by Tom Harper
‘Shouldn’t there be hearts or clubs or something?’
‘The lions and bears are the suit.’ She tugged a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. ‘Actually, I think it’s wild beasts. The number of the card is shown by the number of animals on it.’
‘You obviously know a lot about it.’
She shrugged, embarrassed again. ‘Not really. Art History 101 stuff. My research is more to do with animal symbolism. But these cards are famous. They’re just about the earliest examples of printing from copper engraving we have.’
‘Who made them?’
‘That we don’t know. Most medieval artworks aren’t signed, and there are no records for where these came from. Art historians call him the Master of the Playing Cards. There are some other engravings that we attribute to him on stylistic grounds, but the playing cards are the main thing that’s survived.’
‘Are there others?’
‘There are a few dozen that have survived in Europe. Mostly in Paris, I think. The deck’s very unusual: it has five suits, instead of the usual four. Deer, birds, flowers, men…’ She tapped the printout lightly. ‘And wild beasts.’
An awkward pause hung between them. In looking at the printout he’d crowded her, pushing her back so that she now stood in the pool of light cast by a stained-glass window high in the wall. The glass splayed a mess of colours across her chest like a wound. In his mind’s eye Nick saw the snarling face lunging towards the camera. He shivered.
‘Can I keep this?’ She held up the paper, watching him curiously. He hesitated.
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll see if I can find out anything more when I finish work.’ She nodded to the tapestry. ‘I should really…’
‘Right.’
Nick fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a card. Her fingers brushed his as she took it – slender and white, the nails daubed scarlet. She read it.
‘Digital Forensic Reconstruction?’
‘I piece things together.’
It was an old line, something to use when he wanted to seem interesting. Now it just sounded hollow.
On his way out he saw the guide again. Still without any visitors to enlighten, she was standing in the cloister, watching the rain trickle off the fluted roof-tiles into the garden. A stone saint on a pedestal watched over her shoulder.
‘Did you find Dr Sutherland?’
‘She was very helpful.’ He wasn’t sure if that was true. ‘But I wanted to ask you something. Have you been here long?’
She drew herself up a little straighter.
‘Seventeen years.’
‘Did you know Gillian Lockhart? She used to work here.’
Behind the glasses, her heavily shadowed eyes narrowed. She pretended to examine the sculpted saint behind him. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’
‘She was. I – I lost touch with her. I just wondered if you knew where she went after here?’
The guide swung back towards Nick, looking him firmly in the eye. Seventeen stern years of educating ignorance and dispelling error was channelled into her fearsome stare. ‘We lost touch with her too. I don’t want to be telling tales out of school, but in my opinion that was a darn good thing. Pardon my French.’
Nick tried to hold her gaze and found he couldn’t. Before he could think what to say, the trill of his cellphone gatecrashed the rain-pattered still of the cloister. The guide’s look could have turned him to stone. Blushing furiously, staring at the floor, he pulled it out of his coat pocket and flipped it open. He barely caught a glimpse of the incoming number flashing on the screen before he jammed it off. The phone went dead.
‘This is a museum.’ Her voice was possibly louder than the phone had been.
‘I’m just going,’ Nick promised. ‘But if you could tell me anything at all about where Gillian might have gone… Anything you know.’
The prospect of seeing him off was obviously too much to resist. ‘I heard she applied for a job with Stevens Mathison.’ She looked to see if it meant anything to Nick. ‘The auction house. They have a showroom down on Fifteenth and Tenth. I’m sure Ms Lockhart was just what they needed.’
Nick wondered what she meant, but didn’t dare ask.
VI
Mainz, 1420
‘When Sarah saw her son Isaac playing with Ishmael, she said to Abraham: “Cast out this woman with her son; for the son of this slave shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”’
The lector’s voice drifted out of the refectory. Through the arched door, I saw him reading from an enormous Bible spread out on a lectern, while rows of monks sat on benches and ate up their lesson in silence. I could only hear him intermittently, for out in the cloister the judge was giving his summary.
‘The fundamental question in the case before this court, the division of the inheritance of Friedrich Gensfleisch, is the question of precedence.’
Weak April sunshine made pale shadows on the cloister. In the dim arcades, the business of the monastery went on as usual around us. Lay brothers hurried about their chores. Down a passage, I could hear the rumble of a barrel being rolled to the buttery. But in the middle of the courtyard, all attention was on the judge. He sat facing us behind a table stacked with books which he never consulted. One hand rested in his lap and played with a rosary; the other stroked the fur of his robe as if it were still alive.
‘On the one hand we have the claims of the deceased’s children by his wife Elsa.’ He gestured to the bench where I sat with my brother Friedrich, my sister and her husband Claus. ‘Nobody would doubt that the deceased loved his wife, the shopkeeper’s daughter. Nor does anyone dispute that in willing his considerable estate to these three children, he was following the dictates of his heart.’
My father had died in November, his death sudden but not especially tragic. He had lived out his three score years and ten, vigorous to the last. So vigorous, in fact, that he thought nothing of getting out his leather strap to punish the chambermaid who had left tarnish on the silver. Rumour had it she was so fearful she waited a full ten minutes after my father collapsed before turning around to see why he had paused the beating. I had been away, but those who were there said they had never seen such a look of peace as they found on his face.
‘But the head must rule the heart, as the husband rules the wife and as Christ rules the Church.’ The judge rolled his gaze across to the other bench, where my half-sister Patze sat with her uncle and her cousin. ‘And that is why we must also consider the claims of the other party in this case, the deceased’s daughter by his first wife.’
My brother shot Patze a murderous look. She bowed her head as if in prayer.
‘Nobody disputes that Friedrich’s widow Elsa is a virtuous woman who grieves her husband deeply. But a shop built of stone is still a shop.’
This was a laboured play on my mother’s maiden name, which translated as ‘from the stone-built shop’.
‘Whereas it would be remiss of this court to ignore the character of his first wife. Can anyone forget that she was the daughter of a magistrate and the niece of a chancellor? Truly an ancient family. And this court has learned that in the spirit of service and obedience that characterises that family, her daughter Patze now intends to take holy orders and join herself to Christ in the Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’
In a strange way, it reminded me of the way I felt when I learned my father died. An exhalation, a sense of something that I had never quite possessed being taken away from me. My brother was faster to react: he balled his fists so hard his nails almost drew blood.
‘In recent times much has been spoken of a changing order in Mainz. That the ancient families who have always administered this city’s liberties should share their burden with new men, craftsmen and shopkeepers.’ His face hardened in contempt. ‘In this city, we have always recognised and supported God’s order. But equally, we protect the humble and the lowly, as was ordained by Christ. For this reason, the court awards the house Zum Gutenberg, its furnishings
and as much as may be necessary for a comfortable life, to the widow Elsa for the rest of her days. To Friedrich’s three children by her, out of respect for his affection for them, we award the sum of twenty gulden apiece. The rest of the inheritance we award, according to the laws of precedence, to his first-born, best-loved and most virtuous daughter Patze.’
He tapped his staff on the table, hammering the nail of his verdict.
I did not feel angry – not yet. I was twenty years old, and my future had been taken away from me. I had a lifetime to let my resentment bloom.
My brother Friele, thirteen years older and his future already more than half spent, felt it more urgently.
‘Bastard thieves. Whore-mongering, gold-grasping boyfucking Jews.’
In an alcove in the cloister, a brightly painted St Martin leaned off his wooden horse to offer a beggar his cloak. I said nothing. Friele had moved out of the house a year after I was born. In our case, the bond of brotherhood was a bar that fixed us at a set distance, no closer.
‘They’ve waited thirty years to get their revenge on Father for marrying a shopkeeper’s daughter. Now they have it.’
Since I had been old enough to understand why my mother spent so many days in the house, why our neighbours found other errands to run whenever she encountered them in the street, I had wondered why my father married her. In a lifetime calculated for his own profit, it was the one act that brought him no gain.
Friele’s face burned with baffled fury. I thought he might pull St Martin off his horse and smash him to pieces on the cloister floor.
‘Mother will live comfortably enough, and Elsa’s husband will look after her. I at least have made a small name for myself in commercial circles, where a man’s ability is valued more than his inheritance. But you.’ He looked at me with half-sincere concern, seeing, I suppose, a proxy for the war he was waging in his mind. ‘You have no wealth, no craft and no standing. What will you do?’
I was my father’s son – one thing at least I had inherited from him. I knew what I loved best.
‘I will become a goldsmith.’
VII
New York City
The A train rattled through the tunnel somewhere under Harlem. Electricity flashed off the walls, tossing up images of dusty cables and rusting pipes. Nick tipped his head back against the scratched glass and closed his eyes.
Gillian was the only person he’d ever met on a train – probably the only person he could have. Mid-afternoon on the Metro-North coming back from New Haven, no one around except a few private-school kids and a family heading into the city for the theatre. She’d got on at Greenwich, and with a whole empty carriage to choose from had parked herself in the seat opposite him. He’d avoided her eye, a true New Yorker, concentrating extra hard on the laptop balanced on his knees. But Gillian didn’t let you escape that easily.
‘Did you know that “commute” comes from the Latin word commutare? It means “to change completely”?’
Straight in. Nick shook his head and stared at the screen. ‘Kind of ironic, don’t you think?’
Nick gave a non-committal grunt. It didn’t deter her.
‘Nothing ever changes if you’re a commuter. You take the same train at the same time, sit opposite the same people going to the same job. Then you come home to the same house, same wife and kids, same mortgage and retirement plan.’ She looked out the window, at the strip-suburbs sliding by. ‘I mean these places – Rye, New Rochelle, Harrison – do they even exist? Did you ever meet one person who’s been there?’
Nick vaguely remembered he’d been to an amusement park in Rye when he was a kid. ‘Not that they admitted.’
She bounced on her seat like a toddler. ‘You know what else you commute?’
‘A death sentence?’
She beamed. ‘Exactly. I’m Gillian, by the way.’ She stuck out a hand with exaggerated formality. Everything with Gillian was overdone, he found out later, a casual way of telegraphing her ironic detachment. Later still he realised it was a way of protecting herself. ‘You must be…?’
‘Nick.’ He reached awkwardly around the laptop lid and shook her hand. She wasn’t beautiful in a Maybelline kind of way: her chin was too dimpled, her arms too long, her auburn hair unglossy. She looked like the sort of person who scorned make-up. But there was something in her that defied you to look away – an energy or an aura, a sense of possiblities.
‘I’m not a commuter,’ he added. Feeling the need to justify himself.
She pivoted around and slid onto the seat next to him. ‘What are you working on?’
Nick slammed the laptop shut, then laughed awkwardly. Casting around, not knowing where to look, his eyes met hers. Green and brimming with mischief, staring into him without apology.
‘Would you believe me if I told you it was classified?’
She rolled her eyes, a give-me-a-break look that dissolved into a squeal of delight as she saw he was serious. ‘No way. Are you a spy?’
‘Not really.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I, um, piece things together…’
The subway’s wheels screamed as it braked into Fourteenth Street station.
Nick followed the crush of commuters up to the street. The rain had started again, streaming down the steps so that he felt like a salmon battling up a leap. By the time he reached the auction showroom, two blocks away, he was drenched. At least he’d worn his good coat. Nobody else in the building seemed touched by the rain. All he saw were crisp shirts and sharply pressed pleats, as if these people inhabited a world where it was always seventy degrees and the sun always shone. A polished world of glass and steel and marble, if the lobby was anything to go by. A hard world. It seemed so unlike Gillian.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ The receptionist was a young man with floppy hair and rimless glasses, a trace of a European accent behind his English. His smile seemed to say that he was taking pains to put Nick at ease.
‘I’m trying to track down a friend of mine – Gillian Lockhart. I was told she might be working here?’
‘Let me just check for you.’
He tapped at the computer terminal on his desk. ‘Miss Gillian Lockhart. In our Late Medieval Manuscripts and Printed Materials department.’ Another tap. ‘She works out of our Paris branch.’
‘Does she have a phone number there?’
‘I can give you the showroom number.’ He took a fountain pen and printed a number across the back of a card. His cufflinks clacked on the desk as he wrote. ‘Of course you know you need to dial 011 for international calls.’
Nick glanced at the row of clocks mounted like trophies on the wall behind the receptionist. Four p.m. in New York, ten in Paris. ‘I guess they’ll be shut now.’
Another tap at the computer. ‘You might be in luck. They have an evening sale tonight. A manuscript of the Duc de Berry – it will be very popular. I would think Miss Lockhart should certainly be there.’
Nick went to a coffee shop across the street. His cellphone was switched off – had been since the museum. He turned it on and dialled the number on the card.
‘Stevens Mathison, bonsoir.’ A woman – not Gillian.
‘Bonjour.’ That was wrong. ‘Um, is Gillian Lockhart there, please?’
‘Moment, s’il vous plaît.’
A Vivaldi concerto took her place. Nick tried not to think how much each note was costing him. What would he say to Gillian? Where to begin?
A beep from his phone alerted him to an incoming call. He pulled it away from his ear and looked at the screen. He recognised the flashing number, though it took him a second to realise why. It was his apartment. Bret?
The Vivaldi cut out; he diverted the other call to voicemail and whipped the phone back to his ear, just in time to catch a man’s voice asking, ‘Who is this?’
He tried to keep his disappointment in check. ‘My name’s Nick Ash. I’m trying to reach Gillian Lockhart. Your New York office said she might be working there tonight.’
‘Have yo
u heard from her?’ The accent was British, refined. In the background Nick could hear the murmur of conversation and clinking glasses.
‘An email. She didn’t say where she was.’ He paused. ‘I’m actually a bit worried about her.’
‘So are we. We haven’t seen Gillian for almost a month.’
‘Do you mean she’s quit?’
‘I mean she’s disappeared.’
Again Nick saw the face lunging for the camera. Help me theyre coming. But that was only yesterday. ‘You said she’s been gone a month?’
For a moment all he heard was hiss, Atlantic waves echoing through the cable.
‘I’m sorry – who did you say you were?’
‘Nick Ash. I’m a friend of Gillian’s. From New York.’
‘You said you had an email from her yesterday?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well at least she’s alive.’ The British accent made it impossible to tell if he meant it as a joke. ‘Did she say where she is?’
Nick wondered how much to say. ‘It was very short. She sounded like she may be in trouble.’
‘Oh God.’ Again, the accent bleached all depth from the words. It could have been profound distress or simply boredom. ‘Have you called the police?’
‘I don’t really have anything to tell them.’
‘Well I did. Utterly useless. They told me young women wander off all the time. Said it was probably an affair of the heart – particularly when I showed them the photograph. You know how the French can be. Though speaking of our Gallic friends, the Duc de Berry is about to go under the hammer and I’m afraid I ought to be-’
‘Just one more thing.’ Nick rushed the words out. ‘Have you heard of the Master of the Playing Cards?’
The man sounded surprised. ‘Of course. Fifteenth-century German engraver. Those curious cards.’
‘Gillian mentioned him in her message.’
‘Did she?’
Nick hung on, waiting for another question. None came.
