Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“Here’s something to take your mind off your troubles,” she said. “Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s the real thing.”

“The codex of Marjean.” Blayne said the words like they were a prayer or some magical incantation. Tears stood out in the corners of his watery blue eyes as he slowly turned the thick vellum pages.

“Where did you get it, Sasha?” he asked. There was fear in his eyes now, supplanting the first look of wonder.

“Cade had it all the time,” she said. “It’s a long story, and I can’t tell it to you now. I need you to look at this.”

Carefully, Sasha opened out the folded sheet of notepaper with the series of numbers in columns that she had first seen in Cade’s study, when Silas had taken the codex out of his father’s chess box.

“This was inside the codex,” she said. “I need to know what it means.”

“It’s Cade’s handwriting. I recognize the way he wrote his sevens. They were always distinctive,” said Blayne, examining the paper. “It must be his key to the code.”

“I know that,” said Sasha impatiently. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the past three days? I’ve tried everything, but they’re numbers, not letters. You can’t read numbers.”

“The numbers must be telling you the position of the letters in the codex,” said Blayne quietly. He was holding the piece of paper in one hand and comparing it with the first page of the codex. “How extraordinary,” he went on after a moment. “It must have taken him more than ten years to get this far.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of the dates. We can assume Cade got possession of the codex in 1944, and then he went to France and got shot in 1956. Twelve long years. And all the time he can’t have known that there was a code to break at all. He was in the dark. The frustration must have been terrible.”

“You don’t know it was twelve years. It’s just a guess that he went to Mar-jean in 1956 because of the codex.”

“Maybe. But it’s a good guess.”

“I don’t care what kind of guess it is,” said Sasha, unable to contain her irritation. “I haven’t got twelve years. I need to know what these numbers mean now.”

“Well, the first thing you need to do is stop thinking like that, Sasha. Good codes are like the insides of old clocks. You have to work on them slowly. And you need to get inside the mind of the man who made the code in the first place. He didn’t think like we do.”

Sasha clenched her fists, trying to hold back her exasperation, and her father smiled.

“You used to do that when you were a child,” he said. “Look, don’t despair, Sasha. We have Cade’s key. And with it the knowledge that there is a code and that it can be cracked. There will be pleasure in this for me. It will make me forget my landlady for a little while. I’m very grateful to you.”

Sasha couldn’t help laughing. She felt relieved: if anyone could decipher Cade’s key, it would be her father. She could tell from the look in his eye that his curiosity was aroused. She didn’t need to worry that he wouldn’t do his best.

She got up to leave, but at the door he called her back. There was a look of anxiety on his face, and he had put the codex back on the table. His hands were trembling more than ever.

“What if I do crack this code, Sasha? What will you do then?” he asked. His voice was full of fear.

Sasha stood in the doorway without answering. She didn’t need to. Blayne knew the answer to his own question.

“You’ll go to France just like he did, won’t you?” he said. “And something terrible will happen to you.”

“No, it won’t. I can look after myself.”

“How? You’re a woman on your own, and he had that man Ritter with him. From what you tell me, he was lucky to come home alive.”

“I’ll be more careful. I’ve told you before, Daddy. I’ve come too far to stop now.”

“Maybe. But I haven’t. I don’t need to look at this book,” said Blayne, making a show of pushing it away.

“Ah, but you will,” said Sasha with a smile, “I know you too well. It’s in your blood. And whatever you find out, you owe it to me to tell me.”

“So you can kill yourself with my blessing?”

“No, I won’t kill myself,” said Sasha, crossing over to her father and putting her hand on his shoulder. “I tell you what I’ll do. If you crack the code, we’ll decide what to do with it together. And, in the meantime, you must take this, and I’ll go to the pawnbroker and get your things back.”

Sasha had put three ten-pound notes on the codex as she spoke, and now she picked up the pawn ticket and kissed her father on the crown of his head before turning to leave.

“It probably won’t matter anyway,” he muttered. “The codex didn’t take Cade to the cross, and he cracked the code.”

Sasha opened her mouth to respond, but then thought better of it. Let her father console himself with such reflections if he wanted to, she thought. They did no harm. And there was no reason why she needed to tell her father how much she believed in the codex. The book would take her to the cross. She was sure of it. Cade’s failure didn’t deter her. He had simply taken a wrong turn somewhere. That was all.

At the door she glanced back into the room and saw that he had picked up Cade’s sheet of notepaper again and was running his shaking finger up and down the list of numbers.

The sight renewed Sasha’s optimism, and she took the stairs two at a time. Outside she made for the High Street. She could get a bus there to take her home. She smiled at the word. A bed, a chair, and a wardrobe didn’t make a home. But the room was safe and warm. And she could close her eyes and go to sleep, secure in the knowledge that Silas and his cameras were far away and that she had got from him all that she had ever wanted.

She leant against a recess in the wall opposite Queen’s College and idly watched the passing cars. It was the rush hour and the traffic was moving slowly in both directions. Soon a red light farther down the road brought the flow on her side to a complete halt, and her eyes rested on a black Jaguar that had stopped almost parallel with where she was standing. There was a man driving, and a woman beside him in the passenger seat. They were obviously arguing. The woman was gesticulating almost violently with her hands, and the man kept twisting around toward her to deliver a flurry of angry words before turning back to check the road in front of him.

With a start Sasha recognised Stephen’s girlfriend, Mary. She hadn’t seen her since the night of the murder. And now here she was, arguing with this strange foreign-looking man inside an expensive car. There was something about his high cheekbones and narrow eyes that made Sasha uneasy. Of course there was nothing wrong with Mary’s finding another man to spend her time with, given where Stephen was heading. But the choice seemed strange. Mary had struck her as so sweet natured and devoted to Stephen when she had visited the manor house in the week before Cade’s murder, and yet here she was now with this hard-looking man. He looked capable of anything. Involuntarily, Sasha turned away from the car and faced the wall, pretending to look for something in her empty briefcase. Without knowing why, she realised that she didn’t want Mary to see her. The ploy seemed to have been successful, for when she turned back a minute later, the Jaguar had disappeared from view, and her bus was coming up the road toward her.

Sasha settled herself into a corner seat and thought of the Marjean codex open on her father’s table. He would translate Cade’s numbers into letters. She was sure of it. And the letters would tell her the way to St. Peter’s cross. Cade had failed to find it, but she wouldn’t make the same mistakes. It was her destiny to have it. She knew it was. Closing her eyes, Sasha pictured the cross in her hands. The wood was ancient, cut from one of the oak trees that used to grow in such profusion on the hills around Jerusalem. Jesus Christ had been nailed to it by the Jews, and Simon Peter had worn it around his neck until the Romans crucified him too. The jewels had come later. They authenticated the cross and made it heavy, too heavy to wear according to the old authors. They spoke of great uncut rubies and emeralds, sapphires and diamonds, and Sasha imagined the lights of the gemstones mixing together in the candlelight of Charlemagne’s church to create a precious rainbow, an earthly representation of the lights of heaven. Sasha longed for the cross. It was a wonder of the world, worth nothing less than everything to obtain.