‘Can anyone set up as a university? Don’t there have to be standards, regulations?’
‘You have to be registered of course with the appropriate examining authority and inspected. Your qualifications have to be validated. They’ve jumped through all the right hoops. On the surface and for about a foot below they’re bona fide. It’s what lies beneath and behind…’
‘And the Boston memorial? Where did that come from?’
‘I found it in a bookshop specialising in incunabula and early manuscripts. I have quite a collection.’
‘What interested you particularly in this book?’
‘It was leafing through and realising that it was all in cipher, except that on the last blank page someone had written a key to the names represented by numbers in the text and Adrian Gilbert’s name caught my eye.’
‘You knew about him already?’
‘His name had cropped up from time to time.’
‘Dr Galton, what exactly did you give your students to read?’
‘I would prefer you to finish the whole book, or no, not perhaps that, but at least to have decided to represent me before we pursue that any further.’
I let that pass. ‘Were you able to decipher the book yourself?’ I think I know the answer to this from Amyntas’ own words that she had used a cipher of her father’s but two can play this game of testing.
‘I could read it myself. It uses a fairly common, common to the alchemists that is, set of symbols, combined with a simple alphabetical displacement code.’
‘No need for a Ventris then.’ There’s something about Galton that makes me show off in this childish way, as if we’re in some schoolboy competition. ‘I’ve sent for an information pack from Wessex to get more background on them. Maybe I’ll register for a course just to get inside. Would you be willing to pay the fee if I decide it’s the only way in?’
‘Then you’ll take my case?’
‘I still don’t know if you have one. This is just preparatory investigation.’
For the first time the irritating smugness drops away and he looks really gutted. I mustn’t start feeling sorry for the guy and give more than I’m ready to out of pity.
‘When will you make up your mind?’
‘I’ll call you,’ I say, ‘when I’ve come to some decision.’
‘Please at least pay in my cheque for what you’ve already done. Expenses must have been incurred…’
‘As long as it isn’t regarded by you as a contract.’ I type out a receipt with disclaimer and print it off. Galton signs it meekly. We shake hands. And yet I know I’ll take the case and not just because I need the bread. I’m hooked, like falling in love. You don’t feel the gaff go in that flips you gasping on to the bank, however much you twist and turn. You ignore the stab of the knives you’re suddenly walking on like the Little Mermaid, out of your rational element, in thin air that’s heady with the ecstasy of lust or power or the thrill of the chase.
I think those words of my lady’s contriving will never leave me that I learned the next day and rehearsed with Secretary Samford in the forenoon. They are here with me now in my cell and I repeat them like some old receipt against the madness that threatens, for if I should lose my reason I should indeed lose all.
The secretary began with the words of old Thenot:
I sing divine Astrea’s praise,
O Muses! Help my wittes to raise
And heave my verses higher.
Then I was to answer as Piers:
Thou needst the truth but plainly tell,
Which much I doubt thou canst not well,
Thou art so oft a liar.
And so we jousted through the verses in our litany of praise.
He:
Astrea is our chiefest joy,
Our chiefest guard against annoy,
Our chiefest wealth, our treasure.
I:
Where chiefest are, there others be
To us none else but only she.
When wilt thou speak in measure?
He:
Astrea may be justly sayd,
A field in flowry robe arrayed,
In season freshly springing.
I:
That spring endures but shortest time,
This never leaves Astrea’s clime,
Thou liest instead of singing.
Thenot:
As heavenly light that guides the day
Right so doth shine each lovely ray
That from Astrea flyeth.
Piers:
Nay darkness oft that light enclouds
Astrea’s beams no darkness shrouds.
How loudly Thenot lyeth.
Coming all too soon as it seemed to me to the last verse he began:
Then Piers of friendship tell me why,
My meaning true, my words should lie
And strive in vain to raise her.
I answered:
Words from conceit do only rise,
Above conceit her honour flies;
But silence, naught can praise her.
As we ended we both fell upon our knees before the countess, for we spoke in homage to her who was our queen indeed however she might have writ for another and greater. I was aware of the richness of her dress of her favourite white silk sewn all over with pearls and the intricacy of her lace at throat and wrists, floating gossamer against the darkness of the hall as the winter day passed, lit only by sconces and the leaping flames from the hearth. There was much applause and our lady rising to her feet clapped her hands too and cried out, ‘Excellently done. I would that her majesty herself had seen it. Let more candles be brought and the music play now for dancing. Come, Piers who would praise by silence, and lead me out. I would not have you dumb for ever.’
‘Madam, as I have never acted before so too I have never danced.’
‘It is only to put one foot before the other in time to the music. Give me your hand. You will soon learn. Was there no dancing in your father’s house?’
‘His only visitors were old grey physicians like himself.’
‘Dancing is good for body and mind. You will see you have only to observe what others do and all is easy.’
So I learned to lead my lady by her soft hand, to turn her about and gaze into her face and bow, and all the while my heart felt caged in my chest like some animal that would break forth. When the music stopped I bowed deeply and handed her to her chair where she sat fanning herself while she watched the other dancers. ‘We must have back the dancing master who taught my children so that you may learn new steps to please me, Amyntas.’
‘As my lady pleases.’
‘Your lady does please. There is no one else here I care to dance with.’
Though my head swam with pleasure at this,