Academic Exercises (23 page)

“Please,” I said. “Sit down.”

He didn’t move, and I realised that the only other chair in the room was piled up with books. I grabbed them and spilled them on the floor. It was the gesture of an idiot. He sat down. I looked round for something to offer him, but both decanters were empty, which was probably just as well.

I sat down opposite him, with the desk between us, for all the world as though he was a student in a tutorial. Just like a student, he sat there still and quiet—I hate it when they do that; I’m not one of your natural showmen. I never really know where to start.

I cleared my throat. “What can I do for you?” I said.

He looked at me. His nose really was quite thin at the bridge, as in the Corolles portrait. Treblaeus, of course, got round that by painting him three-quarter face; how to lie and tell the truth at the same time. “Allow me to congratulate you,” he said.

What the hell was I supposed to say to that? “Thank you.”

He slid his elbows out onto the arms of the chair. It should have been a magnificent gesture denoting confidence and power, but the chair was my father’s, and he was a big man. Therefore, the arms were a bit too wide apart, and made the duke look like a chicken. Of course, there’s never a mirror when you need one. “As you may know,” he went on, “I’ve been a keen amateur student of the Essecuivo question for many years. I’ve read your work on the subject. I find it impressive.”

The Invincible Sun leans down out of the clouds, pats you on the head and says
well done
. That’s nice, and you hope he’ll go away quickly. But the duke had settled in my chair like a besieging army. I kept my face shut. He peered at the books on the shelf opposite, then looked back at me. “The manuscript,” he said. “A triumph.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of bringing it with me.”

Now that really did knock me sideways. When I discovered it in the Ancusi archives, quite naturally they went berserk. The thought that something like that, something worth such a very, very large sum of money, had been sitting in their damp loft for three hundred years drove them wild. They moved it to the jewellery safe, hired forty armed guards and immediately opened negotiations with the Treasury with a view to making sure this priceless treasure stayed in the Republic. I believe the discussions stalled at two hundred thousand angels. Meanwhile, apart from me and scholars with my personal accreditation,
nobody
was allowed near it.

Almost nobody. He wiggled a fingertip, and a third kettlehat I hadn’t even noticed sprang forward holding a silver-gilt tube. It was a real work of art, embossed with Essecuivo personified handing a cornucopia to the Spirit of the Republic. He must’ve had it made specially, probably overnight.

The kettlehat made a show of pulling on a pair of brand new white cotton gloves. Then he brushed all my books and papers off the desk onto the floor—the duke gave him a dirty look for that, but I don’t see what else the poor man could’ve done—opened the tube and laid my manuscript out on the desk.

Not the first time it had been there, of course. In fact, I’d grown used to seeing it there, while I was making it, and I had to tell myself, this is the first time it’s left the Ancusi, this is a special moment. It felt strange, though; like being formally introduced to your son and having to pretend you don’t know him.

“Now then.” The duke put his hand inside his coat and produced a pair of gold-framed pince-nez. I was stunned. As soon as he put them on, he changed out of all recognition. “Ah yes.” He’d thrust his hand out over the parchment; he was touching it, no white cotton gloves. I was appalled. How dare he. Not appalled enough, mind you, to say anything.

He looked up at me. “No map reference,” he said.

“No.”

“Which I confess I found rather strange.” He took the pince-nez off and put them down
on the manuscript
. I twitched, but kept still. I could see the kettlehats watching me. In their line of work, of course, you have to be able to interpret the smallest warning signs. “Because in the
Navigation
, Aeneas explicitly states that he calculated the co-ordinates of Essecuivo in order to plot his course home.”

Not true, in fact. He implies, but doesn’t state. For some reason, I didn’t put him straight.

“Therefore,” he went on, “you would expect to find detailed map references in the manuscript.”

Pause. My cue. I nodded.

He leaned back in the chair. It made a sort of soft creaking noise. Like I said, my father was a big man and he used to tip it onto its back legs. There’s only so much abuse tenons and wood glue can stand. I prayed to the Invincible Sun without moving my lips. “I’ve been studying Aeneas—in an entirely amateur capacity, of course—for twenty years,” he went on, “during which time I evolved a theory of my own about the circumstances in which this book was written, and the reason why it wasn’t with the rest of Aeneas’ papers at his death. Would you care to hear it?”

“Oh yes.”

He smiled. I’d said the right thing.

Shortly after his return from Essecuivo (the duke said), Aeneas quarrelled with his son Dives. The cause of the disagreement was Dives’ refusal to marry the daughter of a neighbouring landowner, a match desirable for dynastic and territorial reasons but not to Dives’ taste, since his affections were engaged elsewhere. This quarrel is evidenced by passing references in the letters of the neighbouring family, which had lain in obscurity for centuries until the duke, whose tenants the family were, recognised their importance. (He had brought along transcripts for me to see; he’d even had them notarised, so I’d know they were genuine) As a result of the quarrel, Aeneas took legal advice from the leading lawyer of the day (whose files the duke had been allowed to see, since the lawyer’s descendants acted for him in property transactions) and was told that although he couldn’t prevent his son from inheriting all his land and real property, because of a complex entail I didn’t really understand, he was at liberty to disinherit him with regard to movable goods, ready money and choses in action—

Choses in action (the duke seemed disappointed that I needed to ask) means valuable but insubstantial assets—debts, promises to pay, the benefit of contracts, that sort of thing. Aeneas’ principal chose in action was, of course, his knowledge of the whereabouts of Essecuivo. Not only was this knowledge valuable as a potential resource, it had immediate value in that Aeneas had entered into a partnership with six leading merchants (exhibit three; a notarised copy of the agreement) for the exploitation of Essecuivo and division of the profits. Aeneas was to get sixty-six per cent of the net, but he hadn’t put in any money. Instead, he’d agreed to disclose the map reference.

From what he knew of his partners, so he told his lawyer, he didn’t trust them to honour the agreement. They were perfectly capable, if they contrived to find the co-ordinates from some other source, of cutting him out and keeping all the profits themselves. Furthermore, they would have no scruples about suborning Aeneas’ clerks, servants or even family members in order to get the information they needed.

Therefore (the duke went on) Aeneas had a very good reason for not committing the co-ordinates to paper, or at least not in any document liable to be read by anyone he couldn’t absolutely trust—into which category his son no longer fell. On the other hand, it would have been the height of folly to rely on his memory alone. He had to write it down, but in such a form that only he would be able to read it. In other words, he’d have written it in code.

(I wanted to object at this point, but I got looked at and decided not to.)

As I myself had proved (the duke went on) Aeneas gave the manuscript to his niece; a silly, frivolous girl, according to the traditions of the family she married into; just the sort of featherbrain who’d let her cousin Dives look at or even take away the manuscript if he asked her nicely enough. And yet, where else would the co-ordinates be but in the book itself? Aeneas had written it principally as an aide-memoire—not for publication, since the information it contained needed to be kept secret, because of his agreement with his partners. Therefore the coded information must be in the text somewhere.

And that, the duke said, was as far as he’d been able to go without the manuscript itself; except for one final fragment, which he’d come across two years ago in the library of the Connani.

(I couldn’t help myself. “The Connani let you look at their archives?”

He frowned. “Of course.”

“Scholars have been trying to get access for
centuries
.”

He looked at me down that long, thin nose. “Well,” he said. “They’re quite particular about that sort of thing.”)

He’d found a letter—notarised copy herewith—from Manius Connanus to a friend of his I’d never heard of, some long-forgotten country squire, in which he mentioned in passing that his cousin Orthosius had lent the services of one of his clerks, a specialist in illuminated lettering, to none other than the celebrated Aeneas Peregrinus—you know, the bounder who came back from abroad with all that money. For some unexplained reason, Peregrinus was obsessed with finding a clerk of unimpeachable integrity and discretion, bribe-, blackmail- and threat-proof; Orthosius’ man had been with the family for fifty years, and Orthosius owed Aeneas rather a lot of money. In exchange for a day of the clerk’s time, Aeneas forgave Orthosius the debt. What an odd thing to do, can you credit it &c.

“And that,” the duke said, his voice suddenly urgent, “was the clue I’d been looking for. Suddenly it all made sense.”

I was still reeling from all of that. Fury at the thought that there was all that wonderful Aeneas material out there, and the selfishness and arrogance of the aristocracy had kept me from knowing it even existed; pure unalloyed lust at the thought of the paper I could write, if only I could persuade the duke to leave those notarised copies with me. “Excuse me?” I said.

“The capitals,” the duke said impatiently—surely I’d figured it out for myself, a clever fellow like me. “The red illuminated capital letters at the start of each paragraph.” He scowled at me, the way my tutors used to do when I was being particularly slow on the uptake. “I don’t need to remind you of all people of the intense interest in numerology in educated circles at that time.”

He was quite right, of course. In Aeneas’ day, it was the latest fashion. Society necromancers would tell you your fortune by adding up the numerical value of your name—A is one, B is two and so on—adding it to your birthdate, subtracting your eldest child’s middle name, multiplying by the distance in miles between your birthplace and the Golden Temple—whatever it took, in fact, to arrive at an auspicious number which would enable the soothsayer to give you the fortune you wanted in the first place. I believe they still go in for it now in the country.

And yes, just the sort of thing Aeneas would’ve been interested in. He had a superstitious streak (black cats, magpies, all that nonsense) and just enough of the scientific mindset to make him an easy touch for all the astrologers, alchemists, metaphysicians and other chancers who passed for scientists in those days. Now I came to think of it, he owned Priscian’s
True Mirror
, Stellianus’
Many & Diverse Arts
and a couple of other numerological texts; they’re mentioned in an inventory made just before he sailed. Of course, the duke must’ve known that.

Even so. “Excuse me?”

He sighed. “I believe,” he said, “that if you were to find the numerical values of the illuminated capitals in the manuscript, taken together they’d prove to be the co-ordinates of Essecuivo—hidden, you might say, in plain sight. Why else would he hire a scribe specialising in illuminated capitals, at extraordinary expense, insisting on a man of flawless integrity?” He paused, watching me like a terrier beside a hayrick. “Well?”

The true horror of my position broke in on me like the dawn. For one thing, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was right—in which case, he’d pulled off a coup of scholarship I’d have gladly sold my soul for a few weeks earlier. As a scholar, I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside me, in spite of everything. I was also acutely aware that the illuminated capitals in the manuscript, so painstakingly created using only the finest and most authentic materials, had been chosen by me—not exactly at random, but the effect was bound to be the same.

“Well?” he repeated.

At that moment I longed for a counterargument. All through my academic life, I’ve had a special knack of being able to come up with quibbles, objections, plausible doubts, even when I know the hypothesis I’m arguing against is rock-solid correct. It’s a gift to which I owe my rapid advancement, a weapon I’ve used unsparingly against better men who happen to be marginally less mentally agile than me. And now, at the moment when I needed it most, it deserted me.

I did my best. I called into question the reliability of the sources, the value of hearsay evidence, the timings, the prosopography, certain fine points of semantic interpretation. The duke fended off each attack with the calm patience of a master, supporting each refutation with arguments and citations that made me all the more convinced that he was perfectly correct. After half an hour of this sorry performance, he’d backed me into a corner and I could dodge and weave no longer. I surrendered as gracefully as I could, and he actually smiled at me.