“You’re close,” he said, “I’m in the closet.”
“That’s not how it sounds!” she heard another man’s voice call out.
“Del’s there, too?” she said. “Why?”
“We’re working on the La Brea Man, in a location undisclosed to the NAGPRA protestors. A storage closet.” He did not tell her why they had had to resort to such measures. “What’s up?”
She could tell he wanted to get back to work. “I was just checking in. Do you have any interest in going to that party later?” They’d been invited by the Critchleys, the elderly Getty donors, to a Fourth of July dinner at their Brentwood estate; Mrs. Critchley’s forebears had come over on the ship that landed right after the
“Do you?” Carter asked, sounding dubious. “I mean, if you think it’s important to put in an appearance…”
He left the question, a legitimate one, hanging. On the one hand, Beth thought it wasn’t a bad idea, politically speaking, to show up. On the other hand, it wasn’t the most enticing invitation. She heard a mumbled question from Del, and Carter saying, “Maybe the solvent needs more time…”
“Why don’t I call you later?” Beth said, and Carter said, “Huh? What was that?”
The bar on her computer screen was showing that the graphemical analysis was nearly done. “I’ll call you from home. We can decide then.”
“Okay,” he replied.
She could tell his attention was focused elsewhere. “Bye.”
She hung up, wondering if she had just bridged, or widened, any communication gap. It was like that a lot over the last week or so.
A soft chiming sound went off on her computer, signaling that the job was complete and she could now print out the results. She hit “Print,” then quickly got up from her desk. In another few minutes, she’d have the answer — or as much of one as she’d ever be likely to get — about the fate of the mysterious scribe and illuminator. Elvis had his head down as she passed through his outer office — on his screen she could see an open field, with a dragon at one end — and in the room where the printers and copiers were kept, even the lights were off. The moment she entered, a sensor flicked them on again, and she was able to retrieve the printouts from the bin.
On the way back, she was already reading them.
The guards have entered the courtyard below, it said. Salima will delay them so that I may offer a last prayer for the success of my plan.
A plan? Beth thought. Had he actually hoped somehow to escape?
The secrets of ink making, he wrote, and for a moment Beth thought the database must have gone haywire — why else would he be digressing into such a subject now? — are the secrets, too, of the poisoner.
Ah. But was he planning to poison the guards somehow once they’d come to transport him to the monster’s maze?
From the sap of the acacia tree and sal martis [no equivalent found], the printout read, but Beth knew that the latter term referred to green vitriol, or copperas, a common ingredient of iron-gall ink, bound with gum arabic and sundry other ingredients, may be made a deadly brew. This I have decanted within the holy vessel long worn about my neck, a vessel that even the sultan will not now deny me. The silver body of our Savior is a hollow shell, yet indeed shall it hold my salvation.
Beth thought she could discern his intent.
At the moment of surrender, I shall obtain my release, and so, too, have my revenge. May the manticore, in his haste to drink my hot blood, drink the coursing poison, too.
She felt, suddenly, as if she were reading a speech from some bloody Jacobean tragedy.
And may my curse, the curse of Ambrosius of Bury St. Edmunds, descend upon the Sultan Kilij al-Kalli, upon all of his descendants, and upon all the unholy beasts whom the Lord designed [alt: intended] to drown in the Flood. Now and forever, world without end, amen. And with that, the letter ended, the printout simply recording a row of asterisks followed by Document complete.
Beth sat stock-still in her chair, wondering if she could possibly have read all that she just had. It wasn’t just the revelation of the scribe’s final scheme; that was ingenious enough, even though its outcome would never be known. No, what had shocked her even more were two things: the fact that he had inscribed his name — at last she knew who this unparalleled scribe and illuminator was! — and the curse that he had entered as a kind of colophon at the end.
It was so very similar to the curses laid by the mysterious scribe whom she believed had created all the manuscripts currently on display in the Getty exhibition hall.
The scribe that she had been trying to identify for so many years.
How could she have been so blind? How could she not have realized that she was dealing with the work of the same master? She went over it all in her head, all the things that would have kept her from even imagining it to be the same man. First there was the Middle Eastern origins of
It was almost too much to accept.
And to believe it truly, she would need to confirm it with her own eyes. She would need to compare the original letter with the handwritten text in the manuscripts she had assembled for display. She scooped up the printouts, along with the ancient letter itself, and hurried out of her office.
“Where are you off to?” Elvis said as she shot past.
“The manuscripts exhibit.”
“You haven’t seen it?” he said, mockingly. “You put it together.”
In the plaza outside, the leaves of the London plane trees were rustling in the dry wind that swept the Getty’s hilltop site, but there was no one, not even a security patrol, anywhere around. The sound of Beth’s heels echoed across the stone courtyard as she marched to the North Pavilion, where a red and gold banner above the entrance proclaimed THE GENIUS OF THE CLOISTER: ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. At the access panel, she entered first her own security code, and then the code to unlock the doors. She heard a faint buzzing, and quickly entered the hall. The heavy glass door slowly closed, and clicked shut, behind her. The motion sensors responded by turning on the overhead lights.
But they did not provide much in the way of illumination. The manuscripts were so precious, and so prone to fading, that the ambient light was kept to a bare minimum. Instead, each manuscript was gently cradled in its own display case — two dozen or so, ranged around the three rooms of the exhibition hall — and indirectly lighted by small tungsten halogen lamps inside the glass. The effect was to make the manuscripts shine like beacons, their burnished gold glittering like autumn leaves, the lapis lazuli gleaming like the Mediterranean, the red and blue and purple gemstones in their covers and bindings sparkling like a kaleidoscope. The first time Beth had seen the exhibition completely installed, she had stepped back, breathless at its beauty.
But now she went straight to the nearest display case, one that held a sacramentary, illuminated for the Cathedral Priory of Christ Church, Canterbury. The book was open to its frontispiece, depicting the Holy Spirit
