Pendergast [07] The Book of the Dead
Page 45
“So what did you do?”
“I scratched away the plastic in two places along the circuit to expose the wire. Then I attached a loop of wire to each spot, cut the bracelet in between—and took it off. Elementary, my dear Viola.”
“Ah, je vois! But where did you get the loop of wire?”
“I made it with foil gum wrappers. I was, unfortunately, obligated to masticate the gum, since I needed it to affix the wire.”
“And the gum? Where did you get that?”
“From my acquaintance in the cell next door, a most talented young man who opened a whole new world for me—that of rhythm and percussion. He gave me one of his precious packs of gum in return for a small favor I did him.”
“What was that?”
“I listened.”
The woman smiled. “What goes around comes around.”
“Perhaps.”
“Speaking of prison, I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to get your wire. I was afraid you wouldn’t be permitted to leave the country for ages.”
“Diogenes left behind enough evidence in his valise to clear me of the murders. That left only three crimes of substance: stealing Lucifer’s Heart; kidnapping the gemologist, Kaplan; and breaking out of prison. Neither the museum nor Kaplan cared to press charges. As for the prison, they would like nothing more than to forget their security was fallible. And so here I am.”
He paused to sip his wine. “That leads me to a question of my own. How is it that you didn’t recognize Menzies as my brother? You’d seen him in disguise before.”
“I’ve wondered about that,” Viola replied. “I saw him as two different people, but neither one was Menzies.”
There was a silence. Viola let her gaze drift again toward the younger woman in the olive grove. “She’s a most unusual girl.”
“Yes,” the man replied. “More unusual than you could even imagine.”
They continued to watch the younger woman drift aimlessly through the twisted trees, like a restless ghost.
“How did she come to be your ward?”
“It’s a long and rather complicated story, Viola. Someday I’ll tell you—I promise.”
The woman smiled, sipped her wine. For a moment, silence settled over them.
“How do you like the new vintage?” she asked. “I broke it out especially for the occasion.”
“As delightful as the old one. It’s from your grapes, I assume?”
“It is. I picked them myself, and I even stomped out the juice with my own two feet.”
“I don’t know whether to be honored or horrified.” He picked up a small salami, examined it, quartered it with a paring knife. “Did you shoot the boar for these, as well?”
Viola smiled. “No. I had to draw the line somewhere.” She looked at him, her gaze growing concerned. “You’re making a valiant effort to be amusing, Aloysius.”
“Is that all it appears to be—an effort? I am sorry.”
“You’re preoccupied. And you don’t look especially good. Things aren’t going well for you, are they?”
He hesitated a moment. Then, very slowly, he shook his head.
“I wish there was something I could do.”
“Your company is tonic enough, Viola.”
She smiled again, her gaze returning to the young woman. “Strange to think that murder—and there’s really no other word for it, is there?—could have been such a cathartic experience for her.”
“Yes. Even so, I fear she remains a damaged human being.” He hesitated. “I realize now it was a mistake to keep her shut up in the house in New York. She needed to get out and see the world. Diogenes exploited that need. I made a mistake there, too—allowing her to be vulnerable to him. The guilt, and the shame, are with me always.”
“Have you spoken of this to her? Your feelings, I mean. It might be good for both of you.”
“I’ve tried. More than once, in fact. But she violently rejects any possibility of a discussion on that topic.”
“Perhaps that will change with time.” Viola shook out her hair. “Where do you plan to go next?”
“We’ve already toured France, Spain, and Italy—she seems interested in the ruins of ancient Rome. I’ve been doing everything I can to take her mind off what happened. Even so, she’s preoccupied and distant—as you can see.”
“I think what Constance needs most is direction.”
“What sort of direction?”
“You know. The kind of direction a father would give a daughter.”
Pendergast shifted in his chair, ill at ease. “I’ve never had a daughter.”
“You’ve got one now. And you know what? I think this whole Grand Tour you’ve been taking her on isn’t working.”
“The same thought had occurred to me.”
“You need healing—both of you. You need to get over this, together.”
Pendergast was silent for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about retreating from the world for a time.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a monastery I once spent some time at. A very secluded one, in western Tibet, exceedingly remote. I thought we might go there.”
“How long would you be gone?”
“As long as it takes.” He took a sip of wine. “A few months, I’d imagine.”
“That might be most beneficial. And it brings me to something else. What’s next… for us?”
He slowly put down the glass. “Everything.”
There was a brief silence. “How do you mean?” Her voice was low.
“Everything is open to us,” said Pendergast slowly. “When I have settled Constance, then it will be our turn.”
She reached out and touched his hand. “I can help you with Constance. Bring her to Egypt this winter. I’ll be resuming work in the Valley of the Kings. She could assist me. It’s a rugged, adventurous life, working as an archaeologist.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
Pendergast smiled. “Excellent. I think she would like that.”
“And you?”
“I suppose… I would like that, too.”
Constance had drifted closer, and they fell silent.
“What do you think of Capraia?” Viola called over as the girl stepped onto the terrazzo.
“Very nice.” She walked to the balustrade, tossed over a mangled flower, and rested her arms on the warm stone, staring out to sea.
Viola smiled, nudged at Pendergast. “Tell her the plan,” she whispered. “I’ll be inside.”
Pendergast stood and walked over to Constance. She remained at the railing, looking out to sea, the air stirring her long hair.
“Viola’s offered to take you to Egypt this winter, to assist her with her excavations in the Valley of the Kings. You could not only learn about history, you could touch it with your own hands.”
Constance shook her head, still staring out to sea. A long silence followed, filled by the distant cries of the seagulls, the muffled whisper of the surf below.
Pendergast drew closer. “You need to let go, Constance,” he said. “You’re safe now: Diogenes is dead.”
“I know,” she replied.
“Then you know there’s nothing more to fear. All that’s past. Finished.”
Still she said nothing, her blue eyes reflecting the vast azure emptiness of the sea. Finally she turned toward him. “No, it isn’t,” she said.
Pendergast looked back at her, frowning. “What do you mean?”
For a moment, she did not answer.
“What do you mean?” he repeated.
At last Constance spoke. And when she did, her voice was so weary, so cold, that it chilled him despite the warm May sunshine.
“I’m pregnant.”
THE PRESTON-CHILD NOVELS
A WORD FROM THE AUTHORS
We are frequently asked in what order, if any, our books should be read.
The question is most applicable to the novels that feature Special Agent Pendergast. Alt
hough most of our novels are written to be stand-alone stories, very few have turned out to be set in discrete worlds. Quite the opposite: it seems the more novels we write together, the more “bleed-through” occurs between the characters and events that comprise them all. Characters from one book might appear in a later one, for example, or events in one novel could spill into a subsequent one. In short, we have slowly been building up a universe in which all the characters in our novels, and the experiences they have, take place and overlap.
Reading the novels in a particular order, however, is rarely necessary. We have worked hard to make almost all of our books into stories that can be enjoyed without reading any of the others, with a few exceptions.
Here, then, is our own breakdown of our books.
THE PENDERGAST NOVELS
Relic was our first novel, and the first to feature Special Agent Pendergast, and as such has no antecedents.
Reliquary is the sequel to Relic.
The Cabinet of Curiosities is our third Pendergast novel, and it stands completely on its own.
Still Life with Crows is next. It is also a self-contained story (although people curious about Constance Greene will find a little information here as well as in The Cabinet of Curiosities).
Brimstone is next, and is the first novel in what we informally call the Pendergast trilogy. Although it is also self-contained, it does pick up some threads begun in The Cabinet of Curiosities.
Dance of Death is the middle novel of the Pendergast trilogy. While it can be read as a stand-alone book, readers may wish to read Brimstone before Dance of Death.
The Book of the Dead is the last, culminating novel in the Pendergast trilogy. For greatest enjoyment, the reader should read at least Dance of Death first.
THE NON-PENDERGAST NOVELS
We have also written a number of self-contained tales of adventure that do not feature Special Agent Pendergast. They are, by date of publication, Mount Dragon, Riptide, Thunderhead, and The Ice Limit.
Thunderhead introduces the archaeologist Nora Kelly, who appears in all the later Pendergast novels. The Ice Limit introduces Eli Glinn, who appears in Dance of Death and The Book of the Dead.
In closing, we want to assure our readers that this note is not intended as some kind of onerous syllabus, but rather as an answer to the question In what order should I read your novels? We feel extraordinarily fortunate that there are people like you who enjoy reading our novels as much as we enjoy writing them.
With our best wishes,
Douglas Preston
Lincoln Child
References
Page numbers here refer to the print edition.
Original Russian poetry on page 169 is from “Heart’s Memory of Sun” by Anna Akhmatova, 1911. Translation by Stanley Kunitz © 1967-1973.
Original poetry on page 173 is from “She” by Theodore Roethke © 1958.
Original Italian poetry on pages 243, 406, and 414 is from “La Leggenda di Teodorico” (The Legend of Theodoric) by Giosuè Carducci, 1896. Translations on pages 406 and 414 by Douglas J. Preston © 2006.
Original lyrics on page 266 are from Aida. Opera written by Giuseppe Verdi from Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni; first performed 1871. Translation by Douglas J. Preston © 2006.
Original poetry on page 385 is from “Metamorphoses” by Ovid, 43 BC to circa AD 17. Translation under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth, 1717.
Original poetry on page 386 is from “Metamorphoses” by Ovid, 43 BC to circa AD 17. Translation by Horace Gregory © 1958.
Original French poetry on page 391 is from “Les Fleurs du Mal” by Charles Baudelaire, 1857.
Original Italian poetry on page 393 is from “Inferno” from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1308-1320.
Original poetry on page 394 and page 402 is from “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot © 1925.
Original Greek quote on page 400 is from “Agamemnon,” part one of The Oresteia by Aeschylus. First performed 458 BC.
Original quote on page 409 is from Hamlet by William Shakespeare, 1600-1602.
Original poetry on page 417 is from “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, 1649-1660.
Table of Contents
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THE PRESTON-CHILD NOVELS