PROLOGUE
Dust motes danced in the air, flickering like tiny sparks of fire as a blade of sunlight cut through the grisaille glass of the medieval window. The head librarian flinched, his eyes involuntarily squeezing shut as the harmless little flashes ignited the crackle of gunfire inside his head.
Smoke, screams, the glint of steel, the stench of blood . . .
Bile rose in his throat. Panting for breath, he shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the visceral horrors.
And then, mercifully, the episode passed, and the hammering of his heart softened to a steadier pulse. He raised a hand and traced his fingers along a row of books on the age-dark oak shelves of the study alcove in which he stood, the smooth calfskin and corded spines a calming caress against his flesh.
“It’s peaceful here,” whispered the librarian as he inhaled the parchment and leather scent of the Merton College Library.An oasis of tranquility within Oxford University, a world away from the brutalities of the battlefields. The wars were over, he reminded himself. Napoleon had been exiled to the island of Elba, and the ravaging armies no longer fomented death and destruction.
And yet . . .
And yet the horrors refused to retreat from his head. The army surgeons had told him it was a temporary trauma brought on by his body’s struggle to recover from his grievous war wounds. They had said that the shock would soon fade.
But it hadn’t.
Things had improved since he had arrived here and taken up the position of head librarian. However, over the last fortnight, one memory—a quieter one, but no less disturbing—had been coming back with increasing frequency.
He feared that it had been sparked by his recent conversations with a visiting researcher from the Continent—an erudite scholar who served as personal librarian to King Frederick of Württemberg.
Damn the fellow for wanting to discuss the Peninsular War.
Though he had not meant any harm, of course. Indeed, the two of them had formed a pleasant friendship over the past month. But the scholar’s talk of military strategy and the disastrous British retreat that led to the Battle of Corunna had stirred old demons.
And now, the whisper of hazy words and a flickering image were becoming sharper, and more insistent....
The sound of approaching steps drew the librarian back to the present.
“Mr. Greeley?” His assistant, a tall, gangly fellow with unruly chestnut hair, spoke softly. An observant young man, he had noticed that the librarian did not like loud noises. “The next batch of scientific books have arrived for us to sort through and catalogue for Mr. Williams.”
Under the aegis of its head librarian, George Williams, the Radcliffe Library at Oxford had been reorganized into the university’s main repository for scientific books and manuscripts. But the herculean task of collecting the requisite material from all the self-governing colleges that made up Oxford University—Merton was one of the oldest and most prestigious of them—was not finished, and Greeley had offered to help with cataloguing the collections.
“I’ve looked through them,” added Greeley’s assistant, shifting the small crate cradled in his arms. “It’s a small consignment of rare old manuscripts from the library of Balliol College. I would be happy to stay late and finish it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Quincy, but you’ve done more than your fair share today.” The library was due to close in an hour, but Greeley welcomed the excuse to stay late, hoping that the task would help calm his unsettled mind. “I enjoy looking at old manuscripts. Give them to me.”
Greeley took the crate from Quincy and headed to his private office, a small space crammed into the far corner of the West Wing. His desk, as usual, was in a state of cheerful disarray. It drew a rare smile as he took a seat and placed the crate on his blotter.Scholarly ideas—they were far more comfortable companions than people.
Wads of balled-up paper had been wedged around the manuscripts to keep them from shifting and damaging the fragile covers. He pulled them out and tossed them into a scrap pail—only to pause on recalling what he had discovered the previous week among the crumpled paper of another consignment.
Greeley glanced at the pile of documents on his desk, then reluctantly pulled a colorful print out from among them and unfolded it.
It was a commentary from several months ago by the infamous A. J. Quill, London’s most popular satirical artist. Greeley paid little attention to current events, preferring to keep himself cloistered within the ivory tower of academia, but he was aware of the man’s work and appreciated his clever drawings and scathing humor.
Everyone knew that the moniker was only a pen name, and speculation as to A. J. Quill’s real identity was a parlor game throughout the beau monde.Senior government official, high-ranking military officer, a titan of the Bank of England or the East India Company—given all the intimate information that A. J. Quill knew, the assumption was that he had to be someone within the highest echelons of power.
A man who knew how to ferret out every secret in London, no matter how well hidden.
Greeley studied the print for a moment longer, then made himself push it away, feeling a little foolish for letting it upset him. It meant nothing. The earlier recurrence of the disturbing memory had put him on edge, that was all.
Opening the ledger that came with the crate, Greeley drew in a calming breath and began the meticulous task of cataloguing the manuscripts.
He worked in peaceful contemplation as the familiar sounds of the library quieted after the closing hour. But then, without warning, the bedeviling memory once again exploded inside his head. And all of a sudden, a long-ago moment—two men huddled together, their whispers teasing through the night breeze—flickered free of the muddled haze. The words were no longer just an amorphous buzz. They sharpened to a startling clarity.
Oh, surely not.
And yet, as he shot a glance at the print he had put aside, a chill ran through him, as if cold steel had kissed up against his spine.
