Mario Reading - The Nostradamus prophecies

Bale slept for a little after that. He seemed to drift in and out of consciousness like a man given too little ether before an operation.

At one point he thought he heard footsteps coming up the stairs and he pulled himself up on the side of the bed and waited, for fi ve endless minutes, with his pistol at the ready. Then he slipped back into unconsciousness.

He awoke to a noise in the kitchen. This time it was certain. The rattling of pots. Someone was making themselves coffee. Bale could almost hear the pop of the butane gas. Smell the grounds.

He had to eat. To drink. The noise in the kitchen would disguise his footsteps. If there were two of them, tant pis. He would kill them both. He had the element of surprise on his side. The flics apparently thought he was on his way to Cap Camarat. That was a good thing. They must figure he had escaped their cordon sanitaire. They would be standing down in their droves.

If he drove out in a police car, they would be flummoxed. He could dress up in one of their uniforms. Wear sunglasses.

In the middle of the night?

Bale shook his head slowly. Why did he have no energy anymore? Why did he doze so much?

Water. He needed water. He would die without water. The blood loss had merely compounded the issue.

He forced himself to his feet. Then, holding the Redhawk down by his side, he stumbled towards the stairs.

Sabir held the bamboo tube out in front of him and cracked the wax seal. A strange odour assailed his nostrils. He allowed his mind to wander for a moment. The scent was sweet and warm and earthy at the same time. Frankincense? Yes, that was it. He held the tube to his nose and inhaled. Incredible. How had the scent stayed sealed inside the tube so long?

Sabir tapped the tube on the table. Some resin fell out. He felt the first pinpricks of anxiety. Could the frankincense have been used as a conservation agent? Or was the tube merely an incense container? Sabir tapped the tube again, this time a little harder and a little more fretfully. A thin roll of parchment tumbled on to his lap.

Sabir unrolled the parchment and spread it hastily out on to the table. It covered an area approximately six inches by eight. There was writing on both sides. In groups of four lines. It was the quatrains.

Sabir began the count. Twenty-six quatrains on one side. A further twenty-six on the other. He could feel the tension building inside his chest.

He pulled a sheet of paper towards him. Adhering scrupulously to the text, he copied down the first quatrain. Then he began his first tentative translation.

Calque looked across at the Countess. They were alone in the room, just as the Countess had insisted when Calque had requested the interview. ‘So your son wants to come home?’

The Countess waved her hand in irritation, like someone trying to disperse a bad smell. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Calque sighed. ‘My people intercepted a telephone call, Madame. Between your son and your footman, Milouins. The same footman found attempting to lock your secret meeting chamber. Your son used Milouins name, so we are certain of our facts.’

‘How do you know it was my son? Milouins may receive calls from whomever he likes. I am extremely tolerant with my servants. Unlike some people I know.’

‘Your son introduced himself as the Count.’

The Countess’s eyes went dead. ‘I’ve never heard anything so absurd. My son has not called here for years. I told you. He left to join the Legion. Against my express instructions, I should add. I can’t understand why you are harassing us in this manner.’

‘Milouins passed your son a message.’

‘Don’t be so silly.’

‘The message consisted of one word. A German word. Fertigmachen .’

‘I don’t speak German. Neither, I believe, does Milouins.’

‘ Fertigmachen means to end something. Or someone.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. It can also mean to kill oneself.’

‘Are you accusing me of asking my son to kill himself? Please, Captain. Give me credit for a modicum of maternal solicitude.’

‘No. I believe you were asking your son to kill someone else. A man named Sabir. To kill Sabir and to make an end of the matter. I should tell you now that Sabir is in our protective custody. If your son attempts to murder him, he will be caught.’

‘You said “to kill Sabir and make an end of the matter”. What matter can you possibly be referring to?’

‘I know about the Corpus Maleficus, Madame. I’ve read the document you keep in the hidden room.’

‘You know nothing about the Corpus Maleficus, Captain. And you did not read the document you cite. It is in cipher. You are trying to bluff me and I won’t have it.’

‘Aren’t you concerned about your son’s actions?’

‘Deeply concerned, Captain. Is that what you want me to say? Deeply concerned.’

‘Cipher experts will soon decrypt the parchment.’

‘I think not.’

‘But you know what it says?’

‘Of course. My husband taught it to me verbatim when we first married. It is written in a language known only to an inner circle of chosen adepts. But I am an old woman now. I have entirely forgotten both the contents and the language. Just as I have forgotten the content of this conversation.’

‘I think you are an evil woman, Madame. I think you are behind whatever your son is doing and that you are happy to consign him to the Devil, if that accords with your and your society’s, interests.’

‘You are talking nonsense, Captain. And you are entirely out of your depth. What you say is pure speculation. Any jury would laugh you out of court.’

Calque stood up.

A strange look passed over the Countess’s face. ‘And you are wrong in another thing as well. I would never consign my son to the Devil, Captain. Never to the Devil. I can assure you of that.’

As he approached the final step in the seemingly endless line of stone steps leading to the ground floor, Bale slipped. He fell heavily against the wall – so heavily that he grunted in surprise when his shattered shoulder was caught a glancing blow by the balustrade.

Sabir sat up straighter in his chair. The police. They must have left someone here after all. Perhaps the man had simply crept upstairs to take a nap? It had been incredibly stupid of him not to have checked the house out before he settled down to start work.

Sabir gathered his papers together and went to stand with his back to the fire. There wasn’t time to make for the door. Best to bluff it out. He could always claim that he had needed to come back for some of his belongings. The dictionary and the wad of papers would bear him out.

Bale emerged around the corner of the living-room door like an apparition fresh from the grave. His face was deathly pale and his clotted eyes, in the light cast by the candles, resembled those of a demon. There was blood splattered down his front and more blood smeared like an oil slick across his neck and shoulder. He held a pistol in his left hand and as Sabir watched, horror-struck, Bale raised the pistol and brought it to bear on him.

For probably the first and only time in his life, Sabir acted entirely on impulse. He threw the dictionary at Bale and in the exact same movement he twisted in place until he was on his knees, facing the fire. A split second before the sound of the shot, Sabir thrust the original parchment and his paper copy deep into the flames.

Sabir awoke with no idea of where he was. He tried to move but could not. A fearful, noxious odour assailed his nostrils. He attempted to free his arms but they were immersed in a kind of mud. The mud reached to just above his collarbone, leaving his head free. Sabir frantically tried to lever himself out, but he only slipped deeper into the morass.