The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  “Voltaire died last week,” he began. “Our two lives were yoked together like those horses Plato spoke of—one pulling toward the earth, the other up into the heavens. Voltaire pulled for Reason, while I’ve championed Nature. Between us, our philosophies will serve to rip asunder the chariot of Church and State.”

  “I thought you disliked the man,” I said, confused.

  “I hated him and I loved him. I regret never having met him. One thing is certain—I’ll not long outlive him. The tragedy is, Voltaire had the key to a mystery I’ve spent my life trying to unravel. Due to his pigheaded adherence to the Rational, he never knew the value of what he’d discovered. Now it’s too late. He’s dead. And with him died the secret of the Montglane Service.”

  I felt the excitement growing in me as he spoke. The chess service of Charlemagne! Every French schoolboy knew the story—but was it possible it was more than a legend? I held my breath, praying he’d go on.

  Rousseau had taken a seat on a fallen log and was rummaging through his satchel of yellow Moroccan leather. To my surprise, he extracted a delicate cloth of needlepoint and hand-picked lace and began working over it with a tiny silver needle as he spoke.

  “When I was young,” he began, “I supported myself in Paris by selling my lace and crewelwork, since no one was interested in the operas I wrote. Though I’d hoped to be a great composer, I spent each evening playing chess with Denis Diderot and André Philidor, who, like myself, could see the bottom of their pocketbooks. In the nick of time Diderot found me a paying position as secretary to the Comte de Montaigu, French ambassador to Venice. It was the spring of 1743—I shall never forget. For in Venice that year I was to witness something I can still see as vividly as if it were yesterday. A secret at the very core of the Montglane Service.”

  Rousseau seemed to drift off as if moving into a dream. The needlework dropped from his fingers. I bent to pick it up and returned it to him.

  “You say you witnessed something?” I pressed. “Something to do with the chess service of Charlemagne?”

  The old philosopher slowly shook himself back to reality. “Yes … Venice was even then a very old city, filled with mystery,” he reminisced dreamily. “Though completely surrounded by water and filled with glittering light, there was something dark and sinister about the place. I could feel this darkness pervading everything, as I wandered through the winding labyrinth of streets, passed over ancient stone bridges, moved in gliding gondolas through the secret canals where only the sound of lapping water broke the silence of my meditation.…”

  “It seemed an easy place,” I suggested, “to believe in the supernatural?”

  “Precisely,” he replied, laughing. “One night I went alone to the San Samuele—the most charming theater in Venice—to see a new comedy by Goldoni called La Donna di Garbo. The theater was like a miniature jewel: tiers of boxes rose to the ceiling, ice-blue and gold, each with a tiny hand-painted basket of fruit and flowers and sets of glittering carriage lamps so you could see the audience as well as the performers.

  “The theater was packed to the rafters with colorful gondoliers, feathered courtesans, bejeweled bourgeoisie—an audience completely unlike the jaded sophisticates one found in Parisian theaters—and all participating in the play at full volume. Hissing, laughter, cheers greeted every word of dialogue so one could scarcely hear the actors.

  “Sharing my box was a young fellow about the age of André Philidor—sixteen or so—but wearing the pale pancake makeup and rubied lips, the powdered wig, and plumed hat so fashionable at that time in Venice. He introduced himself as Giovanni Casanova.

  “Casanova had been educated as a lawyer—like yourself—but had many other talents. The child of two Venetian thespians, troupers who’d trod the boards from here to St. Petersburg, he supported himself by playing violin at several local theaters. He was thrilled to meet someone who’d just arrived from Paris—he longed to visit that city so famous for its wealth and decadence, two traits most agreeable to his disposition. He said he was interested in the court of Louis Quinze, since the monarch was known for his extravagance, his mistresses, his immorality, and dabbling in the occult. Casanova was interested especially in this last and questioned me closely about the Societies of Freemasons so popular in Paris just then. Though I knew but little of such things, he offered to improve my education the next morning—Easter Sunday.

  “We met as arranged at dawn, where a large throng had already gathered outside the Porta della Carta—that door separating the famous Cathedral San Marco from the adjoining Ducal Palace. The crowd, sheared of their colorful costumes of the prior week’s carnevale, were all dressed in black—awaiting with hushed voices the beginning of some event.

  “‘We’re about to witness the oldest ritual in Venice,’ Casanova told me. ‘Each Easter at sunrise, the Doge of Venice leads a procession across the Piazzetta and back into St. Mark’s. It’s called “the Long March”—a ceremony as ancient as Venice herself.

  “‘But surely Venice is older than Easter—older than Christianity,’” I pointed out as we stood amid the expectant crowd, all huddled behind velvet ropes.

  “‘I never said it was a Christian ritual,’ said Casanova with a mysterious smile. ‘Venice was founded by the Phoenicians—whence we derive our name. Phoenicia was a civilization built upon islands. They worshiped the moon goddess—Car. As the moon controls the tides, so the Phoenicians ruled the seas, from which spring the greatest mystery of all—life.’

  “A Phoenician ritual. This lit some dim memory in my mind. But just then the crowd around us fell hushed. A horn ensemble appeared on the palace steps and riffled through a fanfare. The Doge of Venice, crowned with jewels and hung with purple satins, emerged from the Porta della Carta surrounded by musicians with lutes, flutes, and lyres playing music that seemed divinely inspired. They were followed by emissaries of the Holy See in stiff white chasubles, their bejeweled miters picked with threads of gold.

  “Casanova nudged me to observe the ritual closely, as the participants descended to the Piazzetta, pausing in the Place of Justice—a wall decorated with biblical scenes of judgment, where they’d strung up heretics during the Inquisition. Here were the monolithic Pillars of Acre, brought back during the Crusades from the shores of ancient Phoenicia. Did it mean something that the Doge and his companions paused to meditate at this precise spot?

  “At last they moved on to the strains of the heavenly music. The cordons restraining the crowd were lowered so we could follow the procession. As Casanova and I linked arms to move with the crowd, I began to feel the faint glimmer of something—I cannot explain it. A feeling that I was witnessing something as old as time itself. Something dark and mysterious, rich in history and symbolism. Something dangerous.

  “As the procession twisted its serpentine course across the Piazzetta and back through the Colonnade, I felt as if we were moving deeper and deeper into the bowels of a dark labyrinth from which there was no escape. I was perfectly safe, outside in daylight, surrounded by hundreds of people—yet I was afraid. It was some time before it dawned on me that it was the music—the movement—the ceremony itself that frightened me. Each time we paused in the Doge’s wake—at an artifact or piece of sculpture—I felt the pounding in my veins grow louder. It was like a message trying to tap itself through to my mind in a secret code, but one I could not understand. Casanova was watching me closely. The Doge had paused again.

  “‘This is the statue of Mercury—messenger of the gods,’” said Casanova as we came up to the dancing bronze figure. ‘In Egypt, they called him Thoth—the Judge. In Greece they called him Hermes—Guide of Souls—for he conducted souls to Hell and sometimes tricked the very gods by stealing them back again. Prince of Tricksters, Joker, Jester—the Fool of the tarot deck—he was a god of theft and cunning. Hermes invented the seven-stringed lyre—the octave scale—whose music made the gods weep for joy.’

  “I looked at the statue for quite some time before moving on.
Here was the quick one, who could free people from the kingdom of the dead. With his winged sandals and bright caduceus—that staff of twined serpents forming the figure eight—he presided over the land of dreams, worlds of magic, the realms of luck and chance and games of every sort. Was it coincidence that his statue faced this staid procession with its wicked, grinning smile? Or was it, somewhere in the dark mists of time, his ritual?

  “The Doge and company made many stops in this transcendental tour—sixteen in all. As we moved, the pattern began to unfold for me. It was not until the tenth stop—the Castello Wall—that I started to put it all together.

  “The wall was twelve feet thick, covered in multicolored stones. The inscription, the oldest in Venetic, was translated for me by Casanova:

  If a man could say and do what he thinks,

  He’d see how he might be transformed.

  “And there at the center of the wall was embedded a simple white stone, which the Doge and his entourage were regarding as if it contained some miracle. Suddenly I felt a cold chill run through me. It was as if a veil were being torn from my eyes so I could see the many parts as one. This was no mere ritual—but a process unfolding before us, each pause in the procession symbolizing a step in the path of transformation from one state to another. It was like a formula, but a formula for what? And then I knew.”

  Now Rousseau paused in his discourse and pulled a drawing, frayed with wear, from his yellow leather satchel. Unfolding it carefully, he handed it to me.

  “This is the record I made of the Long March, showing the path of sixteen stops, the number of pieces of black or white on a chessboard. You’ll note the course itself describes a figure eight—like the twined serpents on Hermes’ staff—like the Eightfold Path the Buddha prescribed to reach Nirvana—like the eight tiers of the Tower of Babel one climbed to reach the gods. Like the formula they say was brought by the eight Moors to Charlemagne—hidden within the Montglane Service.…”

  “A formula?” I said in astonishment.

  “Of infinite power,” replied Rousseau, “whose meaning may be forgotten, but whose magnetism is so strong we act it out without understanding what it means—as did Casanova and I that day thirty-five years ago in Venice.”

  “It seems quite beautiful and mysterious, this ritual,” I agreed. “But why do you associate it with the Montglane Service—a treasure which, after all, everyone believes to be no more than a legend?”

  “Don’t you see?” said Rousseau in irritation. “These Italian and Greek isles all took their traditions, their labyrinthine, stone-worshiping cults from the same source—the source from which they sprang.”

  “You mean Phoenicia,” I said.

  “I mean the Dark Isle,” he said mysteriously, “the isle the Arabs first named Al-Djezair. The isle between two rivers, rivers that twist together like Hermes’ staff to form a figure eight—rivers that watered the cradle of mankind. The Tigris and Euphrates …”

  “You mean this ritual—this formula came from Mesopotamia?” I cried.

  “I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get my hands on it!” said Rousseau, rising from his seat and grasping my arm. “I sent Casanova, then Boswell, finally Diderot, to try to get the secret. Now I send you. I choose you to track down the secret of this formula, for I’ve spent thirty-five years trying to understand the meaning behind the meaning. It is nearly too late.…”

  “But monsieur!” I said in confusion. “Even if you discovered so powerful a formula, what would you do with it? You, who’ve written of the simple virtues of country life—the innocent and natural equality of all men. What use would such a tool be to you?”

  “I am the enemy of kings!” cried Rousseau in despair. “The formula contained in the Montglane Service will bring about the end of kings—all kings—for all time! Ah, if only I might live long enough to have it within my grasp.”

  I had many questions to ask Rousseau, but already he was pale with fatigue, his brow beaded with sweat. He was putting away his lacework as if the interview were at an end. He gave me one final look as if slipping away into a dimension where I could no longer follow.

  “Once there was a great king,” he said softly. “The most powerful king in the world. They said he’d never die, that he was immortal. They called him al-Iksandr, the two-horned god, and pictured him on gold coins wearing the spiral ram’s horns of divinity at his brow. History remembers him as Alexander the Great, conqueror of the world. He died at the age of thirty-three at Babylon in Mesopotamia—seeking the formula. So would they all die, if only the secret were ours.…”

  “I place myself at your command,” I said, helping him to the footbridge as he leaned heavily upon my shoulder. “Between us, we’ll locate the Montglane Service if it still exists, and learn the formula’s meaning.”

  “It’s too late for me,” said Rousseau, shaking his head sadly. “I entrust you with this chart, which I believe is the only clue we have. Legend has it that the service is buried in Charlemagne’s palace at Aix-la-Chapelle—or at the Abbey of Montglane. It is your mission to find it.”

  Robespierre broke off suddenly and glanced over his shoulder. Before him on the table in the lamplight lay the drawing he’d made from memory of the strange Venetian ritual. David, who’d been studying it, looked up.

  “Did you hear a sound?” asked Robespierre, his green eyes mirroring a sudden burst of sparkling fireworks outside.

  “It is only your imagination,” David said abruptly. “I shouldn’t wonder you’re skittish, remembering a tale like this. I wonder how much of what you’ve told me was the raving of senility?”

  “You’ve heard Philidor’s tale, and now Rousseau’s,” said Robespierre irritably. “Your ward Mireille actually possessed some of the pieces—she admitted as much at l’Abbaye Prison. You must accompany me to the Bastille, get her to confess. Only then can I help you.”

  David understood all too well the thinly veiled threat implicit in these words: without Robespierre’s aid, Mireille’s death warrant was as good as written—and David’s as well. Robespierre’s powerful influence could as easily be turned against them, and David was already implicated beyond his worst imagination. Now he saw clearly for the first time that Mireille had been right to warn him of this “friend.”

  “You were in this with Marat!” he cried. “Just as Mireille feared! Those nuns whose letters I gave you … what has become of them?”

  “You still don’t understand,” Robespierre said impatiently. “This Game is larger than you or I—or your ward or those silly nuns. The woman I serve will make a far better ally than opponent. Remember that, if you wish to keep your head on your shoulders. What’s become of the nuns, I cannot say. I only know that she strives to unite the pieces of the Montglane Service, just as Rousseau, for the betterment of mankind—”

  “She?” said David, but Robespierre had risen as if to depart.

  “The White Queen,” he said with a cryptic smile. “Like a goddess, she takes what she deserves and bestows what she wishes. Mark my words—if you do as I ask, you’ll be well rewarded. She’ll see to that.”

  “I want no ally, no reward,” said David bitterly, rising as well. What a Judas he was. He had little choice but to comply—but it was fear that drove him to it.

  He picked up the oil lamp, accompanying Robespierre to the door, and offered to see him to the gates as there were no servants about.

  “It makes no difference what you want, so long as you do it,” Robespierre said tersely. “When she returns from London, I’ll introduce you. I cannot reveal her name just yet, but they call her the Woman from India.…”

  Their voices trailed away down the hall. When the room was in complete darkness, the rear door that led to the studio opened a crack. Illuminated only by the occasional flowering of fireworks outside, a shadowy figure slipped into the room and crossed to the table where the two men had been seated. In the next brief explosion of fireworks that lit the room, the tall, stately form of Charlotte Corday w
as bathed in light as she bent before the table. Beneath her arm was tucked a box of paints and a wad of clothing she’d stolen from the studio.

  Now she looked for a long while at the maplike chart that lay open on the table before her. Carefully she folded the drawing of the Venetian ritual and tucked it in her bodice. Then she slipped into the corridor and disappeared into the shadowy night.

  JULY 17, 1793

  It was dark inside the prison cell. A small barred window, too high to reach, emitted a crack of light that only made the cell seem blacker. Water trickled down the mossy rock, forming puddles that reeked of mildew and urine. This was the Bastille, whose liberation four years ago had lit the torch of the Revolution. Mireille’s first night here had been Bastille Day—July 14—the night after she’d killed Marat.

  For three days now she’d been in this dank cell, taken out only for her arraignment and trial that afternoon. It hadn’t taken them long to bring in the verdict: death. In two hours she’d leave this cell again, never to return.

  She sat on the hard pallet, not touching the crust of bread or tin cup of water they’d provided as her last meal. She thought of her child, Chariot, whom she’d left in the desert. She would never see him again. She wondered what the guillotine would be like—what she’d feel when they set the tambours rolling as a signal for the blade to drop. In two hours she would know. It would be the last thing she’d ever know. She thought of Valentine.

  Her head still ached from the blow she’d received when she was captured. Though the wound had healed, she could still feel the throbbing lump at the back of her head. Her trial had been more brutal than the arrest. The prosecutor had ripped open the bosom of her gown before all the court, to extract those papers of Charlotte’s she had tucked there. Now the world believed her to be Charlotte Corday—and if she corrected that impression, the life of every nun from Montglane would be in jeopardy. If only she might smuggle what she knew to the outside world—what she’d learned from Marat about the White Queen.