by Simon Raven
‘“Faerie lands forlorn,”’ Balbo said.
And telling me nothing, he added to himself. There was no such place as this one; Giocale had merely invented it to suit his mood or that of his patron. Furthermore, thought Balbo, even if the picture had indeed provided him with a hint where to go next in his search for the receding Commingi, surely it would nonetheless be his duty to give up that search, in view of what Sydney had been telling him at lunch, and help the authorities to save stricken Canterbury from the rats. If, that was, he still had any capacities in that area, and if the story was true. For Balbo, who had known people from Sydney’s department and similar departments during the war, was well aware how deviously and malignantly they went to work. They told you they wanted you for one purpose, and you wound up serving quite another – one which you would have repudiated with shame or horror if given half a chance at the start.
Now then, thought Balbo: this story of the rats in the foundations, the rats who have developed a special tooth for long-dead human corpses – this is just the kind of story which might have been deliberately tailored to titillate what is left of my scientific bent and to appeal to my cultural conscience. And again, it has been delivered in too orderly, too leisurely, too literary a manner to be quite real.
Is Jones lying? Probably, but the lie is almost certainly for the most part theirs. Jones, that is, is aware only in slight degree of the extent to which they are trying to trick me. He knows, perhaps, that they want me for something other than they have declared, but he still thinks it is much the same sort of thing, only rather more so. And yet again: clearly he believes that business of the ‘sign’, do they? Or have they just told him to look out for some personal characteristic of mine which they know of, in order to dupe him, and cause him to intrigue and flatter me? But in any case at all, Balbo concluded, if this enigmatic picture marks, as it seems to, the final frustration of my hunt for the Kommingi, Commingi or Comminges, why should I not take a chance on this rat business, which may give me money to fill my empty pockets, occupation to pass my ample time, and probably material (of however ghastly a nature) to engage and scour up my mouldering intellect?
‘Weird,’ said Jones, S, ‘that landscape; beguiling – and poisonous.’
And you haven’t seen the clue, he added to himself, have you, my poor old Balbo? But then, to be fair, how could you have seen it (even if you hadn’t drunk a litre of wine and two large grappas) without a bit of my kind of training? Training in busting elementary codes, which can exist in pictures just as they can on the written page. The question is, though, what am I to do? If I interpret for Balbo, he’ll want to go on with this hunt and I’ll have extra trouble and delay in doing my clear duty and getting him back to London. And they won’t like that at all. But I have promised to help him; if he would listen to my story, I said, I would help him with his quest. He has met his part of the bargain, he has listened very patiently – and now I should meet mine.
Anyhow, do I really want the old thing to fall for their spiel and present himself in Jermyn Street? He’s certainly being tricked, as am I. True, he has the ‘sign’ they told me to be ready for; and from his own account, he appears to have the gifts which it signifies and bestows; but that’s not saying they mean him to use these gifts in the way they told me to tell him. God knows what they’ve got in store for the poor old lamb. Anyway, one thing’s for sure: if I help him now he’ll trust me later, and that will make it easier for me to push him whichever way I want him to go in the end…their way, if needs must be. That argument might just persuade them to agree if I ask for permission not to bring him in quite yet but to follow up with him on his trek for at any rate one stage further. God knows, I want to: and they can’t kill me (or can they?).
Aloud, Syd Jones said to Balbo: ‘You say that this bloke operated somewhere on the West Coast of Italy before he went and set himself up in Corfu.’
‘That’s my information, Sydney.’
‘And you think that this pic – more especially the landscape at the back of it – may tell you exactly where?’
‘That’s what I was hoping. But this place…it’s nowhere I recognize. It’s nowhere on earth.’
‘You can’t expect things to be too simple. Now, that rock with the temples on it – there’s only one way of getting on to it, by that causeway. Right?’
‘Right. Like Monemvasia – only that’s in Greece.’
‘Never you mind Monemvasia. But hang on to that causeway, which is partly hidden by friend Commingi here…who, incidentally or not so incidentally, is also concealing, with his dirty great fingernail, the tip of that peak – the middle one of the three. What does that do for you?’
Balbo shook his head.
‘The Trinity?’ he mumbled. ‘The three crosses on Calvary?’
‘Don’t be too precious, man. Three peaks, one blacked out by a fingernail, means two of something, probably something lofty or important, where there were three before. And since it’s Commingi’s fingernail, he’s had something or other to do with fucking up the third. Then these three temples, on the left, mean three of something old-fashioned, unreal, useless or superstitious. All this along with the one causeway, the one road between the mainland on which the mountains are and the hunk of rock which holds the temples. It’s a simple code of numbered or itemized allegory.’
‘Why was he using a code?’
‘Because he was a pirate who didn’t want anyone to know where he worked from – or rather, where he used to work from. He knew he was off to somewhere else, to Corfu, fairly soon, he’d be taking this portrait as a souvenir of the old days in another place – but it might not quite suit him if his new neighbours rumbled where that had been just as soon as they saw his pretty pictures. Besides, like all his kind he enjoyed little mystery games. And so, old lad, reading from his left to right, what we have is this. One: three eminences, one of which is almost deleted by Commingi’s left-hand index finger – that is, not the finger on his sword hand but the finger on the hand which would grasp the scabbard when he unsheathed that ratty cutlass with his right. Two: the one and only causeway or bridge from the shore out to an islet, just a heap of rock, part of the said bridge being hidden behind chummy’s anus. And three: three outdated and rather pretty buildings, of pre-Christian or anti-Christian religious significance, all in a row atop the rock or islet. Getting any warmer?’
‘No.’
‘Well, as you say, it’s nowhere on earth. But if we read the code aright, it will tell us a good deal. It will tell us where the Commingi came from, and it will tell us, when we get there, a lot about the place itself, though not in direct physical or geographical terms. The whole thing is a pictorial pun.’
‘But before we can enjoy the pun we must get to the place. How do we deduce the name or whereabouts of that?’
‘Look closely at those temples. At the cornices.’
‘Letters?’
‘Can you read them?’
‘“P”…“O”…on one cornice. Short for Poseidon, I suppose, meaning it’s his temple. Very appropriate – the God of the Sea.’
‘Just stick with the “P” and the “O”. On the cornice of the next temple?’
‘“N”…“A”…“O”…“S”. Naos, Greek for a temple. And on the next “I” and “T”. Short for Italianus? That gives us a sort of dog mixture of Latin and Greek. “The Italian Temple of Poseidon.” All right. They are by the sea, and we know the place we’re after is on the Italian coast. But why “naos” in the singular when there are three temples?’
‘Crude collective image, Balbo. All three constitute a multiple shrine in the God’s honour. But it’s the letters that matter, not the phrase. The phrase just fits in loosely with the overt sense of the picture, and that’s all. Forget the literature, sport, and stick with the literals.’
Balbo gazed at the three groups of letters. At last, ‘No good.’ he said sadly. ‘My wits aren’t what they were, sorry.’
‘Never mind. I�
�ve got the message. Where to go, that is. The rest of the interpretation must wait, like I say, till we arrive there. I’ll just make a rough copy – and not so rough either. The little details may be important when we go to work on Giocale’s jokes.’
For some minutes Syd Jones traced lines on the back of an envelope.
‘Right, Balbo. Time to be off.’
‘Where?’
‘Where those letters tell us. I’ll give you till we get there to go on trying to crack it. You need practice. All right, cobber? Ready to come along with me for the next round?’
‘I suppose so. Yet I have a feeling…that it’s my duty to go back to England for the next round. After all, if I could really help with those rats… Canterbury, places like that – they mean a lot to me.’
‘I’m the expert on when to go back to England,’ said Jones, S. ‘You leave that to me. For the time being we’re carrying on with your hunt back through time, old Balbo; it’s not often I get the chance to horn in on something like this.’
‘If you say so, Sydney.’
‘I do say so. We’ll nip along to the Piazzale Roma right away, and hire a car to be ready for collection early tomorrow. We’ll need a car on this lark. And then,’ he said with more confidence than he felt, ‘I’ll give the boss in Jermyn Street a still, small tinkle on the telephone, and tell him please to let Jonesy boy know best.’
Footnote
* Andrea Commingi in the thirtieth year of his life. Giocale painted this in 1699.
PART FIVE
The Abbé Valcabriers’ Scrapbook
‘Okay,’ said Len to Ivor Winstanley. ‘Here we are, back in the Chamber of Manuscripts, as snug as two lice in the woodwork. And now, for the last time, Ive, I’ll tell you what I will do and what I shall want for doing it.
‘There are these two books in here, see? Handwritten books: a Breviary and a transcription of Virgil’s Georgics, both fourteenth-century, both exquisitely illustrated. Here they are, Ive.’ He unlocked a small safe, which stood beside his desk, and took out two bags of white oilskin. ‘In a minute you’ll get a last look at them. Make the best of it, Ive. Because very soon they’re going to vanish, these books. And nobody any the wiser, for the time being, except you and me…and a certain private collector, who lives in Bavaria. The one who’s been writing to us to buy our stuff legit, but can’t have it because of the silly old statutes, so he’ll be glad to grab it this way: being as how he’s an old nutter who wants to keep everything pretty just for himself, all screwed down under lock and key where no one else can ever get at it (like we keep the stuff here, come to that), so that he’s prepared to pay a very large sum for the exclusive right to gloat over that Breviary. Which very large sum, Ive, is part of my price; the second part being that handsome MS of the Georgics, which I shall have the exclusive right to gloat over – until, that is, I feel the need to turn it into cash. Which I hope won’t happen for a long, long time; because my aim, Ive, is the good life, and for the good life I don’t only want money, I want something, like that Georgics, to look at and nourish my soul with, and tell myself I’m the only person entitled – which I suppose makes me pretty much like that nutter aforesaid to whom we shall flog the Breviary.’
‘Well,’ said Ivor, who had heard all this before but was even now uncertain quite how to read Len’s attitudes and whether or not accept the deal which Len was offering, ‘at least you seem to want culture as well as cash.’
‘And you to help me appreciate the culture. To teach me how to set the good life up. That’s the third part of my price.’
‘So. You want one book to sell, another…to look at and “nourish your soul with” – or to sell at a future need. And you want counsel. What service do you offer in return?’
Although Ivor very well knew the answer to this question, he sat forward, eager and alert, hoping, this time, to find that Len’s scheme for discrediting Jacquiz Helmut was not quite as hideous and treacherous, as murderous, as it had hitherto appeared, that there might after all be some element, previously overlooked by himself or omitted by Len, which would temper the wind to Jacquiz enough to allow him, Ivor, comparative ease of heart.
‘You know what service, Ive. You know how it’s all planned. These two items, with certain others, are usually kept in this safe’ – he rapped the safe by his desk with his foot – ‘and very carefully packaged in oilskin.’ He lifted one of the oilskin bags, which was labelled ‘The St Gilles Breviary’, untied a lace which secured the top of it, and slid out a slender volume bound in dark, floppy leather. The second bag (labelled ‘The Wandrille Georgics’) he passed to Ivor Winstanley.
‘Come on, Ive. Get involved.’
Ivor unfastened the second bag and took out the volume similar in binding to the Breviary but somewhat smaller.
‘Now,’ said Len. ‘First we find new homes for the loot.’
He opened a drawer in his desk and took out two wash-leather pouches, labelled respectively ‘B’ and ‘G’. ‘“B” for Breviary,’ he said, ‘“G” for Georgics.’ He took up the Breviary and eased it into the appropriate pouch. ‘Your turn, Ive.’
Ivor picked up the Wandrille Georgics. He remembered that years ago, when he was still Jacquiz’ friend, Jacquiz had shown him the volume. There was a haunting illumination which showed Eurydice as she was being snatched back to Hades from Orpheus, who had just turned and was stretching out his arms to her. ‘I’ll just have a last, quick look at that,’ thought Ivor. ‘But oh no, I won’t,’ he thought. ‘I can’t bear the sight of this beautiful book, knowing what’s going to happen to it, knowing what it’s being used for.’ He worked it hurriedly into the wash-leather pouch labelled ‘G’, and shuddered as Len reached out to take it from him.
‘This is the one I’m keeping,’ Len reminded him. ‘The Breviary goes to our friend and patron, the crazy bibliophile from Bavaria. I’m meeting his agent in London tomorrow. The Chamber must be closed for a couple of days, Ive – unless you want to man it.’
‘I haven’t yet agreed to the plan,’ said Ivor.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Len blandly, ‘we must find something to take their place in the safe.’
He opened his desk drawer again, took out two floppy leatherbound volumes, superficially similar to the fourteenth-century ones, and put one of them in each of the white oilskin bags. These he laced firmly at the necks. He then unlocked the safe and put them inside.
‘So what have we got?’ he said as he locked the safe. ‘We have two packages, labelled “The St Gilles Breviary” and “The Wandrille Georgics”, both in their right place in the safe, where they have been for years. We have the key to the safe, also in its right place.’ He put the key of the safe in a cash box and locked the cash box with another and smaller key, which he then placed in the left-hand breast pocket of his denim jacket. ‘And we have the real books out here on this table, ready to go on their travels. I shall take both of them to my digs this evening, and the Breviary to London tomorrow. If the agent is satisfied with its authenticity and condition – which he will be, Ive – he will telephone his principal in Bavaria, and this latter will immediately authorize the payment of thirty-five thousand pounds’ worth of German marks into an account which I have had the foresight to open in Geneva. As soon as I am properly notified of this credit, I shall hand over the book. Until then, we shall have rather a nasty, suspicious time, the agent and I, sitting with the book halfway between us, waiting for the bank to wire me in the agreed code at the agreed address. Do admit, Ive, it’s all been very well got up. You would never have known where to find a buyer.’
‘I would never have wished to sell. I’m still not sure that I’m going to allow you to.’
‘You’ve got no choice. Unless you fuck Jake up, the Provost means to fuck you up. This is a sure way – and the only way you’ve got – of fucking up Jake.’
‘Tell me again: how does that bit of it work?’
God, how I loathe this, Ivor thought. Jacquiz and I have long ceased to be
friends, and it was his fault our friendship died, but that I should be helping to subject him…to this…
‘Easy. For two, three weeks from now we say nothing. Then comes round the first routine monthly check since you took over as Temporary Collator. As usual, the Third Bursar is present as witness. I take the key of the money box from my pocket’ – he did so – ‘I unlock the money box and give you the key of the safe’ – again he did so – ‘and you unlock the safe. Go on, Ive,’ said Len, ‘unlock the safe.’
Ivor unlocked the safe.
‘Take out the two oilskin bags.’
Ivor took them out.
‘Now then. Think yourself into the part. You’re conducting a monthly check. Your first. You know – you think you know – that everything was in apple-pie order when Jake left for Europe. Mind you, there was no formal takeover – there couldn’t be, because the Provost appointed you after Jake had left. But you have the certificate signed by the Third Bursar, as witness, that everything was as it should have been at the last monthly check-up. But yet again, Ive, that was in August.’
‘In August?’ said Ivor, simulating a surprise he no longer felt, so often had they been through this before.
‘Yep, August. Although it’s called a monthly check, there’s one month in which it isn’t made. September. Because September falls outside any University term. In August the Long Vacation Term ends; not till October does the Michaelmas Term begin. September is a non-month in this University, Ive, the only month when nothing at all happens, so nor does the routine inspection of the Chamber of Manuscripts of Lancaster College.’
