David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Dejected, she turned on the bedside lamp, reached for the switch that extinguished the overhead light, and slumped on the bed, propping pillows behind her, continuing to scan the book.

She could understand why her mother had found it boring. The book was an elaborate essay, not a narrative, and its stilted English translation tried to recreate the feel of medieval Spanish. It was crammed with homilies and abstractions.

According to the introduction, The Dove's Neck Ring had been extremely popular in its day, often copied by hand; the printing press had not yet been invented. Eventually the book had made its way upward through Spain to southern France, where in the mid-twelfth century it had been one of the texts that formed the basis for an idealized view of the relationship between men and women, known as courtly love.

The expression caught Tess's attention. She suddenly remembered another book that she'd seen in Joseph's bedroom: The Art of Courtly Love . But why had Joseph been fascinated by that subject?

Reading with greater curiosity, Tess learned that the notion of courtly love had appealed to and been sponsored by the then Queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine (the title of another book in Joseph's bedroom!), and later by Eleanor's daughter, Marie de France, both of whom had gathered poets and minstrels around them, directing them to compose verses and songs that celebrated a ritualized, highly polite and refined set of rules that dictated how men and women should behave toward one another.

Tess scrunched her forehead in confusion. She didn't know how these puzzling details fit together, but Joseph had obviously acted toward her in keeping with the strictest of the codes of courtly love.

While one branch of this ancient tradition treated courtly love as a type of foreplay, a prelude to sex, the other branch of the tradition had maintained that sex was an impure, imperfect form of love. According to the author of The Dove's Neck Ring , true love wasn't based on physical attraction but rather on an attraction between kindred spirits, compatible souls. These souls had once existed in harmony, during a pre-life that reminded Tess of heaven. When born into the physical world, the souls had been separated and thereafter felt incomplete, compelled to keep looking for one another, never to be satisfied until they met. Just as their original relationship had been pure, in the sense of non-physical, non-sexual, so their relationship in this world should be the same, uncontaminated by the vulgarities of the flesh. This idea of a heaven-like pre-life evidently came from Plato's dialogues (Tess again remembered the book by Plato in Joseph's bedroom), and the notion of non-sexual, highly spiritual affection between men and women was thus known as platonic love.

Tess scrunched her forehead harder, a deep corner of her sub-consciousness straining to understand. For certain, she'd felt an instant identification with Joseph the moment he'd entered the elevator when she'd first met him last Wednesday.

Had it been only a week ago?

But her reaction to Joseph had not been merely an identification.

Much more! An attraction . Powerful. What romantics liked to describe as love at first sight, but what the long-dead author of The Dove's Neck Ring would have called love at second sight.

All theory. Speculation. Surely it didn't explain Tess's overwhelming determination.

Courtly love? Plato? Why in God's name had Joseph been so obsessed with these ideas?

Her chest ached. On impulse, she glanced at her watch, surprised to discover that it was almost two a.m.

Although she'd told her mother that she was so disturbed she doubted she'd be able to sleep, she abruptly felt exhausted and decided to get out of her clothes, change into her shorts and T-shirt, and try to sleep.

But as she stood and removed her cotton pullover, she noticed the phone on the bedside table.

The mansion's air conditioning made her breasts cold, nipples rising.

Still, she hesitated, staring at the phone. I ought to call my loft and check if I've got any messages on my answering machine, she told herself.

No. It can wait till morning.

Sure.

But so much has…

I ought to make sure that nothing else has happened.

So she tapped buttons on the phone, listened to the static on the long-distance line, heard a buzz, then another buzz, and finally her voice on the answering machine. 'This is Tess. I can't answer the phone right now. Please leave a message at the tone.'

Immediately she tapped two more numbers, 24, her birthdate, the security code that she'd programmed into her answering machine and would prevent anyone else from calling her home, pressing two numbers at random, and gaining access to her messages.

A man's gravelly voice was instantly recognizable. 'Tess, it's Lieutenant Craig. The time is' – garbled voices in the background - 'quarter-after-five. Call me at the office as soon as you can.'

A beep signalled the end of the message.

Curious – shivering because of it – Tess waited to hear if she had any other messages.

'It's Lieutenant Craig again. Half-past six. Call me at once.'

Another beep.

The urgency in the lieutenant's voice made Tess even more anxious to hang up and phone him, but she resisted the impulse, still needing to know if she had other messages.

'It's Lieutenant Craig. It's almost eleven. Where the hell are you? Call me.'

This time, there were three beeps, the signal that all the messages had been replayed. Tess broke the connection, removed her wallet from her purse, found the card that Craig had given her, and decided that even though his first message had told her to call him at the office, he wouldn't be there now at two in the morning.

Quickly tapping numbers, she called his home.

Again she heard long-distance static, then a buzz, another buzz, and another.

By the fifth buzz, she began to suspect that Craig was at the office. By the sixth, she became certain and lowered her hand toward the disconnect lever so she could try his office. When her hand was an inch from the lever, a crusty voice said, 'Hello?' and coughed.

She pressed the phone hard against her ear. 'It's Tess. I'm sorry if I woke you, but your messages - '

'Where have you been ! My God, you had me worried.'

'I'm in Alexandria, Virginia.' In the background, Tess heard soaring music, an orchestra, a chorus, a soprano hitting impossibly high notes.

' Alexandria ? What are you doing there?' The soprano's voice swooped, then rose again.

'My mother lives here. I caught the six o'clock shuttle.'

'But you haven't answered my question. What are you - ?'

'Trying to explain what we saw in Joseph's apartment. My mother has contacts with the Library of Congress and…' Tess hesitated, not wanting to tell the lieutenant about her mother's powerful connections with the government because of her father. 'Is that opera I hear in the background?'

'Puccini's Madame Butterfly . Just a second. I'll turn it off.'

A moment later, the music stopped.

'I didn't know you liked opera,' Tess said. 'Somehow you don't seem the type to - '

'Listen to me,' Craig said. 'Don't ever leave town like that again! Not without telling me! You have to let me know where I can reach you. When I kept calling and you didn't answer your phone, I got worried that something had happened to you.'

'Well, in a way, something almost did.'

'What?'

Those pictures I took at Joseph's apartment. I left them at a one-hour photo shop while I packed. When I went back to the shop, the clerk told me that a man who claimed I'd sent him tried to get the photographs.'