by Lev Grossman
“She is. She makes me feel like a complete idiot, to tell you the truth. But it’s not her fault. She can’t help it if I’m ignorant.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re not ignorant at all.”
“Well,” he finished up haplessly, “maybe you’ll meet her someday.”
“Well, I hope I will,” the Duchess said graciously. “Is she coming with you when you come to England?”
“I don’t know. At least, I don’t think so.” The idea had never even occurred to him. “She has her own work to do here. I could never drag her away from that.”
“But you would if you could, wouldn’t you?”
“You mean, bring her with me?” He balked. “I don’t think so. I mean, I wouldn’t want to assume—”
He broke off, flustered. The Duchess laughed.
“I’m teasing you, Edward!” she said. “You’re much too serious! You do know that about yourself, don’t you? You’re much, much too serious.”
“If you say so,” he said, chagrined. He felt like he needed to turn the conversation around, regain the initiative. “Blanche, why doesn’t your husband want me to look for the codex?”
There was a long pause.
“He said that?” She sounded distracted—maybe it was the little dog’s turn to bask in her attention. He sensed that he’d broken an unspoken rule, that their temporary rapport was fragile and could disappear in an instant. “Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it. So you talked to him, did you?”
“No, of course not! It came through Laura. But why don’t you want him to know I’m looking for it?”
“Look, I appreciate your concern, Edmund—”
“Edward. Good, because—”
“And if at any point you feel that you’d rather not be involved with this project, you’re free to go, as long as you agree to keep the substance of our dealings confidential.” She spoke in a warm, full, obtrusively generous tone, a warning tone, and he could tell her impersonal manner was meant to wound him. The friendly aunt was suddenly far away. “But as long as you’re working for me, you’ll do so on my terms. I have a lot of other irons in the fire right now, Edward. I have resources beyond anything you know about. You’re not the only one looking for the codex, you know. You’re a very small part of this.”
Edward hesitated. He wondered if it was true, that she had other people like him working for her. He strongly suspected that it wasn’t, that the Duchess was bluffing him, but that was almost beside the point. She was testing him, ascertaining to a precise tolerance how much of her bullshit he was willing to put up with, and how little information he could get by on before he balked. And he realized to his dismay that he hadn’t reached his limit.
Once he apologized the Duchess reverted to her cheery, unaffected manner, and he sensed her starting to steer the conversation toward a graceful ending. They talked for five or ten minutes more. She showed him her flirtatious side again. He must call her when he came to London. They must meet. It would be wonderful. She had a few thoughts about where to look for the codex—she would send him a letter. He was almost embarrassed by how easily he succumbed to her wiles, giving himself up to the blissful illusion that they could trust one another. He found himself admitting that he was already supposed to be in London, that in fact his job was already supposed to have started, and she laughed as if that was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard.
“I was wrong about you,” she said, when she recovered her composure. “Maybe you aren’t too serious after all.”
“Maybe I’m not serious enough,” Edward countered.
“Well, I don’t know,” said the Duchess. “But it can’t be both. I should think it would be either one or the other, as a matter of logical principle.”
He sensed that she was getting ready to hang up, but he couldn’t let her go, not yet. Not before she gave him something more.
“Blanche,” he said gravely. “I need to know something. Why did you ask me to help you find the codex? Why me and not somebody else?”
He expected her to snap at him again, but she just smiled instead—he could hear it in her voice—and suddenly he suspected that he was treading dangerously close to something he didn’t want to know.
“Because I know I can trust you, Edward,” she said, her voice low and thrilling over the phone line.
“But why? Because of that deal I did for you, at Esslin & Hart? The one with the silver futures? And the insurance company?” He was grasping at straws now.
“No, Edward. It was—” She hesitated. “Well, that was the reason at first. Peter wanted you. But when I saw you that day, I knew you could help me. I could see it in your face. I just knew I could trust you.”
Edward was silent. That’s it? he thought. Was she making fun of him? Was she trying to seduce him? Was she insane? What kind of a fool did she take him for? It had been a serious question, and he dearly wished she had a better answer for him. Her answer made him want to hang up the phone, badly.
Was she really so alone, so helpless, that she had nobody else to turn to but him? A twentysomething banker she hardly knew? She must be completely cut off from the world outside Weymarshe, he thought. She put a brave face on it, but she must be utterly isolated. There was nobody else to help her.
Sitting on his couch, staring up at the ceiling in his apartment, Edward felt a pang of real fear.
WHATEVER SPELL he’d been under, the sound of the Duchess’s voice had broken it, and time began ticking forward again. Suddenly the game was back on. Seconds after they hung up, before Edward even had a chance to put the phone down, it rang in his hand. It was Fabrikant: He wanted to meet again, another breakfast at the Four Seasons. Edward temporized—they could at least make it a beer after work, for God’s sake, something at a reasonable hour—but Fabrikant pleaded a tight schedule, and Edward gave in. After all, their last meeting had been informative. Maybe Fabrikant had a few more scraps he wanted to throw Edward’s way. They agreed to meet tomorrow morning, a Thursday. Edward hung up and took a deep breath. He eyed the phone warily, but it didn’t ring again.
The next day he woke up early. It took him longer than expected to deal with the wispy beard that had somehow sprung up in the mirror, and even longer to tear himself away from an early-morning MOMUS session—hey, his tribe needed him, he had mouths to feed. He got to the Four Seasons ten minutes late. The host eyed him frostily, as if he could see right through him, sense that he didn’t really belong there anymore. Instead of showing him to a table he led Edward to a padded leather door at the back of the dining room and through it into a private room.
Fabrikant was waiting there, but he wasn’t alone. Sitting on either side of him were a woman in a gray Armani suit, dark-haired and frowning, and a man about Edward’s age in a rumpled tweed sport jacket, with long, floppy blond bangs that fell over his forehead. All three looked up when he came in, and Edward had the distinct impression that an awkward silence had been in progress before he opened the door. A pitcher of pulpy orange juice and a plate of pastries stood on the ivory tablecloth, untouched. Fabrikant nodded at him. To Edward’s surprise, he looked uncomfortable. He didn’t think anything was capable of penetrating Fabrikant’s sunny sense of personal perfection, but apparently something had.
“Edward,” said the man with the tweed jacket, smiling warmly and sliding a business card across the table. He had a plummy, well-educated English accent—he was almost a parody of the well-put-together Oxbridge graduate. “Nick Harris. I’m here to represent the interests of the Duke of Bowmry.”
Edward sat down at the table, leaving the business card where it was. So the Duke was intervening directly now. Well, it was about time; it was almost surprising that he hadn’t done it already. Edward looked over at Fabrikant, but Fabrikant just stared back blankly. No help there.
Edward cleared his throat.
“So,” he said. “You work for the Duke.”
“We’ve worked together in the past. He asked me to meet wi
th you on his behalf.”
Nick reached into a pocket on his vest, took out a round golden pocket watch on a fob, consulted it, and put it back. The gesture was so ridiculously affected that Edward thought it might be a joke, but nobody laughed. A waiter came in and silently laid place settings for the extra guests.
“Are you in his New York office?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Nick smiled at him, friendly but sober, a concerned parent. “Edward, I don’t want to mince words. We have reason to believe that you’re in contact with the Duke’s wife.” He held up a hand as if to cut him off, even though Edward wasn’t trying to say anything. “Please don’t confirm or deny this. That would only complicate matters for you from a legal standpoint—”
“Of course I’m in contact with the Duke’s wife,” Edward said. “She called me just yesterday. How could that possibly be a legal matter?”
“Oh, believe me, it isn’t. For the moment. Although you should know that if such contact continues, we are prepared to seek a restraining order, in both countries.”
“This isn’t to frighten you, Edward,” the woman added gently, speaking for the first time. She was an American. “But it is meant to show you how serious the Duke is about preserving his wife’s safety.”
Edward sighed. So they were going to patronize him. He’d forgotten how much he hated businesspeople. His corporate infighting reflexes, which had lain dormant for the past three weeks, began to reawaken themselves.
“All right. You’re suggesting that I pose some kind of a threat to the Duchess. Let’s talk about that.”
“Not a threat in the sense that you mean,” Nick said, unfazed. “But you are a threat, though you may not know it.”
“Look, I’m running a little late,” Edward said, the soul of fake politeness, “and Joseph and I have a lot to talk about. Why don’t you tell me what you need from me and we can all get out of here.”
Nick and the woman exchanged glances. They were both such obvious lightweights, so obviously ill-equipped for rough-and-tumble negotiating, that Edward didn’t feel especially nervous. This could even be fun. He rolled his eyes conspiratorially at Fabrikant, who glanced at Nick and shook his head nervously. Meanwhile Nick frowned and steepled his fingers on the white tablecloth, like a news anchor preparing to introduce a touching human interest story.
“I think we’re all aware of the supposed existence of a book supposedly written by one Gervase of Langford. None of us knows its exact location, or whether or not it actually does exist. Always assuming, that is, that you don’t.” He glanced pointedly at Edward.
“Right. Sure.” Despite himself Edward admired the perfect way Nick’s blond hair fell over his forehead.
“The Duke has asked you to stop searching for it. We don’t think you have. And why should you? Maybe you feel a sense of allegiance to the Duchess. You’re on her side, and you want to carry out her wishes. Maybe you sympathize with her for personal reasons. Certainly you have no reason, no particular reason, to feel any loyalty toward the Duke. All this is perfectly understandable. But I think if I tell you a little more about what’s been going on at Weymarshe you might feel differently.”
“I’m all ears,” Edward said pleasantly. He sat back and folded his arms. He couldn’t deny that Nick had piqued his curiosity a little, and he wanted to keep him talking. Fabrikant silently crumbled a danish onto his plate.
“Has the Duchess told you why she’s looking for the Viage? No? The Duchess is looking for the Viage because she believes it is a steganogram.” Nick pronounced the unfamiliar word crisply. “I don’t expect you to know what that means, so I’ll explain it. ‘Steganogram’ is a technical term from the field of cryptanalysis. It refers to a message that has been encoded in such a way as to conceal or camouflage the presence of the encoded message itself. In other words, not only can you not read the message that a steganogram contains, you cannot tell that the message is there at all. It’s woven into the very fabric of the medium onto which it is inscribed in such a way as to be indistinguishable from that medium itself.”
“Like that cartoonist,” Edward volunteered. “The one who put ‘NINA’ in all his pictures.”
“Just so. In the case of the codex, the coded message might be incorporated into the text of the book, or into the illustrations, or the watermarks, or the binding, or the choice of materials, or the recipe of ingredients used to make the ink in which it was written. We have no way of knowing. Only a person who knew exactly where and how the message was encrypted would be able to find it, and even then they might not be able to decipher its contents.”
“So what does this message say?” Edward asked.
“There is no message,” Nick said, suddenly stern. “There is no message, and there is, in all likelihood, no codex. Gervase of Langford, servant to an unfashionable fourteenth-century country squire, did not compose a fantastical work of literature containing an encrypted message which has since then been lost to history. The Duchess has concocted a fantasy, a fantasy based on very little evidence and some very strong emotions, and in which, I am sorry to say, she has involved you. I must tell you, Edward—and this is in confidence—that the Duchess is not entirely sane. I say this with all due compassion, but she is unstable, and she has become emotionally attached to the idea of the codex in a way that is very unhealthy. And although you may be acting with the very best of intentions, you’re not doing her any favors by encouraging her.”
Edward kept his face as blank as possible. He wondered if he should just get up and walk out, but something stopped him. It couldn’t possibly be true—it was too bizarre, too convoluted, like something out of a spy thriller. Occam’s razor just wouldn’t allow it. Granted, there was something a little odd about the Duchess—the manic edge in her speech, the way her moods changed a little too rapidly from moment to moment—but he couldn’t believe she was really insane. The codex was real. He could almost feel it, like a compass sensing magnetic north from half a world away. It was out there. He had to talk to Margaret. Margaret would know what to believe.
The real question was, why was this ridiculous fop sitting across from him at the Four Seasons chattering away about steganograms? He was trying to discredit the Duchess in his eyes, but why? The whole situation was spinning out of control, getting too complicated to analyze on the fly. He needed time to think. He pulled himself together with an effort.
“Back up,” he said. “Why does the Duchess want the codex? What does she think is in this secret message?”
“The specifics there don’t matter,” said the woman. “Let’s just say it’s something that would be very, very hurtful to the Duke.”
“Like what?”
They looked at each other again.
“It’s not the kind of thing one discusses in polite company.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Fabrikant said disgustedly, breaking his silence. “Spit it out.”
“You’ll remember I asked you not to contribute to this meeting,” Nick said.
“I don’t work for you,” Fabrikant replied calmly.
“Let’s just say that it’s something that would be very embarrassing to all concerned,” the woman continued. “Something that could be very damaging to the fortunes of a great man, a man who deserves better. And to the reputation of a prominent English peerage.”
“I don’t get it,” said Edward. “If it’s so terrible, why would she want to find it?”
“Because she hates him!” said Fabrikant. He chuckled hollowly, and Nick glared at him. “Don’t you get it? He’s an asshole, and she can’t stand him!”
He stood up abruptly.
“I apologize for this, Edward, I really do. I was blindsided—the Duke’s participation in my company gives them leverage over me. They told me to set it up, and I did, but I’m not—”
“That’s enough,” said Nick.
“She’s going to ruin him, Edward. If she finds the codex. He’ll lose everything he has—”
&nbs
p; “That’s enough!” Nick’s peaches-and-cream complexion flushed red. “You’re through, Fabrikant. Done. Got it? We’re out. No more.”
Fabrikant looked at both of them, nodding lightly, his chin hardly dipping. Slowly, with incongruous delicacy, he refolded his white napkin on the tablecloth. Edward thought he looked a little pale, and he moved with the precarious dignity of a man in a Western who’d been shot in the gut but refused to give his enemies the satisfaction of seeing him fall down. Edward watched him go helplessly. As he left the room he tried to slam the door behind him, but the leather-paneled door had been carefully engineered to make no noise whatsoever when it closed.
Nick rebuttoned his blazer and sat down. The woman acted as if nothing had happened, and Edward did likewise. With Fabrikant gone the whole scene suddenly seemed much less funny. He wanted to get it over with.
“So the codex is—what? Some kind of tabloid bombshell, waiting to go off?”
“The codex is an absurd fantasy,” Nick said patiently, as if he were speaking to a child. “A fantasy conceived by a very fine woman who is very sadly no longer herself. How can I make that any clearer to you? Believe me, the Duke has nothing but the Duchess’s best interests at heart. All we ask is that you stop communicating with her immediately. Do you see, now, how important that is?”
Edward hesitated. Should he just play along?
“Don’t you see what this is doing to her?” Nick’s partner said contemptuously. Her elegant eyebrows made an angry, accusing V. “Everything you say feeds into her delusions. You’re just making it worse.”
Edward nodded vaguely, but he was hardly listening anymore. His mind was elsewhere. What were they going to do, tap his phone? Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone? The truth was, he was having trouble connecting to any of this—the whole scene seemed so staged, it was getting more and more like a cheap paperback mystery novel every minute. Well, if he was the gumshoe, it was going to take more than Sir Goldilocks here to shake him off the case.
“All right,” he said finally. He sighed. “Whatever. I promise I won’t contact her.”
