But of course! He has become the leading English scholar of Illuminatus’s work in the philosophical realm, publishing his articles of discovery while cultivating contacts in the libraries of this city and the monasteries on Majorca. Legend has it he encountered Illuminatus via his fascination with the Egyptian alchemists and later through his devoted readings of the Franciscan accounts of the Conquest of the New World (remembering of course that it was the lost Incan gold of Peru which initially drew his interest . . . creating a subsequent wealth which enables his less orthodox projects) but I digress . . . I wondered briefly what Ruthven might reveal to me about the medieval philosopher Rex Illuminatus that I did not already know? Whole worlds! I thought to myself, settling into the chair across from him, expecting to be engaged in conversation, but for a long while we were silent as Ruthven studied my features, taking in the entirety of my person with unabashed intensity.
I elected to do the same, and so we sat in an uneasy, mutual purdah. Ruthven is not so young nor so handsome as I had been told – but then he has not surfaced in London in nearly thirty years, though his writings have received increasing circulation at the Universities. He looks haggard, as darkly moribund as his servant Brass Buckle, his cheeks hollow and his eyes heavy with some lingering sadness. His hair is a shock of brown curls, thinning at the front, parted down the middle and combed to the side. His face is shaved, which reveals the rawness of his features, his frame broad but somehow weakened, his limbs too thin for his chest, his head small on his shoulders. Despite his stillness, he seemed agitated and enlivened by my arrival. He broke the impasse with a sudden stream of words:
‘What is the absolute significance of the Avian Alphabet BCDEFGHIK?’
I retaliated: ‘B = Bonifaces, C = Magnitudo, D = Eternitas, E = Potestas, F = Sapienta, G = Voluntas, H = Virtus, I = Veritas, K = Glorias.’
‘And what are these?’
‘The divine dignities of God.’
‘Well done. Now, the relative meanings?’
‘Following the same alphabet, you have B = Difference, C = Agreement, D = Contrary, E = Beginning, F = Middle, G = End, H = Majority, I = Equal and K = Minority.’
‘And do you know how to read the signs?’
‘I do.’
‘Would you call yourself an artist?’
‘I am a logician and metaphysician – in this sense I am Illuminatus’s conception of an artist.’
He quoted from Illuminatus. ‘His is a gift from the divine spirit that allows you to know all of the good of the law, all truth of medicine, all discovery of science, and all the secrets of theology. Do you claim to understand it?’
‘No, Captain Ruthven. That is why I have come to you.’
He smiled.
‘A test. Let us begin with a test.’
Ruthven reached out to the little drinks table by the side of his chair and rang a silver bell in the shape of a woman with a pleated skirt. The servant Brass Buckle appeared immediately.
‘Fetch me my work notes,’ Ruthven said. Brass Buckle disappeared through a door leading (I later discovered) to a study adjoined to my quarters. When Brass Buckle returned the servant pressed into my hand an illustration of a circle, containing three outer rings, divided into nine equal parts and at its centre three overlaid triangles. The triangles are stacked in such a manner that they create a star with nine points, aligned with each of the nine sections. The outermost rim of the circular diagram is divided into nine segments, each containing a letter of the divine alphabet. Around the circular diagram, the writer has created an ornate frame of filigree lines, as if the image were mounted on a twelfth-century illustrated manuscript.
‘So?’ Ruthven asked me, crossing his legs in his chair. ‘What is it?’
‘Rex Illuminatus’s ordering of the Figure T,’ I responded. ‘A truth machine that can only be interpreted by an adept, an individual capable of navigating the myriad meanings of the alphabet.’
‘You’re halfway there.’ Ruthven’s visage lightened before another cloud passed over. He whisked the papers out of my hands. ‘You have failed to identify the key figure. However, this is as expected.’
He examined me again. I resisted from launching into my pedigree, telling him of my successes across both the departments of Philosophy and Classics, that I had read all of Illuminatus’s works in the original – Spanish, Latin and Catalan – with the exception of his Oriental Works and was entrenched in learning Arabic though that project (as you know) might well last me the remainder of my lifetime. Confidence of that kind does not become a young scholar and Ruthven struck me initially as a terse, arrogant type. This, I assume, had been conveyed to him by my letters of introduction, courtesy of professors at the University.
‘Have you read my articles on the immortality of Illuminatus published in July of this year?’
I nodded.
‘And you have studied my English–Catalan dictionary at Cambridge?’
Yes, I replied.
‘Then you are well equipped for the job.’
I expressed confusion. Employment had not been discussed by my tutors.
‘I am in need of an ally. A gentleman. You are a man of honour, no doubt?’
I lifted my bearing and replied that I was, if a third son. Ruthven smiled. ‘I will explain more later. Now, how well do you know this city?’
‘Not at all,’ I replied, thinking this truth ought to be quite obvious from my previous letters. He should know as well as you do it is my first time in Barcelona.
‘Well then – it’s time you got to know her,’ he hummed to himself. ‘My servant will take care of your things. Now up, man, come along, I’ll give you a tour of the place and our pretty neighbourhood, though it must be said, it’s seen nicer days. What’s the time? Eleven o’clock – off we go with time for lunch, a few hours’ stroll, stretch your legs, get a feel of the place.’
Outside the sun was shining and the avenues bustling with humanity; he promenaded me up through a variety of streets, speaking as we went, travelling by foot to the cathedral. ‘Every corner of this city, Mr Sitwell, is layered with stories. It is up to the discerning Scholar to unravel them and glean their true significance, to draw out the secrets from the folk tales which enshroud a common history!’ Captain Ruthven’s voice rang out.
We turned a corner behind the church, entering a dreary, dilapidated passage, filled with the excess waste of the city – mud and urine among other ugly things. Ruthven stopped before a house, which seemed to have been abandoned by time; the place carried an unpleasant, melancholy flavour. Truly it was a grim abode, with a wide entrance barred by a series of boards, windows nailed shut and no occupants inside despite the scarcity of lodging in the city centre. The stonework was strangely like that of the Incan walls I have studied – the rock bulging at the sides, forming a curved incline from the ground.
‘A house left empty in the centre of a bustling city: what history do you see, Mr Sitwell?’ Ruthven asked. I confessed I could make out nothing. Ruthven’s eyes glowed with an eerie ferocity. He rapped the stone pavement beneath his feet with the tip of his cane and embarked on this harrowing tale.
‘There once was a Jewish Cabbalist Alchemist who lived in the maze of little streets behind Santa Maria del Pi and he worked there in peace for many decades. In the neighbourhood his sciences and spells gathered powerful reputation – and with his enemies seemingly dead he felt safe to venture forward in his practices. He would have continued thus for many centuries, had not one morning he exited his house to find a babe wrapped in swaddling on the doorstep to his home, and a note, written in Hebrew, imploring the Alchemist to take care of a child born out of wedlock to the daughter of a Jewish merchant. When the Doctor looked into the infant’s face, he was filled with an all-encompassing sense of sadness, and wondered – hoped – prayed indeed, that if he took this child into his house he could slow the curse which plagued the world around him, that brought the pillars of the earth crumbling down and would forever keep th
e children of the book from reaching love. Taking the infant into his house he raised her with kindness, teaching her the secrets of his craft, the charts and diagrams of his heart, the unspoken language of his letters. In time she grew, emerging from the skin of a girl into the heart and soul of a woman. The adopted daughter of the ancient Alchemist became the most beautiful woman in Barcelona, with rich black hair cascading down her shoulders, skin of olive and gold, and eyes sharp as obsidian. Her father loved her fiercely, and feared for her safety, watching the gaze of the men as she shopped in the market squares. The Alchemist protected her from the world as an innocent and a beauty; that she was his daughter he educated her mind, while fighting to shelter her from the predations of man – understanding the lust which followed her as a smoke.’
Ruthven’s voice commanded my attention. He spoke firmly, leaning into his cane, watching my face to see if he could glean any inkling of suspicion.
‘One market morning,’ Ruthven went on, ‘the Alchemist’s daughter fell in the street carrying bread for their supper. The man who reached down his hand to help her regain her carriage was a handsome Christian knight from the southern wilds of Spain, come to the city to seek his fortune. His hair the colour of straw, his eyes a lucid blue, and in his pocket a dagger embedded with rubies from the Orient. In the instant his flesh brushed hers he was filled with a powerful love, greater than any he had known before and a desire to possess her absolutely; though he saw from her look her faith, he cast it aside and vowed he would take her in a night of passion. She too found her heart clenched by the hand of desire, and looking into his eyes knew she had met her husband. For many days and nights he wooed her, meeting in the shadows of trees and the rocky squares, far from the roving eye of her father. They kissed gently, but each kiss filled the knight with a lust for more, and finally he begged that they commit the highest act of love. Conjuring the wisdom of her father, and remembering the tale of her origins, the Doctor’s daughter rebuffed the knight, saying that she would not take him into her bed unless they were married. The knight scoffed and said he would never take a Jew for a wife. The girl wept then and said there was no answer, for she could not marry a man who did not accept her faith and forbade her children to bear the blood of their heritage. The knight flew into a rage, and stormed away from the square, leaving his lover in floods of tears. All night he felt his groin burning for her, and in place of love, he nurtured a terrible hate.
‘If he could not have her, no man would. At dawn the knight resolved to kill the girl by her father’s hand, so that no blame would befall him. That morning, the knight made his way to the house of the Alchemist to purchase a potion to destroy an unfaithful lover. The Alchemist, suspicious of the knight, refused, but the knight persisted. “Will you sell me a poison,” the knight asked, “for a woman who has betrayed my heart?”
‘“No,” the Alchemist said, and frowned.
‘“If I offer you a fee?” the knight asked. “What would you take in exchange?”
‘“Nothing.”
‘The knight looked at him slyly. “You are an author, I take it?” he said, gesticulating at the Alchemist’s books, arranged above his tables, and the instruments of writing about his desk.
‘“In a manner of speaking,” the Doctor said.
‘The knight’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard a rumour you are cursed.”
‘“Rumours have a tendency towards falsehood.”
‘“I have been told you are an enemy of God, a friend has said you are a man of secrets. You are old and should be dead.” The Alchemist felt a weight in his stomach drop.
‘“Sell me this poison and I will forget,” the knight said. “I am not a cruel man, just a creature lost in love, and I deserve your help.” And so the knight continued, threatening the Doctor with his knowledge, until the man accepted a payment of seven golden coins, and thinking of his daughter, and the freedom he could buy her, the Alchemist gave the knight his poison, a spray of deadly perfume coating a bunch of roses plucked from the Alchemist’s garden. When the young knight had left, the Alchemist resolved that he and his daughter would leave the city the next morning. He began to arrange his few possessions for departure. At sunset, the daughter of the Alchemist came to meet her lover, having received a note that afternoon asking for her forgiveness. The knight kissed the girl on the lips and said that they could never be together, and as a token of his love handed her the bundle of roses. She held these close to her heart, drowning in her tears, and when she collapsed into her bed that night, she kept them clutched to her chest.
‘When the Alchemist woke he spent the day away from the house in the city and was surprised on his return to not find his daughter awake and at work in the house. He called her name – but he heard no answer. He called her name again, and worrying that she had been taken ill went gingerly up the stairs to her quarters. At her door, he knocked twice, a slow tap-tap – and again there was no answer, at which point he pushed through to her bed, with a terrible sinking in his heart that deepened as the door swayed open and, falling to his knees, put both his hands to her cheeks – but he knew – by God he knew – from the silence in the room – the unmistakable heaviness of death – that he was not alone, for the reaper had passed through at night and stolen away the life he loved – and such a rage rose in his throat that he choked, reaching out a finger to touch the crumbling, blackened roses, their perfume turned to the stench of rotting meat he recognized as poison from his own garden. That day the Alchemist boarded up the windows and doors of his house and urged no man or woman to enter into it, for the curse of his beloved had filled the walls with suffering, and any soul to make a bed there would meet the same fate as his daughter. The house remained empty for five hundred years,’ Ruthven told me, as we stood before the door.
Then he frowned, muttered something indeterminate under his breath, and continued his story by saying that after this point the Alchemist disappeared from history. He suspects the figure’s true identity is the Doctor Illuminatus – my own Rex Illuminatus! – who, after having drunk the elixir of life, made his way to Barcelona to continue his experiments with the philosopher’s stone and, moved by Moses de León, converted in secrecy to the Cabbalist tradition. Ruthven told me this with extreme seriousness, in a hushed tone, standing beside me in the street behind the church. This is strange because I did not think this scholar of Illuminatus would be so fitful; I had envisioned a more decorous, academic, post-Enlightenment man who would be disinclined to believe in the ghost stories of the past. When I suggested as much he paled.
‘Mr Sitwell,’ he contested, ‘you know nothing of the world.’
With that he refused to speak to me, and we parted ways after a brief repast, he retiring to his rooms, myself taking a nap before dinner. We ate at the English hour of six. I spent the majority of the meal consumed in utter despair, Ruthven frowning often across the table, using his silver bell to summon his wordless servant, who moved us through the courses with a bitterness I have never seen in a man of his age. In the dining room there is a painting, which you would recognize at once – a Titian, the Rape of Lucretia finished in 1490. Above Captain Ruthven’s head, Sextus Tarquinius raises his knife against bare-breasted Lucretia. It is a strange and rather discomforting choice for a dining room. When the coffee arrived after desserts, Ruthven pointed at my cup and the servant filled it, never meeting my eyes. Ruthven and I drank this together, the man giving me a grisly stare before suggesting that we retire to the sitting room. This pattern happened over the next four days, in which our encounters were monitored by Brass Buckle and not a word between us was exchanged. There is an unpleasant odour about Ruthven I have not yet placed, a cologne of nutmeg and soot, sickly and sweet. It is as infectious as fear – though I do not know his reasons for exuding it. Raising his eyes with a wry smile, Ruthven rang his silver bell for port, which appeared with two crystal glasses. He poured a draught, handed me the crystal, and nodded. I understood that I was meant to drink, and did so wi
th gusto. Not enjoying this game, I opened my mouth to speak, but Captain Ruthven intercepted.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Barcelona is not generally part of the Grand Tour – for which I assume you have garnered the support of your beloved father?’
This left me rather taken aback. ‘To study Illuminatus of course,’ I said.
‘And you think you’re worthy of my help?’
‘Well, in a manner of speaking,’ I went on to say, feeling my temper rise – what did this man mean by his absurd treatment of me? I resolved I would pack my things immediately and move to the pension I had taken note of on my arrival into the city. ‘If I prey upon your hospitality, Captain Ruthven, tell me and I will relieve you of the burden.’
He assured me this was not the case, and then began asking me questions of the most peculiar nature, intent, seemingly, on assessing my knowledge of Illuminatus’s character but also upon creating a portrait of my own. He wanted to know what I found interesting in the fellow, and why I had followed Ruthven’s treatment of Illuminatus to Barcelona (reasons I had given him in the letter many weeks ago, and I know you are familiar with). He then asked me my thoughts on the apocryphal pseudo-alchemical literature produced under Illuminatus’s name. I said this interested me but it was not – of course – the focus of my work. He frowned and continued probing. We passed about an hour thus, until suddenly he smiled. I had said something, at last, that he approved of.
‘And the meaning of the alphabet BCDEFGHIK in conjunction with the astrological charts ABCD?’
I gave my answer, an original interpretation, and he poured another glass. ‘Just the thing! Just the thing!’ he repeated aloud. ‘You’ll do.’
After drinks I retired to my quarters and decided to read at the desk stationed beside the window overlooking the pretty little square and the rose window of the Basílica del Pi. I flattened your letter with a bronze figurine of a wild boar, fat and heavy, mounted on black wood and a smooth red stone. For a moment I wore an aura of muted dissatisfaction – I was uncertain of what I might achieve with Captain Ruthven or how helpful he would be to my endeavours. The man is clearly deranged, but he is, begrudgingly, the expert in our field and he speaks my language – an added boon. I set my candle on a little ledge above this desk where I write to you now. Overhead, on the shelves that line the office, an atlas, a complete set of encyclopaedias, the naked skull of an antelope, back issues of the Spanish language literary magazine The Source. To the right of his desk, a corkboard, covered with a map of the city, littered with red-tipped pins linked by blue thread. On the left, hanging from a lower bookshelf, a spiralling chart of colours, reminiscent of the woodcuts Sebastian Münster printed in Cosmographia. Fortunately he stores no chemicals or oils in this chamber, as I would be put upon to sleep in proximity to such dangerous materials.
The Serpent Papers Page 12
