The Book of Life (47 page)

With no detailed knowledge of Kircher’s ideas about magnetism, Phoebe had read an entirely different meaning in the inscription.

“And why are these four disks larger?” she continued, pointing to the center of the page. Three of the disks were arranged in a triangular fashion around one containing an unblinking eye.

“I’m not sure,” I confessed, reading the Latin descriptions that accompanied the images. “The eye represents the world of archetypes.”

“Oh. The origin of all things,” Phoebe looked at the image more closely.

“What did you say?” My third eye opened, suddenly interested in what Phoebe Taylor had to say.

“Archetypes are original patterns. See, here are the sublunar world, the heavens, and man,” she said, tapping in succession each of the three disks surrounding the archetypal eye. “Each one of them is linked to the world of archetypes—their point of origin—as well as to one another. The motto suggests we should see the chains as knots, though. I’m not sure if that’s relevant.”

“Oh, I think it’s relevant,” I said under my breath, more certain than ever that Athanasius Kircher and the Villa Mondragone sale were crucial links in the series of events that led from Edward Kelley in Prague to the final missing page. Somehow, Father Athanasius must have learned about the world of creatures. Either that or he was one himself.

“The Tree of Life is a powerful archetype in its own right, of course,” Phoebe mused, “one that also describes the relationships between parts of the created world. There’s a reason genealogists use family trees to show lines of descent.”

Having an art historian in the family was going to be an unexpected boon—from both a research standpoint and a conversational one. Finally I had someone to talk to about arcane imagery.

“And you already know how important trees of knowledge are in scientific imagery. Not all of them are this representational, though,” Phoebe said with regret. “Most are just simple branching diagrams, like Darwin’s Tree of Life from
On the Origin of Species.
It was the only image in the whole book. Too bad Darwin didn’t think to hire a proper artist like Kircher did—someone who could produce something truly splendid.”

The knotted threads that had been waiting silently all around me began to chime. There was something I was missing. Some powerful connection that was nearly within my grasp, if only . . .

“Where is everybody?” Hamish poked his head into the room.

“Good morning, Hamish,” Phoebe said with a warm smile. “Leonard has gone to pick up Sarah and Fernando. Everybody else is here somewhere.”

“Hullo, Hamish.” Gallowglass waved from the garden window. “Feeling better after your sleep, Auntie?”

“Much, thank you.” But my attention was fixed on Hamish. “He hasn’t called,” Hamish said gently in response to my silent question.

I wasn’t surprised. Nevertheless, I stared down at my new books to hide my disappointment.

“Good morning, Diana. Hello, Hamish.” Ysabeau sailed into the room and offered her cheek to the daemon. He kissed it obediently. “Has Phoebe located the books you need, Diana, or should she keep looking?”

“Phoebe has done an amazing job—and quickly, too. I’m afraid I still need help, though.”

“Well, that is what we are here for.” Ysabeau beckoned her grandson inside and gave me a steadying look. “Your tea has gone cold. Marthe will bring more, and then you will tell us what must be done.”

After Marthe dutifully appeared (this time with something minty and decaffeinated rather than the strong black brew that Phoebe had poured) and Gallowglass joined us, I brought out the two pages from Ashmole 782. Hamish whistled.

“These are two illuminations removed from the Book of Life in the sixteenth century—the manuscript known today as Ashmole 782. One has yet to be found: an image of a tree. It looks a little like this.” I showed them the frontispiece from Kircher’s book on magnestism. “We have to find it before anyone else does, and that includes Knox, Benjamin, and the Congregation.”

“Why do they all want the Book of Life so badly?” Phoebe’s shrewd, olive-colored eyes were guileless. I wondered how long they would stay that way after she became a de Clermont and a vampire.

“None of us really know,” I admitted. “Is it a grimoire? A story of our origins? A record of some kind? I’ve held it in my hands twice: once in its damaged state at the Bodleian in Oxford and once in Emperor Rudolf’s cabinet of curiosities when it was whole and complete. I’m still not sure why so many creatures are seeking the book. All I can say with certainty is that the Book of Life is full of power— power and secrets.”

“No wonder the witches and vampires are so keen to acquire it,” Hamish said drily.

“The daemons as well, Hamish,” I said. “Just ask Nathaniel’s mother, Agatha Wilson. She wants it, too.”

“Wherever did you find this second page?” He touched the picture of the dragons.

“Someone brought it to New Haven.”

“Who?” Hamish asked.

“Andrew Hubbard.” After Ysabeau’s warnings I wasn’t sure how much to reveal. But Hamish was our lawyer. I couldn’t keep secrets from him. “He’s a vampire.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of who—and what—Andrew Hubbard is. I’m a daemon and work in the City, after all,” Hamish said with a laugh. “But I’m surprised Matthew let him get near. He despises the man.”

I could have explained how much things had changed, and why, but the tale of Jack Blackfriars was Matthew’s to tell.

“What does the missing picture of the tree have to do with Athanasius Kircher?” Phoebe asked, bringing our attention back to the matter at hand.

“While I was in New Haven, my colleague Lucy Meriweather helped me track down what might have happened to the Book of Life. One of Rudolf’s mysterious manuscripts ended up in Kircher’s hands. We thought that the illumination of the tree might have been included with it.” I gestured at the frontispiece to
Magnes sive De Arte Magnetica
. “I’m more certain than ever that Kircher had at least seen the image, based solely on that illustration.”

“Can’t you just look through Kircher’s books and papers?” Hamish asked.

“I can,” I replied with a smile, “provided the books and papers can still be located. Kircher’s personal collection was sent to an old papal residence for safekeeping—Villa Mondragone in Italy. In the early twentieth century, the Jesuits began to discreetly sell off some of the books to raise revenue.

Lucy and I think they sold the page then.”

“In that case there should be records of the sale,” Phoebe said thoughtfully. “Have you contacted the Jesuits?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “They have no records of it—or if they do, they aren’t sharing them. Lucy wrote to the major auction houses, too.”

“Well, she wouldn’t have got very far. Sales information is confidential,” Phoebe said.

“So we were told.” I hesitated just long enough for Phoebe to offer what I was afraid to ask for.

“I’ll e-mail Sylvia today and tell her that I won’t be able to clear out my desk tomorrow as planned,” Phoebe said. “I can’t hold Sotheby’s off indefinitely, but there are other resources I can check and people who might talk to me if approached in the right way.”

Before I could respond, the doorbell rang. After a momentary pause, it rang again. And again. The fourth time the ringing went on and on as though the visitor had jammed a finger into the button and left it there.

“Diana!” shouted a familiar voice. The ringing was replaced by pounding.

“Sarah!” I cried, rising to my feet.

A fresh October breeze swept into the house, carrying with it the scents of brimstone and saffron. I rushed into the hall. Sarah was there, her face white and her hair floating around her shoulders in a mad tangle of red. Fernando stood behind her, carrying two suitcases as though their collective weight were no more than a first-class letter.

Sarah’s red-rimmed eyes met mine, and she dropped Tabitha’s cat carrier on the marble floor with a thud. She held her arms wide, and I moved into them. Em had always offered me comfort when I felt alone and frightened as a child, but right now Sarah was exactly who I needed.

“It will be all right, honey,” she whispered, holding me tight.

“I just spoke to Father H, and he said I’m to follow your instructions to the letter, Mistress . . .

Madame,” Leonard Shoreditch said cheerfully, pushing past Sarah and me on his way into the house. He gave me a jaunty salute.

“Did Andrew say anything else?” I asked, drawing away from my aunt. Perhaps Hubbard had shared news of Jack—or Matthew.

“Let’s see.” Leonard pulled on the end of his long nose. “Father H said to make sure you know where London begins and ends, and if there’s trouble, go straight to St. Paul’s and help will be along presently.”

Hearty slaps indicated that Fernando and Gallowglass had been reunited.

“No problems?” Gallowglass murmured.

“None, except that I had to persuade Sarah not to disable the smoke detector in the first-class lavatory so she could sneak a cigarette,” Fernando said mildly. “Next time she needs to fly internationally, send a de Clermont plane. We’ll wait.”

“Thank you for getting her here so quickly, Fernando,” I said with a grateful smile. “You must be wishing you’d never met me and Sarah. All the Bishops seem to do is get you more entangled with the de Clermonts and their problems.”

“On the contrary,” he said softly, “you are freeing me from them.” To my astonishment, Fernando dropped the bags and knelt before me.

“Get up. Please.” I tried to lift him.

“The last time I fell to my knees before a woman, I had lost one of Isabella of Castile’s ships. Two of her guards forced me to do so at sword point, so that I might beg for her forgiveness,” Fernando said with a sardonic lift to his mouth. “As I’m doing so voluntarily on this occasion, I will get up when I am through.”

Marthe appeared, taken aback by the sight of Fernando in such an abject position.

“I am without kith or kin. My maker is gone. My mate is gone. I have no children of my own.”

Fernando bit into his wrist and clenched his fist. The blood welled up from the wound, streaming over his arm and splashing onto the black-and-white floor. “I dedicate my blood and body to the service and honor of your family.”

“Blimey,” Leonard breathed. “That’s not how Father H does it.” I had seen Andrew Hubbard induct a creature into his flock, and though the two ceremonies weren’t identical, they were similar in tone and intent. Once again everyone in the house waited for my response. There were probably rules and precedents to follow, but at that moment I neither knew nor cared what they were. I took Fernando’s bloody hand in mine.

“Thank you for putting your trust in Matthew,” I said simply.

“I have always trusted him,” Fernando said, looking up at me with sharp eyes. “Now it is time for Matthew to trust himself.”

25

“I
found it.” Phoebe put a printed e-mail before me on the Georgian writing desk’s tooled-leather surface. The fact that she hadn’t first knocked politely on the door to the sitting room told me that something exciting had happened.

“Already?” I regarded her in amazement.

“I told my former supervisor that I was looking for an item for the de Clermont family—a picture of a tree drawn by Athanasius Kircher.” Phoebe glanced around the room, her connoisseur’s eye caught by the black-and-gold chinoiserie chest on a stand, the faux bamboo carvings on a chair, the colorful silk cushions splashed across the chaise longue by the window. She peered at the walls, muttering the name Jean Pillement and words like “impossible” and “priceless” and “museum.”

“But the illustrations in the Book of Life weren’t drawn by Kircher.” Frowning, I picked up the e mail. “And it’s not a picture. It’s a page torn out of a manuscript.”

“Attribution and provenance are crucial to a good sale,” Phoebe explained. “The temptation to link the picture to Kircher would have been irresistible. And if the edges of the parchment were cleaned up and the text was invisible, it would have commanded a higher price as a stand-alone drawing or painting.”

I scanned the message. It began with a tart reference to Phoebe’s resignation and future marital state. But it was the next lines that caught my attention:

I do find record of the sale and purchase of “an allegory of the Tree of Life believed to have once been displayed in the museum of Athanasius Kircher, SJ, in Rome.” Could this be the image the de Clermonts are seeking?

“Who bought it?” I whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

“Sylvia wouldn’t tell me,” Phoebe said, pointing to the final lines of the e-mail. “The sale was recent, and the details are confidential. She revealed the purchase price: sixteen hundred and fifty pounds.”

“That’s all?” I exclaimed. Most of the books Phoebe had purchased for me cost far more than that.

“The possible Kircher provenance wasn’t firm enough to convince potential buyers to spend more,”

she said.

“Is there really no way to discover the buyer’s identity?” I began to imagine how I might use magic to find the out more.

“Sotheby’s can’t afford to tell their clients’ secrets.” Phoebe shook her head. “Imagine how Ysabeau would react if her privacy was violated.”

“Did you call me, Phoebe?” My mother-in-law was standing in the arched doorway before the seed of my plan could put out its first shoots.

“Phoebe’s discovered that a recent sale at Sotheby’s describes a picture very like the one I’m looking for,” I explained to Ysabeau. “They won’t tell us who bought it.”

“I know where the sales records are kept,” Phoebe said. “When I go to Sotheby’s to hand in my keys, I could take a look.”

“No, Phoebe. It’s too risky. If you can tell me exactly where they are, I may be able to figure out a way to get access to them.” Some combination of my magic and Hubbard’s gang of thieves and lost boys could manage it. But my mother-in-law had her own ideas.

“Ysabeau de Clermont calling for Lord Sutton.” The clear voice echoed against the room’s high ceilings.

Phoebe looked shocked. “You can’t just call the director of Sotheby’s and expect him to do your bidding.”

Apparently Ysabeau could—and did.