The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  “Despite the injunction against dueling,” Blake continued, “the poet went to Versailles and openly demanded satisfaction from the chevalier. He was tossed into the Bastille for his pains. While pining there in his cell, he got an idea. Appealing to the authorities not to let him languish yet another stay in prison, he proposed to go into voluntary exile instead—in England.”

  “They say,” Wordsworth chimed in, “that during his first stay in the Bastille Voltaire had deciphered a secret manuscript related to the Montglane Service. Now he conceived the notion of journeying here to present this as a sort of puzzle to our famous mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton, whose works he’d read with admiration. Newton was old and weary, and had lost interest in his work, which no longer presented a challenge. Voltaire proposed to provide the required spark—a challenge not only to decipher what he himself had done, but to unravel the deeper problem of its true meaning. For they say, madame, this manuscript described a great secret buried in the Montglane Service—a formula of enormous power.”

  “I know,” Mireille hissed irritably as she removed Chariot’s fingers, which were entangled in her hair. The rest of the audience watched with eyes riveted upon the board at center, where the blindfolded Philidor listened to his opponent’s moves read out as, his back to the board, he called out his replies.

  “And did Sir Isaac succeed in resolving the puzzle?” she asked impatiently, feeling Shahin’s tension to depart, though she could not see his face.

  “Indeed,” replied Blake. “That is just what we wish to tell you. It was the last thing he ever did—for the following year he was dead.…”

  THE TALE OF THE TWO POETS

  Voltaire was in his early thirties—Newton eighty-three—when the two men met at London in May of 1726. Newton had suffered a breakdown some thirty years before. He’d published little of scientific importance since.

  When they met, the slender, cynical Voltaire with his rapier wit must at first have been disconcerted by Newton, fat and pink with a mane of snowy hair and a languid, almost docile manner. Though lionized by society, Newton was in fact a solitary man who spoke little and kept his deepest thoughts jealously guarded—quite the opposite of the young French admirer who’d already been twice incarcerated in the Bastille for tactlessness and rash temper.

  But Newton was always tempted by a problem, whether mathematical or mystical in nature. When Voltaire arrived with his mystical manuscript, Sir Isaac eagerly took it to his chambers and disappeared for several days, leaving the poet in suspense. At last he invited Voltaire back to his study, a place filled with optical equipment and lined with walls of musty books.

  “I have published only a fragment of my work,” the scientist told the philosopher. “And that, only by the insistence of the Royal Society. Now I am old and rich, and may do as I like—but I still refuse to publish. Your fellow Cardinal Richelieu understood such reservations, or he’d not have written his journal in code.”

  “You’ve deciphered it, then?” said Voltaire.

  “That, and more,” said the mathematician with a smile, taking Voltaire to the corner of his study where sat a very large metal box that was locked. He extracted a key from his pocket and looked at the Frenchman carefully. “Pandora’s box. Shall we open it?” he said. When Voltaire eagerly agreed, they turned the key in the rusty lock.

  Here were manuscripts hundreds of years old, some nearly crumbling to dust through the neglect of many years. But most were well worn and Voltaire suspected by the hand of Newton himself. As Newton lifted them lovingly from the metal trunk, Voltaire glimpsed the titles in surprise: De Occulta Philosophia, The Musaeum Hermeticum, Transmutatione Metallorum … heretical books by al-Jabir, Paracelsus, Villanova, Agrippa, Lully. Works of dark magic forbidden by every Christian church. Works of alchemy—dozens of them—and beneath them, bound neatly in paper covers, thousands of pages of experimental notes and analyses in Newton’s own hand.

  “But you are the greatest proponent of reason in our century!” said Voltaire, staring at the books and papers in disbelief. “How can you wade in this morass of mysticism and magic?”

  “Not magic,” Newton corrected him, “but science. The most dangerous of all sciences, whose purpose is to alter the course of nature. Reason was invented by man only to help decipher the formulas created by God. In everything natural there is a code—and to each code a key. I’ve re-created many experiments of the ancient alchemists, but this document you give me says the final key is contained in the Montglane Service. If this were true, I would give everything I’ve discovered—everything I’ve invented—for one hour alone with those pieces.”

  “What would this ‘final key’ reveal that you are unable to discover yourself through research and experimentation?” asked Voltaire.

  “The stone,” Newton replied. “The key to all secrets.”

  When the poets paused breathlessly, Mireille turned at once to Blake. The murmurs of the audience at the progress of the blindfold play had successfully masked their voices from all.

  “What did he mean—the stone?” she asked, gripping the poet’s arm forcefully.

  “Of course, I forget.” Blake laughed. “I’ve studied these things myself, so I assume everyone knows. The aim of all alchemical experiments is to arrive at a solution that reduces to a cake of dry reddish powder—at least, that’s how it’s described. I’ve read Newton’s papers. Though they were suppressed from publication due to embarrassment—no one really believed he’d spent so much time on such nonsense—they were fortunately never destroyed.”

  “And what is this cake of reddish powder?” pressed Mireille, so anxious she could nearly scream. Chariot was tugging on her from behind. She didn’t require a prophet to tell her she’d idled here too long.

  “Why, that’s it,” Wordsworth said, leaning forward, his eyes bright with excitement. “This cake is the stone. A piece of it combined with base metal turns it to gold. When dissolved and swallowed, it’s supposed to heal all your ills. They call it the philosophers’ stone.…”

  Mireille’s mind churned through all she knew. The sacred stones worshiped by the Phoenicians, the white stone described by Rousseau, embedded in the wall of Venice: “If a man could say and do as he thinks,” read the inscription, “he’d see how he might be transformed.” The White Queen floated on the wall before her eyes, transforming a man into a god.…

  Suddenly Mireille stood up. Wordsworth and Blake jumped to their feet in surprise.

  “What is it?” whispered the young Wordsworth quickly. Several people had glanced around in irritation at the disturbance.

  “I must go,” Mireille said, planting a kiss on his cheek as he blushed beet red. She turned to Blake and took his hand. “I am in danger—I cannot remain. But you shall not be forgotten.” She turned, followed by Shahin, who rose and moved like a shadow behind her as she swept from the room.

  “Perhaps we should go after her,” said Blake. “But somehow I think we’ll hear from her again. A remarkable woman, you agree?”

  “Yes,” Wordsworth said. “I see her in a poem already.” Then he laughed as he saw Blake’s worried expression. “Oh, not one of mine! One of yours.…”

  Mireille and Shahin moved swiftly through the outer room, their feet sinking into the soft carpeting. The porters lounging about the bar hardly noticed as they passed like wraiths. As they went outside into the street, Shahin caught Mireille by the arm and pulled her against the darkened wall. Chariot, in Shahin’s arms, gazed into the wet darkness with the eyes of a cat.

  “What is it?” whispered Mireille, but Shahin put his finger to her lips. She strained her eyes in the darkness, and then she heard the sound of soft footsteps crossing the wet pavement. She saw two shadowy forms outlined in the mist.

  The shadows approached stealthily to the very door of Parsloe’s, only a few feet from where Shahin and Mireille waited, not breathing. Even Chariot was as silent as a mouse. The door of the club opened, emitting a crack of light
—illuminating the shapes on the wet street. One was the heavy, drunken Boswell, draped in a long dark cape. The other … Mireille gaped with open mouth as she watched Boswell turn and offer his hand.

  It was a woman, slender and beautiful, who threw back the hood of her cape. Out spilled the long blond hair of Valentine! It was Valentine! Mireille let out a muffled sob and started to step forward into the light, but Shahin restrained her with iron hand. She wheeled to him in anger, but he bent swiftly to her ear.

  “The White Queen,” he whispered. Mireille turned back in horror as the door of the club swung shut, leaving them once again in darkness.

  THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

  FEBRUARY 1794

  During the weeks of his stay waiting for the repair of his ship, Talleyrand had many opportunities to get to know Benedict Arnold, the famous traitor who’d betrayed his country by becoming a spy for the British government.

  It was odd, these two men sitting together over checkers or chess at the inn. Each had had a promising career, held high positions and the respect of peers and superiors alike. But both had formed enmities that had cost them their reputations and livelihoods. Arnold, returning to England after his espionage was discovered, had found that no position was waiting for him in the military. He was a subject of scorn, left to fend for himself. This explained the situation in which Talleyrand now found him.

  But though Arnold could not give a letter of reference to Americans in lofty places, Talleyrand saw that he could provide information about the country he himself was soon to journey to. Over the weeks he’d plied the shipyard master with questions. And now, on the last day of his stay before his ship departed for the New World, Talleyrand questioned further as the two men sat at the inn over a game of chess.

  “What are the social occupations in America?” said Talleyrand. “Do they have salons as in England or in France?”

  “Once you’ve left Philadelphia or New York—which is full of Dutch immigrants—you’ll find little but frontier towns. The people sit by the fire at night with a book, or have a game of chess as we’re doing now. There isn’t much in the way of society outside the eastern seaboard. But chess is nearly the national pastime. They say even the fur trappers carry a small set on their journeys.”

  “Really,” said Talleyrand. “I’d no idea there was that level of intellect present in what were, until very recently, isolated colonies.”

  “Not intellect—but morality,” Arnold said. “That’s how they look at it, anyway. Perhaps you’ve read the work by Ben Franklin that’s so popular in America? It’s called The Morals of Chess—and speaks of how we might learn many lessons in life from a thorough study of the game.” He laughed a little bitterly and looked up from the board into Talleyrand’s eyes. “It was Franklin, you know, who was so anxious to solve the riddle of the Montglane Service.”

  Talleyrand looked at him sharply. “What on earth are you talking about?” he asked. “You mean that ridiculous legend is discussed even on the opposite side of the Atlantic?”

  “Ridiculous or not,” Arnold said with a smile the other couldn’t fathom, “they say old Ben Franklin spent a lifetime trying to decipher the puzzle. Even went down to Montglane during his tenure here as ambassador to France. It’s a place in the south of France.”

  “I know where it is,” snapped Talleyrand. “What was he seeking?”

  “Why, the chessboard of Charlemagne. I thought everyone here knew of it. They said it was buried at Montglane. Benjamin Franklin was an excellent mathematician and chess player. He developed a Knight’s Tour that he claimed was his idea of how the Montglane Service was laid out.”

  “Laid out?” said Talleyrand, feeling a frightening chill pass over him as he realized what the man’s words suggested. Even in America, thousands of miles from the horrors of Europe, he’d not be safe from the grasp of the horrid service that had so affected his life.

  “Yes,” said Arnold, moving a piece across the board. “You must ask Alexander Hamilton, a fellow Freemason. They say Franklin deciphered a part of the formula—and turned it over to them before he died.…”

  THE EIGHTH SQUARE

  “The Eighth Square at last!” she cried.… “Oh, how glad I am to get here! And what is this on my head?” she exclaimed in a tone of dismay … as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what it could possibly be.

  It was a golden crown.

  —Through the Looking-Glass

  Lewis Carroll

  I dragged myself out of the water and onto the stony crescent of beach that fronted the pine forest, nearly gagging from all the salt water I’d swallowed—but I was alive. And it was the Montglane Service that had saved me.

  The weight of those pieces in my shoulder bag had plummeted me to the bottom before I could take a stroke, dragging me out of range of those little chunks of lead that were striking the water above me—pumped from the handguns of Sharrif’s companions. Since the water was only ten feet deep, I could walk up the floor of sand, dragging the bag along with me, feeling my way among the boats until I could stick my nose out for air. Still using the bevy of fishing boats as camouflage and my satchel as an anchor, I worked my way along the shallows in the wet black night.

  I opened my eyes on the beach, trying to gauge in bleary despair exactly where I’d landed. Though it was nine o’clock and nearly dark, I could see a few twinkling lights that looked like the port of Sidi-Fredj about two miles away. I could get there on foot if I weren’t captured, but where was Lily?

  I felt my soggy shoulder bag and fumbled inside. The pieces were all still there. God knew what else I’d lost by dragging this bag through the dreck on the bottom, but my two-hundred-year-old manuscript was tucked in a waterproof zippered pouch where I kept my makeup. If only it hadn’t leaked.

  I was plotting my next move when a soggy object came crawling from the water a few yards down the beach. In the deep purple light it looked like a newly hatched chicken, but the little yap it gave as it staggered to me and threw itself on my lap gave no doubt—it was a bedraggled Carioca. I had no way to dry him, since I was drenched as well. So I picked him up as I got to my feet, tucked him under my arm, and headed into the pine forest—a shortcut home.

  I’d lost one shoe in the water, so I discarded the other and went barefoot over the soft carpet of pine needles, using my homing instincts to head for the port. I’d been traveling about fifteen minutes when I heard a twig snap nearby. I froze and stroked the trembling Carioca, praying he wouldn’t pull the same routine he had with the bats.

  But it made no difference. A few seconds later I was hit full in the face with a large floodlight. I stood there squinting into it, my heart frozen with fear. Then a soldier in khaki came around into the light and approached me. In his hands was a big machine gun with a belt of nasty-looking bullets hanging from the side. The gun was pointed at my stomach.

  “Freeze!” he cried unnecessarily. “Who are you? Explain yourself! What are you doing here?”

  “Taking my dog for a swim,” I said. I held Carioca up in the light as proof. “I’m Catherine Velis. I’ll show you my identification.…”

  I realized the papers I was about to reach for were soaked, and I didn’t want him to search my bag. I started talking fast.

  “I was walking my dog over at Sidi-Fredj,” I said, “when he fell off the pier. I jumped in to rescue him, but we were washed down here by the current.…” God, I suddenly realized there was no current in the Mediterranean. I hastily rattled on. “I work for OPEC, for Minister Kader. He’ll vouch for me. I live just over there.” I raised my arm, and he waved his gun in my face.

  I decided to try another approach—the Ugly American.

  “I tell you it’s critical I see Minister Kader!” I said forcefully, drawing myself up with a dignity that must have looked ridiculous in my dripping-wet condition. “Do you have any idea who I am?!” The soldier glanced over his shoulder at his partner, obscured behind the floodlight.

  “You are
attending the conference, perhaps?” he said, turning back to me.

  Of course! That’s why these soldiers were patrolling the woods! That’s what the blockade on the road was all about. That’s why Kamel had sounded so urgent when he’d kept insisting I be back by the end of the week. The OPEC conference had begun!

  “Absolutely,” I assured him. “I’m one of the key delegates. They’ll be wondering where I am.”

  The soldier walked around behind the strobe light and muttered with his companion in Arabic. After a few minutes they switched off the light. The older one spoke apologetically.

  “Madame, we will see you to your group. The delegates are just now assembling at the Restaurant du Port. Perhaps you’d like to retire to your quarters first and change?”

  I agreed that would be a very good idea. After half an hour or so, my escort and I arrived at my apartment. The guard waited outside while I quickly threw on another outfit, blow-dried my hair, and fluffed up Carioca as best I could.

  I could scarcely leave the pieces in my apartment, so I dug a duffel bag from the closet, tossing them inside along with Carioca. The book Minnie had given me was damp but, thanks to its watertight compartment, mercifully not destroyed. Thumbing the pages, I gave it a once-over with the blower, too, then put it in the duffel and went out to the waiting guard, who escorted me across the port.

  The Restaurant du Port was a huge building with high ceilings and marble floors, where I’d often taken lunch while still living at El Riadh. We passed through the long colonnade of key-shaped arches that ran from the plaza beside the port, then we ascended the wide flight of steps rising from the water to the brightly lighted glass walls of the restaurant. There were soldiers every thirty paces, facing the port with their hands tucked behind them, rifles slung over their backs. When we reached the entrance I peered through the glass walls to see if I could locate Kamel.