The Alchemist

38

It was late afternoon when they took Father Pascal’s car and drove to Montségur, an hour or so away. The old Renault wheezed and rattled along the winding country roads, through landscapes that alternated between breathtaking rocky mountain passes and lush wine-growing valleys.

Just before the old town of Montségur they turned off the main road. At the end of a long lane, high on a hill and surrounded by trees was Anna Manzini’s country villa. It was a fine-looking ochre stone house with shuttered windows, climbing wall-plants and a balcony running across its façade. The place was like an oasis in the middle of the arid landscape. Terracotta pots overflowed with flowers. Ornamental trees grew in neat rows along the walls, and water burbled brightly in a little fountain.

Anna came out of the house to greet them. She was wearing a silk dress and a coral necklace that showed off her honey-coloured skin. To Roberta she seemed the classic Italian beauty, as fine and delicate as porcelain. Amid the sweat and dust of the wilds of the Languedoc she seemed to come from another world.

They got out of the car and Anna welcomed them warmly, speaking English with a soft, velvety Italian accent. ‘I’m Anna. I’m so pleased to meet you both. Mr Hope, this is your wife?’

‘No!’ Ben and Roberta said in unison, glancing at one another.

‘This is Dr Roberta Ryder. She’s working with me,’ Ben said.

Anna gave Roberta an unexpected kiss on the cheek. Her delicate perfume was Chanel No. 5. Roberta suddenly realized that at close quarters she probably reeked of Arabelle the goat-she and Marie-Claire had milked her that morning. But if Anna noticed anything, she was too polite to wrinkle her nose. She flashed a perfect smile and led them inside.

The cool white rooms of the villa were filled with the scent of fresh flowers. ‘Your English is excellent,’ Ben commented as she poured them a glass of ice-chilled fino sherry. He drank it down in one, and noticed the hot glare Roberta threw at him. ‘Don’t gulp like that,’ she whispered furiously.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Mea gulpa.’

‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve always loved your language. I worked in London for three years, at the start of my teaching career.’ She laughed her musical laugh. ‘That was a long time ago.’

She showed them into an airy living-room with french windows opening out onto a stone terrace with the garden and the hills beyond. A pair of canaries sang and twittered in a large ornamental cage by the window.

Roberta noticed some copies of Anna’s books on a shelf. ‘God’s Heretics-Discovering the Real Cathars, by Professor Anna Manzini. I’d no idea we were coming to visit such an expert.’

‘Oh, I’m no real expert,’ Anna said. ‘I just have an interest in certain under-researched subjects.’

‘Such as alchemy?’ Ben asked.

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Medieval history, Catharism, the esoteric, alchemy. That’s how I got to know poor Klaus Rheinfeld.’

‘I hope you won’t mind if we ask you a few questions,’ Ben said. ‘We’re interested in the Rheinfeld case.’

‘May I ask what your interest is?’

‘We’re journalists,’ he answered without missing a beat. ‘We’re doing research for an article on the mysteries of alchemy.’

Anna made them a black Italian coffee served in tiny little china cups, and told them about her visits to the Institut Legrand. ‘I was so upset to hear of Klaus’s suicide. But I must say it didn’t come as a complete surprise. He was deeply disturbed.’

‘I’m amazed they even allowed you access to him,’ Ben said.

‘They normally wouldn’t have,’ Anna replied. ‘But the Director granted me these visits to help me research my book. I was well guarded, although poor Klaus was usually calm with me.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor man, he was so ill. You know about the marks he carved into his own flesh?’

‘Did you see them?’

‘Once, when he was very agitated and tore open his shirt. There was a particular symbol he was obsessed with. Dr Legrand told me that he had drawn it all over his room, in blood and…other things.’

‘What symbol was that?’ Ben asked.

‘Two circles intersecting,’ Anna said. ‘Each circle contained a star, one a hexagram and the other a pentagram, their points touching.’

‘Similar to this?’ Ben reached into his bag and took out an object wrapped in a cloth. He laid it on the table and peeled back the edges of the cloth to reveal the glinting cruciform dagger. He drew out the blade and showed Anna the inscription on it. The two circles, just as she’d described.

She nodded, her eyes widening. ‘Yes, exactly the same. May I?’ He passed it to her. She carefully slid the blade back into the shaft and examined the cross from all angles. ‘It’s a magnificent piece. And extremely unusual. Do you see these alchemical markings on the shaft?’ She looked up. ‘What do you know about its history?’

‘Very little,’ Ben said. ‘Only that it may once have belonged to the alchemist Fulcanelli, and we think it might date back to medieval times. Rheinfeld apparently stole it from its owner in Paris, and brought it with him down south.’

Anna nodded. ‘I’m no antiquarian, but from these markings I would agree about its age. Perhaps tenth or eleventh century. It could easily be verified.’ She paused. ‘I wonder why Klaus was so interested in it. Not just because of its value. He was penniless, and he could have sold it for a lot of money. Yet he kept hold of it.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘How did you come to find it?’

Ben had been ready for that one. He’d promised Pascal he wouldn’t give away his secret. ‘Rheinfeld dropped it,’ he said. ‘When he was found wandering and taken away.’ He watched her reaction. She seemed to accept it. ‘What about the twin-circle symbol on the blade?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Why was Rheinfeld so interested in it?’

Anna grasped the shaft of the cross and drew the blade back out with a quiet metallic zing. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But there must be a reason. He may have been deranged, but he wasn’t stupid. He had areas of knowledge that were very deep.’ She studied the blade thoughtfully ‘Do you mind if I make a copy of this symbol?’ She laid the dagger down in front of her and took a piece of tracing paper and a soft-leaded pencil from a drawer. Laying the paper across the bare blade she did a careful rubbing of the markings on it. Roberta noticed her perfectly manicured hands. She glanced down at her own. Slipped them under the table.

Anna studied her finished rubbing, looking happy with it. ‘There.’ Then she frowned and looked at it more closely. ‘It’s not quite the same as the one in the notebook. There’s a slight difference. I wonder…’ Ben looked at her sharply. ‘Notebook?’

‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it to you. The doctors gave Klaus a notebook in the hope that he would keep a record of his dreams. They believed this would help in his treatment, and perhaps help to shed light on what had caused his mental condition. But he didn’t record his dreams. Instead he filled the pages with drawings and symbols, strange poetry and numbers. The doctors couldn’t make any sense of it, but they allowed him to keep it as it seemed to comfort him.’

‘What happened to it?’ Ben said.

‘When Klaus died, the director of the Institut, Edouard Legrand, offered it to me. He thought I might be interested in it. Klaus had no family, and in any case it wouldn’t have been much of an heirloom. I have it upstairs.’

‘Can we see it?’ Roberta said eagerly.

Anna smiled. ‘Of course.’ She went to fetch it from her study. A minute later she returned, filling the room again with her fresh perfume, holding a small polythene bag. ‘I put it in here because it was so filthy and smelly,’ she said, laying the bag gently on the table.

Ben took the notebook out of the bag. It was frayed and crumpled and looked like it had been soaked in blood and urine a hundred times. It gave off a sharp musty smell. He flipped through it. Most of the pages were blank, apart from the first thirty or so which were heavily stained with grubby fingerprints and reddish-brown smears of old dried blood that made it difficult in places to read the handwriting.

The bits he could make out were just about the strangest thing he’d ever seen. The pages were filled with snatches of bizarre verse. Obscure and apparently meaningless arrangements of letters and numbers. Scrawled notes in Latin, English and French. Rheinfeld had obviously been an educated man, as well as a competent artist. Here and there were drawings, some of them simple sketches and others drawn in painstaking detail. They looked to Ben like the kind of alchemical images he’d seen in ancient texts.

One of the most grubby and well-thumbed pages in the notebook had a drawing on it that was familiar. It was the diagram from the dagger blade, the twin intersecting star-circles that Rheinfeld had been so obsessed with.

He picked up the dagger and compared them. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘They’re slightly different from one another.’

Rheinfeld’s version was identical except for one small extra detail. It was hard to make out, but it looked like a tiny heraldic emblem of a bird with outstretched wings and a long beak. It was positioned at the dead centre of the twin-circle motif.

‘It’s a raven,’ Ben said. ‘And I think I’ve seen it before.’ It was the symbol he’d seen carved in the central porch at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

But why had Rheinfeld altered the design from the blade?

‘Does any of this mean anything to you?’ he asked Anna.

She shrugged. ‘Not really. Who knows what was in his mind?’

‘Can I have a look?’ Roberta asked. Ben passed the notebook to her. ‘God, it’s gross,’ she said, turning the pages with revulsion.

Ben’s heart was sinking again. ‘Did you learn anything at all from Rheinfeld?’ he asked Anna, hoping he might be able to salvage at least something of value.

‘I wish I could say yes,’ she replied. ‘When Dr Legrand first mentioned this strange, intriguing character to me I thought he might help to inspire me for my new book. I was suffering from writer’s block. I still am,’ she added unhappily. ‘But as I got to know him I felt so sorry for him. My visits were more for his comfort than for my own inspiration. I can’t say I learned anything from him. All I have is this notebook. Oh, and there is one other thing…’

‘What?’ Ben asked.

Anna blushed. ‘I did something a little…what’s the word…naughty. On my last visit to the Institut I smuggled in with me the little gadget I use for dictating my book ideas. I recorded my conversation with Klaus.’

‘Could I hear that?’

‘I don’t think it could be of any use,’ Anna said. ‘But you’re welcome to listen to it.’ She reached behind her and picked up a miniature digital recorder from a sideboard. She set it down in the middle of the table and pressed PLAY. Through the tinny speaker they could hear Rheinfeld’s low, muttering voice.

It put a chill down Roberta’s spine.

‘Did he always speak in German?’ asked Ben.

‘Only when he was repeating these numbers,’ Anna said.

Ben listened intently. Rheinfeld’s mumbling tone started low, mantra-like. ‘N-sechs; E-vier; I-sechs-und-zwanzig…’ As he went on his voice rose higher, beginning to sound frenzied: ‘A-elf; E-funfzehn…N-sechs; E-vier…‘and the sequence repeated itself again as Ben scribbled it down in his pad. They heard Anna softly saying ‘Klaus, calm down.’

Rheinfeld paused for a moment, and then his voice started again: ‘Igne Natura Renovatur Integra-Igne Natura Renovatur Integra-Igne Natura Renovatur Integra…’ He chanted the phrase over and over, faster and louder until his voice rose into a scream that distorted the speaker. The recording ended with a flurry of other voices.

Anna turned the machine off with a sad look. She shook her head. ‘They had to sedate him at that point. He was strangely agitated that day. Nothing seemed to calm him. It was just before he killed himself.’

‘That was creepy,’ said Roberta. ‘What was that Latin phrase?’

Ben had already found it in the notebook. He was looking at a sketch of a cauldron, in which some mysterious liquid was bubbling. A bearded alchemist in a smock stood watching over it. The Latin words IGNE NATURA RENOVATUR INTEGRA were printed on the side of the cauldron. ‘My Latin’s rusty,’ he said. ‘Something about fire…nature…’

‘By fire nature is renewed whole,’ Anna translated for him. An old alchemical saying, relating to the processes they used to transform base matter. He was fixated on that phrase, and when he repeated it he would count his fingers, like this.’ She imitated Rheinfeld’s twitchy, urgent gestures. ‘I have no idea why he did that.’

Roberta leaned across to see the picture in the notebook. Her hair brushed over Ben’s hand as she moved up close. She pointed to the image. Beneath the cauldron, the alchemist had lit a raging fire. Under the flames was the label ANBO, printed clearly in capitals. ‘Anbo- what language is that?’ she asked.

‘None that I know,’ Anna said.

‘So the notebook and this recording are all you have?’ Ben asked her.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘That is all.’

Then it was a waste of time coming here, he thought bitterly. That was my last chance.

Anna was gazing thoughtfully at the rubbing of the dagger blade. An idea was forming in her mind. She couldn’t be sure, but…

The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and went to answer it.

‘So what do you think, Ben?’ Roberta said quietly.

‘I don’t think this is leading anywhere.’

They could hear Anna on the phone in the next room, talking in a low voice. She sounded a little flustered. ‘Edouard, I asked you not to call me any more…No, you can’t come here tonight. I have guests…no, not tomorrow night either.’

‘Me neither,’ Roberta said. ‘Shit.’ She sighed and got up from her chair, started pacing aimlessly across the room. Then something caught her eye.

Anna finished her call and returned to join them. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said.

‘Problems?’ Ben said.

Anna shook her head and smiled. ‘Nothing import ant.’

‘Anna, what’s this?’ Roberta said. She was examining a magnificent medieval text hanging in a glass frame on the wall near the fireplace. The cracked, browned parchment depicted an early map of the Languedoc, scattered with old towns and castles. Around the edges of the map, blocks of old Latin and medieval French text had been highly coloured and ornamented by a skilled calligrapher. ‘If this is an original scroll,’ she said, ‘it must be worth a packet.’

Anna laughed. ‘The American man who gave it to me thought it was priceless, too. Until he found out that the thirteenth-century Cathar script he’d paid twenty thousand dollars for was a fake.’

A fake?’

‘It’s no older than this house,’ Anna said with a chuckle. ‘About eighteen-nineties. He was so pissed off- is that the right expression?-that he gave it to me for nothing. He should have known. As you say, a genuine item in that condition would have been worth a small fortune.’

Roberta smiled. ‘We Yanks are suckers for anything more than three hundred years old.’ She moved away from the framed scroll and looked across at the tall, wide bookcase, running her eyes along the hundreds of books in Anna’s collection. There was so much here-history, archaeology, architecture, art, science. ‘Some of this stuff is so interesting,’ she murmured. ‘One day when I get time…’ She remembered she had a little book of Post-it notes in her bag, still out in the car. ‘Excuse me for a moment, will you? I want to write down a few of these titles.’ She trotted out of the room.

Anna moved close to Ben. ‘Come, I’d like to show you something,’ she said. He stood up, and she took his arm. Her hand was warm on his skin.

‘What do you want to show me?’ he said.

She smiled. ‘This way.’

The two of them walked out of the french window and down the long garden. At the bottom, a rocky path led up to the open countryside and after they had scrambled up a short slope Ben found himself looking out at a magnificent sunset panorama. He could see for miles across the mountains of the Languedoc, and above it all the sky was a cathedral-rich canvas of shimmering golds, reds and blues.

Anna pointed across the valley and showed him two distant castle ruins, serrated black outlines perched miles apart against the sky on high mountain peaks. ‘Cathar strongholds,’ she said, shielding her eyes against the falling sun. ‘Destroyed by the Albigensian crusade in the thirteenth century. The Cathars and their ancestors built castles, churches, monasteries, all across the Languedoc. They were all crushed by the Pope’s army.’ She paused. ‘I’ll tell you something, Ben. Some specialist historians have believed that these places have a deeper significance.’

He shook his head. ‘What kind of deeper significance?’

She smiled. ‘Nobody knows for sure. It was said that somewhere in the Languedoc there lies an ancient secret. That the relative positions of Cathar sites give the clue to finding it, and that whoever could solve the puzzle would discover great wisdom and power.’ Her dark hair was blowing in the gentle evening breeze. She looked beautiful. ‘Ben,’ she said tentatively. ‘You haven’t told me the whole truth. I think you’re looking for something. Am I right? Something secret.’

He hesitated. ‘Yes.’

Her almond eyes sparkled. ‘I thought so. And it has something to do with alchemy, with the legend of Fulcanelli?’

He nodded, and couldn’t help but smile at her razor-sharp perceptiveness. ‘I was looking for a manuscript,’ he admitted. ‘I think Klaus Rheinfeld knew about it, and I’d been hoping he could help me. But it looks like I was wrong.’

‘Perhaps I can help you,’ she said softly. ‘We must meet again. I think we could work together on this.’

He said nothing for a moment. ‘I’d like that,’ he said.

Roberta had come back from the car to find the house empty. She heard their voices carrying on the wind, and looked out of the french window. She saw Ben and Anna climbing back down the slope towards the garden. She could hear Anna’s chiming laugh. Her slim figure was silhouetted against the sunset. Ben offered her a hand. Was it her imagination? They seemed to be getting on very well.

What do you expect? Anna’s gorgeous. She’d be hard for any man to resist.

‘What kind of thoughts are these, Ryder,’ she said to herself. ‘What do you care, anyway?’

But then she realized. She did care. A terrible thing was happening to her. She was falling in love with Ben Hope.