by C T Cassana
“Your Majesty, you wouldn’t know where that papyrus scroll might be now, would you?”
“Why do you want to find it, my lad? What makes it so important?”
“Because it tells the life of a queen of Egypt who has been wronged by history. The world has a mistaken idea about her, and if that scroll is lost, the truth will never be known.”
“Well done!” thought Lisa. That would surely touch a nerve with Bonaparte.
“That is the price the powerful have to pay,” replied Napoleon, in a rather melancholy tone. “Ruling a nation requires sacrifice and duty, the courage to make tough decisions and the perseverance to see them through. Often the people do not understand them and judge their rulers unfairly, but that doesn’t make the decisions wrong.”
“My father says that there is no better defense or harsher condemnation than our own deeds,” said Charlie, believing the remark to be relevant to the turn their conversation had taken. “And that to judge a person fairly, we should consider both their virtues and their failings, regardless of how much we might like them.”
Lisa raised her hands to her head as she listened. What on earth did this philosophical dissertation have to do with anything? Damn it! Napoleon had admitted that Joséphine collected papyrus scrolls, he’d recognized the symbols on the one they were looking for, and he’d even acknowledged that his wife was obsessed with them. He had even identified with the misunderstood queen Charlie had mentioned. But her brother, instead of going in for the kill and persuading him to help clear the memory of the poor woman, had embarked on a philosophical discussion in which, furthermore, he was quite out of his depth.
“I don’t believe your father is right about that, my boy,” replied Bonaparte. “The profit or necessity of one’s deeds is not always clear to everyone, and a ruler is neither able nor obliged to give explanations to justify them.”
“Well, that’s exactly what happened to the Egyptian queen I’m talking about, your Majesty,” answered Charlie, trying to get himself out of the mess he was making of the discussion. “Nobody understood why she did what she did, and it never occurred to anybody that she had good reasons for doing it, but of course, she couldn’t explain it to them because she was a queen, so she told one person she trusted, and that one person wrote it all down on the papyrus scroll...”
Lisa listened to her brother’s convoluted explanation with her face buried in her hands. It all sounded like nonsense.
“You mean that papyrus scroll contains her memoirs,” concluded Napoleon.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Charlie, nodding and waving his finger eagerly. “They’re her memoirs.”
“You see, Joséphine looked after that scroll with the greatest of care,” said Bonaparte. “She kept it in the desk she’d ordered to be made, which was inlaid with those hieroglyphic signs and winged lions just like the ones on the desk in my study.”
Lisa nodded as she listened. She remembered the emperor’s desk perfectly because when she’d seen it she had noticed how beautiful it was. She also remembered Joséphine’s desk, with the lions adorning its four corners; it was in Malmaison, the château that the empress bought after marrying Bonaparte, and where she had lived after their divorce until she died.
Lisa went back to the table to look for their pictures in the dossier while her brother continued the discussion.
“You need to look for a secret compartment that is hidden in the molding on the top,” Napoleon went on. “You will recognize it because it is the only one without a border of golden laurel leaves. The molding conceals a very narrow drawer with a false bottom. Find it, and there you will find the papyrus scroll you seek.”
“And do you think it will still be there?” asked the boy.
“Possibly,” nodded Napoleon. “It isn’t easy to find that compartment unless one knows it is there, and there were very few of us who knew of its existence.”
“And where is the desk?”
“In Joséphine’s chambers in Château de Malmaison,” replied Bonaparte. “I imagine it would still be there, because none of her children shared her taste for Egyptian art. Find it, Charlot, and ensure that justice is done for that queen.”
“I promise I will, your Majesty,” said Charlie, bowing in farewell.
Then he remembered that there was something else he had to do before he left.
“Here,” he said, taking an embroidered handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it out to Napoleon. “Joséphine gave it to me when I was in the Tuileries, but I thought perhaps you would like to keep it. She was a very kind and very friendly woman...”
“She was,” agreed Bonaparte, taking the handkerchief in both hands and bringing it up to his lips. “Now I know that you’re an angel, Charlot D’Artagnan. And I am truly grateful for your visit.”
Charlie lowered his head shyly in response to the compliment. Then he bowed again and left the room to find Lisa.
. . .
First thing in the morning, Max Wellington received the new version of the “Milford List”, this time including the date of birth of every E. Milford who lived in Greater London. By this point he already had at least a rough if not exact idea of all their ages, except for the two individuals he had been unable to contact. But now he could confirm that none of them were between eight and twelve years old, the age range he had established to allow for the possibility that the security guard’s estimate had been off target. Nor could any of them be the grandmother that Ghostbuster had described.
Once again, the information didn’t seem to match up, suggesting that C. W., the owner of the compass lost in the Cretaceous, and the plague victim E. Milford were in fact two different people. Perhaps they were two different travelers who had shown up at the same time by mere chance. Or perhaps E. Milford was simply an unlucky individual who had contracted the plague in 2014 in the heart of London, without ever having traveled in time.
Although some clues were confusing, others were perfectly clear. The security guard had said he’d seen two ghosts, but only one of them was wearing a black cape. It was a Palatine, a very rare and highly coveted cape, which could be the key to his claim to become the next Grand Master. In spite of certain limitations, a Palatine cape offered great advantages, like the ability to time travel with other people and to transport large and heavy objects. This could explain the discrepancy between the surname Milford and the initials “C. W.”, as the time traveler appeared to be traveling with company.
Whatever the case may be, one thing was clear: the owner of that wondrous object was a skinny eleven-year-old boy, frighteningly easy prey for anyone who might want to snatch it from him. This meant he had to hurry to get a hold of it before another hunter beat him to it. There was no room for another mistake. If he didn’t get that cape, he would have no chance of succeeding Emanuel Gentile.
There was only one way to find out whether there was any connection between the boy and the plague victim, and that was by going directly to the physician who had handled the case.
Max sent another email to Jeff Carter.
“Get me the name of the doctor who attended E. Milford and his work shifts for this week and next week. This is urgent.”
. . .
While listening to her brother’s conversation with Bonaparte, Lisa put the dossier on the table and opened it up to the section on Malmaison. With the satisfaction that comes from seeing a job well done, she turned the pages until she found the picture of the desk, which she examined for a few moments. It was exactly as Napoleon had described it, and she could even make out the molding where the secret compartment was hidden. The desk had been ordered by Joséphine for her apartment, where she would live from that time on.
Lisa smiled as she thought over her strategy. Having discovered the whereabouts of the papyrus scroll, they would now go in search of it directly from Saint Helena, still in 1818, without returning to their own time. As soon as they found it, they would take it and place it in the year 2014 in the same place or in
another similar spot, so that their mother would be able to find it. To determine the coordinates of the place they would have to travel to, they needed only to consult her dossier, where she also had included exact information on all locations related to Napoleon and Joséphine.
She turned the pages in search of the floor plan of Malmaison, which should have been at the end of the section dedicated to the château, right before the section on the Tuileries. Suddenly she felt a rush of blood to her head and she gasped for breath.
Where on earth was it???
Lisa tried to calm down. She was sure she had included it: the floor plan to Malmaison with the coordinates, not only of the castle but of each of its rooms, for which Google Earth had proved the best resource in the world.
When Charlie came to her side, he found her flipping back and forth through the pages of the huge dossier.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a whisper. “We’ve gotta go!”
“I can’t find the floor plan with the coordinates!” answered his sister nervously.
“What floor plan?”
“The one for Malmaison,” she replied without looking up from the pages. “Look, this is the desk. It’s in Joséphine’s apartment, just like he told you. But I can’t find the floor plan with the coordinates to go look for it.”
“Lisa, we can’t stay here. Napoleon is awake, and if he gets up he’ll see us here and he’ll know I’m not an angel.”
“He shouldn’t need to get up to know that,” said Lisa, trying to make a joke of her brother’s remark.
From the next room came a noise. It sounded like Bonaparte had gotten up and was moving around.
“Oh no, he’s gonna catch us!” exclaimed Charlie. “And if he doesn’t, the others will, because it’s almost morning. Lisa, we’ve got to go now, wherever we go.”
Lisa kept flipping through the pages, trying to ignore her brother, although she knew perfectly well that he was right. One solution would be to go to Paris and try to make it to Malmaison with the money and resources they had, but it seemed to her too risky and uncertain an enterprise to even dare to mention it aloud. Then she stopped and went back to the beginning to read the history of the château.
“Joséphine’s kids kept the property until 1828,” she said. “We’ll go back home now, and then we’ll go to Malmaison in 1827. The worst thing that can happen is that we’ll have to wait nine weeks to go look for it in the time period that suits us best. I feel bad for Mum, but I’m not about to put us in danger again.”
She signaled to her brother to set all the annuli to the right position for a homeward journey. Moments later, they disappeared in an embrace.
. . .
Max read the email that Jeff Carter had just sent him. The doctor’s name was Andrew Price and his next shift at St. Thomas’ Hospital began the following day at four p.m.
Max closed his computer. He then opened up his safe and took out a coal-gray velvet cape. He also took out a bronze bracelet studded with annuli and entered the coordinates for his next trip. He needed to get a hold of a WHO employee credential to make his visit more credible.
. . .
Lisa sat down at the desk in the attic, unable to conceal her rage.
“Don’t get like that!” said her brother, while he put the cape away in the wardrobe. “It really doesn’t matter at all.”
“Damn it, Charlie! I had everything prepared to be able to go wherever we needed to without having to take another trip that would force us to go forward nine years! Now I’m going to have to do more research to find out whether there was anyone living in Malmaison in 1827. And I can assure you, that won’t be easy.”
“Not necessarily.”
“I’ll have to do it if we don’t want to be in for any surprises,” said Lisa, her anger rising. “And what if there’s somebody in the castle? And what if...?”
“Lisa, listen,” Charlie interrupted, trying to assuage her. “The desk is in Joséphine’s apartment, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, tonight we go and look for it. Simple.”
“But I’m telling you that I don’t know if there was someone living there in 1827 and I don’t know if I’ll have time to investigate it...”
“And what do we care who was living there in 1827?” said Charlie with a smile. “We’ll go tonight, and check to see if it’s there. If it is, we’ll leave it there and tell Mum so she can find it; and if we don’t find it, then we’ll go to all the trouble of investigating whether someone was living in the castle back then.”
Lisa smiled when she understood what her brother was trying to say.
“Oh, of course!” she exclaimed in relief. “We don’t need to travel in time! We can go to Malmaison right now, on the 9th of April 2014. If it’s as well hidden as Napoleon said it was, it might still be there. We’ll go tonight and find out. You’re a genius, little brother!”
Charlie smiled.
“Well, if we’re going tonight, we’d better find that floor plan you lost,” he said.
And they marched out of the attic and down to the library.
. . .
When she got home, Maggie greeted Marcus and the kids affectionately, and then got changed and started making dinner. With sixteen days to go until the opening, the preparations for the exhibition were practically completed, at least insofar as her responsibilities were concerned. The only thing that could change things would be the sudden appearance of the second papyrus scroll, but she had run out of leads, and she had lost her partner in the investigation. As a result, she had given up the search, at least for now.
Instead, she had been doing all she could to get home earlier so she could spend more time with her family and make up for having been almost entirely wrapped up in her work for the past few months. And one way of doing this was by recovering their dinnertime ritual, when the family would get together over a delicious meal and talk about their day.
That evening, while Lisa searched for the Malmaison floor plan among all the papers she had piled up in the library, Charlie noticed two rather troubling incidents.
The first was his mother asking his father to come to the kitchen with the excuse of helping her with something, without clarifying what that something was. They were in there talking, with the door closed, for several minutes. When he came out, Marcus looked at Charlie and smiled at him in a way that seemed to him rather forced, although he said nothing. He didn’t look angry or upset, but whatever it was about, the conversation had been in some way related to him, although he couldn’t think of any reason why his school or some other place might have called his parents about him.
The second incident was even more worrying, if that were possible. With the excuse of getting a glass of water, Charlie went into the kitchen and saw that Maggie was preparing a two-cheese pizza with pickles, sausages, anchovies and bacon; the boy’s favorite dish, which, inexplicably, was not very popular with the rest of the family. That his mother would expose herself to complaints from Marcus and (especially) from Lisa without his even having asked her to make it for dinner made it very clear that something was up. And that his parents were preparing the ground to tell him what it was at dinner.
Lisa interrupted her brother’s ruminations to give him some good news.
“I’ve found the floor plan to Malmaison,” she said, showing him a sheet of paper with a map filled with little numbers. “Tonight I’ll set the alarm for two o’clock, and we’ll go look for the papyrus scroll. We can’t wait until Friday when Mrs. Davis comes. That wouldn’t give Mum enough time to find it and translate it before the exhibition.”
Charlie nodded.
“I have a feeling they want to tell us something,” he said, referring to their parents. “They’re acting weird.”
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” replied his sister. “Come on, help me get everything ready. We’ve got a lot to do before we go.”
. . .
Maggie cut the first slice of pizza and served it
to her son.
“I have something to tell you,” she announced.
The boy looked over to his sister to acknowledge the confirmation of his suspicions.
“It’s about Helen,” his mother went on. “Her lawyer called me today to tell me that she changed her will at the last minute. Charlie, she has left you her books, records, furniture and valuables, as well as a large sum of money. She had no family, so she bequeathed her estate to you and to the museum.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. He didn’t really need all those things, although he was touched by the idea that Helen Rotherwick had chosen him from among all the people she knew, and that he would have some personal objects to remind him of his friend.
Like she had told him in her letter, the world was filled with wonderful things and moments that he would come to appreciate. Music, books, good company... Things that for him had no value now, that he even found a bore, but which in the not-too-distant future would greatly enrich his life.
He was struck by a pang of regret that his friend would not be there to share all those things with him, and he felt a large lump in his throat as the emotion overwhelmed him.
“It seems that she really was very fond of you, Charlie,” said his mother. “Much more than I had imagined.”
. . .
When she saw the canopy with the crown and the golden eagle, Lisa immediately recognized the room. It was Joséphine Bonaparte’s bedroom in Château de Malmaison.