Chapter 32
Duncan gathered with the others around the table. Laurent opened the cover and revealed yellowed pages, age-crinkled and slightly splotched in places, as if Saint-Germain’s incendiary chemical had pooled in spots.
The title page held a single line of introductory script, written in French with a bit of flourish. Despite having already shared these words, Laurent read them aloud again.
“C’est là que réside le secret de mon immortalité. Viens me trouver si tu l'oses.”
Sharyn whispered the translation. “Herein lies the secret to my immortality. Come find me, if you dare.”
Laurent turned several pages with great care. They showed dense lines of writing, inscribed in neat rows, demonstrating the precise work of a man of science. Even a casual perusal showed it contained a mix of many languages, mostly European, including Latin, but also sections of cursive Arabic.
Archie, ever the linguist, noted the same, pointing to one such section and raising a concern.
“There are no diacritical marks in the Arabic, which normally represent the vowels in their written language. It’s like he’s making it a more challenging read, forcing you to fill in the blanks.
It’s also written backward. Normally Arabic is written from right to left.
This is running in the opposite direction. ”
“Which was likely done—along with the jumble of languages—as a means of simple encryption,” Laurent explained. “We believe this opening quarter of the book was meant to be a minor challenge, requiring the reader to prove his fluency in many tongues, while adding obstacles, as you’ve noted.”
Sharyn pointed to another passage as he flipped through pages. “That’s mirror writing, where he’s reversed his cursive. I saw examples of the same in a seventeenth-century text back at the Old Library at Exeter.”
“Da Vinci used it, too, in his own journals,” Duncan noted.
“Again, another crude form of encryption. And perhaps a nod to Leonardo himself.”
As Laurent skipped ahead, Duncan noted the manuscript was also illuminated with beautiful sketches: of people, of animals, both real and fanciful. Sharyn forced Laurent to stop at several, so she could appreciate the vibrant colors and brilliant pigments.
Duncan remembered Sir Kelly’s account of the alchemist’s skill with drawing and painting, including his introduction of novel oils and dyes.
Naomi finally raised a question that had surely grown in all their minds. “If this opening section was so easy to decipher—nearly a quarter of the book from the looks of it—what does it say?”
Laurent leaned back and cracked his neck after hunching for so long. “All these neatly inscribed and illustrated pages tell the story of the man’s life, of his travels. Though, they still leave his origins cloaked. Very frustratingly so, I might add.”
“What did you learn?” Sharyn asked. “From those illuminated drawings, it appears he traveled to many corners of the globe. There was that African lion, captured in mid-leap. A sketch of Stonehenge. Another nearly architectural model of the Taj Mahal. And a painting of an Egyptian merchant ship.” She turned to Naomi for her expertise. “Right?”
“A felucca,” Naomi agreed.
“It is indeed an account of his many travels,” Laurent agreed.
“A true travelogue, if you will. It starts with his youth, in his late teens or early twenties, when he spent a chunk of his life journeying throughout the Arabian Peninsula. From the palaces of shahs to landmarks across the Holy Lands. And, yes, he did spend a year in Africa, where he must have seen that lion. But as he grew older, his travels expanded. He moved on to serve in the court of Catherine the Great in Russia. Then to India, even the Orient, following the Silk Road.”
“So he stamped his passport well,” Archie noted. “But what did he gain by all of this?”
Laurent turned to him, his expression incredulous, as if the answer were obvious.
“Knowledge. That is what he acquired. From a hundred ports. From a thousand roads. From many times that in the people he met. Similar to his time spent in Paris, he consulted with scientists and alchemists of every ilk, at every stop. But more importantly—and I think this is the most critical—he built a network of the same. Savants and scholars from all fields of study.”
“Why is this so critical?” Duncan asked.
“Because ultimately the myth of Saint-Germain was larger than one man. He represented an enlightened movement, one that spread wider in his wake, grew ever larger with time. When he eventually arrived in Paris, he brought that knowledge with him. But he also maintained his connection to this network and leaned on them. There are many accounts where Saint-Germain would disappear for long spells of time.”
“You think he went off to commune with this larger organization,” Sharyn said.
“I do. Even his warning about the French Revolution, which came a full decade before it broke out, came not from any prophetic foretelling, but from a reading of political and societal trends that he had gained from his network. Many of his contemporaries believed Saint-Germain founded the Freemasons, maybe even the Rosicrucians, but this was more likely born from some sense of the greater network tied to him.”
Naomi frowned. “That’s all well and good, but what does it have to do with this book on the table?”
Laurent hovered a hand over the splayed pages. “While many in the Gardiens will argue otherwise, I think Saint-Germain’s opening line to his diary was a nod to this network. It is this movement, not the man, that is immortal.”
Sharyn’s eyes grew larger. “And you think that’s what he wants us to ultimately uncover. This network of the enlightened.”
“To bring them out of the shadows and into the light.”
“Does the diary reveal anything else about this mysterious group?” Tag asked.
“Very little. It tells of its start, some of its growth, but not its end.”
Duncan frowned. “Why did he stop?”
“I know why.” Laurent flipped through to the deeper sections of the book, where the writing became more erratic, the drawings more skeletal and sketchier.
Even Duncan could recognize the haste and urgency depicted.
“It was fear. Maybe of premature discovery. Maybe sensing the ignoble forces closing upon him.”
Laurent stopped at a page that showed the rough sketch of a pointed star, a crude version of the symbol embossed on the cover. Only here, it featured a skull at the center, as if giving form to Saint-Germain’s anxieties.
“This thin section relates to Saint-Germain’s construction of this book itself.
He likely bound the opening diary section into his new construction or rewrote it inside.
Either way, the man’s goal abruptly changes afterward, and he starts to lay out his three Adages, his three encrypted messages that could ultimately lead to this hidden group. ”
Laurent continued through to the title page of the next section, where the Latin words Adagium Primum—the First Adage—were crisply inscribed.
The writing was also encircled by a ring of animals: monkeys, hippos, giraffes, etc.
All the beasts were from Africa. This was further confirmed as Laurent turned more pages, revealing beautifully illuminated maps of the continent, along with illustrations of flora and fauna.
Written around and across much of the drawings were lines and patches of the same urgent writing, all in an unknown language—or at least unknown to Duncan.
He glanced to Archie, who merely shrugged, just as mystified.
Sharyn made Laurent slow down. “This is the section that the Gardiens eventually decrypted? Leading to a site in Africa—”
“In Libya,” Laurent clarified.
“Where you uncovered the cache of Solomonic gold.”
“And lost it.”
Duncan pictured his grandfather—who had served in that same desert and later moved on to guard Bletchley Park and its team of decoders, which included his grandmother.
And now I’m here, continuing where they left off.
Laurent turned the pages with more haste, as if too angry or ashamed to linger. He finally reached a page inscribed in a similar pattern as the First Adage. Again, the same handsome lettering spelled out words in Latin, Adagium Secundum.
Only this spread of pages was adorned by a garden of flowers, painted in hues of blue and purple, with brilliant green leaves. They looked so real one was tempted to pluck them from the paper.
Laurent stopped there and stared at their group. “In the past, the Gardiens lost the first treasure. We must not lose the second. Right now, we find ourselves in the same straits as Saint-Germain when he delivered his book to Countess d’Adhémar, with the same enemy closing in on us.”
“And you expect us to decrypt this section?” Duncan challenged him. “Something your group has struggled to do for decades.”
“I do.”
The doors to the library opened. Gabriel and his mother Anna entered, but they did not bring in lunch. They both cradled shotguns, covering the only exit.
Laurent never took his eyes off their group. “You must . . . if you wish to live.”