The Book of Secrets

LXXIII

River Rhine

Nick stood in the bow of the boat. Spray spattered his cheeks, but he would rather endure that than the suffocating, tobacco-laden fug inside. He felt as if he was sailing into a fairy tale. Not the modern sort, with wisecracking animals and songs written to sound good as ringtones; the old-fashioned kind, tangled tales woven out of the fabric of the land, dark forests and hard mountains. Here, the Rhine flowed through steep-sided valleys covered in snow, under great cliffs where sirens once lured sailors to their doom. Stark castles guarded every hilltop, watching the boat as it crept downriver. Some were tumble-down ruins; others looked as though they only wanted a trumpet call to rouse their defenders to battle.

‘It’s just as well we came by boat.’ Emily pointed a gloved hand to the shore. A single road wound along the riverbank, tucked into the slope. It was almost invisible under the snow. ‘No cars. They must have shut it.’

‘Good,’ said Nick. ‘Harder for anyone to follow us. Unless there’s another ferry?’

‘The bartender said this is the last boat today. He said there might not be any tomorrow either if the ice gets worse.’

‘Good.’ Nick repeated it, trying to convince himself. He was afraid. Not the sudden pulse of adrenalin that came with being chased – he’d had plenty of that in the last ten days. This was a deeper dread, cold fingers slowly choking him as he sank into a void. A feeling that there was no way back.

Emily pulled out a rumpled paper tissue and began shredding it between gloved fingers, letting the fragments fall into the water. ‘Do you think we’ll find it?’

‘Do you mean her?’

‘Sorry.’ She watched a piece of tissue flutter down. The river soaked it up.

Nick didn’t speak, but shuffled sideways so that he squeezed against her. She tipped her head so that it rested on his shoulder.

‘I wonder how the prayer of Manasses fits into this,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re following Gillian. But what was she following? If she went to Oberwinter, it was because of what she found in the Mainz archives. Nothing to do with the prayer of Manasses or the digging bear.’

‘Maybe we were on the wrong track with the pictures,’ said Nick. ‘The Sayings of the Kings of Israel is supposed to be a lost book of the Bible, right? Maybe that was the writer’s way of saying that his book’s gone to this place where lost books go. The Devils’ Library.’

‘But the bear. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the picture from the card was right there in the prayer of Manasses?’

Bear is the key.

‘You said yourself that medieval artists copied each other all the time.’

‘It feels as if we’re following a trail that someone laid down for us five hundred years ago. The hard-point inscriptions, the hidden books, the recurring images… But I’m not sure it points to Oberwinter.’

‘Gillian was.’

Nick pulled away slightly, but only so he could stick his hand in his pocket to warm it. His fingers touched the slim bar of his cellphone, tingling as the blood returned.

No. It wasn’t his blood, he realised, but the phone vibrating. It was ringing as well, though with the engines throbbing through the boat and the hiss of the water he hadn’t heard it. He must have forgotten to turn it off when he’d used it to read the hard point.

He pulled it out, staring at it like a relic of some alien civilisation. And then, because he was tired and it was a ringing telephone, he answered.

‘Nick? It’s Simon.’

Nick almost dropped the phone. Emily looked at him and made an O with her mouth. Who?

‘Atheldene,’ Nick whispered. Then, into the phone, ‘How did you get this number?’

‘You rang me from your phone in New York. I’ve been calling for the last twenty-four hours. Didn’t you get my messages?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Mainz. It’s on the Rhine, near Frankfurt.’

Was there something too casual about the way he said it? Too confident, too knowing? Or was Nick just paranoid?

‘Is Mainz nice?’ he asked, trying to sound cool.

‘There’s a lovely Romanesque cathedral and a shop selling chocolate busts of Gutenberg.’ The sarcasm sounded right. ‘But that’s not why I’m here. I rang the office in Paris, found out a package arrived for me the day after we left. Postmarked Mainz. My secretary recognised Gill’s handwriting.’

‘What was in it?’

‘Something you should see. Can you get to Mainz?’

‘Not right now. Can you tell me what it says?’

‘It would be easier to show you.’

Nick’s head began to throb. ‘For God’s sakes, Atheldene, we’re trying to find Gillian. This isn’t a time to be playing games.’

‘I quite agree. Why don’t you tell me where you are?’

Nick hesitated. Atheldene gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Have you heard of the prisoners’ dilemma? Two men in a cell. If they trust each other, they go free. If they don’t, they both hang. That’s where we are.’

Still Nick didn’t say anything. He was jammed, frozen by the uncertainties clogging his mind.

‘Gill was definitely in Mainz two weeks ago. I’ve been to the archives here: they remembered her. We’re near, Nick.’

‘What was in the parcel Gillian sent?’

Atheldene paused. Then: ‘Fine. You want my quid pro quo? It was the first page of the bestiary you ran off with from Brussels. Somebody had cut it out – I suppose Gillian must have found it. I’ve taken a photo of it on my phone and I’m sending it to you now. Hold on.’

Nick waited. Was this another trap? Every second he was on the line he felt his anxiety rising.

A background chime announced that a message had arrived. Atheldene must have heard it on his end.

‘Now – where are you?’

Perhaps it was because he was tired. Perhaps it was because Atheldene’s voice, however patronising and unhelpful, was a rare touch of something familiar. Perhaps it was the desperation in his plea. If we don’t trust each other, we both hang.

‘We’re heading to a place on the Rhine called Oberwinter. I’ll call you when we arrive and we’ll figure something out.’

‘I’ll see if I can get there. Travel’s pretty grim at the moment.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Look, I’m sorry we parted ways in Brussels. We should have stuck together. For Gill.’

‘I’d better go.’

‘Wait. There’s…’

Atheldene’s voice broke up, his words crushed into staccato blocks of static. A few seconds later he came back.

‘… what she is.’

‘What was that?’

Nick looked around. They’d come round a bend between two mountains that trapped the river between them, blocking out the signal.

‘I’m losing you.’

More static. Then nothing.

Nick hung up. In his anxiety he almost switched off the phone at once, until a blinking icon on the screen reminded him of the picture Atheldene had sent.

‘I guess if there’s no signal there’s not much way of tracing the phone.’

He opened the image and gave the handset to Emily. It was hard to see much on the small screen. She fumbled with the buttons to zoom in.

‘It’s the standard opening of the bestiary. “The lion is the bravest of all beasts and fears nothing…” There’s the picture.’ A lion with its back arched, roaring so loudly it seemed to send shivers through the adjoining words.

Nick took the phone back and scrolled around the picture. His hands were so numb he almost dropped it in the water.

‘What’s that?’

A mark in the margin near the bottom of the page, too faint to be part of the illumination.

‘Maybe a smudge?’

Nick zoomed in. The pixels blurred, then sharpened themselves. It was a doodle – there was no other word for it – a crude sketch of a rectangular tower with three doors, and a large cross beside it.

‘The cross must mean it’s a church, or maybe a monastery. That would make sense. If the Devils’ Library did exist, a monastery would have been the safest place to keep it.’

Nick stared at the picture a moment longer, then switched off the phone.

‘I hope I did the right thing, telling Atheldene where we’re going.’

Emily wrapped her hand in his and squeezed it. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now.’

He stared into the water. Off the bow, black-backed rocks lurked beneath the surface like circling sharks.

If we don’t trust each other, we both hang.