The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge (31 page)

A small crowd of visitors, following an official guide, surrounded the Auriga Stone. Professor Hamid lowered his voice and bent towards her, so that his comments did not suddenly gather up a group of interested tourists. She could still see the illuminated stone.

‘The shape suggests that it was a votive offering or a talisman, actually placed in the coffin with the deceased, possibly in their right hand. It was found among the grave goods inside a coffin that had been ransacked. We are still finding untouched tombs in the Valley of the Kings, so there is a chance we may discover another of these stones. But at the moment it is unique. The text is known, indeed clearly copied, almost verbatim, from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.’

The Judge leaned towards him; they appeared to be concocting a conspiracy across the sarcophagus.

‘My assistant tells me that this prayer dates from a period over three thousand years ago. Is that correct?’

‘Maybe. It could be even older. Prayers are curious things. They often have an oral history that predates their written sources. You see, prayers are repeated like ballads. They belong to a priesthood, and a people. This prayer for the dead may well have been common property, belonging both to peasants and to kings. It may be very ancient. What is most interesting is that the eclipsing star appears to be a known phenomenon, even in these very early days of astronomy and navigation, and to have a mythic, religious significance. Almaaz is uncommonly bright; ancient mariners must have noticed that one of their guiding lights simply vanished for more than two years. The eclipsing presence is traditionally known as the Dark Host, or the Dark Presence – and we still call it that today.’

The Judge tried to identify the earnest little Professor; he called the star Almaaz, but he was clearly of Arab origin, which might account for his use of the name. Did his casual use of the plural indicate the community of scholars? She was quite certain that she had never seen him before but his voice, quiet, calm, foreign, seemed eerily familiar. I have heard this man’s voice before. She gazed at him, uneasy and intent. He spoke with such sinister, uncanny authority. She decided to draw him out.

‘Did the Egyptians attach great significance to this eclipsing star?’

‘Well, we can’t be sure. The Dark Host is clearly a metaphor for death itself. And it was found in what was once a wealthy tomb. The stone itself is humble, yet the writing suggests a priestly scribe. We are at a disadvantage because the tomb was raided, probably at the end of the nineteenth century, so that we shall never know what else was buried with this king. All the precious treasures were stolen. This modest stone, embedded with the embalmed corpse, remains our most significant find.’

The Judge watched the museum visitors gazing at the cryptic stone. Some barely glanced at the learned explanations, and then passed on. Some consulted their exhibition catalogues, others studied the chart of the stars, clearly puzzled and amazed. Do we all long for signs and wonders, the map that guides us towards salvation and eternity? Here, surrounded by the swaddled dead, the Dark Host gathered significance and power. The Judge shivered; for when the Composer had first described Epsilon Aurigae to her on the sunlit tip of Sète, poised on the edge of the sea, she had assumed that he was recounting a myth, or even making it up. But here lay a prayer to the Dark Host and the pupa of the pharaoh, who had believed in His eclipsing Presence.

‘Would you like to come into my office?’ The Professor bowed, a model of courtesy, gently pointing out a locked corridor behind the coffins of the defunct kings. ‘I can show you a little more about the stone and suggest some useful books.’

The Judge entered a long dusty room that looked more like a laboratory with a massive library of reference books hugging the walls and stacked boxes around several cluttered desks. She noticed dozens of sturdy wooden crates bearing white labels and a sprawl of shattered ceramic bricks being reconstructed like a jigsaw. A flaking lion’s head shimmered in fractured segments.

‘This is a wall from a temple in Babylon,’ explained the Professor, indicating the ruined fragments of lost empires with great pride. ‘We’re making good progress. My German colleagues in Berlin are proving most helpful.’

The tall windows were masked and dulled, so that no direct sunlight entered the room. She heard a faint tapping through an open door beyond the dusty tables, but no one else appeared.

‘Cup of tea?’ The Professor unveiled an elderly kettle and a tray of mugs. The battered white cabinet beneath was in fact a fridge. The Judge settled into her grimy surroundings; the long space felt like a shabby version of her own office with its high ceilings, cream walls and successful spiders wedged between the upper beading and the strip lights. Professor Hamid produced two small honey-and-coconut cakes in a little white box and presented them to her with a flourish. He spread out a tea cloth, aged and stained, but with the ironed creases still fresh, on the table before her and arranged the sugar and milk.

‘Are you returning to France today? Yes? A pity, for there will be some guest lectures on belief systems in the ancient world offered at my college by a Classics scholar from Cambridge. I’m based at UCL, just around the corner, but I only teach postgraduates now and precious few of them if they aren’t involved in the big research projects.’ The next statement slid easily between the cakes and mugs. ‘I gather that you are investigating that mysterious death cult known only as the Faith?’

He paused and looked at her for confirmation. The Judge gave nothing away, so the Professor continued.

‘I must say, I’m very intrigued. So few people know that it has a modern incarnation.’

The kettle boiled, and the Professor pottered about the sink, warming the tin pot, which had apparently survived many archaeological expeditions.

‘Is the Faith very ancient then?’ demanded the Judge, mightily annoyed. At last he had touched her defences. ‘I’ve been researching the matter on and off for six years, and apart from some German texts and eighteenth-century symbols which could have been filched from the Freemasons, I couldn’t find any historical trace of the sect, or indeed of any suspicious mass suicides.’

‘Ah, that’s because they aren’t a suicide sect as such. They believe in the dark world, a life beyond this life. And the only person who would know who they all were at any time would be the Guide.’

The Judge sensed a rush of cold in her legs and spine. ‘I thought that the Guide was a book.’

‘It is. A very sacred, holy book. We have lots of quotations from that text in other sources. It is a kind of encyclopaedia, a glossary with which we can decipher other texts. But it is mostly written in a code that no one has yet been able to fathom. It is intelligible only to initiates.’

‘But you said that the Guide was a person.’

‘Both a person and a book, according to my information. The Guide is the Keeper of the Book, just as I am the Keeper of the Stones.’

He waggled the teapot at her and delivered a jovial chuckle. The Judge gazed at him, horrified that all this knowledge lurked in a department of classical antiquities just two hours’ flight away from her office, and had never been discovered. She began to justify herself, as if the little Professor had just accused her of professional incompetence.

‘But I couldn’t find out anything about the Faith when the first suicides occurred in Switzerland. We knew nothing of this history. Or this stone.’

Then she fixed him, accusing. ‘Is all this common knowledge among scholars of the ancient world? I found no references to the Faith. None. Anywhere. How do you know?’

But Professor Hamid was pouring tea and offering her a steaming chipped mug.

‘I have no lemon. Do you mind milk? Please forgive me.’

‘I’ll take milk. Thank you.’ She waited for him to begin again.

‘Well, the Faith certainly is a very ancient creed. And no, very little has ever been written about the Faith itself, its theology and significance. It is like a shadow; it exists in the margins of other faiths. Akhenaton, the famous pharaoh who attempted, unsuccessfully, to introduce an abstract monotheism to his people, is suspected of being one of them, if not the Guide himself. All we have are their prayers. And most beautiful they are too. That prayer on the stone outside is quite specific and mentions the Dark Host, a key figure in their cosmology. The pharaoh who was buried with that prayer in his hand must have been a member of the Faith. So yes, it is over five thousand years old.’

The Judge avoided his eye and frowned at her fingernails. ‘Professor Hamid, I believe that I have a copy of the Guide locked up in the safe at my office.’

‘Ah. You have it. Are you sure?’ He whistled. ‘I would give anything to hold the Book of the Faith in my hands.’

There was a terrible pause, and the two stared at each other, hesitant with revelation. Then he said, ‘Madame Carpentier, I do not believe that you are aware how precious that treasure in your possession actually is. Take care of it, Madame, for it is almost certainly the only copy that now exists. Only one ever exists at any one time throughout the long serpent of creation. And it is passed on, along with the knowledge of the Faith, to the next Guide.’

The Judge sat before him, transfixed, balancing her mug of tea. The Professor continued, his voice even, each word careful, measured. But there was no mistaking the menace, or the command.

‘You must return the Guide to its Keeper. For that is where it belongs. The guardian of the Guide bears a sacred trust. The law has no business harbouring this holy text, for it is a book of secrets. And some cruel harm will come to you if you do not give it back.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Ah! The Guide is like a Grimoire. You do not have the key. The person who knows most about the Faith, and who has helped me with the Auriga Stone, is Friedrich Grosz, the Composer. And I believe you already know him, do you not?’

The Judge froze, as if facing a cobra, with raised head and outstretched hood, but the Professor pattered softly on, never raising his voice, a civilised intellectual negotiating an ordinary moment in an ordinary world.

‘He came to London last week to set up our little exhibition. He told me you would soon be here.’ The Professor beamed and raised the teapot, in gentle impatience, as if he was explaining the obvious. ‘And here you are!’

15

THE CHÂTEAU IN SWITZERLAND

The Auriga Stone claimed pride of place among the new postcards at the British Museum. The Judge bought two, one for the file and one for herself. Then she strode out of the museum into damp sunlight and traffic fumes, reached the midpoint of the courtyard and stopped dead. She stood, caught between the great fluted columns and the spiked black gates, puzzled, angry and confused. Am I a puppet to be pushed to and fro by these mysterious people? And could I arrest the lot if I knew who they were? On what charge? There were no small children among the first departure and the murderers among the second mass of suicides are all dead. All except one. There is at least one killer still out there and we are still looking for the gun. But that’s not my business. I must leave Schweigen something to do.

She began to walk in a large circle. Every citizen is free to believe what he or she likes, we’re all free to believe any madness we choose, as long as we don’t break the law. And if the donations to the orchestra are declared, and within the tax limits, then no law has been broken. Am I wasting my time chasing ghosts? The Faith is a chimera, an ancient cistern, now emptying out. It poses no danger to us, any more than Isis and Osiris. And I’d lay money on the proposition that every single obsolete god that ever possessed a temple, grove or holy well still has a band of faithful disciples, holed up somewhere in the mountains, sacrificing goats.

She paced the forecourt of the British Museum in a tightening circle, then stepped out into the street and flagged down a black taxi.

_{*  *  *}

But the curious events of the summer, now dying slowly and peacefully, cooling into the vendanges and la rentrée, the eternal rhythm of the school year and the grape harvest, would not settle in her mind. She added another report to her file on the Faith, giving in full every single detail of her discussion with the Professor, and continued with her usual round of work, in which the ubiquitous sects played only one small part. Schweigen’s piecemeal research into the finances of the orchestra had so far revealed only one thing. Many wealthy lovers of music supported the enterprise magnificently, anonymously, and in line with the tax laws. The list of names remained incomplete; the work continued. Schweigen’s double frustration thundered down the lines from Strasbourg; the file was on its way and his wonderful excuse to see the Judge had evaporated. She sent back two sentences. Thanks very much. At least we know. Once more the investigation came to a dead halt within the maze. The only solid element in the inquiry, which flickered like a beacon, persistent, unseen, was the Composer himself. And he too was silent. No more letters, no more calls. Had he ceased to pursue her? She did not believe this. She kept his three letters in her briefcase and read them all, one after another, whenever she was alone, biting her lip.