The Alchemist's Gift

by Martin Rua

  “The Wouivre…”

  Carpenter smirked. “If you wish to call it that… There is, in fact, a very ancient well in the crypt of the cathedral, probably from the Gallo-Roman era, which for centuries has been considered miraculous. Perhaps its waters come from the underground river flowing beneath Chartres and, who knows, perhaps they do have some healing power. It is the so-called ‘Well of the Strong Saints’.”

  I nodded. I had read about it, along with other fascinating details. “And what can you tell me about the shrine of Our Lady Underground? The so-called Black Virgin of Chartres? There is a copy currently in the crypt, but according to legend, the original statue was meant to represent a pagan goddess that the Druids found in a cave in the hill. A deity with strange similarities to Isis.”

  Carpenter leaned forward. In that position he looked like an old bird of prey. “The current statue is an exact replica of the one that was destroyed during the Revolution, but it represents nothing more nor less than the Virgin Mary,” he said slowly, and then, lowering his voice until it became a hissing whisper, he added, “You may believe whatever you wish, though – even that the Holy Grail is stored down there. But as far as I am concerned, it is all nonsense!”

  Chapter 44

  Chartres, 20th of June, 16:32

  The eve of the summer solstice

  Our minivan came in sight of Chartres after forty minutes. The two contrasting spires thrust into the sky like spears and could be seen from far away. In the Middle Ages it must have been an even more impressive sight for those pilgrims who came to ancient Autricum.

  Neither I nor the police had received a call or a message. No one had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of my wife. Not that they needed to, but the silence was unnerving. Eventually Thomas, Oscar and Andrea decided that we should go straight to Chartres for an operational meeting with the police who were already in place there. Professor Carpenter, whose knowledge might prove invaluable, came with us.

  We left the car in a parking lot and walked over to the cathedral. The afternoon sun was trying to force its way through the low clouds that had chilled the air in Paris, and the light breeze blowing from the north forced me to zip up my leather jacket.

  “Are you warm enough, Lorenzo?” asked Andrea thoughtfully. I smiled at her wearily. “It must be the tension…” She laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

  We stood for a moment in front of the western facade, the main entrance, with the magnificent bas-relief of Jesus Christ glorified: nineteen statues and more than three hundred figures greeted the faithful with the majesty typical of the Gothic style. Above the door, the huge rose window was like an eye looking out upon the world. The eye of God, through which multi-coloured light penetrated the cathedral. If it evoked that reaction in me, I could only imagine the awe of the people of the Middle Ages who must have felt they were at the centre of the world when they stood in front of that stone edifice.

  I felt a silent presence next to me and I turned to my left. It was Professor Carpenter, entranced by the statue of Christ surrounded by a mystical almond shaped halo and surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists.

  “What need is there to look for hidden meanings and esoteric secrets when one need only dwell upon what is in front of us?” asked Carpenter, an inscrutable expression on his face.

  Thomas appeared with Sergeant Blanchard and shattered that moment of enchantment.

  “Come on, let’s go, we don’t have all afternoon.”

  We walked through the doorway and behind me I heard Oscar produce a whispered “Wow!” of admiration.

  “Haven’t you been here before?” I asked, as soon as he arrived.

  “I must confess that I haven’t. And I see now that it was a serious oversight. It’s… wonderful.”

  The pale light of the dying sun of that end of spring day was transfigured by the cathedral’s one hundred and seventy-six stained glass windows, awe inspiring testimony to the craftsmanship of the medieval glaziers who had created them. There were still many people inside, and I could imagine how many there would be the next day around noon.

  As we proceeded down the aisle, Carpenter assumed the role of tour guide. “The blue of these windows is unique and inimitable. No one has ever been able to reproduce it, and it is known as ‘Chartres Blue’. Some scholars have speculated that it was created through lost alchemical knowledge.”

  “But you have another explanation, I’m sure…” I prodded him.

  “This time I will surprise you, Mr Aragona. I share that point of view. The alchemists were basically ante litteram chemists, glassmakers, smelters and those responsible for spagyrics – herbalists. If some naive sovereign bought their services in the hope of obtaining the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life… well, the alchemists were right to take advantage.”

  Not considering alchemists as early chemists, I couldn’t completely agree with that point of view, but Carpenter’s vision had its own logic.

  “The vaults of the nave have a height of thirty metres, while the nave itself has a length of seventy – perfect harmony,” Carpenter continued, before stopping in the middle of the maze which was carved into the floor at the beginning of the nave.

  “Rivers of ink have also been spilt debating the maze. A route that recalls the pilgrimage to Jerusalem? A test of initiation for the faithful? A game for children? One thing is certain – if we could raise up the labyrinth and put it on its side, perpendicular to the floor, it would coincide perfectly with the great rose window.”

  We turned toward the entrance of the cathedral. The intense afternoon light filtered through the coloured glass of the ‘big rose’ with the Universal Judgment at its centre.

  Carpenter smiled and spread his hands. “But this is just another point in favour of the harmonious construction of the cathedral.”

  I remembered the dream I had in Prague a few days before – the one where I had seen my old high school religious studies teacher again. There had been an unanswered question in that dream, and so I put it to Carpenter.

  “What’s represented in the centre, professor? I can see a kind of pattern, like a constellation.”

  Carpenter moved his hand as though to waft away a silly idea. “This is what visionaries and mystery hunters see. What it is in fact is what’s left of the pins which once held a bronze plaque representing the struggle between Theseus and the Minotaur. Which links this maze to Greek mythology, used as a symbol for the journey which the faithful Christian undertakes towards the Truth.”

  Another baseless mystery.

  Thomas, meanwhile, had already arrived at the transept, and was awaiting us. We joined him and together we walked over to the south side, next to the window showing stories from the life of Saint Apollinaris. There were some visitors in that side of the church too, some photographing the windows across the nave and others reading their tour guides. And none of them apparently paying us any attention.

  “Don’t look now, but some of the people you see around here are the undercover agents who will be among the tourists and the faithful tomorrow to keep an eye on this part of the church,” said Thomas, looking towards the end of the south transept. “We have already set up cameras facing the window. Not even a fly could get near without us knowing about it.”

  Carpenter meanwhile, had moved to the foot of the window. “Your mysterious marble slab, Mr Aragona,” he said, pointing to a part of the floor. “Here it is.”

  The slab with the metal tenon was very inconspicuous. Anyone unaware of the story of the ray of sunlight would probably not have noticed it at all.

  “And I must disappoint you once again: this sundial – because that is what it is, a perfectly normal sundial – is not even that old,” continued the amused professor. “It was canon Claude Estienne in 1701 who had it made and, you may be certain, it all took place most empirically. The canon must have studied the path of the sun during a summer solstice a few years earlier and calculated the
exact way to make the beam touch the tenon on the twenty-first of June. Why, we do not know, of course: to set the clocks by? To honour the height of summer and, in a few days, on the twenty-fourth of June, the feast of John the Baptist? No sources speak of it, so who knows?”

  I followed Carpenter’s explanation with little interest, as my attention was directed more towards the policemen than the secret of the cathedral. The professor noticed and grew serious. His arms fell to his side and he said, “But at the end of the day, none of this is important, Mr Aragona.”

  I looked at him and nodded, feeling the tension pulling at the features of my face. “No, it isn’t. All that matters in this insane story is my wife, Professor. But I thank you for your valuable information anyway.”

  “Come on Mr Aragona,” said Thomas, who approached with Oscar and Andrea, “I’ll show you where the mobile control centre is.”

  We went outside and headed towards the southern exterior of the building, the Cloître Notre-Dame. The pretty little houses that flanked the cathedral seemed dwarfed by the giant in their midst. The street narrowed, before running alongside the apse of the church and turning right to make roome for the boundary wall of the old priory of Saint Etienne. Before the beginning of the priory wall, which had been converted into a hotel and restaurant, I noticed a small door with a sign that read ‘la Crypte’, where a white van was parked. Discreetly we headed there. Thomas knocked on the back door of the van and a police technician opened it and ushered us inside where there were monitors, computers and other surveillance equipment.

  Thomas explained everything to us, then turned to me and looked me in the face.

  “Mr Aragona, I want you to know that I intend to do everything in my power to prevent anything from happening to your wife.”

  Chapter 45

  Chartres, 21st of June, 11:50

  Summer solstice

  Since the doors opened, people had been flooding into the cathedral and the closer it got to midday, the more tourists there were. The night before, Professor Carpenter had told me that in reality the ray of sunshine actually touched the tenon at 13:50, and not at noon – until then I had taken it for granted that the phenomenon happened at the zenith, but evidently I hadn’t been studying the information that I had found carefully enough.

  “Things change, Mr Aragona,” he had explained to me as I attempted to eat something in one of the bistros overlooking the cathedral square, “and what was noon in 1701, over time became 13:50. Before, the adjustment of the time in Chartres to the time in Paris led to a four-minute difference, given that Chartres is about one degree west of the capital – when it was noon in Paris, it was still four minutes to in Chartres. Then the alignment of France to Greenwich Mean Time in 1911 added one hour minus five minutes to Paris’s time, but only fifty minutes to the time in Chartres. And if we also consider the introduction of summer time, it is clear that the phenomenon occurs one hour and fifty minutes after noon.”

  As I had been getting ready that morning – Oscar and Andrea had managed to convince Thomas to let me take part in the operation with the van – I had thought about Carpenter’s words. I had wondered if Asar knew the precise time the phenomenon occurred and how he would react if he didn’t. I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out, though.

  It was ten minutes before noon and there was, in fact, no sign of the luminous disk. Not yet.

  “Lieutenant Thomas, all quiet here,” whispered one of the undercover agents on the radio.

  The cameras could see the curious sightseers who were already standing around the flagstone with the tenon. Occasionally someone checked the time and then went away. But Asar could be anyone – I had never seen his face, only his mask.

  At one point, a large man with a hat came within range of the cameras. He walked around the slab in the floor a couple of times and threw more than a glance at the window.

  “Keep an eye on that guy,” said Thomas, into the radio.

  “Roger that,” answered one of the men.

  It couldn’t be Asar, though. Even if he had worn a long black cloak the two times I had seen him, I could tell he wasn’t that robust.

  And in fact, the man with the hat walked away shortly afterwards.

  “It’s two minutes to noon,” said Andrea looking at her watch. “It may be that our man is aware of the time issue.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said looking at one of the monitors. “That man—”

  A bald man with a full beard wearing jeans, a light jacket and tinted sunglasses had approached the tenon. He remained immobile, and then began talking to another tourist. They could see the two chatting and smiling after checking the time on the clock. The bald man shook the other’s hand, seemed to thank him for something, and then walked away.

  “Dubois, did you hear what they said?” asked Thomas.

  “It seems that the bald guy didn’t know that it’ll be another two hours before the phenomenon occurs, Lieutenant,” whispered the policeman, “the other guy explained it to him.”

  “Where is he now? Can you see him?”

  “Yes, he went off towards the choir. He looks like a normal tourist.”

  “Don’t take your eyes off him.”

  “Copy.”

  Oscar looked at me with a quizzical expression on his face.

  “What is it Lorenzo? Have you seen something?”

  “I… I feel as though I recognise him. But maybe I’m wrong.”

  We spent two tense hours watching all the people who approached the slab and the window and when it was almost time for the phenomenon to take place, a small bright disk could clearly be seen advancing towards the tenon.

  “Ok, this it,” Thomas whispered, “something might happen in the next few minutes so keep your eyes open.”

  “Roger that,” answered the men, almost in unison.

  After a while, the bald guy I had noticed a couple of hours before re-appeared. “There he is again…”

  He stood staring at the disk of sunlight, but now looked very agitated. He peered around him constantly as though looking for someone, and at one point took off his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes before putting them back on again. And in that moment, I recognized him.

  “It can’t be… It’s impossible!”

  “What is it Lorenzo?” asked Oscar. “Who is that man? Do you know him?”

  “Stop him, it’s him! It must be him!” I shouted, without answering Oscar’s question.

  “Dubois, the bald man – stop the bald man!” ordered Thomas.

  The men moved almost in unison and grabbed the bald man, who put up little resistance. They dragged him to a corner of the south transept. Thomas opened the door of the van and rushed out, followed by Andrea and Oscar. I was about to follow them, but a look from the French Interpol Lieutenant stopped me. “You stay here!”

  “You seem to be forgetting that I know that man,” I said, standing next to Oscar. “Let me talk to him!”

  “Come on, Thomas, let’s take him with us – I’ll take responsibility.”

  We entered the cathedral and went quickly to the south transept. The incident had created some agitation, but the police were keeping the curious back and so soon we were at the place where they held the bald man. When I saw him up close, I could hardly believe my eyes.

  Friends become enemies. I remembered the Janara’s words.

  “You… It’s you…” I whispered, in an agonised voice. The police had realised that the man was wearing a false beard and now that had they torn it off, before me, albeit without a hair on his head, was the familiar face of Michele de Sangro.

  As soon as he saw me, Michele stopped struggling and fell to his knees. “Lorenzo, forgive me—”

  Blinded by rage I was about to throw myself on him when Oscar stopped me.

  “Michele, how could you? Where’s my wife, what have you done to her?”

  Michele looked at me in bewilderment. “Your wife? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re Asar
! You’re the lunatic who masterminded all this. You killed Hašek to steal the manuscript, killed the Bulgarian, threatened me and the others and maybe even stole the alchemical watch. And you kidnapped my wife! And you have the nerve to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about!”

  Michele looked more and more amazed.

  “I commissioned the theft of the manuscript, yes, and I threatened you with a bluff, Lorenzo, and I accept responsibility for all that – but I haven’t killed anyone, nor have I kidnapped your wife! I made up the story of Asar to convince you to help me because I wanted to avoid anyone getting their hands on the secret that Raimondo di Sangro had hidden – perhaps not so effectively. Because someone could have used it to create other legends and spread other nonsense about him… I wanted to protect the name of my grandfather, my family. I was wrong and I’ll pay for it, but I haven’t killed anyone.”

  Andrea, Oscar and I looked at each other without comprehending, but before we had time to digest what Michele was saying a voice behind us made us spin around.

  “Drop your guns, all of you, or I’ll blow her brains out!”

  Screams of fear rose from the vaults of the cathedral, and the area around the south transept rapidly emptied while the police tried to calm the other visitors and prevent panic from breaking out.

  And there he was, the person who was actually behind all this, right in front of me. The sick mind behind this trail of blood and threats. Clad in a cassock, his handsome face arrogantly undisguised, Riccardo Micali held a gun to my wife, whose head was covered with a brightly coloured headscarf.

  “Àrtemis…” I murmured, my heart pounding.

  My wife, tears in her eyes, looked at me in terror.

  “Lorenzo… help me.”

  “Shut up, you hear me? Shut up and nothing will happen to you.”

  “Calm down, let’s talk,” said Thomas, holding his hands out in front of him.

  “Get away from the marble slab, all of you. And you, put the ruby on the tenon. Hurry! There’s only a minute left.”