Antoine and Denton had also left Paris, traveling to the Lussac estate in southern France. The potion had caused Denton’s mind to revert back to a personality that existed when their father was alive. A totally different man, as Antoine had explained. One he liked. I was happy for the brothers. Things were definitely different for them.
And with me.
I climbed the steep path to the village. Sunlight peeked through the leafy canopy, spotting the ground with shadows. It was a lovely day with only a few white rags of clouds stretching across a blue dome of sky. Far different than two days ago with all the rain. A lot had happened over the past forty-eight hours. I’d experienced something that could not be real, yet it seemed nothing short of that. I’d known exactly which ingredients to use from the box, how to mix them, and what the concoction could do. Shocking, considering I had no training in chemistry. The only way the information could have been acquired was through the dream. The whole thing remained troubling. I’d called Cotton and told him what happened, explaining the outcome, even telling him more about the dreams. I had not wanted to say anything at first. But we had a rule. No secrets. God knows we’d broken it enough in the early stages of our relationship. But no longer. We kept nothing from each other. Or at least nothing significant. Cotton, god bless him, had not tried to tell me I was hallucinating.
Quite the opposite.
“You and I have both been involved with some pretty weird stuff,” he said. “Things we had a tough time explaining. So roll with it.”
He was right.
Which was why I’d returned to Eze.
I entered the village and followed the twisting cobbles to the same familiar back corner and the Museum of Mysteries. Nicodème answered my knock and invited me inside. He’d already brewed a steaming pot of green tea and had cheese and crackers prepared. I’d called earlier and said I was coming. He too was eager to know what had happened. We sat at a table and I told him everything. I was especially explicit about the hallucinations since, if anyone could explain them, he could.
“It has to be nonsense,” I told him.
“Why?”
“You can’t be serious. Past lives? Reincarnation? Morgan le Fay? She’s merely a part of the Arthurian fiction.”
He smiled. “There’s more to her than you know.”
Coming from anyone else I’d be skeptical, but I knew Nicodème dabbled in things most people found fantastical.
“Whenever I visit St. Margaret’s Church, in London,” he said, “I always linger at the east window. It’s a magnificent stained-glass depiction, crafted in Flanders at the command of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1501 to celebrate the marriage of their daughter, Catherine of Aragon, to Arthur, the eldest son of the English king, Henry VII. Henry had been so fascinated with the Arthurian legend that he named his heir after him.”
I knew that fact.
“After ending the Wars of the Roses, and killing Richard III, Henry VII, the first Tudor king, was intent on resurrecting the English throne through his issue, and he wanted it to start with Arthur. Unfortunately, his son died young, shortly after the marriage, even before the window in St. Margaret’s arrived on English soil. Poor Catherine eventually married Arthur’s brother, Henry VIII, and went on to suffer the disgrace of a forced divorce and an early death.
“Most have no understanding the significance Arthur holds for the English. Imagine if the American, George Washington, was merely a legend. Something only poets spoke about. Would not proving him real have meaning? A great significance? Arthur is the bridge that binds the ancient Brits to the modern English.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but I can’t accept that those dreams were of something real.”
He chuckled. “It’s that analytical, engineering mind of yours. It makes you such a skeptic. But you’ve been privy to something few will ever know. A view to a past life.”
But I still wasn’t sure. “I remember the story. How Arthur lost his sword in a fight with Sir Pellinore. He asked Merlin what to do and the wizard guided him to water. The Lady of the Lake then gives Arthur a sword, the finest in all the world, and as long as he wears the scabbard nothing can harm him.”
He nodded. “A wondrous tale. And much of that is pure fiction. But most good fiction is based in fact. And this is no exception. Come with me.”
I stood from the table and followed him to the rear of the shop, past the oak paneled door bound by iron that led deeper into the mountain and the museum itself. I knew that only Nicodème could open it through an ancient puzzle. No one had ever seen that happen and I doubted anyone ever would, until he selected an apprentice. Beyond the door, in a square, dark-paneled room on a trestle table, lay a small book about the size of a prayer missal. Definitely old, but in respectable condition. On the cover were five words, the script no more than shadows in places.
De excidio et conquestu Britanniae.
“Concerning the Ruin and Conquest of Britain,” he said, pointing at the volume. “This is a Gildas manuscript.”
I knew that name.
Gildas Sapiens.
Who lived in Britain during the 6th century and penned a scathing attack on his contemporary churchmen and rulers. His words, a history of post-Roman, pre-St. Augustine, Britain, were a denunciation of secular and ecclesiastical authority. Most historians regarded his observations as more fiction than fact. But they remained the only firsthand account of 6th century Britain. Nothing else had survived.
“There are about seventy editions of his work still around,” he said. “I’m always amused at the one in the British Museum. It’s a 10th century handwritten copy of an 8th century text. Not nearly as authentic as they would want people to believe.”
I smiled. “Double hearsay?”
“Precisely. This is an original. Maybe the only one left in the world.”
I was impressed. But there was a lot about the Museum of Mysteries that fit into that category.
“Gildas was definitely biased, but he was also an ardent observer, a political critic in a time when criticism was not tolerated.” He opened the top cover. “It’s on vellum. Much better than parchment or papyrus. Which is why it has lasted.”
I studied the pages.
The sheets rested on top of one another individually with no binding, the vellum waffled from time. Each still possessed a creamy white patina, an almost unused look, the writing faded to a light gray, the penmanship small and tight, the words running the entire length with no paragraphs or punctuation.
“They didn’t believe in margins?” I asked.
“Writing materials were too precious. Every bit of a surface was used.”
“Can you read it?”
He nodded. “It’s old Latin. It talks of a man named Arturius.”
A shiver snaked down my spine.
“He was a Roman who lived in the 6th century. A real person. Not a work of fiction. Unfortunately, it’s a tainted record.”
I listened as he explained.
He lifted off more sheets. “Listen to this passage. Arturius fell at the battle of Camlan. He gave orders that he be taken to Venodocia so that he may sojourn on the Isle of Avalon for the sake of peace and for the easing of his wounds. Venodocia was later called Gwynedd, an actual kingdom that spread across North Wales. This manuscript confirms Avalon was a place, in that locale, just as the poets eventually mused.”
He explained that, until the 12th century, a character named Arthur was known only in bardic tales and Welsh poems. But Geoffrey of Monmouth changed everything in 1136 when he translated the History of the Kings of Britons, a fanciful account, more fiction than reality, that elevated Arthur into a king. The story was immensely popular. Three hundred years later, when Sir Thomas Malory finally wrote his famous epic, Le Morte d'Arthur, the character was forever ingrained into the realm of myth.
“But that Arthur was based on a real man,” Nicodème said. “Not the chivalric character Malory envisioned. Not at all. Instead, Gildas shows us he was a brutal,
barbarous man who fought Saxons, not unlike a thousand other warrior leaders who arose during the Dark Ages. There was no concept of kingship in Britain then. Just local chieftains who led men. Arturius was fortunate that later poets saw something more in his life. So they manufactured a legend.”
I continued to stare at the vellum pages.
Windows to another time too.
“And it worked,” Nicodème said. “So many English kings tried to make the Arthur connection. Edward I called himself Arthurus Redivivus—Arthur Returned. In the 13th century King John killed his nephew, named Arthur, who should have succeeded to the throne. John’s father, Henry II, wanted his successor to bear the name. More recently, Prince William named his second son Louis Arthur Charles.”
“What about Morgan le Fay,” I asked.
“She was real too.”
He turned over a few more pages. “Gildas says she was called by many names. Morgen, Morgaine, Morganna, Morgne. He mentions her as a great healer, one who became a dangerous enemy of Arturius. He called her Modron. To the later poets she became Arthur’s half-sister. But who’s to say she wasn’t based on someone real? In Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur she’s an apprentice of Merlin and a vindictive adversary of Arthur, with a special hatred for his wife Queen Guinevere.”
I recalled from the dream how Arturius’ wife felt about Morgan.
Not good.
“For Malory, in his tale, she was also wanton and sexually aggressive, with many lovers.”