Page 13 of The Hidden Lord
His jaw tightened slightly, but it was clear that he understood the unfortunate reality of English social prejudices. “And you believe he would be more receptive to you?”
“I know he would,” Henri said with confidence. “Uncle Reggie has mentioned me routinely in his correspondence with Sir Alpheus over the years, and the old man has always liked me. He knows I can be trusted with valuable documents, and my connection to Westminster politics would give me credibility that a stranger could not claim.”
The gentleman stood silent for a long moment, clearly wrestling with the decision. Henri could see the internal struggle playing out across his features, his desperate desire to solve the mystery warring with his reluctance to entrust the precious sketch to someone else’s care.
“The risk …” he began.
“Is worth taking,” Henri finished firmly. “Signor di Bianchi, this manuscript may be the key to everything your ancestor intended. If we let this opportunity pass, we may never learn the truth about Matteo’s message.”
The wind picked up, sending dried leaves skittering across the gravel path between them. Henri pulled her pelisse closer against the cold but maintained her steady gaze on his face. She could see the moment when his resolve crumbled, when hope overcame caution.
“Very well,” he said finally, his tone heavy with reluctance. “But you must promise me?—”
“I swear to you on my honor that I will guard it with my life,” Henri interrupted, ringing with sincerity. “The sketch will not leave my sight from the moment you give it to me until I return it safely to your hands.”
Signor di Bianchi nodded slowly, putting the catalog under his arm, then fished out a notebook to show her the folded parchment within its pages. As he placed the notebook in Henri’s gloved hands, she felt the weight of his trust and the magnitude of the responsibility she was accepting.
“Friday morning,” she said, securing the notebook in her reticule. “I will call upon Sir Alpheus and examine the Malory manuscript. If fortune favors us, we shall finally unlock the secret that Matteo di Bianchi left for us to discover.”
And perhaps prove to myself that I am capable of achieving discretion.
As Henri made her way back into her home, she felt the familiar thrill of anticipation that had been missing for so many weeks. Friday could not come soon enough.
The dim light,barely revealed against the stone walls of the Bodleian Library’s basement archive, cast long shadows between the towering stacks of manuscripts and forgotten volumes. Alaric Devayne sat hunched over a wooden table scarred by decades of scholarly use, the auction catalog spread before him like a map to buried treasure. He had been poring over it for weeks, waiting for the right time to act. And now that time was approaching and his anticipation was climbing.
His hollow cheeks and sunken eyes bore the telltale marks of too many years reading in poorly lit rooms, his angular features made sharper by the meager light. Despite the clerk’s clothing he wore, serviceable brown wool and a simple waistcoat, his boots were of military grade, a remnant from his days as a field interrogator in Napoleon’s campaigns.
Lot 128: The Hoole Book of Kyng Arthur and of His Noble Knyghtes of the Rounde Table.
Devayne’s gloved fingers traced the entry. He always wore gloves now. He had done so since strangling that French officer with his bare hands outside Toulouse. Some habits, once learned, became permanent fixtures of a man’s character.
Provenance unknown.
A smile played at the corners of his thin lips. Unknown to the fools at Leigh and Sotheby’s, perhaps. Unknown to the collectors who would bid blindly at auction. But not unknown to him. He had learned the true power that lay hidden within Malory’s stories.
Power was not inherited. It was taken. The ideology of the Dominus burned in his chest like a sacred flame. Too long had the world been governed by those who claimed authority through accident of birth. Too long had true knowledge been hoarded by the weak and the unworthy. Those who understood the old ways knew that power belonged to those with the will to seize it.
Devayne pushed back from the table and moved deeper into the archives, his footsteps silent on the stone floor. Years of military training had taught him to move without sound, and old habits served him well in his current profession. The other library assistants thought him merely obsessive, a harmless clerk lost in dusty tomes and ancient languages.
They had no idea what he truly sought.
He paused before a particular shelf, running his finger along the spines of volumes that few scholars ever requested. Hidden among the theological treatises and philosophical commentaries were texts that held secrets most men wouldnever comprehend. Records of power that transcended the petty squabbling of kings and parliaments.
January 28th. Six days until the auction. But Devayne had no intention of bidding alongside wealthy collectors and scholarly dilettantes. The manuscript would be his long before the auctioneer’s hammer fell.
Friday.
Wage collection day. He would collect what the library owed him and then disappear from Oxford. After years of shuffling through these dusty archives, it was time to move on to greater things. There would be no return to this place of servitude once he possessed what he sought.
Sir Alpheus Danbury’s household would be busy with preparations for the sale. A house full of servants focused on cataloging and arranging would hardly notice one more shadow moving through the corridors. The old man’s staff would be tasked with keeping the collection secure during the public viewing days. Friday would find the estate more vulnerable.
The manuscript would provide both the knowledge and the means to leave this life behind forever. No more bowing to head librarians. No more cataloging the scribblings of dead monks. Real power awaited.
A sound from the upper floors made him look up. Footsteps overhead, distant murmurs. The library would close soon, and he would have to wait until tomorrow to continue his research. But that was acceptable. He was a patient man when patience served his purposes.
Devayne closed the catalog and tucked it beneath a stack of legitimate research materials. To any casual observer, he was simply another library assistant, working late on some obscure scholarly project. The perfect camouflage for a man with decidedly unscholarly intentions.
As he gathered his things and prepared to leave, Devayne allowed himself one final look at the auction catalog Lot 128. Soon,the manuscript would be his, and with it, the power it contained. Power that was not inherited but taken by those strong enough to reach for it.
