The Serpent Papers (22 page)

‘Thank God you are still here!’ He dropped into the armchair beside me. ‘I’m so sorry to have disappeared – but the case required intimate investigation.’

‘And the victim? Who was she?’ I asked, my thoughts harkening back to the murdered girl.

‘An engastrimyth from Akelarres,’ Ruthven replied. ‘A diviner. A woman possessed. It is depraved, Mr Sitwell, and it is brutal. But not uncommon.’ I asked if he had found the killer.

‘No.’ Ruthven sighed. ‘But it is not the first time I have seen their work and I will catch them.’

‘Their?’

Ruthven would not meet my eye, so overcome with emotion was he. ‘When I began hunting, I had no conception of where it would lead. It was only after I had committed myself to a life of exile, that I swore to devote my life to recovering these documents, no matter the cost.’

‘But what has this to do with Illuminatus?’ I replied weakly.

‘Can you not smell it on the air?’ he asked me.

My cheeks flushed.

‘I have the smell of a marked man. I know it. It cannot be helped. But the scarlet thread of destiny has led you to me – a scarlet thread, Mr Sitwell, that ties your heart to mine. I had an inkling when you first sent those letters you were the fellow, and I must apologize for allowing you to come here, knowing that your exposure to me would forever unite our destinies. Of course, had you proven a lesser man, I might have looked for another – but you are strong, Sitwell, and though inexperienced, intelligent enough.’

I shook in my seat, feeling a fever mounting on my forehead – then suddenly resolution struck me – I remembered you, our happiness together. I will not go down this path!

‘You have made a mistake. I do not have the tools to help you, nor the capability.’

‘There is no one else.’

I bolted from my chair and stood in a rage.

‘I came here for a lesson in philosophy and medieval theory from a great scholar. Not exposure to murder!’

Ruthven held my gaze with his firmly, and did not rise to my insolence. I sat back down in the chair. His left hand trembled on the plush cushion of his chair, moving nervously to his collar to play with the folds of cloth around his throat. ‘Tomorrow morning you will leave me – as a friend or a man to be forgotten in time.’

I stammered, partly relieved. ‘I am going back to London then?’

‘Unless, of course, you should be interested by my proposition?’

I asked him which proposition he was referring to.

‘Give me a few more moments of your illustrious attention,’ he asked, kicking off his boots and resting his striped socks on the foot cushion before the fire. ‘I have need of a courier, Mr Sitwell. Your style is congenial enough, your knowledge of the symbols of Illuminatus sound. I am suggesting a form of employment. You are in want of financial support? There is a woman waiting for you at home, I take it?’

How does he know? I thought in consternation.

‘I can smell love on you, boy. She’s resting in your eyes, in the hours you take to write letters; you have not once in my company looked with lust at another woman and it is clear that you are set about making your fortune. On your handkerchief are embroidered, in a female hand, your initials intertwined with a KM – the letters of the name of your lover. Am I wrong? She is unsure of your constancy. Never trust a woman at home, Sitwell, they are fickle, particularly the young.’

I nodded, flabbergasted by his powers of observation.

‘If you take on this work for me, I will pay you handsomely, in spirit and in kind.’

‘And what is the actual nature of this proposal?’

‘Am I right in my belief that your intention to travel to Barcelona concerned the alchemical secrets of the Doctor Illuminatus?’ Ruthven stood up and moved to a bookcase facing the fire.

I affirmed in the positive.

‘Then either way this project will be beneficial to you – I promise that you will discover things which may make you famous, certainly a very rich man, Mr Sitwell – richer than you would be if you mastered the transmutation of gold – which I believe you illicitly desire. If you are swift, you will also save my life. Time is short. Having told you my secrets, I ask this favour of you. I will tell you what I know of Illuminatus’s alchemy if you will take this to a friend for me on Majorca before setting off on your journey home. What you gather from my teachings is at your discretion. It is up to you to believe my story or reject it; know only that my days are numbered, and what you take is limited. They have made this clear enough.’ Ruthven found a mass of papers resting on his shelf, bound in a golden ribbon. ‘I entrust these to you,’ he said, smiling grimly, placing the letters into my hands. ‘They are copies of my translations and the accumulated accounts of my research into this matter. I have not known you for many days, Mr Sitwell, but judging by the fate of those who have come before me, we may not have the time to address ourselves better and I trust you are a gentleman.’

‘I do not understand,’ I said. ‘What do you fear will happen to you?’

‘I would rather that you did not know. It does not bear discussing. But I will not let them defeat me – and have made my preparations. Take these to my friend, one Father Lloret of Valldemossa. I will pay for your passage by ship to the island and return to England from there. I will also cover the costs of your lodgings. Show these papers to him, and ask for his account of the Doctor, recently discovered by the possession of one Maria de la Font. I will give you a second object before you depart tomorrow, but you must swear on your life not to open it until you deliver the contents to a woman named Lucretia. Tell Lloret you have word of me for the Nightingale. He will take you to her when the time is right. You will find what you are seeking of Illuminatus, and in doing so protect the secrets of another.’

Ruthven closed his eyes and rested in his chair for a moment, his hand hanging back, his shirt open at the collar, his feet extended before the fire. He looked deflated, his eyelids strained, and it was only then that I noticed that at the line of his hair on his left temple he had received a blow, which had cracked the skin and left a mottled brown scab hidden earlier by the half-light. The streaks I had mistaken for mud were in reality the dried remnants of blood. Ruthven then seemed to convulse in his chair, his body shaking, before he rose elegantly, his trousers smoothing at his waist, his face handsome at rest.

Ruthven reached out and rang his silver bell left on the table before the fireplace. ‘A drink. We shall discuss everything tonight, for tomorrow we shall fly. If I am to help you, and you are to help me, we must meet on equal terms this evening and understand each other clearly. Else failure is the sure – the only – path.’

We talked for many hours, my love, about notions I can only impart to you in person without endangering the life of my strange friend and host. I did not have a moment to agree or disagree, but there seems to me to be no choice. As a free man, I must help a soul who is captive. I will do my best to write more later, when my head is not swimming: Captain Ruthven’s secret is too much for one man to comprehend.

Your Sitwell

II

MYTH

I turn and see my pillow stained with a dark smear.
An all too familiar sensation.
I wipe my mouth and my hand comes away as I expected.
Another nosebleed.
I strip the pillowcase down and bring it to the bathroom. As the tap runs, I watch the blood stream softly into the sink, catching on the silver metal round the throat of the basin. I clean my face, washing my skin slowly. In my sleep I had dreamt of a tree groaning under the weight of an avian horde. Wings like the footfall of a heavy-booted army. Doves gorging themselves on figs that dripped from the tree like globular jewels.

I make a cup of tea in the kitchen.
Ginger and lemon.
Wearing an oversized shirt and knickers. I had gone to sleep after reading Sitwell’s letters and rescue them from my bedside table.

You should take more care
,
I chastise myself. Looking at Sitwell’s illustration of the nightingale, demure cross-hatched wings. Perhaps she is about to sing?
Beak open.
Eye glassy and black. I think of the letters sent to Fabregat. Of disambiguation. Of what was meant by what. Listening to the inspector speak yesterday, I had concluded that Fabregat’s investigation made the fatal error of assuming that the collated lines pertained to the identity of an individual rather than the existence of a document.

No one else would know but you
,
I remind myself. People look for meaning. They seek riddles. That is in our nature. But treated as riddles, these verse lines ask as many questions as they answer.
Do not assume they are speaking to you
, I would tell Fabregat.
Do not assume that they point a finger at the accused, the perpetrator or a criminal. Read them as they are. Blank slate. Fresh context. Focus on the knowable. On the facts to hand.

Seek origin point. Source.

Nine books of Leaves gave forth this rage of man.

Some treasures are lost forever. But not this one. This one you are going to find. Because you have been sent a message from the grave. In an altar-shaped poem, filled with secrets. There will be no fires lit tonight. No discarded memories.

My thoughts roam over the soggy Book of Hours and the Abbey Librarian warm and asleep in his bed.
Think about it rationally. Someone deliberately removed the poetry hidden beneath Rex Illuminatus’s Alchemical Recipes. And then they sealed the book in the wall of a remote chapel on Mallorca, with the collected letters of an eccentric British gentleman seemingly collated by a third party.

And a bone.

Do not forget the bone.

A single, solitary bone, shining out of the darkness.

Like a warning.

* * *

At two a.m. I dress brusquely. Pulling a sweater over my shirt.
No bra.
Then a pair of jeans. Mismatched socks. Olive coat and black scarf. There is no point in sleeping.
I need to walk.
Keys in pocket and phone. A few loose euro coins.
Not that anything will be open.
I slip down the stairs, exiting onto the street. The little café at the bottom of the building is closed, but the lights are still on inside.
The staff having a last drink.
Cut down the side street, heading for Barceloneta.
Only then will I be satisfied. Only then will I stop.

At night the hotels are alien. Red eyes of cargo ships blink on the horizon. Behind me, towards the hills: embers of Tibidabo. Moon stamped out by clouds. Sky heavy, unfriendly. A dull orange sheen. I feel jetlagged. Dizzy. Sitting on the abandoned beach, I sink back into memories of my first summer in Spain. I return to the girl I’ve left behind. Divorced myself from entirely.
To understand history, you must contextualize it
,
I tell myself.
Retrace your steps.
You must begin at your beginning, not the beginning of others.
The beach in the luminous warmth of summer.

* * *

La Revetlla de Sant Joan
. 2003. Midsummer’s eve gives way to the Feast day of Saint John. Day of the Baptist. These nights the dragons are tamed and the drunkards are dancing. I claim a place on the shorefront early in the afternoon.

I can see the houses of Barcelona stacked behind me; I study them upside down, each window like the squares of a Rubik’s cube. One life upon another. Each smell distinct. Clouds waft down to me – olive brine and pickled crabs, paella and fish oil. My hands crossed beneath my head. The grit infects my hair. There is a loose razor blade beside my shoulder. Discarded needles and Styrofoam. Someone I do not know hands me a plastic cup of red wine. Every hour more revellers join from all quarters of the city. A boy with a guitar begins singing.
Al mar! Al mar!