The Nosferatu Scroll

6

‘A diary? You mean a vampire diary?’ Bronson asked. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I’ve only had a very quick look at it,’ Angela said, ‘but as far as I can tell it contains a list of dates and events, which is pretty much a definition of a diary, I suppose.’

‘So what are these events? If they’re written in Italian, you’ll probably need my help to translate them.’

‘Actually, I won’t,’ Angela said, ‘unless you’ve added Latin to your repertoire of languages. At the time this burial originally took place, Latin was still being used as an international language, and it remained the language of classical scholarship right through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even today some documents and treatises are composed in Latin, and of course it’s still the official written language of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican.’

She leaned forward and handed the book carefully to Bronson.

‘Our woman was buried in the first half of the nineteenth century. If she came from an educated and aristocratic family, which she probably did if her tomb is anything to go by, she might well have spoken Italian or a local dialect in daily life, but she would certainly have been able to read Latin, and probably would have used it for all her letters and written communications. Frankly, I’d have been amazed if the language in the book was anything other than Latin.’

‘So what have you translated so far?’ Bronson asked.

‘I haven’t had time to do more than glance at a few of the pages. But I’ve already found several references to blood, to its healing and rejuvenating properties, and in a couple of places there are descriptions of rituals that seem to involve drinking blood. I really think this might be a vampire’s diary.’

Bronson groaned. ‘Does this mean that our sight-seeing holiday is now going to be replaced by the two of us sitting in this hotel room translating a two-hundred-year-old diary, written by someone who thought she was a vampire?’

Angela grinned. ‘Of course not. This is just a curio. Nobody knows we found it, and it’s frankly of little or no interest to anybody except someone like me, or an historian specializing in that period of Italian or Venetian history. It’s pretty fragile, so what I will do is scan the pages into my laptop so that the text will be preserved, even if the book falls to pieces. Then I’ll take it back to London and work on it in my spare time. As far as I’m concerned, we continue with our holiday just like before.’

She looked across at Bronson. ‘Speaking of which,’ she added, ‘isn’t it about time we had something to eat? That bar of chocolate we shared on the island seems like a long time ago.’

Bronson glanced at his watch and nodded. ‘You’re absolutely right. I feel a bowl of spaghetti coming on. That family restaurant on the corner might still be open.’

‘Good idea,’ Angela said, standing up. ‘I’ll just nip down to reception and see if I can borrow their scanner, and then I’ll be ready to go.’