurélie and Vescosi out of his mind. They had Durant and Sparrow to look after them and plenty of food and water; more than enough for the next twenty-four hours and he’d be back before then – assuming he didn’t fall into Spina’s clutches. He blackened his face and hands and covered his dirty blond hair with a woollen skull-cap, before easing himself out of the trench. He lay in the shadows, staring at the steps cut into the side of the hill, as he scanned for guards and picked out a path in the dying light.

  The place seemed deserted. Longstaff waited for the moon to disappear behind clouds before approaching. He listened for the tell-tale sounds of men; shoe-leather against stone, urine splashing against the earth, muttered curses, the scrape of whetstone against steel. He heard nothing; even the birds were silent. There was only the sound of the ocean, a distant roar on the edge of hearing.

  He climbed the steps, taking more than an hour to reach the ancient temple at the summit. Here he crouched in the darkness and waited until his heart calmed, the sweat drying on his back. Still no signs of life.

  Longstaff prowled among the rubble. He had the Gods for company, but the long centuries had turned them all to stone. He barely glanced at Jupiter on his throne, or Lun
a on her plinth. The temple roof had collapsed, but a dozen marble columns still stood; he used them for cover as he made his way to the hill’s seaward side, seeing the glow of fire below and a smudge of light on the far side of the bay – Sorrento, he guessed. He was more interested in the village at the foot of the hill.

  Another set of steps led towards the sea. Longstaff was halfway down before he came across the guard, dozing at a bend. He waited for a break in the clouds, needing the extra light to cut away from the staircase, across the face of the hill, angling down to a point above the small fishing village. He felt his way through the darkness, toes testing for loose stones, trying to keep at least one hand on the ground. He did not look down – didn’t want the fire’s glare to steal what little vision he had – and did not stop until he was almost on top of the village. He found a shallow ledge and lay flat on his back, to let his aching limbs relax against the cold stone. Rolling onto one forearm, he stared down the cliff of twisted stone. He was directly above a wooden stockade, a fire burning in the wide-open space beyond, close enough to hear the low murmur of guards sharing a joke. He couldn’t see them. Even when his eyes adjusted to the firelight he could only make out the shape of a man, chains cruelly fixed to stop him lowering his head.

  The first pale fingers of dawn stretched across the sky. Longstaff saw a rough wooden cross mounted on the stockade. Spina’s men had put aside their riding clothes and strapped swords around their monk’s robes. Two of them aimed muskets at the building, as a third unlocked the heavy door. Half a dozen men shuffled into the light and made directly for a water-barrel. It was hard for Longstaff to tell them apart; all wore filthy smocks and identical expressions of weary resignation. They stood in line, with bowed shoulders, as ropes were fastened like leashes round their necks. More men in robes appeared, took hold of the ropes and led the captives towards the cliff-face. Longstaff ducked out of sight, listening as they entered the cave below, exchanging greetings with a group moving in the opposite direction. He raised his head and saw two more of Spina’s men herd a flock of women towards the black beach and make them fast to a row of wooden stakes. More men were released from the church, watered, and led to their fishing boats. They did not look at the women as they passed. One by one the men cast off, dropping anchor close to shore and setting their fishing lines.