Lemprière's Dictionary

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘Mister John Lemprière,’ she announced to them as they rose from their seats, then, ‘Professors Ledwitch, Chegwyn and Linebarger,’ in return, and pleasantries were exchanged.

  ‘We were just beginning a game of Jump or Die,’ said Ledwitch to Lemprière. ‘If you would care to join us?’ Lemprière declined politely. He looked down at the chart which was divided into hundreds of differently coloured squares, bright reds, blues and mauves near the edge of the design, less distinguishable colours, khakis, olives and browns, near to its centre. At the very centre was the plan of a walled city, and at the centre of the city was a winged man. Lemprière peered curiously at the figure.

  ‘The flying man,’ explained Linebarger. ‘He is the point of the game. Every player is trying to become the flying man.’

  ‘And how is that done?’ asked Lemprière. He scrutinised the chart more closely and noticed that every square had a short message scrawled in tight script upon it; the messages grew less legible the nearer they were to the centre, especially on the dull-coloured squares, until, up against the walls of the city, they were barely visible at all.

  Professor Chegwyn turned to him. ‘Throws of the dice move each player from square to square,’ he said. ‘When you land on one the instructions are self evident. For instance, if I throw a two I shall land here,’ he pointed to a bright yellow square and peered at the writing upon it. ‘Here, I would have to form a tactical alliance with the Duc de Guise. A six,’ he looked again, ‘puts me in charge of resistance at Montauban in July of 1621. Naturally, I am close to being the Duc de Rohan at this point, which gives me immunity from forced abjuration for three throws.’

  ‘Very useful if you become La Tremouille at La Rochelle in 1628,’ added Ledwitch.

  ‘Do you follow?’ Linebarger chipped in. But Chegwyn threw a five and the other two groaned. All three clambered onto their chairs, then jumped simultaneously to the floor making an impressive thud.

  ‘I landed in the middle of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,’ said Chegwyn, pointing to a murky square.

  ‘It means the game must begin again,’ added Ledwitch.

  ‘La Rochelle?’ said Lemprière.

  ‘This,’ Linebarger indicated the walled city at the centre of the game. ‘This is La Rochelle. It is under siege. All these brightly-coloured squares are what we term the Politics, the drabber ones are the events of the siege itself, where matters grow a little confused. The city is, well, it is the city. And the Flying Man at its centre is, of course, the Flying Man.’

  ‘You have to get through the politics to get to the siege,’ said Ledwitch.

  ‘And through the siege to get to the city,’ said Chegwyn.

  ‘And in the city is the, er, the Flying Man,’ proclaimed Linebarger.

  ‘I see,’ said Lemprière. Ledwitch threw a four. ‘Bras de Fer!’ said the other two and Ledwitch raised one of his arms in the air.

  ‘He has become Monsieur La None shortly after being fitted with an artificial limb by the silversmith, Vaucanson,’ explained Linebarger. ‘It is one of the more oblique incidents.’

  Lemprière watched the game with a keen interest, which quickly waned. The game had been restarted twice and none of the players had emerged from the Politics when he asked what happened if a player should reach the city.

  ‘He must defend it with his life, we think,’ said Professor Chegwyn.

  ‘Are you not sure?’

  ‘It is a formidably difficult game,’ said Chegwyn. ‘So far, we have not managed to reach the city.’

  ‘So the Flying Man,’ Lemprière pointed to the winged figure at the very centre of the city, ‘is really irrelevant.’ This provoked a clamour from the professors. The Widow had taken a seat to one side and refused to participate in the debate.

  ‘The Flying Man is everything,’ protested Ledwitch.

  ‘Of course he is relevant, he is the only survivor,’ explained Linebarger. ‘Everyone else either jumped or died; either way they died, except the Flying Man.’

  ‘You are saying that at the end of the siege, there was a flying man who escaped….’

  ‘Of course we are,’ said Chegwyn. ‘The Sprite of Rochelle. On the very last day of the siege. It was seen by hundreds. The citadel was already blazing, men and women in flames throwing themselves from the walls, cannon going off, breaches in the walls. In the midst of it all, one of the Rochelais throws himself from the walls, but he does not fall.’

  ‘He flies,’ said Ledwitch. ‘There are numerous accounts of it. Apparently it was a child.’

  ‘The Sprite of Rochelle,’ Lemprière said, more to himself than the professors. ‘Flying men?’

  ‘It is not so incredible as it appears,’ said Chegwyn. ‘After all Daedalus and Icarus managed it. You should know that Mister Lemprière.’

  ‘And the Persian king, Kar Kawus, had himself tied to hungry eagles then hoisted a lump of meat on a spear just out of their reach, they flew up for the meat, and,’ Ledwitch flapped his arms, ‘well, it is self-evident.’

  ‘Alexander the Great used the same method,’ said Linebarger.

  ‘That was gryphons, not eagles,’ said Ledwitch. Lemprière had forgotten the incident and now remembered his entry on Alexander was already with Cadell at the printers.

  ‘Ki-kung shi invented a flying chariot,’ offered Chegwyn, ‘but does not say how.’

  ‘They all seem rather remote,’ Lemprière remarked. The professors nodded in accord. ‘Fair point, fair point.’

  ‘King Bladud!’ Linebarger burst out. ‘He flew over this very city. Fell to his death, of course.’

  ‘Still had time to found Bath,’ added Ledwitch gloomily.

  ‘What about Oliver of Malmesbury?’ The Widow had joined the discussion.

  ‘“Ie causet to mak ane pair of wingus”,’ quoted Linebarger.

  ‘A mere tower jumper,’ said Ledwitch.

  ‘Do we count tower jumpers?’ asked Linebarger. Grudging acceptance was given and the talk turned to Giambattista Danti of Perugia, an unnamed cantor of Nuremberg and the Abbot of Tungland’s leap from the walls of Stirling Castle. Bolori’s fatal plunge from Troyes Cathedral was passed over quickly. Burattini’s spring-loaded cat-levitator was applauded by all. Ledwitch made much of Ahmed Hezarfen’s flight and safe landing in the market square at Scutari. Chegwyn championed Besnier’s jump over a house in Sable. Scorn was poured on Cyrano de Bergerac’s attachment of bottles of dew to the flyer, who would then be drawn up to the heavens with the dew by the early morning sun.

  ‘You have yet to mention angels,’ said the Widow.

  ‘No evidence,’ said Linebarger rather gruffly.

  ‘Does not Wilkins mention angel spirits?’ Ledwitch mused. ‘And the Sprite of Rochelle was said to have wings. It was last seen skimming over the waves, out to sea….’

  But there was little enthusiasm for angels. Lemprière’s only contribution to the discussion had been a mention of Hermes (dismissed as too mythological), and ‘someone on a kite’. He felt it was time to depart and began to take his leave of the professors who exhorted him to stay, tempting him with further rounds of Jump or Die but he was adamant. It was past eleven when the Widow took her leave of him on the doorstep. His route home was explained in simple terms. ‘Remember my offer,’ were her last words before they parted. The door closed behind him and he began the walk home.

  Thames Street was almost deserted. His breath came in clouds as he walked quickly through Ludgate and into Fleet Street where the odd prowler heralded a more populous scene ahead. Convivial groups of ‘prentices and their masters, well-dressed young women and amiable drunkards staggered about offering toasts to each other’s health and the New Year which Lemprière only now remembered was due within minutes. Still, this realisation hardly broke his train of thought which ran between the Widow, Lady de Vere and George Peppard whose sad circumstances were now more fully explicable. He wondered again why the man had not told him of the possibility which Alice de Vere had held
out to him with such force. ‘Wealth, beyond your dreams….’ But really, he caught himself, it was fanciful as Neagle’s Whale, though he felt there was more even to that tale than the Widow had let on. George Peppard would know, if anyone did. And the Company, of course. Poor Thomas de Vere, and François who had turned on his fellow investors, something at the siege, after the siege….

  Questions turned over and over in his mind like tumblers never quite falling to earth. Somewhere, something like a war had disappeared. Whales, disappearing ships. False soundings. Lemprière continued along Fleet Street and the Strand until his own dwelling came into view. He jammed his hands into his pockets, heard a loud rip and, looking down, saw that he had extended the tear in Septimus’ coat by another six inches. It was then that he had a good idea.

  Lemprière mounted the stairs of the house but, instead of stopping at his own room, he continued on up the stairs to the one directly above his own, where he knocked on the door. At that moment, the last seconds of the year pulled the hands of the clock together and one after another the bell-towers of Saint Paul’s, Saint Clement’s, Saint Anne’s, Saint Mary’s in the Strand and Saint Mary’s by the Savoy, the churches around and about and all over the city of London let loose a ringing, jangling, clanging, crashing cacophony of noise. On the landing where Lemprière waited it was an endless deafening row. He stood with his hands held protectively over his ears and it was in this attitude that he was discovered when the door finally opened and he faced the individual he sought, a small man with an aggressive expression and a flattened nose.

  ‘Yes?’ shouted the man.

  ‘You are a tailor!’ Lemprière shouted back over the din.

  ‘I am,’ returned the man.

  ‘I have a tear in my coat,’ Lemprière bellowed. He indicated the rip. ‘I thought I might engage you to repair it!’ The tailor looked at the coat, then Lemprière.

  ‘Trousers me,’ he said.

  ‘Ah!’ Lemprière yelled. ‘But you could just sew it up perhaps!’The tailor shook his head.

  ‘Trousers,’ he said again, then stepped back into the room and shut the door. The noise from the bells was abating. Lemprière stood in his mud-mottled rose-coloured coat and regarded the tear. Only the odd rogue dong disturbed the peace and the night’s silence was almost restored. He descended to his room where his dictionary awaited him. A new year had begun. The mob outside the inn, his mysterious rescuer, the Widow and the whales, the three professors and their flying man all ran through his mind as he picked up his pen and began once more to write.

  Lemprière: the name took hold of Nazim like a tightening hand about his skull, five steel fingers embedded in his brain’s soft fibre. Bahadur was the first, who had found out the name in Paris and returned with its price subtracted from his soul, We change inside, the voice from his dreams, never the same. The second was the Nawab, whispering it’ like a child, “Lemprière,” in the cool interior of the palace, and his command, “Find him, find them all.” All nine. Then the two women, who chatted away their misfortunes through the night of the rain, sending him the name like a guiding thread, but he had lost it outside the coffee shop. Le Mara was the blunt thumb, waiting for him to declare himself. But he had lost Le Mara too that day, caught by his own indecision between the black coach and the assassin, hampered in his search by the crowd, and the idiot in the coffee shop too. Excuses. Nazim’s thoughts tracked fading footprints and half-heard whispers, the name Lemprière teasing out his suspicions along fantastic lines until his pursuit was of monsters, demons and all his buried fears exhumed as dead things which looked like life. We change inside.

  The Nine were split, he knew it. Le Mara’s business with the woman in blue was no harmless prank. The Lemprière was the object of a plot. “Christmas Eve,” had drifted over the wooden partition, but the place had not been mentioned. The black coach might have led him there, but he had lost the coach. The following morning he had resumed his vigil on the quay and watched Coker’s men as the slow caravan of crates was started up once more. Le Mara had appeared only briefly, enough for Nazim who had followed him at a distance along the Ratcliffe highway to a house in a mews to the south of Tower Street to which Le Mara produced keys. When he had disappeared inside, Nazim had worked his way around to the back of the house. It was closer to the Thames than he had imagined. Deceptive city, a thought not followed up, as he noted the drawn curtains in every window. It was mid-day.

  Hours had passed in patient observation of nothing when Nazim crept up to the backdoor and, peering through the crack between the lintel and the top of the door, saw an interior which persuaded him that he might force an entry with impunity. Once inside, his earlier assumption was confirmed. The house, from its tiled hall to the meaner servants’ quarters in the attic, was completely empty. The hangings masking this fact from the gaze of the curious apart, there was not a stick of furniture, no belongings, not a possession in the building. Nazim’s gathering speculation led him directly to the cellar where his suspicions were confirmed by a trap door set about with huge flagstones. Locked, he knew even without trying it, from within. Below it would be a shaft and somewhere beyond that, Le Mara. The house was nothing but a gateway, but to what? The time was not right for confrontations, the ghost of Bahadur’s error held him back. There would come a time for that and he would be ready then. Nazim stood over the trap door, feeling the blood pump in his veins. They were down there, somewhere below: the Nine. Perhaps the Lemprière too.

  The days leading up to Christmas Eve brought different frustrations for Nazim as the purpose behind the woman’s contract in the coffee shop became no clearer. Some act planned against the Lemprière was taking place and yet he could not discover it. Le Mara’s routine was unchanged, offered no clues. It was useless to him. On the day itself he could watch the ship no longer and paced the streets aimlessly in a silent fury. Somewhere, he knew, their hands were being shown and he was not there to see it, and, though he controlled his nagging rage, it returned when Le Mara’s customary station by the quay was abandoned for a different one. Some act had been committed to precipitate this new state of affairs, an act which might have led him to the Lemprière, but he had failed to find it out and Nazim wondered how many errors and lost opportunities the unwritten rules of his peculiar game would permit.

  Le Mara’s new station was to the north of the city, an area bounded by Goswell Street to the west and Moorfields to the east, close to where the tight-packed streets around Golden Lane petered out and became the open fields beyond Saint Agnes. Once more, Nazim took up observation of the man, trailing him each morning from the house off Tower Street to posts dotted all about the area, never the same one twice, in a pattern whose significance eluded him.

  Although careful to keep out of sight, Nazim knew the other man would assume his presence as a fact. The other acknowledged this in the winding, circuitous routes chosen to reach the area over which he kept watch. Further evidence were the rambling circuits of the city which interspersed Le Mara’s vigils, unfathomable journeys which might take in Hyde Park, Southwark or Wapping, which seemed to exist only for the sake of their own complexity. Nazim had accepted these as part of the push and shove of their contest, before it was engaged in earnest. It was a simple matter to track Le Mara through Clerkenwell, or Poplar, or even around Chancery Lane which was where Le Mara had led him the day his underestimation of the other man had almost cost him his life. Chancery Lane, or to be exact, the streets branching out from either side of Fetter Lane, very close to his own hiding place.

  He had followed Le Mara patiently for over an hour. It was New Year’s eve and all kinds of commotion were being let loose on the streets. This should have made Nazim’s task harder but Le Mara seemed to have abandoned all his earlier ploys; there were none of the sudden dashes down alleys, loiterings by shop fronts or long sojourns in coffee shops and taverns which had bedevilled Nazim in the preceding days. Le Mara walked calmly down the street looking neither to left nor right, to
wards an inn outside which Nazim could see a large crowd.

  They were being addressed by a silver-haired man who stood on an orange crate holding up a length of red cloth. His speech was a tirade against imports, textiles, the hardships of the poor, the greed of nabobs and foreign princes, and most of all the Company. The crowd filled the street right up to the inn which the speaker faced from the far side and Nazim watched as Le Mara disappeared into its midst, seeming to mingle with the rough labourers and journeymen who made up its numbers. Le Mara was less visible as Nazim followed him into the crowd, odd glimpses between the crush of bodies, confusion as he edged through behind, then a huge roar from the crowd at which Nazim glanced up to see the ranter framed between two burning banners, a climax, and Le Mara was lost to view.

  Nazim worked his way this way and that, but saw nothing until, suddenly he looked back at the speaker and saw Le Mara standing directly in front of the man. He was staring directly at him without expression and Nazim could do nothing but stare back as Le Mara leant towards a smaller man standing beside him and whispered something in his ear. It dawned on Nazim that he had been led there. He could see the whisper rippling through the crowd, gathering momentum as a wave which crested in a shout of ‘Spies! Indian spies!’ and he knew suddenly he was in great danger.

  Nazim pulled down his hat and began to shoulder his way out of the crowd. Already, a punch had been thrown. The man behind him had seen his face as he turned and was clawing at his shoulder. Nazim turned quickly, jammed two fingers into the man’s eye and turned again as the man screamed. The mob had turned on itself. A giant of a man was laying about all and sundry with a plank. A thin young man fell almost on top of him, scrabbling after his eye-glasses. The giant was coming towards him. Nazim caught hold of the thin man’s wrist and hauled him forward. ‘He’s dying, damn you, dying!’ A scream aimed at the giant who hesitated, confused, long enough for Nazim to skip sideways, drop his human shield and run for the open space of the street. Le Mara was gone, lost again. Another mistake.