A Letter of Mary (12 page)

"Tomorrow, I should think. We cannot decide our actions until we have news from them, but I expect that we shall find ourselves moving our base of operations into London for a few days and incidentally giving Mrs Hudson a holiday. Sussex is a bit too distant from Colonel Edwards, Erica Rogers, and various mysterious Arabs."

"Meanwhile, the neighbours."

"And you, the lexicon."

"This case is wreaking havoc with my work," I muttered darkly. Holmes did not look in the least sympathetic, but was, on the contrary, humming some Italian aria as he left the house, walking stick in hand, cap on head, every inch the country squire paying visits on the lesser mortals. I opened my books and got to work.

Truth to tell, although I would not have admitted it to him, I regretted the interruption not at all. I thoroughly enjoyed that afternoon of immersing myself in Mary's letter, and I found it immensely exciting to see the lacunae fall before my pen, to turn the first choppy and tentative phrases into a smooth, lucid translation. This was original work in what appeared to be primary source material, a rarity for an academic, and I revelled in it. When Holmes walked in, I was astonished to find that I had worked nonstop for four hours. It felt like one.

"Russell, haven't your eyes fallen out yet? Shall I tell Mrs Hudson to leave our food in the oven while we have a swim?"

"Holmes, your genius continually astounds me. May I have another ten minutes?" There was no need to ask for the results of his interviews— it was in the look of dogged persistence he wore.

"Take fifteen. I don't mind climbing that cliff in the dark."

"Ten. You get together some towels and the bathing costumes."

Forty minutes later, we lay back in the shallow pool left by the receding tide, and I asked him what our neighbours had said.

"They saw nothing."

"That is very peculiar, in the countryside."

"Due entirely to a piece of bad luck. There was a "do" on at the Academy that evening, to welcome the new director, and the area was crawling with formal black automobiles, brought in from Brighton to ferry guests from the station. Several of them ended up in impassable lanes and farmyards before the night was through. Ours might have had another county's registration code on its number plates, but if so, nobody noticed."

"You should have—" I bit it back.

"Yes?"

"Hindsight. We should have had Old Will or Patrick come and keep watch that night."

"I had thought of that, but decided against it. Having enthusiastic amateurs involved is a terrible responsibility, and usually a liability. Neither of them would have been able to resist a confrontation with the intruders."

"You're probably right. Old Will certainly."

"I even considered, briefly, asking Constable Perkins to come out and sit in the bushes."

"My goodness. Desperate times indeed."

"I decided the measure was too desperate. Had I been absolutely certain they would come, I might have resorted to his involvement."

"He would have fallen asleep anyway, and we'd be no further along."

With which judgement we concluded our conversation, indulged in a vigorous sprint through the dusky waters, which I won, and climbed the cliffs for our late and well-earned supper.

After we had polished off Mrs Hudson's supper, down to scraping the bowls of the lemon custard, and after I had helped with the washing up, Holmes lit a small fire to dry my hair, and I told him about the letter. I sat on the hearth rug with my back to the heat, the pages of my translation spread out on the floor, Holmes curled up before me in his frayed basket chair, with his face half-illuminated by the flames, and I read him my translation of Mary's letter. As I did so, I seemed to hear the woman's calm, melodious voice through the open French windows, a murmur beneath the distant rumour of the incoming waves on the rocky shore.

"I have to admit, Holmes, that Miss Ruskin was right. There is something profoundly moving about this document, and I am more than halfway to believing that it could indeed have been written by Mary the Magdalene, a lost apostle of Jesus of Nazareth.

"The letter begins in the traditional epistolary style, naming both the author and the intended receiver, then a greeting, followed by the message itself. It is in Greek, with a few Hebrew and Aramaic words, two of the latter written in the Greek alphabet, and includes a passage from Joel, in Hebrew:

"From Mariam, an apostle of Jesus the Messiah [That could be translated as 'Joshua the Anointed One,' but it seems awfully noncommittal, somehow] to my sister Judith in Magdala, may you be granted grace and peace.

I write to you in haste, with little hope for a reply to this, my last letter. Tomorrow we go down from this place, and I think we shall not return. I send this in the hand of my beloved Rachel, for I know you will care for her as her mother's mother can no longer do. Keep her in the way of God, and teach her well.

Jerusalem has fallen to the locusts, the Temple is defiled, the exile is upon us once again.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,

for the day of the Lord is coming,

it comes near,

A day of dark and of gloom,

a day of clouds and heavy darkness.

Fire devours before them,

and behind them flame burns.

The land is like Eden before them,

but behind them a howling wilderness,

and nothing escapes.

My heart sickens when I look from my window, and the stink of the soldiers fills my nostrils. I leave at dawn with my husband and his brothers, but Rachel the Romans will not have. Her future lies with you; I will think of the two of you among the pomegranates as I look out across my rocky desolation. I do not know how long the Romans will leave us there, but I think not long.

My sister Judith, many things lie between us. I do not know how I hurt you more, when I struck at you in my time of madness, or when I turned to the rabbi who healed me and followed him through the countryside. You heard madness in my words as I spoke of him, and I know you will hear only madness now. I will say only that in my deepest heart I know him to be the anointed of God, and I believe that somehow his life among us has transformed the world. Not overnight, as I once thought and some still look for, but nonetheless I believe in the sureness of it. I know that somehow beneath the turmoil and confusion of these times, his message is at work. I go tomorrow with a mind at peace and heart full of love for my family, my friends, and even some of my enemies. I try to love the Romans, as I was taught to do by the Teacher, but I find it hard to look past the blood on their hands. Perhaps if they did not stink so, it would be easier.

The night is late, and I have much to do before dawn. Say the prayer for the dead over me, when you receive this, and think no more of me. What lives of me is not on a rock overlooking a waste, but stands before you, in Rachel. Love her for me. My husband sends his greetings. Peace be with you."

The fire subsided into rustling embers, and Holmes sat curled up in his chair, sucking at an empty pipe and staring into the glow. I took up my hairbrush and began to plait my hair for the night while the voice of a woman whose bones had long since turned to dust echoed softly in the dim room.

ELEVEN

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The following morning was spent waiting. A singularly frustrating experience, waiting, made more so by the feeling that the labours of others are neither as quick nor as thorough as one's own. I always envied Holmes his ability to switch off the frustrations of enforced inactivity and turn wholeheartedly to another project. He spent the morning pottering happily in the laboratory, while I turned resolutely to my books. I had intended to produce a first draft of my book (on the concept of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible) before the end of the year, but that was before Miss Ruskin's letter hit my desk. Something told me that hunting down her murderers was going to take large chunks of time from the coming days, if not weeks.

Through sheer determination, I managed to focus my mind on the words in front of me, though every time I came across a reference to
Sophia,
the Greek word meaning "wisdom," the figure of Mary would stir gently in the back of my mind. Eventually, I was surrounded by journals and books, as I followed a phrase from Proverbs through a recently published religious text from ancient Mesopotamia and tried to recall a similar theme from an Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription. When the telephone rang, my mind was far, far away, and I took up the receiver irritably.

"Russell. Yes, this is she." Where was that? I racked my brains. It was a reference to the goddess Ma'at, surely. Budge's book on— "Yes? Who? Oh, yes, certainly, I'll wait. Holmes!" I shouted, books forgotten. "Holmes, it's Mycroft." I listened hard for a minute over the sound of his descending footsteps, the earpiece glued to my ear. "He wants to see us, and could we get to London for dinner tonight? What's that?" I shouted into the telephone, then strained to hear across the distance and the numerous exchanges the call was coming though. "Oh. He says he has some grouse and a new port he'd like you to try," I told Holmes. "At least, I think that's what he said. Either that or he's in the house and has a few darts he'd like to let fly. In either case, perhaps we ought to go? Right." I drew a deep breath and readdressed the mouthpiece. "We'll be there by seven o'clock. Seven! Right. Good-bye."

In the typically contrary nature of the beast, the telephone, which had sat obstinately silent all morning, rang again almost immediately. I picked it up and the operator informed me that it was another London call, would I please wait a moment, dear, so I did, until the line crackled into life. I bellowed my name into it, and that must have come near to rupturing Lestrade's eardrum, for his voice when it came was as clear as if he were standing in the room beside me.

"Miss Russell?" He sounded a bit tentative. I hastily lowered my own voice.

"Good day, Inspector. Sorry about that. I've just rung off from a very bad connexion, but this one is all right. Have you any news?"

"A few things have come in, and I'm expecting more this afternoon. Shall I give it to you over the telephone, or send it to you? I'm tied up here, unfortunately."

"Look, Inspector, we're coming into Town ourselves later today. Will you be at the Yard around, say, six o'clock?" Holmes, who had turned and come back downstairs at the second ring, gestured at me. "Just a moment, Inspector, Holmes is saying something."

"Invite him for dinner with Mycroft. There's sure to be enough grouse for a regiment," Holmes suggested.

"Inspector Lestrade? Are you free for dinner tonight? About eight o'clock, at Mycroft Holmes' rooms? Good. And you remember where he lives? That's right. You what? Oh yes, certainly, he would be flattered. Right. See you tonight, then."

I rang off, then got the operator back to place a call to Mycroft. While waiting, I spoke to Holmes.

"Lestrade would like a bottle of your honey wine to present to a lady friend of his on the occasion of her birthday."

"I am honoured."

"I thought you might be. He even promises not to tell her where it came from. He wants the substance for its own true self."

"Good heavens. Am I to become a rival to France? A honey wine to make you weep?"

"Weak, perhaps," I said under my breath, but I was saved from repetition by the call coming through. Mycroft was more audible this time, and when I told him he'd have to pluck another bird for Lestrade, he replied that he should be happy so to do, even if it meant performing the task with his own pale hands, which I doubted. I hung the earpiece back on its rest.

"I'll go pack," I volunteered. Leaving such a thing to Holmes could mean some interesting outfits. "Anything in particular you want?"

"Only the basic necessities, Russell. Anything undamaged is likely to be unclean, and we will be making purchases in London for our personae. I shall go tell Mrs Hudson of the change in plans— she had thought to leave tomorrow, but we can take her with us to the station."

"What about the box? Back in the beehive?"

"I think not. That was a temporary measure and would hardly stand against a concerted search. I recommend either putting it in a place they've already searched or else taking it with us."

"To Mycroft? Of course! If anyone could keep it safe, Mycroft could." I stood up and began to put away my papers and books, then paused. "Holmes, I should hate to have this mangled again; a good many hours have gone into it. What do you think of our chances of being invaded a second time?"

"Take anything precious with you. I don't think there's much risk, but there's always the chance. I did ask Old Will and his grandson to keep an eye on the place this time. The boy understands that he is to keep the old man out of trouble, even if it means sitting on him."

"They'll be thrilled." I grinned at the thought. Will was the gardener, but during the reign of Victoria he had also been an agent of what would now be called "Intelligence." Sessions in the herbaceous border or amongst the runner beans were invariably filled with anecdotes of spying behind the lines during "the War" (which was more likely to be the one on the North-West Frontier or the Crimea than the recent engagement in Europe). The boy, now sixteen, had been infected with his grandfather's enthusiasm, and he positively ached to be asked for such tasks by Sherlock Holmes himself. "Have you spoken to Mycroft yet about the lad?"

"I have. He was interested but agreed to wait until the lad has finished his schooling."

"Mycroft's people would pay for university, wouldn't they?" Whoever his "people" were, I added to myself.

"They would. They prefer gentlemen spies, or educated ones, at any rate. Look, you finish up here while I move up the arrangements with Mrs Hudson and Will. Don't take too many books, though. You may have to leave everything with Mycroft."

My brother-in-law, Mycroft, was much on my mind as I packed my papers and a few books and a toothbrush. I was very fond of that fat and phlegmatic version of his brother but had to admit that at times he made me nervous. He was possibly the most powerful individual in the British government by then, and power, even when wielded by such a moral and incorruptible person as Mycroft Holmes, is never an easy companion. I was never unaware of it, and always there lurked the knowledge that his power was without checks, that the government and the people lay nearly defenceless should he choose to do harm or, an appalling thought, should his successor prove neither moral nor incorruptible. I was fond of Mycroft, but I was also just a bit afraid of him.