“A felucca,” Naomi agreed.
“It is indeed an account of his many travels,” Laurent agreed. “A true travelogue, if you will. It starts with his youth, in his late teens or early twenties, when he spent a chunk of his life journeying throughout the Arabian Peninsula. From the palaces of shahs to landmarks across the Holy Lands. And, yes, he did spend a year in Africa, where he must have seen that lion. But as he grew older, his travels expanded. He moved on to serve in the court of Catherine the Great in Russia. Then to India, even the Orient, following the Silk Road.”
“So he stamped his passport well,” Archie noted. “But what did he gain by all of this?”
Laurent turned to him, his expression incredulous, as if the answer were obvious. “Knowledge. That is what he acquired. From a hundred ports. From a thousand roads. From many times that in the people he met. Similar to his time spent in Paris, he consulted with scientists and alchemists of every ilk, at every stop. But more importantly—and I think this is the most critical—he built a network of the same. Savants and scholars from all fields of study.”
“Why is this so critical?” Duncan asked.
“Because ultimately the myth of Saint-Germain was larger thanoneman. He represented an enlightenedmovement, one that spread wider in his wake, grew ever larger with time. When he eventually arrived in Paris, he brought that knowledge with him. But he also maintained his connection to this network and leaned on them. There are many accounts where Saint-Germain would disappear for long spells of time.”
“You think he went off to commune with this larger organization,” Sharyn said.
“I do. Even his warning about the French Revolution, which came a full decade before it broke out, came not from any prophetic foretelling, but from a reading of political and societal trends that he had gained from his network. Many of his contemporaries believed Saint-Germain founded the Freemasons, maybe even the Rosicrucians, but this was more likely born from some sense of the greater network tied to him.”
Naomi frowned. “That’s all well and good, but what does it have to do with this book on the table?”
Laurent hovered a hand over the splayed pages. “While many in theGardienswill argue otherwise, I think Saint-Germain’s opening line to his diary was a nod to this network. It is thismovement, not theman, that is immortal.”
Sharyn’s eyes grew larger. “And you think that’s what he wants us to ultimately uncover. This network of the enlightened.”
“To bring them out of the shadows and into the light.”
“Does the diary reveal anything else about this mysterious group?” Tag asked.
“Very little. It tells of its start, some of its growth, but not its end.”
Duncan frowned. “Why did he stop?”
“I know why.” Laurent flipped through to the deeper sections of the book, where the writing became more erratic, the drawings more skeletal and sketchier. Even Duncan could recognize the haste and urgency depicted. “It was fear. Maybe of premature discovery. Maybe sensing the ignoble forces closing upon him.”
Laurent stopped at a page that showed the rough sketch of a pointed star, a crude version of the symbol embossed on the cover. Only here, it featured a skull at the center, as if giving form to Saint-Germain’s anxieties.
“This thin section relates to Saint-Germain’s construction of this book itself. He likely bound the opening diary section into his new construction or rewrote it inside. Either way, the man’s goal abruptly changes afterward, and he starts to lay out his three Adages, his three encrypted messages that could ultimately lead to this hidden group.”
Laurent continued through to the title page of the next section, where the Latin wordsAdagium Primum—the First Adage—were crisply inscribed. The writing was also encircled by a ring of animals: monkeys, hippos, giraffes, etc. All the beasts were from Africa. This was further confirmed as Laurent turned more pages, revealing beautifully illuminated maps of the continent, along with illustrations of flora and fauna. Written around and across much of the drawings were lines and patches of the same urgent writing, all in an unknown language—or at least unknown to Duncan.
He glanced to Archie, who merely shrugged, just as mystified.
Sharyn made Laurent slow down. “This is the section that theGardienseventually decrypted? Leading to a site in Africa—”
“In Libya,” Laurent clarified.
“Where you uncovered the cache of Solomonic gold.”
“And lost it.”
Duncan pictured his grandfather—who had served in that same desert and later moved on to guard Bletchley Park and its team of decoders, which included his grandmother.
And now I’m here, continuing where they left off.
Laurent turned the pages with more haste, as if too angry or ashamed to linger. He finally reached a page inscribed in a similar pattern as the First Adage. Again, the same handsome lettering spelled out words in Latin,Adagium Secundum.
Only this spread of pages was adorned by a garden of flowers, painted in hues of blue and purple, with brilliant green leaves. They looked so real one was tempted to pluck them from the paper.
Laurent stopped there and stared at their group. “In the past, theGardienslost thefirsttreasure. We must not lose thesecond. Right now, we find ourselves in the same straits as Saint-Germain when he delivered his book to Countess d’Adhémar, with the same enemy closing in on us.”
“And you expect us to decrypt this section?” Duncan challenged him. “Something your group has struggled to do for decades.”
