A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [119]
Sarah then said something pointed, based on Matthew’s startled expression.
“I’ll make sure she’s safe.” He handed me the phone.
“I’m getting off now. I love you both. Don’t worry.”
“Stop telling us not to worry,” Sarah scolded. “You’re our niece. We’re good and worried, Diana, and likely to stay that way.”
I sighed. “What can I do to convince you that I’m all right?”
“Pick up the phone more often, for starters,” she said grimly.
When we’d said our good-byes, I stood next to Matthew, unwilling to meet his eyes. “All this is my fault, just like Sarah said. I’ve been behaving like a clueless human.”
He turned away and walked to the end of the sofa, as far from me as he could get in the small room, and sank into the cushions. “This bargain you made about magic and its place in your life—you made it when you were a lonely, frightened child. Now, every time you take a step, it’s as though your future hinges on whether you manage to put your foot down in the right place.”
Matthew looked startled when I sat next to him and silently took his hands in mine, resisting the urge to tell him it was going to be all right.
“In France maybe you can just be for a few days—not trying, not worrying about making a mistake,” he continued. “Maybe you could rest—although I’ve never seen you stop moving long enough. You even move in your sleep, you know.”
“I don’t have time to rest, Matthew.” I was already having second thoughts about leaving Oxford. “The alchemy conference is less than six weeks away. They’re expecting me to deliver the opening lecture. I’ve barely started it, and without access to the Bodleian there’s no chance of finishing it in time.”
Matthew’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “Your paper is on alchemical illustrations, I assume?”
“Yes, on the allegorical image tradition in England.”
“Then I don’t suppose you would be interested in seeing my fourteenth-century copy of Aurora Consurgens. It’s French, regrettably.”
My eyes widened. Aurora Consurgens was a baffling manuscript about the opposing forces of alchemical transformation—silver and gold, female and male, dark and light. Its illustrations were equally complex and puzzling.
“The earliest known copy of the Aurora is from the 1420s.”
“Mine is from 1356.”
“But a manuscript from such an early date won’t be illustrated,” I pointed out. Finding an illuminated alchemical manuscript from before 1400 was as unlikely as discovering a Model-T Ford parked on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
“This one is.”
“Does it contain all thirty-eight images?”
“No. It has forty.” He smiled. “It would seem that previous historians have been wrong about several particulars.”
Discoveries on this scale were rare. To get first crack at an unknown, fourteenth-century illustrated copy of Aurora Consurgens represented the opportunity of a lifetime for a historian of alchemy.
“What do the extra illustrations show? Is the text the same?”
“You’ll have to come to France to find out.”
“Let’s go, then,” I said promptly. After weeks of frustration, writing my keynote address suddenly seemed possible.
“You won’t go for your own safety, but if there’s a manuscript involved?” He shook his head ruefully. “So much for common sense.”
“I’ve never been known for my common sense,” I confessed. “When do we leave?”
“An hour?”
“An hour.” This was no spur-of-the-moment decision. He’d been planning it since I’d fallen asleep the night before.
He nodded. “There’s a plane waiting at the airstrip by the old American air force base. How long will it take you to get your things together?”
“That depends on what I need to bring with me,” I said, my head spinning.
“Nothing much. We won’t be going anywhere. Pack warm clothes, and I don’t imagine you’ll consider leaving without your running shoes. It will be just the two of us, along with my mother and her housekeeper.”
His. Mother.
“Matthew,” I said faintly, “I didn’t know you had a mother.”
“Everybody has a mother,