The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 7

by Jonathan Strahan

  Well, then.

  First, I needed something to write on. That wasn’t too hard. There’s plenty of three-hundred-year-old parchment around, if you know where to look. Fortuitously, I have a cousin who’s a lawyer. In the cool, dry cellar under his place of business there are thousands of packets of title deeds, many of them so old as to have lost any semblance of relevance years and years ago. I made up some story and he gave me a Deed of Rectification—something to do with sorting out a boundary dispute between two neighbors who subsequently both sold out to a third party, rendering the Deed entirely obsolete—which bore the countersignature of a Council official who’d been in office the year after Aeneas Peregrinus came back from Essecuivo. Perfect. How more authentic can you get?

  Back then, they used soot and oak-apple gall, ground fine, for ink. It comes off quite cleanly if you damp the parchment slightly and rub it down with a pumice stone. Naturally, you lose a tiny amount of thickness, but that’s not a problem; six out of ten old documents you come across have been written on pumiced-off parchment. The stuff cost money, after all, and people were thriftier back then. In fact, it was entirely in keeping with what we know about Aeneas that he’d have used second-hand parchment. He didn’t, in fact, but he could have. Should have, even.

  Soot-and-oak-apple-gall ink is no trouble to make, if you happen to have read Theogenes’ On Various Arts; it’s two centuries earlier than Aeneas, but nothing much changed in the intervening time. There’s a fine old oak in the Studium grounds that’s been there for at least two hundred and fifty years. It still drops acorns. Attention to detail, you see. Authenticity. For soot, I climbed up onto the leaded roof of the Old Hall and scrabbled around inside the chimney-cowls. I mined deep and came up with a rich vein of soot that could well have been there since Aeneas was a lad. I’m not sure I needed to go that far, but if a thing’s worth doing—

  Style and handwriting. No problem. After all, I’m the world’s leading authority. If someone wanted to authenticate a piece of writing attributed to Aeneas, they’d come to me. Also, I’ve always had a gift for copying other people’s handwriting. Because my father was less than generous with my living allowance when I was an undergraduate at the Studium, I was forced to make ends meet by reproducing his signature on Company bills of exchange. Now my father’s handwriting was so bad that occasionally his bills were questioned by the clerks, but all of mine were cleared without question.

  I made a trip to Corytona, where they’ve got two of the surviving Aeneas letters, and studied them carefully. I knew for a fact that Aeneas had written his book using a pen with a new-fangled (at that time) steel nib. But most authorities agree that steel nibs didn’t come in to general use for another twenty years or so, so I used an ordinary goose-quill.

  Carmine, for the red illuminated capitals, was a serious headache. Back then, they made it by crushing dried beetles—not just any beetle, but a special kind only found in Maracanto, which is why it was expensive, which is why it was so fashionable as a decoration in manuscripts. These days we get carmine from grinding up a sort of rock they find at certain levels in the mines. Everyone says you can’t tell the difference. I can’t. But by that stage I was in no mood to take chances. Also, I felt a sort of obligation. If what I was doing was justified and right, it had to be done properly. As luck would have it, in the chemistry stores in the East Building, where nobody goes anymore, I found a tiny, dusty old bottle containing six shriveled, desiccated carmine beetles. For all I know, they could well have been there for three hundred years. With Theogenes open in front of me on the bench, I pounded them very carefully in a pestle, added the other bits and pieces, and came up with a beautiful deep red paste. Genuine authentic carmine ink.

  Unfortunately, authentic genuine carmine ink fades over time. The color I’d seen in the manuscript that Carchedonius had burned was more a sort of reddish-pink. As far as I know, there’s no way of artificially fading the stuff. In the end, I had to mix in finely ground barley flour and a few drops of aqua orientalis, which gave me precisely the color I wanted. It wasn’t right, of course. It was an entirely authentic, genuine and period-correct reddish-pink (the recipe is in Theogenes) and therefore, inevitably, a lie. I felt very bad about that, but really, I had no alternative.

  As for the words themselves; once again, I was in the invaluable position of being the acknowledged expert. I’ve read every surviving word Aeneas wrote, many times. I know his turns of phrase, his verbal eccentricities, the rhythms and cadences, the pet phrases. That, and I have a really good memory for the written word; if I read something through once, I can usually regurgitate large chunks of it weeks or even months later. From my reading of the True Discovery I guess I could remember about a third of it word-perfect. I got that down on paper straight away, then set about filling in the gaps. As far as content goes, I was on pretty firm ground, since so much of what I’d seen in the manuscript was little more than a pre-emptive paraphrase of my own various papers, essays and dissertations. There were one or two things in the original that I couldn’t recall clearly or accurately enough to feel safe about including them, so, reluctantly, I left them out. I resisted the temptation to put in stuff from my own research that Aeneas had somehow neglected to include. I was proud of myself for that. I can see how easy it must be for a diplomat, say, or a commercial agent to overstep his authority in the heat of negotiations. I’d have loved to have put in my pet theory about the little cedarwood box full of crumbly red dust preserved in the archives of the Serio-Beselli at Anax; the family tradition says it was brought back by Aeneas’ ship’s doctor, and I’m convinced it’s a sample of rottenstone (whose properties were unknown until shortly after Aeneas’ return) It’d have been so easy to drop a casual mention of rottenstone, and how my friend the surgeon brought some home with him in a small box. That’s just the sort of throwaway anecdote Aeneas goes in for. But no. That would’ve been wrong, I’d never have forgiven myself.

  From start to finish, re-creating the manuscript took me seven weeks. I then put it up in the rafters in the roofspace above the Great Hall kitchens; there’s a flaw in the chimney lining, and smoke gets in there. Also, the air up there is very slightly damp and greasy. I’ve noticed that old manuscripts are often a bit clammy to the touch; the True Discovery hadn’t been, but I needed a provenance. It had to be something to do with the niece—after all, that had been what actually happened, and the manuscript tradition is in itself a valid subject for scholarship—but I couldn’t think of a convincing way of explaining how I’d got hold of something from the Dorcelli auction. After all, the auctioneer’s clerk would have records of who’d bought what, and my name would be conspicuously absent from it. That meant I’d have to invent a fictitious middleman, or else suborn a dealer in old manuscripts as an accomplice, which I was very reluctant to do. Instead, I decided to work backwards from a passing reference in the Ancusi diaries, which I’d known about for years but never gone into properly; Ortygia Ancusa, about a hundred and seventy years ago, talked about visiting the Dorcelli and expressing interest in some old maps and charts, which Lollius Dorcellus gave her as a gift. Ortygia was an amateur Essecuivo scholar (not a very good one). My theory would therefore be that the bundle of old maps that Lollius gave her included the True Discovery. It works, because Ortygia died of pneumonia not long after the visit, so wouldn’t have had time to go through the papers she’d been given and recognize the True Discovery for what it was. The papers would’ve been bundled away in the house archive and forgotten about. I’d been given permission to go through the Ancusi papers several years ago, but never got around to it; I happen to know, however, that the bulk of the archive is stored in a loft directly above the main kitchens.

  All right, answer me this. If the person you loved the most in the whole world died, and you somehow managed to catch that person’s soul in a bottle; and suppose you then went round all the graveyards, digging up the newly buried bodies, carefully choosing a part here and a part there; and suppose
you could stitch all the bits together so skillfully that it didn’t show; suppose you’d built a body that looked so exactly like the person you’d loved that even you couldn’t tell them apart; and you sucked the soul out of the bottle and blew it into the composite body’s mouth and brought it back to life—

  Well?

  I confess I was looking forward to meeting Carchedonius again, though I didn’t go out of my way. I didn’t have to wait too long. He was there as a guest when I was awarded the Imperial Medal. I wasn’t surprised to see him there. I’d insisted his name was on the guest list.

  He was standing in a corner. That was what he did, at any kind of social gathering. I walked up to him and smiled. He gave me a long, grim look.

  "Congratulations,” he said.

  Not quite what I was expecting. “Thank you.”

  I was prepared for anger (prepared? I was looking forward to it) but not to that degree of intensity. It took me a moment to decode it. He wasn’t angry with me. He was absolutely furious with the entire world.

  "I’ve got to hand it to you,” he said. (He was wearing his green-with-age black Matriculation gown, over a shirt with frayed cuffs and flogged-out black boots that would’ve been very expensive twenty years ago. The rest of us were in frock-coats and lace ruffs. I think he was trying to look genuine.) “You’re lucky.”

  I frowned. “Am I?”

  It was rather frightening, watching him keep the anger down. I could see, it wanted to flow into his arms and hands, but he was keeping it bottled up in his head. “Oh, I grant you, it was a masterly piece of scholarship. You followed a clue the rest of us had overlooked, and it led you straight to the prize. I’m not for one moment suggesting you didn’t deserve the medal.”

  I was puzzled by that. “Excuse me?”

  "Oh, you did. You do. If you look at the nomination papers, I’m the fourth signature from the top.” He paused to take a very deep breath; I could see him exploding, if he wasn’t careful. “What I never anticipated was that there could possibly be a second manuscript.” He gave me a three-second glare. “Now that’s luck.”

  I could’ve burst out laughing. Instead, I nodded my head towards the door. “Come outside,” I said. “I need to tell you something.”

  He shrugged and followed me. Outside, it was dark and just starting to spot with fine rain. “Well?”

  I told him.

  For a moment, I was sure he was going to attack me. I was worried. As a boy I learned fencing—good at it, though I hated it—but that’s as close as I’ve ever got to anything in the way of physical violence. I’m taller than he is, but he’s got arms like a bear. No idea why, since he’s been a scholar all his adult life.

  "You faked it.”

  I nodded.

  "I see.” I could almost hear him think. He was having trouble keeping his mind clear, because of the anger. “And of course I can’t tell anyone, because then I’d have to explain how I know.”

  "That’s the general idea.”

  Suddenly he went blank. “I examined it,” he said. “My first thought was, it’s a fake, he’s got someone to forge a copy for him.” Then he frowned; puzzled. “But it’s perfect,” he said.

  "Thank you.”

  "Who did you—?”

  "I did. Myself.”

  "Good God.” He raised both eyebrows. “Seriously?”

  "Of course. You don’t think I’d be stupid enough to trust an accomplice.”

  "The capitals,” he said. “You can’t fade red carmine.”

  "I used Theogenes’ recipe for pink.”

  I could tell from his face he’d never have thought of that. “Congratulations,” he said. “I’m impressed. I never imagined you had a creative streak.”

  "Hardly that. That’s the point. I didn’t invent anything. I just copied.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve always wanted to be able to draw and paint, that sort of thing. But I’m useless at it. You could be an artist.”

  "I’ve never wanted to be anything else but what I am.”

  I’ve never seen so much contempt on a human face. He moved his head so he didn’t have to look at me. I felt I had to defend myself, even though I’d so obviously beaten him. “It’s not so different from how all the classics survived,” I said. “The original is lost, but someone made a copy. If you look past the immediate deception, the end product is as authentic as the Gigliami Codex. In a thousand years it’d be just a footnote in the manuscript tradition, if anyone ever knew.”

  The blank look was back. “Last month I was offered the chair at Euphrosyne,” he said. “It’s more money, and I’d be head of department. I think I’ll accept.”

  I was stunned. Euphrosyne. I imagine there must be people up there who can read—a few of them, clerks and customs officials—but Euphrosyne, after the Studium. It’d be like starving yourself to death over the course of thirty years. “Why?”

  "Because you’ve won,” he said. Then he turned and walked away, and I’ve never seen him since.

  Who was it said that the only thing sadder than a battle lost is a battle won? Not my period, so I’m not going to bother checking the reference. Anyway, it’s garbage. Once you’ve got past the initial frisson of guilt, victory is wonderful.

  I had every reason to be pleased with myself. Faced by a reverse which would’ve broken most men in my position, I’d rallied and struck back. I’d routed the enemy, and my cause had been just. As a result, I was feted and lionized; promoted to the vacant Gorgias chair of commercial history, elected to Chapter, honorary doctorates from a slew of provincial universities; rock-solid tenure, more money, better lodgings, reduced teaching duties leaving me more time for research. True, the victory I was being rewarded for wasn’t quite the victory I’d actually won, but you don’t have to go too far back to find precedents of the very highest quality. After all, everybody says it was Palaechorus who defeated the White Horde. Garbage. He was a thousand miles away at the time, busily breaking down the Sueno bridges so the Aram Chantat couldn’t get across. He saved the Republic, no possible doubt about that, but not in the way the man in the street thinks he did.

  The only negative aspect to total victory is that once you’ve achieved it, the war is over. Having spent my adult life trying to recreate the lost manuscript of Aeneas Peregrinus, I was in the depressing situation of having succeeded, totally. The question now what? was written across the top of every new day, and I found it rather hard to answer. Of course, I didn’t have to do anything. That’s the point of being the Gorgias professor. You don’t have to teach or publish, all you’re called on to do is lounge around looking wise, maybe as a special favor explaining to selected admirers just how very clever you used to be. Gorgias professors are usually men in their mid-seventies. At that time, I was thirty-seven.

  "The duke,” she said, “would like to meet you.”

  I bet he would, I thought. Who wouldn’t? “It’d be an honor,” I said. I didn’t specify who for.

  "Fine,” she said briskly, “I’ll set something up. He wants to move quickly, so make sure you’re available.”

  "That shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “I’ll have finished the paper for the General Conclave by this time next week, and then I’d better get something down for the Alixes Lecture, but after that, I should be—”

  "No,” she said. “This is important.”

  I’d have engaged her in a discussion of the true meaning of the word important, but just then we heard her husband’s voice down below in the entrance hall. Her room has a balcony, and there’s a hundred-year-old grapevine on that wall. I hate climbing.

  The duke came to see me. Appreciate the significance. He came to me. An honor. One I could have done without.

  I was in my rooms, as usual. For some reason, I was spending a lot of time there, in the book room, at my desk, just sitting. I had one oil-lamp—the habits of a lifetime of frugality die hard—and Diodorus’ General Discourse open in front of me. In theory I was chasing down a reference,
but really I think I was doing what the wild boar do in the woods; building a nest where I could curl up during the hours of daylight and not be seen.

  There was a bang on the door, and before I could get up, it flew open and two kettlehats came bursting in. I assumed they were there to arrest me. Naturally I froze. But they stopped and took up position on either side of the doorframe, and the duke came in.

  It wasn’t so long ago that everywhere you looked, there was a portrait. As a scholar, I can tell you that ninety per cent of them are copies of the Treblaeus portrait, which used to hang in the atrium of the House chapel. I could also be very interesting about the subtle changes in the iconography of the mass-circulation portraits—the significance of the white rose in the top left field, or the changes in the political undercurrents that led to the wren perched on the windowsill quietly metamorphosing into a robin. The duke himself was, of course, an artifact, a thing created, reinvented, adapted and updated, until by the time I met him there’s a plausible argument for saying that he was pretty much a forgery of himself. Bear in mind, this was just after the Secession debate but before the White Glove scandal. The duke had lost about a third of what he’d owned or controlled at the height of his ascendancy, but he was still the second richest and third most powerful man in the Republic. People like that are generally too big to fit inside rooms like mine, even if they are only five feet tall.

  No, you don’t see that in the portraits, but it’s true. What the Invincible Sun had in mind when he made him that way, I have no idea. In the paintings you see what’s essentially the perfect human being; classical proportions, perfect muscle tone if it happens to be a Classical or post-Mannerist portrait, and the face of an emperor off the old coinage, back when the die-cutters really knew what they were doing. Naturally people assume that in real life he looked nothing at all like that. Not true. The portraits are for the most part surprisingly accurate; authentic, genuine copies of the original. Except that he was five feet tall, which meant, when I rose to greet him, he just about came up to my shoulder.