The Hermetica of Elysium (Elysium Texts Series)

by Annmarie Banks

  “At Coix I found that Father Bertram had left for Rome. The priest he left in charge of the abbey would not free up any funds nor would he allow me to borrow any of his monks. I could eat and drink all I pleased, but could not carry anything away with me. In desperation one night I made my way to Brother Henry’s cell. He was locked inside, as usual, but there were no monks posted outside his room. I called to him through the door and told him what had happened. He asked me if you had eaten any endpapers, Nadira. I told him you had not.” William paused, his eyes on her face. His jaw dropped. “But I think you did. You did!”

  Nadira could not suppress a peal of laughter. “Oh William! Wait until you hear!”

  “Tell me now. Please. Don’t make me wait. What happened? Did you…”

  “She won’t make you wait, William, but I will.” Montrose sat down heavily beside Nadira with a loaf of bread in one hand and a wineskin in the other. He gave William a dark look before biting his bread.

  Nadira spread her hands in defeat. “Please, William. Continue. Henry…” she prompted.

  William took a deep breath and started again, “I explained monsieur’s elixir and the copies of the book we were working on. There was a long silence and I thought he had fallen asleep or was having one of his fits. Finally he crawled over to the door and put his mouth to the crack. He told me where to find my lord Malcolm and gave me a password.”

  “He told me there was a brotherhood of knights who knew about the book and the secrets within it. They have a copy they keep safe, but like monsieur, did not know about the endpapers and have lost their readers through time and Torquemada’s purge of Talmudic scholars. They have been keeping those secrets for almost two hundred years. He told me to go to them for help. The password would protect me. I sinned, my friend, for I did steal food from the abbey for my journey, and I caused the cooks’ assistant to sin as well.”

  “I’m certain the Lord will forgive you, Brother William,” Malcolm said.

  “I traveled two weeks, where I got lost several times before actually finding my lord Malcolm. After arriving at his place, it occurred to me that there may have been an easier route…”

  “But not the right one. It was necessary, Brother. I hope my hospitality made it up to you.” Malcolm smiled.

  William returned the smile. “Absolutely,” he said. “Finer meats and sweetbreads never have I tasted. I was loath to leave his place when the time came. Again, I thank you, my friend.” William patted his stomach, and then continued. “I told Malcolm what had happened to us. He bade me wait two more weeks. While I waited, a party of men assembled in the manor, then finally we embarked on this journey by sea and then overland. I kept asking how we would know where to find you, but they would give me no satisfaction. Even now, today, I cannot tell how we came upon you when we did.”

  Nadira sat looking soberly at her hands. “I would like to think that you all loved me so much to go through this turmoil and danger and suffering to retrieve me from my captors. I know my lord Montrose was driven by his heart to come after me. I know my friend William is fond of me. The love of these two men, no matter how deep or sincere, is not enough to assemble such a company of knights and baggage and send them leagues and leagues to far lands to recapture one small servant girl. Can you tell me why?” She looked up hopefully at each of the faces around the fire.

  Malcolm stood up without answering her. Calvin and Derrick were returning. They rode right up to the fire and dismounted heavily. Both men were covered head to foot in blood and bits of flesh. Calvin carried a bloody leather satchel marked with a red cross. He stepped over the log they were using as a bench and carefully handed the satchel to Malcolm. Malcolm sat down and untied the flap. He pulled a piece of parchment from the bag and unrolled it across his knees. Malcolm frowned as he looked at the document. “This is what was inside the chest?” he asked the men.

  Calvin nodded. “This was all that was inside. There are some dispatches and other letters and documents I found among the baggage, as well as what I take to be Lord Montrose’s possessions.”

  Montrose stood up. “Is that true? May I look at them?” Calvin nodded and gestured toward his horse. The two men left the fire and pulled the baggage from the animal’s back and began to lay it all out on the grass.

  Nadira watched Malcolm finger the parchment on his lap. “What does it say?” she asked him.

  “Oh, I cannot read this,” Malcolm said to her. “That is your task.” He handed the creamy manuscript to her. She took it from him, searching his eyes for a clue to his intent. Finding none, she glanced down, recognizing her own clear handwriting and remembering that miserable day when Marcus died. She saw the squiggle in the letters of the opening lines where her hand had shaken while she wrote.

  She remembered the pitiful flicker of the tiny lamp Montrose held over his friend’s dead body to illuminate her work. She blinked, and a tear dropped from her cheek and splashed the corner of the document. Malcolm leaned toward her. “You asked why we had come to retrieve you, “Nadira. You are holding it in your hands, the key to the Hermetica of Elysium. Read it to me, little one.”

  Nadira took a shuddering breath. “It reads: ‘The world welcomes the mind of the seeker. All you are asking for is here. All of knowledge is here. All the answers are here. Here the seeker finds peace. Knowledge comes not from words. Seek ye the river’s edge for the key to understanding.’ Then start the strange symbols. I cannot read those. There is a picture of two flowers next to the word ‘understanding’, one at either end of the word.” Nadira looked up at Malcolm. He had his chin in his hand, thinking. He smiled at her.

  “Nadira of Barcelona, I have an idea of where those strange symbols come from. I would like to take you there.”

  “No!” Montrose came striding up; a scowl darkened his features. He was wearing his own sword again. He leaped the log and sat down between Nadira and Malcolm. “You are at it again. Stop right now. Nadira is going to England with me. No more quests. No more journeys. No more danger. You conceded that she is mine.”

  “Believe me, I am not trying to take her from you.” Malcolm took off his helmet and set it on his knees.

  Nadira looked from one man to the other and took advantage of the pause. “It is true,” she began in measured tones, “that I have no legal status anywhere. I would hope, however, that after all we have been through I might have some say in the matter.”

  “You did say! Just this morning you agreed to go to England!” Montrose’s exasperation was palatable.

  “That was before I knocked a charging horse to the ground and killed a man!” Nadira slapped her forehead with an open palm. “Great stinking piles, my lord! You had second thoughts yourself when you saw that Frenchman face down in the dirt. Don’t lie to me! You did! I saw it in your face.”

  Montrose put both hands in his hair and pulled hard. “Nadira…” she could hear his teeth grinding.

  “Please, please,” soothed Malcolm. “No one has to make a decision today. Or even tomorrow. This document I claim in return for your freedom. And I am sincere. You are free to go as of this moment. I will tell you, however, that what happened on the road today will not fade from your memory.

  “You will deny that it happened; you will make up reasons for the Frenchman’s death. You will say the horse tripped on a stone and his rider broke his neck. You will sit in your comfortable chairs on either side of the fireplace, sipping your spiced wine on a winter’s evening. And you will not speak of this day. You will not speak to your husband of the voices you hear in your head, Nadira. You won’t tell him that you know the birth dates of your unborn children, that you know which servant is stealing the beer or which tenant is shorting his rents. You won’t tell him you know what the weather will be the next day. When you ache to relate your adventures, you will be silent, for you know that he fears you.

  “Lord Montrose, you will sleep uneasy next to her, for you know that in the deepest night she is not there with you. You will look
into her sleeping face and wonder where she has gone and worry if she’ll come back. You’ll wonder every time she looks at you if she sees something you do not, if she knows your innermost thoughts and never, ever, for the rest of your life, will you be free from that fear.”

  He looked hard at both of them, Nadira, wringing her hands and staring off at the horizon and Montrose, hunched over, his hands dangling between his knees. Malcolm leaned toward them and whispered. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “How else can it be?” Nadira asked softly. Montrose jerked his head up. He did fear her. She put both hands on his cheeks and stared meaningfully into his eyes.

  “I will never leave you,” she promised. His eyes softened. He put a hand through her hair and cupped the side of her head. She saw him try to speak, but only his throat muscles moved.

  William coughed uncomfortably. Montrose withdrew his hand and stared into the fire.

  Nadira nodded to Malcolm. “What is it you want?”

  Malcolm gestured to Lionel who brought him a rolled vellum map. Malcolm spread it on the ground so the firelight illuminated the bright colors painted on the skin. “Here is the ‘water’s edge’.” He stabbed the map. “And here is a drawing of the plants we are to find.” Nadira could see several flowers painstakingly drawn in the margin of the map. “It is found in only a few places. Its stems are used to make a kind of paper, but the flowers contain something similar to the specks on the endpapers. It is combined with those specks that are grown in grain in a field near Athens. We seek the water’s edge for this papyrus and for the blue lotus.”

  “The strange symbols are an ancient language from Egypt. I believe the word is the name of the place we are to find. It is possible to find one who can read the flower script if we go to Istanbul.

  “We have the copy of the Hermetica of Elysium. We will acquire the original and take it to that city of wonders. There are other books in Istanbul, Nadira the Reader, other books that hold more secrets. Secrets that can only be deciphered by one whose hand has held the key. This key is the opening of the way. You have opened it, but we may not follow. We need you to go, and come back and tell us what you saw.”

  Montrose asked Malcolm, “Can you answer my questions about what I saw today? Do you know what happened to that Frenchman? He did not break his neck. There was not a mark on him. He was dead before he hit the ground.”

  “I know. I was there. I saw it.”

  “You have answers for me?”

  “You’ve had that answer for months now, Lord Montrose, written on your best friend’s back. The answers are not here but ‘Seek ye the water’s edge’ as it says. Your answer is precisely the reason Nadira has been dragged all over this land. She can read and understand what is written here. She can go where others cannot, and that makes her as valuable as a fortune in treasure. I have seen others do what she has done and I, too, long to know the answers. Did not Brother Henry demonstrate this power?”

  Montrose nodded, deep in thought. “I did not know what it meant. Nor did my brother.”

  “Now you do. Will you come with us?”

  Montrose looked up at the clear starlit sky for a long time. When he brought his gaze back to her, he cupped her face in his hands. “I never wanted to sit in a comfortable chair by the fire,” he whispered. Nadira’s face lit up with a great smile.

  Malcolm took a drink from the wine skin. “We will start out tomorrow to collect your friends Alisdair and Garreth. No doubt they long to be clear of the French.”

  “No doubt,” Nadira echoed.

  “And Brother William, I daresay the scriptorium will never be the same for you.” Malcolm’s eyes twinkled at the little friar.

  “Never. I can never go back. That is the curse, is it not? Once the box is opened…” William drifted off, thinking. After a moment he asked, “Is there a place for a scribe in your party?”

  Nadira leaned over to embrace him. “A great vast emptiness in the party if you do not come. Please come.”

  “I will be honored.” William squeezed her hand.

  Malcolm nodded to Nadira. “And I must ask you to travel for me before we go. Di Marco has done something terrible for the pope; I need to know what it is.”

  “Of course,” Nadira answered. “Of course. I could tell you where Garreth and Alisdair are. I could tell you what Di Marco was doing for the eight days I was locked in his house. But,” she leaned closer to Malcolm, “I do not know how to prepare any of the elixirs. The alchemists did that.” Nadira lowered her gaze as Malcolm attempted to search her eyes. She did not always require a potion to travel. He did not need to know her secrets. She wondered what other experiences lay before her. Her journeys always seemed too short. How far and how long could she go? She ached to find out.

  Malcolm smiled through his gray beard. “We,” he nodded around the fire to his brothers, “have known for four hundred years. When Brother William arrived with his news and Henry’s password, I took care to bring what we would need to be successful. The night is clear, the stars are bright, and the French will not come within miles of this camp. Tell me when it is time, and you shall fly.”

  Nadira laughed. “It is time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  NADIRA lay limp over Montrose’ knees, his arm behind her neck. Malcolm’s elixir was sweet and intoxicating, tasting like cherries and filling her mouth and throat with a warm honey stickiness. She swallowed again, waiting for the release. This time she heard a loud snap and found herself in Di Marco’s bedchamber. He was asleep.

  Malcolm’s voice in her ear told her to touch his head, and she did. A surge of heat and light projected before her eyes, and remembering what Malcolm had told her, she focused her thoughts on those eight lost days.

  Di Marco appeared in front of her, ghostly and fragmented. He did not look at her but passed through the wall of the bedchamber. Nadira followed, her eyes open to everything around her. As they moved through his grand house, she became aware that everything she saw was doubled one upon the other, offset by mere inches. The furniture, the doorways, the drapery, the occasional servant and guard on duty were all doubled. She blinked, thinking they would merge into one but they did not. She reached out to touch a large vase on a stand and was surprised to see her hand flow through one image, but impact the second. Always before she could only see but never touch.

  The vase was cool to her hand. It transmitted a message of identity: “I am Senor Di Marco’s vase in the hall near his bedchamber.”

  Nadira removed her hand with wonder. A voice in her ear said, “Stay on task, my dear.”

  She thought of Di Marco and in an instant was on his heels again. “Sorry,” she whispered, wondering if Malcolm could hear her. Ahead, Di Marco turned as if he heard her. “Show me where you took the book,” she ordered him.

  He frowned, but both of them were swept to a grand villa beside a river. Di Marco’s apparition stopped and turned around as if shocked and frightened to find himself there. Nadira reached out to him. “Why are we here?” She asked him. Her answer was immediate. The room shifted around to reveal a dark man sleeping in a richly covered bed, a servant standing ready against the wall should his master awake. The man lay sleeping on a silken pillow; his double hovered slightly above him, shimmering with rich colors and golden sparkles. He was not yet old, but long past youth, and sported an impressive black mustache and a comfortable smile.

  Nadira knew to touch the man, and as her finger made contact with his double, the information came to her. I am Prince Djem, rightful ruler of Karaman and Konya.

  So, she thought, Di Marco and his pope have found a reader from among the Turks. She looked for the book. Di Marco’s apparition pointed to the bedclothes. Ah. I have found them both.

  The book lay under the man’s arm, tucked close to his body. As she reached for it, she felt the familiar tug at the back of her head and opened her eyes in Montrose’s arms.

  “I hate it when that happens,” she said. “I was going t
o touch the book, but you pulled me back,” she said to Malcolm.

  “I did not pull you back, he did.” Malcolm nodded toward Montrose.

  “What?” Nadira sat up and touched Montrose’s cheek.

  “We need to teach him some new skills if he desires to hold you while you travel. I could see the trouble building in his face.”

  “I assure you, great knight, I did nothing with intent.” Montrose lowered his eyes. Nadira heard the shame in his voice.

  Malcolm answered gently, “Let us hear what she has found. Most likely she was not brought back too soon.”

  Nadira said, “My lord Di Marco took the book to a man named Djem who claims to be ruler of Karaman and Konya. He sleeps with it under his arm, a great smile on his face.”

  “Ah.” Malcolm leaned back against his baggage, pulling on his beard. “Yes, I know of this man. The pope keeps him hostage for a great deal of money from his brother, the Sultan. They are friends. No doubt he is to read and translate the Saracen parts of the book. The pope must have arranged to send the book there, convincing the cardinals it was destroyed. The elixirs are in that language, that’s what he wants.”

  “So you now know where and who…” Montrose began.

  “Excellent, and now we can send Nadira after your companions. Go now,” he handed her the vial of cherry sweetness, “and find them for us.”

  Alisdair and Garreth were trudging through the empty fields, heavy packs on their backs and mud on their boots. Both men had heads bent to the wind and moved stiffly, as though in pain from a long march. They were heading north, close to the knight’s camp. She touched Alisdair’s head to discover where he was going. Alisdair stopped and held up a hand for Garreth. She could hear them.