The Codex

83

The hut was warm and faintly perfumed with smoke and medicinal herbs. Tom entered, followed by Vernon, Philip, and Sally. Maxwell Broadbent was lying in a hammock with his eyes closed. Frogs peeped outside in the peaceful night. A young Tara medicine man was grinding herbs in one corner of the hut, under the watchful eye of Borabay.

Tom laid a hand on his father’s forehead. His temperature was climbing. The gesture caused his father to open his eyes. His face was drawn, his eyes glittering with fever and the light of the fire. The old man mustered a smile. “As soon as I get better, Borabay’s going to show me how to go spearfishing the Tara way.”

Borabay nodded.

Broadbent’s restless eyes moved over the company, seeking reassurance. “Eh, Tom? What do you say?”

Tom tried to say something but couldn’t quite get the sounds out.

The young medicine man stood up and offered Broadbent a clay mug filled with some murky brown liquid.

“Not another of these,” Broadbent muttered. “This is worse than the cod liver oil my mother used to force down my throat every morning.”

“Drink, Father,” said Borabay. “Good for you.”

“What is it?” Broadbent asked.

“Medicine.”

“I know that, but what kind of medicine? You can’t expect me to swallow something without knowing what it is.”

Maxwell Broadbent was proving a difficult patient.

Sally spoke. “It’s Una de gavilan, Uncaria tomentosa. The dried root is an antibiotic.”

“I suppose it can’t hurt.” Broadbent took the mug, swallowed. “We seem to have an excess of doctoring going on here. Sally, Tom, Borabay, and now this young witch doctor. You’d think I had something serious.”

Tom glanced at Sally.

“The things we’re going to do together when I get better!” Broadbent said.

Tom swallowed again. His father, seeing his discomfort — nothing ever escaped him — turned to him. “Well, Tom? You’re the only real doctor around here. What’s the prognosis?”

Tom tried to muster a smile. His father looked at him for a long time and then settled back with a sigh. “Who am I kidding?”

There was a long silence.

“Tom? I’m already dying of cancer. You can’t tell me anything worse than that.”

“Well,” Tom began, “the bullet perforated your peritoneal cavity. You’ve got an infection, and that’s why you have a fever.”

“And the prognosis?”

Tom swallowed again. His three brothers and Sally were all looking at him intently. Tom knew his father would settle for nothing less than the plain, unadorned truth.

“Not good.”

“Go on.”

Tom couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“That bad?” said his father.

Tom nodded.

“But what about these antibiotics this medicine man’s giving me? And what about all those marvelous remedies in that codex you just rescued?”

“Father, the kind of infection you have, sepsis, can’t be reached by any antibiotic. Nothing short of major surgery will fix it, and now it’s probably too late even for that. Drugs can’t do everything.”

There was a silence. Broadbent turned and looked up. “Damn,” he said at last, to the ceiling.

“You took that bullet for us,” said Philip. “You saved our lives.”

“Best thing I ever did.”

Tom laid his hand on his father’s arm. It was like a hot stick. “I’m sorry.”

“So how long do I have?”

“Two or three days.”

“Christ. That short?”

Tom nodded.

He lay back with a sigh. “The cancer would have gotten me in a few months anyway. Although it would have been damned nice having those months with my sons. Or even a week.”

Borabay came over and laid his hand on his father’s chest. “I sorry, Father.”

Broadbent covered the hand with his. “I sorry, too.” He turned and looked at his sons. “And I can’t even look on the Lippi Madonna one more time. When I was in that tomb, I kept thinking about how if I could only look on that Madonna again, everything would be all right.”

They spent the night in the hut watching over their dying father. He was restless, but the antibiotics were, at least for now, holding the infection at bay. When dawn broke the old man was still lucid.

“I need some water,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Tom left the hut with a jug, heading for the nearby stream. The Tara village was just waking up. The cooking fires were being lit, and the beautiful French copper- and nickel-clad pots and pans and tureens were making their appearance. Smoke spiraled into the morning sky. Chickens scratched in the dirt plaza, and mangy dogs prowled about, looking for scraps. A toddler came teetering out of a hut, wearing a Harry Potter T-shirt, and took a pee. Even among a tribe this remote, Tom thought, the world was reaching in. How long would it be before the White City yielded up its treasures and its secrets to the world?

As Tom walked back carrying the water, he heard a sharp voice. The old crone, the wife of Cah, had come out of her hut and was gesturing toward him with a crooked hand. “Wakha!” she said, gesturing.

Tom paused warily.

Wakha!

He took a cautious step toward her, half expecting to have his hair yanked or his balls groped.

Instead the woman took him by the hand and pulled him toward her hut.

Wakha!

He reluctantly followed her bent form into the smoky hut.

And there, in the dim light, propped up against a post, stood the Madonna of the Grapes by Fra Filippo Lippi. Tom stared at the Renaissance masterpiece and took an uncertain step toward it, transfixed, hardly believing it could be real. The contrast between the shabby hut and the painting was too great. Even in the dark it fairly glowed with internal light, the golden-haired Madonna, barely a teenager, holding her baby, who was stuffing a grape into his mouth with two pink fingers. A dove floated above their heads, radiating gold leaf.

He turned to the old lady in astonishment. She was looking at him with a huge grin on her wrinkled face, her pink gums gleaming. She went over to the painting, picked it up, and thrust it in his arms.

Wakha!

She gestured for him to take it to his father’s hut. She went behind, giving him little pushes with her hands. “Teh! Teh!”

Tom walked into the damp clearing with the painting cradled in his arms. Cah must have kept back the painting for himself. It was a miracle. He stepped into the hut and held the painting out. Philip glanced over, let out a cry, and fell back. Broadbent stared at it, his eyes widening. At first he said nothing, and then he lay back in his hammock, a look of fright on his face.

“Damn it, Tom! The hallucinations are starting.”

“No, Father.” He brought the painting close. “It’s real. Touch it.”

“No, don’t touch it!” cried Philip.

Broadbent reached out a trembling hand and touched the painted surface anyway.

“Hello,” he murmured. He turned to Tom. “I’m not dreaming.”

“No, you’re not dreaming.”

“Where in the world did you get this?”

“She had it.” He turned to the old woman, who stood in the doorway, a toothless grin on her face. Borabay began asking her questions, and she spoke at length. Borabay listened, nodding. Then he turned to his father.

“She say her husband greedy, keep back many things from tomb. Hide them in cave behind village.”

“What things?” Broadbent asked sharply.

They spoke some more.

“She not know. She say Cah steal almost all treasure for tomb. He fill boxes with stones instead. He say he not want to put white man treasure in Tara tomb.”

“Wouldn’t you know it,” said Broadbent. “When I was in the tomb, there were some crates that seemed hollower than they should be, almost empty. I couldn’t get them open in the dark. That’s what I was doing in the tomb just before Hauser showed up, checking to see if I could solve the mystery. That damned tricky old Cah. I should have known. He planned this whole thing from the start. Christ, he was as greedy as I was!”

Broadbent cast his eyes back on the painting. It reflected the light of the fire, the flickering glow playing over the Virgin’s young face. There was a long silence as he looked at it. Then he closed his eyes and said, “Bring me a pen and paper. Now that I have something to leave you, I’m going to make out a new will.”