A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [173]
A desk drawer that was difficult to find was designed to hide something.
Matthew kept secrets—this I knew. But we had known each other only a few weeks, and even the closest of lovers deserved privacy. Still, Matthew’s tight-lipped manner was infuriating, and his secrets surrounded him like a fortress devised to keep other people—me—out.
Besides, I only needed a piece of paper. Hadn’t he rifled through my belongings at the Bodleian when he was looking for Ashmole 782? We’d barely met when he pulled that stunt. And he had left me to shift for myself in France.
As I carefully recapped the pen, my conscience nevertheless prickled. But my sense of injury helped me to cast that warning aside.
Pushing and pulling at every bump and bulge, my fingers searched the carvings on the desk’s front edge once more without success. Matthew’s letter opener rested invitingly near my right hand. It might be possible to wedge it into the seam underneath and pry the drawer open. Given the age of the desk, the historian in me squawked—much louder than my conscience had. Violating Matthew’s privacy and engaging in ethically questionable behavior might be permissible, but I wasn’t going to deface an antique.
Under the desk once more, I found it was too dark to see the underside of the drawer clearly, but my fingers located something cold and hard embedded in the wood. To the left of the drawer’s nearly imperceptible join was a small metal bump approximately one long vampire reach from the front of the desk. It was round and had cross-hatching in the center—to make it look like a screw or an old nail head.
There was a soft click overhead when I pushed it.
Standing, I stared into a tray about four inches deep. It was lined with black velvet, and there were three depressions in the thick padding. Each held a bronze coin or medal.
The largest one had a building’s outline cut into its surface and rested in the midst of a hollow nearly four inches across. The image was surprisingly detailed and showed four steps leading up to a door flanked by two columns. Between them was a shrouded figure. The building’s crisp outlines were marred by fragments of black wax. Around the edge of the coin were the words “militie Lazari a Bethania.”
The knights of Lazarus of Bethany.
Gripping the tray’s edges to steady myself, I abruptly sat down.
The metal disks weren’t coins or medals. They were seals—the kind used to close official correspondence and certify property transactions. A wax impression attached to an ordinary piece of paper could once have commanded armies to leave the field or auctioned off great estates.
Based on the residue, at least one seal had been used recently.
Fingers shaking, I pried one of the smaller disks from the tray. Its surface bore a copy of the same building. The columns and the shrouded figure of Lazarus—the man from Bethany whom Christ raised from the dead after he’d been entombed for four days—were unmistakable. Here Lazarus was depicted stepping out of a shallow coffin. But no words encircled this seal. Instead the building was surrounded by a snake, its tail in its mouth.
I couldn’t close my eyes quickly enough to banish the sight of the de Clermont family standard and its silver ouroboros snapping in the breeze above Sept-Tours.
The seal lay in my palm, its bronze surfaces gleaming. I focused on the shiny metal, willing my new visionary power to shed light on the mystery. But I’d spent more than two decades ignoring the magic in my blood, and it felt no compunction to come to my aid now.
Without a vision, my mundane historical skills would have to be put to work. I examined the back of the small seal closely, taking in its details. A cross with flared edges divided the seal into quarters, similar to the one Matthew had worn on his tunic in my vision. In the upper right quadrant of the seal was a crescent moon, its horns curved upward and a six-pointed star nestled in its belly. In the lower left quadrant was a fleur-de-lis, the traditional symbol of France.
Inscribed around the edge