The Sacred Scroll

by Anton Gill

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Today is Friday. On Monday, open the city to us, or face the consequences.’

  The governor retired.

  As he rode back to the city with his retinue, he thought, There are many faces a monster can assume: that of a saintly friar, of the woman of one’s dreams, of a Templar banker. Too often one gladly accepts a pretty box, only to find that it contains nothing but shit.

  Dandolo’s face was the face of a martyr from an icon. Too holy to be true.

  49

  Paris, the Present

  Laura Graves sat in the Grizzli café at the lower end of the rue St Martin, drinking an espresso and thinking about the information she’d received from Lopez. And about the breakthrough they’d had with the reappearance of Su-Lin. Minus her memory, which hardly helped.

  It set up another hurdle for them to jump. She’d talk to Marlow about it. She was impatient, but needed to sort a few more things out in her mind first. She’d come out to clear her head, but that wasn’t working. Her mind chafed. She still bore resentment against Marlow for leading this mission, taking the job which she had assumed was hers; but at the same time there was something about him she found hard to resent. Graves was unused to being unsure of her feelings. She didn’t like it.

  She fiddled with the emerald pendant she was wearing again that day, and leafed through Libération without taking in a word; the headlines about the collapsing economy, student demonstrations and the president’s plummeting ratings were hardly news. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had scarcely been aware of the other people, tourists mainly, taking coffee under the awning on the terrace around her. Now, she glanced at them with second-nature professionalism. Among them were an elderly, fashionably skinny blonde with a slightly younger American who was obviously her lover, an argumentative quartet of French students, and an elegantly dressed middle-aged man who looked as if he’d be more at home in the Café de la Paix, and who spoke French with a German accent when Damien came over to take his order.

  Graves gave up, dropped enough euros for the coffee on the tabletop and walked round the corner to INTERSEC’s HQ.

  Paris isn’t always a pretty city. It can be grey, miserable and dark. It was like that now, and it had been just the same a week ago, on the day they’d flown Su-Lin into the recently refurbished but still horrible CDG airport and driven her to the INTERSEC office on the boulevard de Sébastopol, a once-genteel, now commercial thoroughfare that leads from the river all the way up to Strasbourg-St Denis.

  The INTERSEC office was at the southern end, near Châtelet, in a Haussmann building on the east side. There were a lot of lawyers’ offices in the vicinity, as it was a few minutes’ walk from the central courts on the Île de la Cité. Often the offices occupied what had once been mansion flats. INTERSEC’s was no exception. It was big, two apartments knocked into one, and soundproofed; the discreet brass plaque on the dark-red door read: Boyer-Fogel & Associés, Avocats à la Cour.

  There was no accompanying plaque on the wall facing the street, and no name next to the doorbell, one among many, in the entrance foyer.

  They’d sent the Lear jet to Jerusalem to fetch Su-Lin de Montferrat as soon as word reached them.

  Jack Marlow had chosen Paris for her because, by INTERSEC standards, it was quiet. It was also where much of INTERSEC’s most important and secret work was done. There was a disused newspaper kiosk outside the door, a battered public phone booth, and a Morris column with posters for the latest films and theatre productions. Nearby, the rue de Rivoli cut its long line east–west across the city.

  Marlow was leaning out of the window of what had once been the main drawing-room. He was looking south at the clock-tower on the quai de l’Horloge, and the narrow black spire of the Ste Chapelle beyond it, but he was lost in his thoughts.

  Part of his mind still harked stubbornly back to the time he’d spent here before INTERSEC had moved him to New York; bad memories, but Paris would probably always have that effect on him. Most of his attention, however, was occupied with the problem posed by de Montferrat’s memory loss.

  ‘We’ve little to go on. She had the clothes she stood up in when she was found in Jerusalem, but apart from a packet of Kleenex and a little loose money in the pockets, nothing else – no wallet, no documents apart from the passport,’ he said, turning to Graves. ‘Nothing hidden at all. What have we got on the bag? Forensics?’

  Graves consulted a list. ‘It had a lipstick in it, some other makeup, a pen, a pack of Camels with one cigarette left, a Bic lighter, an Italian passport which is certainly genuine – and a handkerchief. And there were no house or car keys, no hotel card, no receipts, no tickets – nothing to indicate any recent background or trail at all. We know the authorities in Jerusalem contacted all likely hotels and tour operators, and they came up with nothing. Too clean.’

  ‘So clean we might never have heard if they hadn’t sent the details to EUROPOL.’ Luckily the guy on the Secure Desk there made a note of it and passed it to INTERSEC. The communication was routed straight to Section 15 because of the Dandolo Project. It had been a near thing, and he didn’t like it. He wondered if someone was trying to obstruct him. He also wondered if he could confide in Graves, but didn’t. He knew she’d wanted his job. She’d moved the emerald ring to her little finger to cover the old tattoo, he’d noticed. Had she seen him looking? The ring was loose on that finger.

  ‘Has Leon reported back from Venice?’ he asked.

  ‘Due back in New York today.’

  ‘Why didn’t he file direct from Venice?’

  ‘Didn’t trust the encryption facility from there.’

  Jack let that go. ‘Tell me as soon as you hear.’

  The cold city air cleared Marlow’s head. It had been a long time since he’d drunk any Jameson’s, but the night before, as he’d struggled with the problem of what to do with the archaeologist, who was still suffering from the amnesia that’d affected her when she was discovered in Jerusalem, he’d done more than damage to a bottle. Today he was paying the price.

  He thought about de Montferrat. Attractive woman, intelligent, keen to help if she could. There was a warm look in her eyes, though they still managed somehow to be enigmatic. Perhaps that was due to her loss of memory. Jack couldn’t be sure. But there was no doubt that she was intriguing.

  It was too cold for comfort, and a fine rain had started to fall, slicking the grey pavements and the busy road along which the one-way traffic streamed north. The leafless plane trees which lined the boulevard swayed gently in the light breeze, last autumn’s fruit, little rough-skinned brown balls, still clinging to the outer limits of the uppermost branches. He closed the window and turned back into the room.

  It was a large and light, with white walls that matched most of the furniture. Paintings and screenprints by Allen Jones, Hannelore Jüterbock and Mark Upton hung on the walls. Graves was at her desk at the far end, facing the two tall windows near which Jack was standing. For once, her Mac was switched off, and she was buried in a large hardback book, from which she was making cross-references to a blue file. She looked up as he turned, and took off her reading glasses. Fully recovered, in a crisp business suit, she looked fresh and bright.

  But she also looked worried.

  ‘What the hell do we do with her?’ she asked.

  He sat down in the black Wassily chair near the bank of computers ranged on a low console which ran along one wall. ‘Let’s see how her memory goes. But I have a question.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It comes from what you’ve been researching. De Montferrat. May lead nowhere, but it’s an odd enough name to make for more than a coincidence. What have you got?’

  She flicked her hair back from her face with a quick gesture and looked up at him. When their eyes met they both knew that there was still tension between them that mustn’t be allowed to get in the way of the job. ‘I’ve checked family trees, and God knows they don’t go back in a clean line th
at far, but –’ Graves broke off to flip back a few pages in the book she’d been consulting. ‘Here we go: Boniface de Montferrat, born 1150, died 1207, son of William de Monferrat and Judith von Babenberg. Big man in Europe in his day. His court was one of the most cultured in the world. But listen to this: his cousin, the King of Swabia, was married to Irina Angelina – the daughter of a Greek emperor, Isaac II, who had his court at Constantinople.’

  Marlow looked at her. ‘There’s a link?’

  ‘We know Boniface was one of the leaders of the Fourth Crusade. Irina’s father was deposed in a coup. No tears for him, he wasn’t such a great guy, but once the Crusaders had taken Constantinople for Dandolo, they put Isaac back on the throne, with his son Alexius as co-ruler. They didn’t last long, but –’

  ‘There is a connection, then. But far-fetched.’

  ‘I don’t know so much, and you shouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions. If anyone might have shared Dandolo’s interest in getting control of Constantinople, Boniface is your man.’

  ‘And you think that Su-Lin is descended from him?’

  Graves shrugged. ‘I can only trace the de Montferrats up to about 1900, but I don’t see why not.’

  Marlow thought about this. ‘And that’s her connection with the Dandolo Project? Of course, her colleagues must have known about it.’

  ‘It could just be a coincidence.’ She shook her hair again.

  ‘We’ll get Leon to look into Su-Lin’s father. Wealthy businessman, wasn’t he? Something to do with industrial chemistry?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Graves replied. ‘Haven’t you done your homework?’

  ‘Sorry, miss. I’ll talk to Su-Lin about it too. It might jog something.’

  Graves looked quizzical. ‘You never know.’

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Marlow said, ‘No it’s not.’

  He’s calling her Su-Lin, she was thinking. Not de Montferrat. A small thing, but … ‘This memory thing,’ she said aloud. ‘It brings me to my second question. She hasn’t lost her ability to read, has she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then she must have been able to read the name on her passport.’

  ‘We’ve been through that. The psychologist working with her says she can read, but not necessarily perceive. She can read the name, but she can’t connect it with herself. Not yet.’

  ‘She still worries me.’

  ‘She’s completely clean: she’s had a full medical. No bugs or devices, embedded or otherwise. Why should she have?’ But Marlow looked thoughtful. ‘The important thing is to find out what happened to her and Adkins and Taylor. And why. God knows it’s taken us a hell of a lot of diplomacy to placate the families.’

  ‘Who are worried sick.’

  ‘That isn’t our principal concern.’

  ‘Come on, Jack – you’re not that cold.’

  He looked at her, said nothing.

  ‘We’ve got to get into her memory somehow. It’s the best lead we have,’ she went on.

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going over to interview her again now.’

  Graves looked worried. ‘Who might know that she’s with us?’

  ‘You ordered a press embargo the minute she’d been located and identified.’

  ‘Yes, of course. What else are secretaries for?’

  ‘Look, it worries me too. We’re holding off on Venice University for the moment. We’ve informed Hudson, but –’ Marlow hesitated before confiding in her, but he had to trust her at least in part her to work with her at all, and now he had no choice: ‘– I haven’t disclosed her precise whereabouts, even to Sir Richard.’

  Graves looked at him sharply. ‘Didn’t he object to that?’

  Marlow smiled thinly. ‘He hit the roof. I told him it was a matter of ultra-security. It needs to be kept within Section 15 alone.’ He paused. ‘Leon knows, of course, and as far as her shrink is concerned, she’s a subject for debriefing. That’s it.’

  ‘Don’t you think Hudson will get to it if he wants to?’

  ‘He’s got to trust me if this is going to work. Christ knows who we’re up against. Whoever came after Adkins, Taylor and Su-Lin, and came after us, and got you – those people mustn’t have a second chance.’ He looked at Graves. ‘I want you to keep your head down too.’ He still hadn’t told her everything he suspected. She was new to him. She had been Hudson’s appointment. She was clearly Hudson’s blue-eyed girl, and a part of him was furious to have had her foisted on him.

  She looked rebellious. ‘Crap. It goes with the territory.’

  ‘Next time we mightn’t be so fortunate.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  The blue phone rang.

  ‘Ultra-secure from Group Head,’ the voice on the line told Marlow.

  He looked across at Graves.

  ‘Summons?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s happening faster than I thought.’

  ‘Are you still there?’ said the voice on the phone impatiently. ‘Sir Richard wants you. Now.’

  50

  Zara, Year of Our Lord 1202

  The fine weather held, but the sun shone on a cruel scene as those citizens under the age of twenty began their enforced departure from Zara.

  ‘Some of the young people have refused to leave,’ Geoffrey de Villehardouin told Conon uneasily.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ replied Conon uncomfortably. ‘It means parting from lovers, parents, employers, protectors.’

  ‘We could have shown more mercy.’

  ‘But Dandolo ordered us …’

  ‘I saw men and women in tears after the troops formed the corridor outside the North Gate. There was a couple, a boy and a girl – she couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but he was twenty-one. They clung to each other as if they were made of one flesh. They broke away as our men tried to separate them, made a run for it.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘They got them back,’ Villehardouin anwsered. ‘The doge wanted an example made of them. They nailed them to crosses. Set fire to them.’

  ‘It’s going well,’ Leporo told him.

  It was working. Dandolo didn’t believe in magic but, even so, the effectiveness of the tablet awed him.

  What was it the old Armenian had told him?

  He’d explained that the key to the writing on the terracotta slab showed him when the thing was at its best to use. Something to do with a correct conjunction of the stars and the sun.

  He’d told how the Babylonians had calculated that different stars had different physical properties. They had begun to think about the effect of interaction between energy and matter.

  Dandolo hadn’t bothered with much of this; his focus was narrow: enough knowledge to make the tablet work. As long as it did what he wanted it to. But if there were more …

  However, the old Armenian’s thinking was dangerous, and Dandolo kept what he’d learned to himself.

  He’d had Frid take the old man out on a boat, and drown him.

  The doge relaxed, and looked out over the fleet now drawn up in the harbour of Zara. His eye picked out the great ocean-going ships which he’d promised himself for the adventure over the vast sea to the west of the Mediterranean. It was still a wonder to him that no one but Frid and he could see them for what they were. If all went well, with the money he collected from the vast, rotting city of Constantinople, that adventure would soon be his to undertake. If God still gave him the time.

  But first, Zara had to fall.

  51

  The governor listened gloomily to the report. He had been given from dawn to dusk on Saturday to clear the young from his city, and as the sun sank below the western horizon that day, the bells of the churches began to peal. That was the signal; at the end of the ten minutes the bells would cease and the gate would be closed. It was shut amid cries, as some young enough to leave were still left inside, and some parents fought each other to
push their children through the closing doors at the last.

  ‘In the struggle, three people died – one, a five-year-old boy, crushed by the gate. We lit the torches on the walls of the city soon afterwards, and the silence was like no other the city has ever known,’ the garrison commander told him.

  The governor looked up. He wasn’t hearing anything new, but the garrison commander was conscientious, and left nothing out. ‘Can we win?’ he asked.

  The garrison commander was silent.

  ‘I want no damage,’ the doge told the Crusader captains. ‘The property is ours: the more the soldiers wreck, the more we deprive ourselves of profit, and it is out of your share that you repay us what you owe, and gain your independence for your great enterprise.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Baldwin of Flanders. ‘We will obey the order.’

  ‘Tell your sergeants to keep a close watch on your men. And as for the people …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Kill them all. Every one. Whether they resist or not. I don’t want to inherit a population of traitors.’

  ‘We need to keep some. Able-bodied men. As labour. We’ll have to repair the walls – we can’t avoid damaging them, if they put up a fight,’ objected Boniface, the scar on his forehead showing white.

  ‘No,’ Dandolo said decisively. ‘Round up teenagers for that from the hills when it’s over. They won’t have gone far, and they’ll come home without objecting. Winter is on us; the hills provide no shelter.’ Dandolo paused. ‘And make sure your men don’t destroy any fuel in the city – log piles, candles, they must be spared. We must hope they don’t use all the oil they have by boiling it and throwing it down on us. Hang anyone who disobeys.’

  ‘What about the women – we’ll need some of them,’ said Baldwin.

  ‘Get them from the hills,’ said Dandolo. ‘Enough to go round. We want no fights over women.’