The Book of Life

by Deborah Harkness

  The babies' first Christmas was as loving and festive as anyone could wish. With eight vampires, two witches, one human vampire-in-waiting, and three dogs in attendance, it was also lively.

  Matthew showed off the half dozen strands of gray hair that had resulted from my Christmas spell and explained happily that every year I'd give him more. I had asked for a six-slice toaster, which I had received, along with a beautiful antique pen inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl. Ysabeau criticized these gifts as insufficiently romantic for a couple so recently wed, but I didn't need more jewelry, had no interest in traveling, and wasn't interested in clothes. A toaster suited me to the ground.

  Phoebe had encouraged the entire family to think of gifts that were handmade or hand-me-down, which struck us all as both meaningful and practical. Jack modeled the sweater Marthe had knit for him and the cuff links from his grandmother that had once belonged to Philippe. Phoebe wore a pair of glittering emeralds in her ears that I'd assumed had come from Marcus until she blushed furiously and explained that Marcus had given her something handmade, which she had left at Sept-Tours for safety's sake. Given her color, I decided not to inquire further. Sarah and Ysabeau were pleased with the photo albums we'd presented that documented the twins' first month of life.

  Then the ponies arrived.

  "Philip and Rebecca must ride, of course," Ysabeau said as though this were self-evident. She supervised as her groom, Georges, led two small horses off the trailer. "This way they can grow accustomed to the horses before you put them in the saddle." I suspected she and I might have different ideas on how soon that blessed day might occur.

  "They are Paso Finos," Ysabeau continued. "I thought an Andalusian like yours might be too much for a beginner. Phoebe said we are supposed to give hand-it-overs, but I have never been a slave to principle."

  Georges led a third animal from the trailer: Rakasa.

  "Diana's been asking for a pony since she could talk. Now she's finally got one," Sarah said. When Rakasa decided to investigate her pockets for anything interesting such as apples or peppermints, Sarah jumped away. "Horses have big teeth, don't they?"

  "Perhaps Diana will have better luck teaching her manners than I did," Ysabeau said.

  "Here, give her to me," Jack said, taking the horse's lead rope. Rakasa followed him, docile as a lamb.

  "I thought you were a city boy," Sarah called after him.

  "My first job--well, my first honest job--was taking care of gentlemen's horses at the Cardinal's Hat," Jack said. "You forget, Granny Sarah, cities used to be full of horses. Pigs, too. And their sh--"

  "Where there's livestock, there's that," Marcus said before Jack could finish. The young Paso Fino he was holding had already proved his point. "You've got the other one, sweetheart?"

  Phoebe nodded, completely at ease with her equine charge. She and Marcus followed Jack to the stables.

  "The little mare, Rosita, has established herself as head of the herd," Ysabeau said. "I would have brought Balthasar, too, but as Rosita brings out his amorous side I've left him at Sept-Tours--for now." The idea that Matthew's enormous stallion would try to act upon his intentions with a horse as small as Rosita was inconceivable.

  We were sitting in the library after dinner, surrounded by the remains of Philippe de Clermont's long life, a fire crackling in the stone fireplace, when Jack stood and went to Matthew's side.

  "This is for you. Well, for all of us, really. Grand-mere said that all families of worth have them." Jack handed Matthew a piece of paper. "If you like it, Fernando and I will have it made into a standard for the tower here at Les Revenants."

  Matthew stared down at the paper.

  "If you don't like it--" Jack reached to reclaim his gift.

  Matthew's arm shot out and he caught Jack by the wrist.

  "I think it's perfect." Matthew looked up at the boy who would always be like our firstborn child, though I had nothing to do with his warmblooded birth and Matthew was not responsible for his rebirth. "Show it to your mother. See what she thinks."

  Expecting a monogram or a heraldic shield, I was stunned to see the image Jack had devised to symbolize our family. It was an entirely new orobouros, made not of a single snake with a tail in its mouth but two creatures locked forever in a circle with no beginning and no ending. One was the de Clermont serpent. The other was a firedrake, her two legs tucked against her body and her wings extended. A crown rested on the firedrake's head.

  "Grand-mere said the firedrake should wear a crown because you're a true de Clermont and outrank the rest of us," Jack explained matter-of-factly. He picked nervously at the pocket of his jeans. "I can take the crown off. And make the wings smaller."

  "Matthew's right. It's already perfect." I reached for his hand and pulled him down so I could give him a kiss. "Thank you, Jack."

  Everyone admired the official emblem of the Bishop-Clairmont family, and Ysabeau explained that new silver and china would have to be ordered, as well as a flag.

  "What a lovely day," I said, one arm around Matthew and the other waving farewell to our family as they departed, my left thumb prickling in sudden warning.

  *

  "I don't care how reasonable your plan is. Diana's not going to let you go to Hungary and Poland without her," Fernando said. "Have you forgotten what happened to you when you left her to go to New Orleans?"

  Fernando, Marcus, and Matthew had spent most of the hours between midnight and dawn arguing over what to do about Godfrey's letter.

  "Diana must go to Oxford. Only she can find the Book of Life," Matthew said. "If something goes wrong and I can't find Benjamin, I'll need that manuscript to lure him into the open."

  "And when you do find him?" Marcus said sharply.

  "Your job is to take care of Diana and my children," Matthew said, equally sharp. "Leave Benjamin to me."

  *

  I watched the heavens for auguries and plucked at every thread that seemed out of place to try to foresee and rectify whatever evil my thumb warned me was abroad.

  But the trouble did not gallop over the hill like an apocalyptic horseman, or cruise into the driveway, or even call on the phone.

  The trouble was already in the house--and had been for some time.

  I found Matthew in the library late one afternoon a few days after Christmas, several folded sheets of paper before him. My hands turned every color in the rainbow, and my heart sank.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "A letter from Godfrey." He slid it in my direction. I glanced at it, but it was written in Old French.

  "Read it to me," I said, sitting down next to him.

  The truth was far worse than I had allowed myself to imagine. Based on the letter Benjamin's killing spree had lasted centuries. He'd preyed on witches, and very probably weavers in particular. Gerbert was almost certainly involved. And that one phrase--"They search within us for the Book of Life"--turned my blood to fire and ice.

  "We have to stop him, Matthew. If he finds out we've had a daughter . . ." I trailed off. Benjamin's final words to me in the Bodleian haunted me. When I thought of what he might try to do to Rebecca, the power snapped through my veins like the lash of a whip.

  "He already knows." Matthew met my eyes, and I gasped at the rage I saw there.

  "Since when?"

  "Sometime before the christening," Matthew said. "I'm going to look for him, Diana."

  "How will you find him?" I asked.

  "Not by using computers or by trying to find his IP address. He's too clever for that. I'll find him the way I know best: tracking him, scenting him, cornering him," Matthew said. "Once I do that, I'll tear him limb from limb. If I fail--"

  "You can't," I said flatly.

  "I may." Matthew's eyes met mine. He needed me to hear him, not reassure him.

  "Okay," I said with a calmness I didn't feel, "what happens if you fail?"

  "You'll need the Book of Life. It's the only thing that may lure Benjamin out of hiding so he can be
destroyed--once and for all."

  "The only thing besides me," I said.

  Matthew's darkening eyes said that using me as bait to catch Benjamin was not an option.

  "I'll leave for Oxford tomorrow. The library is closed for the Christmas vacation. There won't be any staff around except for security," I said.

  To my surprise, Matthew nodded. He was going to let me help.

  "Will you be all right on your own?" I didn't want to fuss over him, but I needed to know. Matthew had already suffered through one separation. He nodded.

  "What shall we do about the children?" Matthew asked.

  "They need to stay here, with Sarah and Ysabeau and with enough of my milk and blood to feed them until I return. I'll take Fernando with me--no one else. If someone is watching us and reporting back to Benjamin, then we need to do what we can to make it look as though we're still here and everything is normal."

  "Someone is watching us. There's no doubt about it." Matthew pushed his fingers through his hair. "The only question is whether that someone belongs to Benjamin or to Gerbert. That wily bastard's role in this may have been bigger than we thought."

  "If he and your son have been in league all this time, there's no telling how much they know," I said.

  "Then our only hope is to possess information they don't yet have. Get the book. Bring it back here and see if you can fix it by reinserting the pages Kelley removed," Matthew said. "Meanwhile I'll find Benjamin and do what I should have done long ago."

  "When will you leave?" I asked.

  "Tomorrow. After you go, so I can make sure that you aren't being followed," he said, rising to his feet.

  I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved--the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father--fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now.

  But he was still the man I loved.

  Matthew took me by the shoulders and waited until I met his eyes. "Be safe."

  His words were emphatic, and I felt the force of them. He cupped my face in his hands, searching every inch as though trying to memorize it.

  "I meant what I said on Christmas Day. The family will survive if I don't come back. There are others who can serve as its head. But you are its heart."

  I opened my mouth to protest, and Matthew pressed his fingers against my lips, staying my words.

  "There is no point in arguing with me. I know this from experience," he said. "Before you I was nothing but dust and shadows. You brought me to life. And I cannot survive without you."

  Sol in Capricorn

  The tenth house of the zodiack is Capricorn. It signifieth mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors of the female sex. It is the sign of resurrection and rebirth. In this month, plant seedes for the future.

  --Anonymous English Commonplace Book, c. 1590,

  Goncalves MS 4890, f. 9v

  Andrew Hubbard and Linda Crosby were waiting for us at the Old Lodge. In spite of my efforts to persuade my aunt to stay at Les Revenants, she insisted on coming with Fernando and me.

  "You're not doing this alone, Diana," Sarah said in a tone that didn't invite argument. "I don't care that you're a weaver or that you have Corra for help. Magic on this scale requires three witches. And not just any witches. You need spell casters."

  Linda Crosby turned up with the official London grimoire--an ancient tome that smelled darkly of belladonna and wolfsbane. We exchanged hellos while Fernando caught Andrew up on how Jack and Lobero were faring.

  "Are you sure you want to get involved with this?" I asked Linda.

  "Absolutely. The London coven hasn't been involved in anything half so exciting since we were called in to help foil the 1971 attempt to steal the crown jewels." Linda rubbed her hands together.

  Andrew had, through his contacts with the London underworld of grave diggers, tube engineers, and pipe fitters, obtained detailed schematics of the warren of tunnels and shelving that constituted the book-storage facilities for the Bodleian Library. He unrolled these on the long refectory table in the great hall.

  "There are no students or library staff on-site at the moment because of the Christmas holiday," Andrew said. "But there are builders everywhere." He pointed to the schematics. "They're converting the former underground book storage into work space for readers."

  "First they moved the rare books to the Radcliffe Science Library and now this." I peered at the maps. "When do the work crews finish for the day?"

  "They don't," Andrew said. "They've been working around the clock to minimize disruptions during the academic term."

  "What if we go to the reading room and you put in a request just as though it were an ordinary day at the Bodleian?" Linda suggested. "You know, fill out the slip, stuff it in the Lamson tube, and hope for the best. We could stand by the conveyor belt and wait for it. Maybe the library knows how to fulfill your request, even without staff." Linda sniffed when she saw my amazed look at her knowledge of the Bodleian's procedures. "I went to St. Hilda's, my girl."

  "The pneumatic-tube system was shut down last July. The conveyor belt was dismantled this August." Andrew held up his hands. "Do not harm the messenger, ladies. I am not Bodley's librarian."

  "If Stephen's spell is good enough, it won't care about the equipment--just that Diana has requested something she truly needs," Sarah said.

  "The only way to know for sure is to go to the Bodleian, avoid the workers, and find a way into the Old Library." I sighed.

  Andrew nodded. "My Stan is on the excavation crew. Been digging his whole life. If you can wait until nightfall, he'll let you in. He'll get in trouble, of course, but it won't be the first time, and there's not a prison built that can hold him."

  "Good man, Stanley Cripplegate," Linda said with a satisfied nod. "Always such a help in the autumn when you need the daffodil bulbs planted."

  Stanley Cripplegate was a tiny whippet of a man with a pronounced underbite and the sinewy outlines of someone who had been malnourished since birth. Vampire blood had given him longevity and strength, but there was only so much it could do to lengthen bones. He distributed bright yellow safety helmets to the four of us.

  "Aren't we going to be . . . er, conspicuous in this getup?" Sarah asked.

  "Being as you're ladies, you're already conspicuous," Stan said darkly. He whistled. "Oy! Dickie!"

  "Quiet," I hissed. This was turning out to be the loudest, most conspicuous book heist in history.

  "S'all right. Dickie and me, we go way back." Stan turned to his colleague. "Take these ladies and gents up to the first floor, Dickie."

  Dickie deposited us, helmets and all, in the Arts End of Duke Humfrey's Reading Room between the bust of King Charles I and the bust of Sir Thomas Bodley.

  "Is it me, or are they watching us?" Linda said, scowling at the unfortunate monarch, hands on her hips.

  King Charles blinked.

  "Witches have been on the security detail since the middle of the nineteenth century. Stan warned us not to do anything we oughtn't around the pictures, statues, and gargoyles." Dickie shuddered. "I don't mind most of them. They're company on dark nights, but that one's a right creepy old bugger."

  "You should have met his father," Fernando commented. He swept his hat off and bowed to the blinking monarch. "Your Majesty."

  It was every library patron's nightmare--that you were secretly being observed whenever you took a forbidden cough drop out of your pocket. In the Bodleian's case, it turned out the readers had good reason to worry. The nerve center for a magical security system was hidden behind the eyeballs of Thomas Bodley and King Charles.

  "Sorry, Charlie." I tossed my yellow helmet in the air, and it sailed over to land on the king's head. I flicked my fingers, and the brim tilted down over his eyes. "No witnesses for tonight's events." Fernando handed me his helmet.

  "Use mine for the founder. Please."

  Once I'd obscured Sir Thomas's sight, I beg
an to pluck and tweak the threads that bound the statues to the rest of the library. The spell's knots weren't complicated--just thrice-and four-crossed bindings--but there were so many of them, all piled on top of one another like a severely overtaxed electrical panel. Finally I discovered the main knot through which all the other knots were threaded and carefully untied it. The uncanny feeling of being observed vanished.

  "That's better," Linda murmured. "Now what?"

  "I promised to call Matthew once we were inside," I said, drawing out my phone. "Give me a minute."

  I pushed past the lattice barricade and walked down the silent, echoing main avenue of Duke Humfrey's Library. Matthew picked up on the first ring.

  "All right, mon coeur?" His voice thrummed with tension, and I briefly filled him in on our progress so far.

  "How were Rebecca and Philip after I left?" I asked when my tale was told.

  "Fidgety."

  "And you?" My voice softened.

  "More fidgety."

  "Where are you?" I asked. Matthew had waited until after I left for England, then started driving north and east toward Central Europe.

  "I just left Germany." He wasn't going to give me any more details in case I encountered an inquisitive witch.

  "Be careful. Remember what the goddess said." Her warning that I would have to give something up if I wanted to possess Ashmole 782 still haunted me.

  "I will." Matthew paused. "There's something I want you to remember, too."

  "What?"

  "Hearts cannot be broken, Diana. And only love makes us truly immortal. Don't forget, ma lionne. No matter what happens." He disconnected the line.

  His words sent a shiver of fear up my spine, setting the goddess's silver arrow rattling. I repeated the words of the charm I'd woven to keep him safe and felt the familiar tug of the chain that bound us together.

  "All is well?" Fernando asked quietly.

  "As expected." I slipped the phone back into my pocket. "Let's get started."

  We had agreed that the first thing we would try was simply to replicate the steps by which Ashmole 782 had come into my hands the first time. With Sarah, Linda, and Fernando looking on, I filled out the boxes on the call slip. I signed it, put my reader's-card number in the appropriate blank, and carried it over to the spot in the Arts End where the pneumatic tube was located.

  "The capsule is here," I said, removing the hollow receptacle. "Maybe Andrew was wrong and the delivery system is still working." When I opened it, the capsule was full of dust. I coughed.