Lemprière's Dictionary

by Lawrence Norfolk

  The barracks door flew open suddenly, startling Nazim from his reverie. The first of his countrymen had returned. He spread his blanket over the boards and lay down, angling his head towards the door as was his habit. The door banged open at irregular intervals. Each time, his eyes blinked open, then, seeing no threat, closed once more. His ship-mates wandered back in twos and threes; none returned alone. The first lesson, he thought to himself. A few put a brave face on things, but most returned downcast, some were bloodied. He sighed and tried to settle on the hard floor. His sleep was fitful, broken by the sound of the night’s stragglers as they stumbled to their places. Tomorrow, the task with which he had been entrusted would begin.

  “My son,” began the letter, “by the time you read this, my first and last letter to you, I shall be dead. If the mode of my passing follows the precedent set by our ancestors then you will be left curious, besieged by doubts and unanswered questions. John, pursue them no further. Your curiosity will not be appeased, your vengeance never enacted. If the history of the Lemprières has resembled that of the house of Atreus it is because this advice has been too rarely offered, never taken. It is my thought that you will be reading this letter in London, or on your way to that city. Complete any business you must and leave. Of my papers,” at this, John looked across the room at the travelling chest which overflowed with these, “burn them. Do not trouble to read them. I fear to say more, merely do as I say and I will be at peace.”

  It was unsigned, but the hand was his father’s without doubt. What had he meant by vengeance? And how had he known that his death would be a violent one? The more he thought of his father’s words, the more these and other questions assailed him.

  He lay back on the narrow bed, gazing up at the whitewashed ceiling, now yellowed by firesmoke. He thought with mixed feelings of the woods and fields of Jersey, briefly of his mother. Above him, the tailor’s family could be heard preparing for bed, while outside, the din of the street was undiminished, although changing in character. The noise of the journeymen, market-workers, which had provided a steady hum of commerce, insults, and greeting faded, as now the broken rhythms of evening asserted their different dominion in sudden shouts, footsteps which approached and receded.

  He eased his position on the bed, trying not to think on the questions the letter held up for him, allowing the slow drift towards sleep. Despite having always resented it as lost time, he was impatient now for its thoughtlessness. He rarely remembered his dreams. The brain’s fugitives, he chased them sometimes through the morning half-light between sleep and waking. They eluded him as if surrounded by an invisible bubble which his grasp pushed further away at each frustrated attempt until he stumbled into wakefulness. Morning was when the losses of the night were counted, as if his dreams might be records of himself whose transience pointed obscurely to a gradual whittling away of his self’s core. Waxing by day, waning by night. He envisaged these orts fondly as constituting the version of himself most closely approximating the truth and imagined his dreaming self shut up within the gaol of his waking mind, which thwarted any and all efforts to free it.

  Above, the tailor and his wife were marking another day’s end with grudging beneficences to God and then each other, thump, thump, thump through the ceiling. They kept a practised rhythm. Charles the Second, Oliver Cromwell, William and Mary…. Cromwell? Thump, thump, suck. He thought of his father. Why had he screamed? Had he simply lain there it would not have happened. Had Casterleigh chosen any other day to go hunting it would not have happened. Had Juliette not been bathing, had Juliette not been playing in the water, had Juliette not … had I not committed Actaeon’s sin…. No, he refused that thought. Not now.

  But yes, another voice persisted in him, had you not let another take your place…. It would not have happened, he concluded wearily. So many ways for it not to happen.

  The noise above grew briefly louder, the tempo quickened and he heard a low discontented grunt. The room fell silent again and no more was heard for some time. Had I not read the tale, invoked it, had I not been given the book, had I not tried to prove myself in the library. So many things I might not have done. Watching her in the pool.

  His thoughts kept returning to the girl. Outwardly he seemed calm while, within, his waking senses drained slowly down like the white sand in an hourglass. The night moved on. At length, his eyes closed and he slept.

  Outside, it is the hour of suspicion. The closed hour when men walk the streets with the air of interlopers in a drama played out in silence between the city and the night. A cloaked figure crosses the street at a diagonal, his shadow lengthening as he moves away from the lamp. Someone loiters on a corner with studied casualness, looking first one way then the other, offering no clue to explain his watchfulness. The city is almost still, but the slow arc of the moon brings it to something like life. Shadows, strange silhouettes on walls which lighten and darken with the moon’s passage. Parts of the city which appear solid and normal in daylight disclose capriccios of the grotesque, their hidden aspects. A vase of carved stone, its rim cracked, throws a broken face on the wall it adorns by day. Broken timbers stacked carelessly in the corner of a yard might be the limbs of two figures locked in combat and a flagpole’s shadow falls across cobbles, allows a right-angle as it strikes the opposite wall, another as the wall rounds a corner. A gibbet.

  As the moon crosses the sky these lengthen or shorten, disappear and are replaced by others. The city seems eager to display the arcane details of its construction, but some parts will never be known. Cellars, covered stairways, passages which run beneath the surface of things, secret channels and chambers, the walkways and corridors of the unseen and unheard; these places remain unlit save by the light of those privy to their existence.

  And now, a kind of life begins to stir in these subterranean ducts and courses. Something pulses. Something moves in these petrified veins. At first it is no more than a slight eddying of the chill air, the suggestion of warmth. Stone chambers and passages unused to light are now, briefly, lit and the sound of hoarse breathing susurrates through the long corridors and caverns. As these sounds and these lights careen off the surrounding walls and floors, they reveal a surprising smoothness, rounded contours and gentle curves, creases rather than corners. Larger chambers open out periodically from narrow passages. They seem organic with their high, natural vaults and arches. Mineral filaments like attenuated stalactites fall from roof to floor. But they are not stalactites. This tangled skein of fossilised arteries, sinews and organs betrays an ancient presence.

  Long, long ago, something huge pounded the rocky sub-strata. Unmindful and arrogant in its vast mortality, here its shadow fell across whole plains and scarps. Here its footprints were craters and here it sank down into the soft loam which slowly closed about it. Here it died. And here the soft, accepting earth drew it down to the beds of stone. A slow accommodation began. Gradually, so slowly, it succumbed to the patient stone which seeped into its limbs and organs, preserving it perfect in every detail. Its form hardened and became more than a corpse; almost imperceptibly, it became the monument to its own passing, a riddled lode which now plays silent host to five intruders.

  Deep beneath the sleeping city, there is the slightest quickening in this structure. At five points in its fossilised remains, there is movement. Five men creep through arteries of granite, adamantine galleries and brittle plates of crystal. They advance by separate routes. Their paths twist and curve but never cross. All have made this journey many times before. No-one knows the path of the others. Their destination is all they hold in common as each picks his way through the network of tunnels. At times, they might be only inches from one another, separated by the merest, paper-thin membrane of flaking limestone, but they would never know. Each takes his own path to the chamber at the very centre of the vast corpse, a chamber which might once have been its heart. The door to it may once have been an aorta, pounding with hot blood through arteries and veins that now harbour only the f
aint echo of shuffling footsteps as the five men draw nearer. The lamps they carry close to their chests light the way before them while their bodies throw shadows which lengthen away into the darkness at their backs. On entering the chamber, each extinguishes the lamp he holds and lights a wick in a lamp mounted upon the wall. There are nine of these wicks, not counting the lighter. When five of the nine are lit, they throw a stuttering light on the chamber’s roof and walls. It is the only illumination this place has known. The chamber is cold and the air very still. The Cabbala is in session.

  Dim though the light is, their leader avoids it, drawing back into the shadows of the chair. Two figures stand behind, flanking him like pillars. A little way down the table a thick-set man takes his seat. He has the air of one more accustomed to movement and shifts uneasily. Beside him his companion, a wiry, compact figure, settles more quickly.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ he says, as the last takes his place opposite them. There is no air of expectancy, no excitement. Gravity perhaps, as if they are assembled for the final signing of a treaty whose terms have been agreed years before. He leans forward almost imperceptibly, his face remaining in shadow. It is a signal. The company attends to him with a practised manner. There have been many such meetings before this one. The thickset man leans his elbows on the table before him and clasps his hands. The tip of one finger taps noiselessly on a ring he wears on his left hand. It is gold, crudely made with a device upon it. He studies his nails as if the words of the other take up only a fraction of his attention. The contemplative pose is so foreign to him however that the effect is almost comical. The speaker repays his assumed indifference in kind.

  ‘Word reaches us that the Nawab has dispatched an emissary….’ Behind him the two human pillars, as if the last word were a cue, echo its intonation, first one then the other, from left to right and back.

  ‘A messenger.’

  ‘A mouthpiece.’

  ‘A diplomat.’

  ‘An eyes and ears.’

  ‘An agent of good will.’

  ’An agent-provocateur.’

  He gestures silence with his hand. ‘An emissary is all we know, it must suffice for the present. He will be identified. A decision can be taken,’ he pauses for breath, ‘at a later time. He is at any rate only part of our larger problem….’

  ‘Why wait?’ The larger man unclasps his hands. ‘Why not deal with him now, his presence cannot profit us, surely?’ He looks around the table for assent but, as always, the faces are impassive. The other continues by way of an answer to the interruption.

  ‘He will be watched. It may profit us to know his identity before we,’ he pauses, ‘before we act. There are no simple distinctions, yet….’

  ‘Blacks.’

  Whites.’

  ‘Goats.’

  ‘Sheep.’

  ‘Debit.’

  ‘Credit.’

  He motions silence and looks to the far side of the table at the last to have taken his seat.

  ‘… yet we might draw one between the detail and the larger picture of which it forms only a part, do you not agree Monsieur?’ This last at the interrupter who had resumed his former position except that now the knuckles of his fingers were whitening as he clasped his hands more tightly together. Across the table the individual originally indicated toyed nervously with a sheaf of papers. He glanced quickly at the man opposite whose smaller companion caught the look and held him unblinkingly. Then he spoke just two words.

  ‘The report?’

  His voice, heard for the first time, was devoid of accent, metallic and cold. The other barely caught the questioning inflection. He arranged the papers in front of him and cleared his throat.

  ‘Discounting ourselves, the Carnatic debt involves roughly three parties….

  ‘Roughly?’ queried the larger man opposite him.

  ‘There are overlappings of interest between the three, as well as the peripheral interests, mostly negligible. It becomes plainer as we continue….’

  ‘Quite,’ said the unseen man at the far end of the table. ‘Please continue.’

  ‘Yes,’ he looked down again, ‘they are the Arcot interest, Hastings’ faction and, of course, the Board of Control. Of the three the most powerful, but least organised, is the Arcot interest. Benfield provides a kind of focus, but only to his opponents; it is not our opinion that he could rally support amongst the other creditors. Hastings and his friends are surprisingly, still united. If anything, his impeachment has strengthened his position …’

  ‘How can this be?’ the metallic voice queried.

  ‘How can losing everything, what little he had, advantage him? Or his sponsors?’ The larger man threw up his hands.

  ‘That he had little to begin with is beside the point,’ the unseen face moved in the shadows, ‘his position is a moral one, Hastings is a man of principle.’

  ‘A paragon.’

  ‘A catiline.’

  ‘A demigod.’

  ‘A basilisk.’

  ‘An Aristides.’

  ‘A Nana Sahib.’

  The original speaker turned the page. ‘At any rate, the Hastings interest survives. The Board of Control pursues contradictory goals, at least their actions have not been coherent. There are wavering loyalties between Pitt and his creature, Dundas.’

  ‘Pitt promised support for the Arcot interest in return for their support during the election, we all know this. As soon as he was elected he began the meddling in the Company’s affairs of which we also know. But this has taken a new form. Investigations.’

  ‘Investigations?’

  ‘Into abuses, particularly the Arcot interest in the Carnatic. It would seem that Pitt too is a man of principle.’

  ‘But he betrayed his own supporters,’ the large man broke in. There was a short silence.

  ‘Pitt is an adept politician,’ came the voice from the far end. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It became clear that the Nawab had borrowed what he believed to be huge sums from both the Company’s servants, or at least the Arcot interest, and the government at high rates of interest, these loans being secured against the land revenues of the Carnatic of which he is now, nominally at least, the ruler.’

  ‘Certainly he is,’ laughed the large man. ‘We installed him.’

  ‘At this point, Hastings demanded liquidation of the debt at any cost which, in effect, would have had to be no cost at all, a write-off. The Carnatic land revenues no longer pay even the interest, the debt cannot be serviced. Dundas involved himself when this settlement was agreed and backed the Nawab’s creditors, the Arcot interest, to the tune of four hundreds and eighty thousands of pounds per annum for twenty years. Hastings’ reaction was, as we know, the beginning of his downfall, but Dundas was still not satisfied and he began to take other measures to allay the suspicion that he is in Benfield’s pocket.’

  ‘Or Pitt’s.’ The hard voice again.

  ‘These other measures,’ began the thick-set man, ‘they would include the transfer of the Company’s debt to England?’

  ‘Exactly so, and the current Declaratory Bill. Dundas had a hand in it at the least.’

  ‘The Declaratory Bill is a nuisance rather than a threat, I cannot see why this should form our concern.’

  ‘The problem lies at the centre of the web,’ said the older voice. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yes, the Nawab himself plays a more devious game than was anticipated. By agreeing to honour all debts, both those of the government and the Arcot interest, he plays the claims of one against those of the other and pays neither. The Nawab has proved himself very agreeable; he will agree to anything’.

  ‘Which amounts to agreeing to nothing. He is virtually powerless but holds all parties to a sort of ransom by virtue of his own debts!’

  ‘Quite,’ the voice came from the unseen one. ‘An empty centre at which all interests converge.’

  ‘Including our own?’ The man flexed his muscles as he spoke.

  ‘There is no rea
son to believe our own arrangement is altered, or even implicated. Nevertheless, the attention drawn is,’ he deliberated, ‘unwelcome. Provision should be made. We will await the emissary; this is not, after all, a situation we need to resolve.’ He smiled to himself, ‘Merely … contain. It will be done?’

  One by one, all present nodded their agreement. The assembly shifted in its seats before settling back. The resolution had to be ingested. One by one, they signalled this and then a mood of the faintest expectation, the drumming of fingers on the table, an inclination of the head. The older voice spoke again.

  ‘Word has reached us from Jaques. He has spoken with our colleagues in France.’ A slight tension was felt by the company as Jaques’ mission was touched upon.

  ‘He returns within the month, we will hear more fully on his return.’

  ‘The girl?’ The larger man asked, not looking up.

  ‘The girl will return too, of course. We have uses for her yet.’ This train of thought led him on.

  ‘Of the other affair, we can anticipate no difficulties at this time. From your silence I take it that the boy has arrived.’ The heavily built man looked up in mild surprise.