I strolled through the entire library hoping to discover Ariston, but he was nowhere to be found. Disappointed that my efforts had earned me only the stares of several old men, I abandoned the search and headed to the secret door with my key and parchment square in hand. As I hurried with the lock, I heard a voice behind me.
“So the goddess returns.”
I spun around. Ariston had been waiting for me. My heart fluttered like a bird taking flight.
“Another task for your father?” he asked, coming toward me. We both knew I had not been on official business last time, nor was I now.
Footsteps sounded on the marble behind us. Someone was coming, and there we were with the library’s most secret door wide open. Ariston grabbed a lantern and pulled me inside the stairwell. We waited, huddled together until we heard the footsteps pass.
“Why have you returned?” he asked in a whisper. “Do you have a death wish?”
“I needed to see something,” I whispered back. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to see something too.”
We locked eyes. I could tell he meant me. Thankfully, the darkness hid my silly smile.
Then he whispered with a knowing smile, “Lead the way, daughter of Phileas.”
We descended the stone staircase and I quickly headed toward the last gallery, leaving him to follow behind. I arrived at the last alcove and reached for the stone box.
His eyes grew wide when he saw the square in my hand. “You took one?”
“Of course not,” I said, pleased he had mistaken my replica for the original. “See? There are no hieroglyphs.”
“You painted this?” His voice rose and I shushed him.
He bent to look at my work, and the top of his head leaned so close that I could smell the juniper berries and honey in his hair. I frowned, wondering if a woman had made him such a tonic, if he already belonged to another.
“You’re quite good,” he said. “Yes, I see now.” Then he took out the papyrus squares from the stone box, handling them nimbly. I could tell he was as taken with them as I was. He read the hieroglyph on the first image aloud.
The word sounded strange, but I refused to ask its meaning. My face, however, gave me away.
He needled me playfully. “The librarian’s daughter only knows Greek?”
I could not help bristling. Most highborns only knew Greek. We were all, in essence, Greeks in Egypt. Even the Ptolemies had never bothered to learn the language of the land.
Young Cleopatra, daughter of Ptolemy XII, was the first royal ever to master Egyptian. She was my age and not only graceful but also a gifted linguist. I had heard her speak in eight different tongues fluently and quote many great works at length from memory. She was perhaps the only girl in Alexandria who loved the library more than me.
Now I wished I had attempted to learn Egyptian so I could impress Ariston, but I had to admit that I never had. “What does it mean?”
“It means ‘the fool.’”
I studied him to see if he was mocking me, but he wasn’t.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” he said. “These must have come from Siwa, from the Old Time.”
I nodded, already suspecting as much. The Old Time was Egypt’s most ancient history. Few works had survived from those years, but legends of secret scrolls and magical texts hidden in these caverns abounded.
“Do you see how each has a different name?” he pointed out.
“I can’t read them,” I reminded him, no longer trying to mask my disappointment.
“Well, I can tell you what they say,” he offered. “That’s simple enough.”
“Can you translate the scroll?” I asked, trying not to grow too excited. His eyebrows rose at my daring. So I teased him, repeating what he had said to me. “Curiosity is the scholar’s bread.”
His eyes glinted with amusement and he took the scroll. “The papyrus is frayed and the writing is barely legible. Plus it’s an ancient form of hieroglyph. Translating would take time.”
“Still,” I pressed, putting my hand on his arm, “you could do it.”
“For you, I could,” he surprised me by saying. “Meet me at the door every other morning, and I’ll transcribe a section to translate.”
“And I can study the images and try to re-create them.”
“Excellent.” He seemed pleased with himself. “That should take us a while.”
We looked at each other and smiled. My eyes gravitated toward his lips, taking in their sensual curve. If he tried to kiss me now, I would let him. The prospect of clandestine meetings with Ariston filled me with anticipation. What we were about to do was reckless, forbidden—and also the most important task I would undertake in my young life.
Looking back, I never could have attempted to read the scroll without him. Ariston risked disgracing his family’s good name to help me. Hindsight offers many treasures, clarity being one. Only later, after Ariston finished translating the scroll, would I understand that finding the key and stone box had not been an accident at all.
Ace of Pentacles
Semele squinted at the ancient Greek letters, unsure if she was getting the translation right.…
Was it had not been an accident?
Or fated?
Or maybe marked by the gods?
She took off her magnifying glasses and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. Her translation abilities were rusty, which had made reading a slow process. She needed all three of her dictionaries to decipher every other line.
But if she had gotten the translation right so far—and she believed the story’s narrator—then this memoir was written during the time of Cleopatra, who was born in 69 B.C.
Semele studied Ionna’s handwriting, taking in every brushstroke.
Paleography, dating an artifact through its writing, was her expertise. Oftentimes handwriting and the style of script were more precise measures of when a work was written than carbon dating. The shade, ornamentation, and capitalization of letters, the style of parchment, and the ink were all clues, and Semele was a master at time-stamping anything from the classical world.
Based on the handwriting alone, Marcel’s mysterious manuscript looked to be from between 50 and 45 B.C. If Ionna was truly the memoirist, then Semele’s estimate was not off the mark. She would be surprised if she was wrong—still, she wanted to test the manuscript when she returned to New York; she had never seen a two-thousand-year-old text so well preserved. The announcement of this discovery would send ripples through the whole industry. She had to be sure.
She turned off the examining light and leaned back in her chair, barely able to contain the thoughts running through her head.
For now she would say nothing to her client. She didn’t want to create any false expectations in case she was wrong and this manuscript was simply a tale penned by a writer in the Middle Ages. It wouldn’t be the first time a clergyman with an overactive imagination had written an “ancient chronicle.”
Semele looked at Marcel’s cryptic note again, still unnerved by his warning, and fingered the stationery in her hand. It was an engraved four-ply-cotton card, heavy stock, and clearly quite expensive.
The door opened, startling her, and a maid entered.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” the young woman said with a charming French accent.
Semele tucked the paper into her pocket and forced a smile. “Of course not.”
If the maid noticed Semele’s suspicious gesture, she hid it and went about dusting the glass cases. To Semele the chore seemed quite pointless—every surface in the room was already gleaming. She watched the girl make a circle of the gallery, wishing the maid would go away so she could lock up and head to the kitchen for a coffee. She was going to need serious amounts of caffeine in order to make sense of this note.
Why had Marcel written to her? And how had he known her name?
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Semele turned around with a start.
>
Theo stood in the doorway with an incensed look on his face.
She got up from her seat, at first thinking he was talking to her, but he pulled the maid aside and began reprimanding her in rapid-fire French. The maid murmured a quick apology and scurried out of the room.
Theo must have seen the horrified look on Semele’s face. He shook his head, trying to calm down. “Forgive me. This room is off-limits to the house staff.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Semele said, although she didn’t quite understand what had happened. Did he just fire the maid for dusting?
“Everything going well?” he asked, forcibly changing the subject.
Semele followed his lead and fixed a smile on her face. “Just wrapping up. I’ll e-mail you the list this afternoon.”
The list comprised those items she would be taking back to New York for auction. She knew Theo was waiting to find out how many pieces her firm would be selling. The heirs always were.
To her dismay, instead of leaving, Theo walked toward her. She tried not to step back as he stood next to her at the examining table.
He stared down at the manuscript. “What about this one? What do you think?”
What a loaded question—Semele was unsure how to answer. She decided to play it safe and rattled off a general analysis of the manuscript’s condition, sounding more like a doctor giving a diagnosis. “The pages look fairly well preserved. Some disintegration is showing around the edges, and speckled mold is scattered throughout the text, but no more than one might expect. I also noted water damage on several leaves.”
“But what do you think?” he asked again.
“Um … I’m actually not sure yet,” she said honestly. “I only just discovered it this morning. It hadn’t been recorded in the collection for some reason. Did your father ever discuss this piece with you?” she asked, trying to gauge his reaction.
“Why?” He met her gaze with the hint of a challenge.
Semele could feel heat rising to her face. “Since it wasn’t noted in the collection, I wondered if he had special instructions for it.”
How she would have loved to ask Marcel why he had hidden this piece away and how he had known to address his note to her. But she couldn’t—and she definitely couldn’t ask Theo.
Here they were having their second real conversation, and she was horrified to discover he still made her tongue-tied. It didn’t help that today he appeared energized and slightly windswept, as if he had just galloped across the estate on a horse. She wasn’t sure if the strange performance jacket he was wearing was high-tech riding or ski gear. At this point she wouldn’t be surprised if he was an expert in both sports and had an Olympic medal shoved in a drawer somewhere.
“I would like to take it back to New York.” She cleared her throat. “I should know more within a few weeks. The piece could potentially generate a large sum at the auction.” That was an understatement, she thought.
“Good. Please take the utmost care with it. This manuscript was special to my father.”
His admission surprised her. So Marcel had discussed the manuscript; Theo just didn’t want to discuss it with her. Which begged another question: Did Theo know about the note? There were so many things she wanted to ask him, but Theo had turned away and was now absentmindedly surveying the room.
“I can see you’ve been quite industrious. How much longer do we have the pleasure of your company?”
Semele frowned, not sure how to take the remark. “I fly back tomorrow, thank you,” she answered, knowing she sounded stiff.
He gave her a faint smile, and his gaze trailed over her face again.
She could feel her cheeks starting to burn and fought to control it, becoming annoyed with herself.
“Do keep me informed of your progress. You have my numbers and can call me anytime.”
Again, he looked as if he wanted to say something more, just as he had at their first meeting and every day since.
She waited, the knot of anticipation tightening in her stomach. But the words never came.
“I’m afraid I leave tonight on business.” He went to the door. “Please take every precaution and safeguard my father’s collection. I’m sure you know better than I do, but there are some very special pieces in this room.”
Semele nodded, about to reassure him, but then he was gone.
What a strange man. Of course she would safeguard the collection. Why else was she here?
Text message to VS—
She found it.
Reply from VS—
Excellent. We are in play.
The High Priestess
Semele’s instincts told her she needed to make a copy of the manuscript right away. Usually flagging an item for digitization meant involving a preservation manager, a collections manager, and a photographer. They would all discuss handling issues, customize the cradle to hold the manuscript, and come up with contingencies to avoid any undue stress on the parchment. That was the ideal scenario. But occasionally when working in the field, she needed to digitize a work before transporting it back to New York—like today.
She set up her tripod, which had a pan-tilting head so she could shoot the image flat on the table. Then she mounted her camera, along with a special scanning camera, and positioned her portable high-intensity discharge lamps to provide a continuous light source.
She kept waiting for Theo to barge in and question what the hell she was doing, just like he had to the maid. Her hands became unsteady and she could feel the frown locked on her face. The quality of several leaves looked tenuous. Two thousand years were weighing on this parchment like invisible stones; it was a heavy burden to carry.
When the last page had been digitized, a wave of dizziness hit her and she closed her eyes until it passed.
She had been working with unwavering focus for several hours. Now she was completely drained. But when she opened the file on her laptop to double-check her work, what she saw made her whistle. The quality of her scan was a hundred times better than any image from a commercial digital camera. Every blot of ink and speck of dust had been captured in the minutest detail: it looked like an exact replica.
She dismantled all the equipment and then carefully packed the manuscript in the last remaining crate, her mind still reeling from her eleventh-hour discovery. What if she hadn’t looked in the cabinet?
The thought that she might have left Switzerland without finding this jewel horrified her. She still couldn’t believe there was no mention of the manuscript in the official registry.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck four and she glanced at her watch in surprise. The day had vanished. The courier would be here soon, but there was one more thing she had to do before leaving the château. She needed to make sure Marcel was really the one who had written her the message.
She pulled Marcel’s note from her pocket and studied it again. The writing had a distinctive right-slanted scrawl with wide spacing, connected letters, and restricted loops. Her mind automatically began to list the defining traits: he was larger than life, generous but cautious, and signs of tension marked his penmanship. She needed only to see a small sample to be sure.
Hurrying across the gallery, she ducked into Marcel’s personal study. She usually passed through the room to access the kitchen, but today she stopped and closed the door. The chances of one of the staff coming in were slim, but she couldn’t risk anyone seeing what she was about to do.
She rushed to the sixteenth-century mahogany writing desk and opened all the drawers, where she found ledgers, letters, even an old appointment book—more evidence than she needed.
Within seconds she had her answer. All the handwriting was identical to the note. Marcel had written to her. Now the question that remained was why.
But there was nothing more she could do here. She needed to discuss the situation with Mikhail when she got home. He would know how to handle the dilemma.
She was about to leave when her eyes settled on the family pho
tographs hanging above the fireplace. They ranged from daguerreotypes taken in the 1800s to pictures that looked quite recent. She didn’t know who all the people were but she could feel the love, the sense of friendship that emanated from them.
In a grand house such as this, her favorite room would be this one, and she was certain it had been Marcel’s too. She felt as if she had gotten to know him through the weeks she’d spent here.
She studied a picture of a much younger Marcel with his wife. Theo stood wedged between their legs, only five or six years old. An older woman, most likely his grandmother, hovered to the side. Semele looked at the other photos of Theo. There was one with his mother that appeared to be the most recent. She knew that Mrs. Bossard had passed away three years ago from breast cancer. In the picture Theo had his arms around her and was laughing. He didn’t look like his current self at all.
Semele couldn’t stop staring at the picture. Something about it made her wistful.
The desire struck her to go visit a few of the other rooms one last time before she left. Her only opportunity to explore the château had been on that first day. There was a small reading library upstairs, where she’d spied several jaw-dropping first editions perched on a bookshelf, including an Orbis Sensualium Pictus, the earliest picture book for children, first published in 1658. She had to know if it was an original.
It would just take a minute. Surely no one would mind—Theo was gone and the housekeeper had already said her good-byes. The only person left was the chef, who was probably in the kitchen drinking wine and watching his favorite Swiss cooking show. But as she ventured up the sweeping staircase, she began to second-guess her nerve—Orbis or no Orbis, she felt like an intruder. Halfway down the hall, she was ready to turn around when she saw that the bedroom door directly across from her was open. What she saw inside made her freeze.
Theo was sitting on a king-size bed in the middle of a room that looked like it had been plucked straight out of a Tudor manor. He was wearing only sweatpants and sitting cross-legged, meditating with his eyes closed and an open hand on each knee.
The Fortune Teller Page 3
