The strikers' song is La Chanson de Craonne.
At the end of the chapter, I added a list of the mentioned Nomes and their number.
XI. How I made a living (2)
A week later, I went to find Arsene Lupin at his place. He lived near the Opera, on the second floor of a Haussmannian building. The portal which was commonly used by the Fourteenth to reach Cairo was obviously the Concord Obelisk. I needed a more discreet path, which Lupin pointed out to me. He used a back-up one when he had to return secretly to report to Iskandar.
"The père Lachaise graveyard? I thought that French magicians were buried in Egypt, or in Lyon, never in Paris...
- The tombs of Champollion and Fourier are there, they have obelisks. Be careful, the magic is a little... unstable.
- That should do." I was used to underground portals.
Bérénice Koité was alone in the Hall of Ages. "Iskandar is waiting for you in his apartments," she said to me in Greek. Of course. I stepped around the empty throne, her cat-like gaze fixed on the back of my neck. I passed the Map Room, took the corridor to the rooms devoted to the Chief Lector. "Giacomo, come in my child." Iskandar's soft voice instantly put me on my guard. It's an illusion, I remembered. He remains the most powerful magician in the world, the most cunning too.
I pulled back a curtain. Iskandar was seated on a braided mat. I had grown up lulled with stories and rumors surrounding his name. From time to time over the millennia one of the Bellini entered into his service, as they once had in that of the pharaohs.
"You have done us a great service in recent weeks, the House of life will be grateful."
Speak for yourself. The taste of my betrayal was still a bitterness on my tongue, a bloody stain on my hands; that indelible of fratricide. I threw it all away for a few flowers, and I don't even have a remorse.
"You've been pretty daring, acting the way you did. Scandalous, sulphurous, immoral Bellini house, he smiled. Some would say you honor your blood.
- The Bellinis would not be of that opinion" I said. My brothers had sent me enough death threats to convice me of that.
"Why did you have Abdias Kane murdered?" I asked him suddenly.
Iskandar answered, in his usual soft, caressing voice, but his eyes were cold.
"It was necessary.
- Necessary for who? What are you playing with the Kanes?
- It doesn't matter. When some branches rot, we have to prune the tree.
- All gardeners, eh?
- You served me well by completing the job.
- They will accuse Michel anyway.
- Words, wind.
- It was Lupin that mattered to you, wasn't it? It was that we could never trace it back to you. "
He looked at me with his cold, impassive expression.
"Don't go," Michel had begged me. "We'll find something else, Iskandar… he's a liar." He lied to Per Ankh, about Sekhmet, about the war, he spies on the chiefs of Nome… "It's all for you, all of this that, idiot! A wave of tenderness washed over me.
"Have you come to ask me something?
- I want to be relieved of my duty to the Eighth Nome and be attached to the First from now on.
- You're not at the peak of your career. There is no job for you here."
Come on, make me beg.
"You employ agents across all the Nomes, Koité, Lupine ... You are looking for people driven to the wall, without family.
- And discreet. You have always been quite famous, you will now be at the height of your glory.
- But I know the old families from Europe, America and Africa better than anyone. Have spies, I do not claim to be a spy. I will be your right hand man, your servant, your dog if necessary. But you know all that, because you were waiting for me.
- Oh yes, Giacomo, you are not the first of your blood to enter my service. Do you even know what you are getting yourself into? "
Too well.
"You will not be in a position to dictate terms I fear."
But I will know. It will be easier to spy on your secrets. Ensure silence in others. Come on, fix me a price now.
"You have developed a certain kind of affection for the Champollion boy. As thou in doubt, he is not so popular among the most powerful of my magicians.
- You need him as well. Otherwise you wouldn't have kept him alive for so long.
- He may reveal himself useful, indeed. Nothing strictly necessary."
Just try. You might be the best magician in the world, but no one can resist a good old blade in the neck. Had he planned this from the beginning?
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Iskandar's cold eyes didn't blink. I knelt down. The Chief Lector smiled, put his hand on the back of my neck, and then whispered softly. "You can get up my child."
Un giorno, brucero questo fottuto posto…
Iskandar left me a shabti for our further communications, and I returned to Paris, this time definitely. Of course, there was no question of staying in this mezzanine floor where Michel lived. It was very romantic and everything, but it was hot in the summer, cold in the winter. I still had some money. We moved to a building on the Pyramides Street, a stone's throw from the Louvre, on the fifth floor, at the corner of the Saint-Honoré Street. "Why, no magician lives on rue des Pyramides?" I asked him. He had rolled his eyes in responde. "Because it's bad taste." I had burst out laughing. We had another fight, the day I repainted the door and all the shutters of the building red.
" What are you doing ?
- Marking the territory.
- But you're completely nuts!
- It's like gargoyles, it's to frighten spirits away. "
He had ended up muttering something about stupid Bellini superstitions. I always won our arguments. To tell the truth, we had quite a few of them. France was then one of the only countries in Europe that did not legally condemn homosexuality, but that did not mean that everyday life was not difficult. Michel always took reckless risks, or acted with his Nome, as if millennia of conventions, traditions and laws meant nothing. His "enfant terrible" side, under an air of ignorance and youthful innocence, which had seduced me terrified me at times. Okay, I have to admit my wrongs too. It must be said, mea culpa, that I was of a jealous nature. Usually, we ended up settling all this on the pillow.
La Roque, Lupine and the Marquis de La Barre were the only ones aware of my exact location in Paris. La Barre was one of the great libertine lords of the 18th century, close to the Marquis de Sade, and a long-time friend. He lent me money until I received my Premier Nome treatments, which were totally unsuited to Parisian life. Despite this, the game was worth the candle. For the first time in my existence, I was really going home on the evenings. For the first time, it felt nice not to hide, not to run away, to hope.
Our house had three rooms, a narrow kitchen where Michel used to dry the plants that I used in my decoctions. Officially I was registered as a Fire Elementalist, but in reality I was more trained in combat magic. My sister Laura, a healer, who knew a lot about poisons, had also introduced me to her art a little.
We quickly filled the other rooms with books. The drawings, paintings and engravings that Michel owned were piled up along the walls, and above all, despite my initial protests, he finished filling the space with his crops, his trees and flowers, which even hung from the ceiling. In fact, I quickly fell under the spell of the "rainforest" side of the decor. Flower lianas clung to the embrasures of our windows. Our home was not exactly like that of an Egyptian magician. There were no precious relics, no shabti, just a small statuette of Thoth at the entrance. Michel and I read more literature and philosophy than ancient parchments. The most "magical" objects were the plants and the cheese cupboard.
At the cost of a few weeks at the service of the Chief Lector, life offered us everything. Michel no longer cleanedthe territory in Verdun; thanks to his training received in Lebanon and Algeria and under Lupin's advice, he joined the spellcaster teams of the Fourteenth. Alongside his work at the Nome, he defended his doctoral thesis, in ancient literature, at the Sorbonne, with highest honour. He was now working with Alice's help on a revisited vision of Aristophanes' Frogs.
The magicians of the Fourteenth, in my lover's wake, in turn barged into my life. The Wop, they called me. Lupin had sort of become my colleague. Most of them were from lower classes. They had only a vague idea of the subtleties of the divine words, of incantations, of statuary magic. What they lost in knowledge and power, they gained in liveliness, in joy of living, in freedom too. Some of them amazed me; Erwan was the kind of person that nothing ever surprised. Justine was a suffragette. She spent every Sunday in police custody, for insulting public order. The two bickered continuously.
There was Alice too. At first I had difficulty accepting her presence in Michel's life, but soon she became and will be forever a sister to me. After having spied on behalf of the French state during the war as a double agent, she toured the world. She was free, always going against the flow, straddling several universes. I understood why she worried the other demigods so much. She knew almost all half-bloods and European Romans, could identify any magician of the Fourteenth Nome, but also of most of the Hundred and Forty-third and fourth, (Brussels and Luxembourg). She was even invited to the receptions of the great Viking families, settled in Normandy and England. She sang for everyone, didn't work for anyone. After her first disastrous divorce, pregnant with an Olympian, she came very often to our house, stayed to sleep in the second bedroom.
One evening, I remember, I was in the kitchen trying to bewitch a Saint-Marcelin cheese, when the doorbell rang. I heard the echoes of a feverish dialogue in French, and finally got up to see, when the door slammed. Michel was standing, confused, a baby in his arms.
"Well, it's getting better and better, are you stealing babies now?"
- It's Louis, he told me.
- I recognized him. And Alice?
- Gone. "
I know what you may think, that two elementalist magicians, an activist with anarchizing tendencies and an assassin in the service of an over two thousand years old Machiavellian Egyptian marabout are probably the worst possible childcare solution. I think we did well under the circumstances. We raised Louis as best we could. Alice visited him when she could, between two concerts, two quests, two monsters.
In the same year, events took place which had a great impact on the history of Per Ankh, and Michel managed, as usual, to find his way to the heart. The movement started first from the Ninth Nome, London. In the wake of their suffragettes, English she-magicians demanded equal rights. In most of the European Nomes, women were paid half as much as men, but above all, were subject like them to an old legislation that regulated the relations and duties within the Per Ankh, and that discriminated against them in many areas. Judicially, it was a big mess, as the laws of the first Nome often clashed with the particular jurisdictions of each of the regional governments. All attempts at harmonization at the annual meeting of Nomes had failed.
Three delegates from the Ninth set out on a tour of Europe to harmonize the emerging movement across the continent. Of course, as you could guess, their referent inside the Fourteenth Nome was none other than Justine Vasseur. Most of the lower magicians were appalled by their economic fragility, and the continuation of some monarchical privileges within the Nome's administration. Things escalated when men joined the protest movement with their own claims.
That's how Justine and Michel found themselves preparing for the first strike in the history of the Fourteenth. Obviously, that did not delight me! One of the most famous articles of our codes was the one punishing all kind of insubordination with death. We weren't joking about discipline at Per Ankh. Usually, the death penalty applied to quite a few things.
On the morning of March 21, 1923, the Nomes of London, Dublin, Rome, Brussels, the tiny Nome of Luxembourg, Zürich, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Athens, Casablanca, Algiers, Oran, Tunis, Warsaw, Oslo, Stockholm , Copenhagen, Madrid, Lisbon, Bucharest, Sophia, Kiev and Helsinki did not open their doors. Only Amsterdam remained still, they had equal rights and equal pay instituted since the 17th century.
At the Fourteenth, the magicians, under Michel and Justine's leadership, had come up with a list of demands and occupied the Nome. Some brigades of combat magicians, and most of the elementalists joined the occupation, greatly strengthening the movement. Many combat magicians and spellcasters of the Fourteenth had died in war, and their ranks were now predominantly female. The Sunu (Nome's healers) were also on strike. This demographic power almost caused a split within the strikers. The class warfare turned into a gender war. Michel and a few others offered their support to Justine, maintaining a fragile unit, but the situation remained tensed.
On this spring day, Alice and I were to meet with the magicians at the Nome headquarters, which had been occupied for a week already. We dressed Louis and headed for the Louvre. We were already on the Tuileries Street when I saw a silhouette waiting for me in the shade of a tree. "Alice, I'll join you." She looked at me, then the figure, nodded and left me. Esme waited for her to move away before approaching me.
"Hola prima, I greeted her.
- Giacomo, do you have somewhere we could talk?" She answered me, in Italian.
We crossed the Seine and settled down on the terrace of a café, rue du Bac. Esme ordered a glass of red and we looked at each other for a while.
" What are you doing here ? I asked her. Are you not in Madrid with the strikers?
- I had better things to do. I came to get you Giacomo."
I let out an amused sigh.
"In that case you would have done better to stay and take care of your own business. Who sends you? My father ? Nonna ?
- It was my uncle who asked me to stop by.
- He just wants you away from Madrid then. So that you don't get involved in strikes. What is he planning?
- He wants to storm the Nome headquarters. But don't change the subject. Giacomo, it's serious what's going on! There's gonna be blood, you can't meddle in this. You know how the French are, it's going to turn into civil war. "
She took a sip of her wine and resumed:
"You exposed us all. Iskandar's investigators dig through our affairs, from our connections to the Phoenicians, to our finances. They are digging up all the internal affairs of Nome, centuries of assassination and bribery. Ignazio risks prison, your brothers too.
- It's too late Esme. You'll get by without me.
- You're still part of the Bellini, Giacomo. You are one of us, regardless of your betrayals. Nonna calls it childishness. Come home now.
- I'm with Iskandar now.
- An alliance of circumstance. Your ties to us are blood ties, they are not alienable.
- Esme. I'll have to go now."
She held my gaze for long minutes.
"So, this is really fucking serious then? Between you ?
- Yes, I said without blinking.
- I've never seen you like this. I guess nothing I say will change your mind.
- I think so too.
- I hope you know what you're doing then. "
I just gave her a big smile. I got up and went to pay at the counter.
"By the way, you're right, she told me when I returned." My uncle just wants me away from the Fifteenth.
- I'm going to the Fourteenth headquarters there now. You coming with me ?
- I guess I don't have much else to do."
Esme followed me. The new Nome (the old building had burned down during the Trois Glorieuses revolution) was located behind the Invalides. The doors were barricaded with spells, and large black and red flags hung from the front. We walked around the building, where one of the side doors was not blocked. Assia, who was guarding the door with two men, recognized us and let us in. In the courtyard of the Nome reigned a strange festive mood. A guy had pulled out an accordion, some veterans were singing Craonne's song:
On the grands boulevards it's hard to look
At all the rich and powerful whooping it up
For them life is good
But for us it's not the same
Instead of hiding, all these shirkers
Would do better to go up to the trenches
Good-bye to life, good-bye to love,
Good-bye to all the women,
It's all over now, we've had it for good
With this awful war.
It's in Craonne up on the plateau
Those who have the dough, they'll be coming back,
'Cause it's for them that we're dying.
But it's all over now, 'cause all of the grunts
Are going to go on strike.
It'll be your turn, all you rich and powerful gentlemen,
To go up onto the plateau.
And if you want to make war,
Then pay for it with your own skins.
Assia motioned for me to go to the armory. It had been almost emptied of all weapons. Justine was explaining something to Michel.
"You missed the general meeting, she greeted us.
- Like it affects us?
- It affects everyone. "
For a moment I imagined telling Iskandar that I was going on strike because I wanted a raise. I imagined his eyes twinkling, his air of delighted surprise and his caressing voice whispering: very well, Bellini, I see you are not losing your sense of humor.
"No news from the other side? I asked them.
- Oh, the big guys came this morning. They must be at La Roque to prepare their retaliation, Michel replied.
- Do you think they'll try to break through?
- We're ready for anything.
- The advantage with our leaders, is that they are quite irresolute, Justine revealed.
'La Roque is soft,' Esme commented, 'all the other chiefs in Nome say so. He found himself at his post by chance, without having deserved it.
- Wanting to avoid the bloodshed is not necessarily synonymous with softness, Michel corrected her. La Roque is reasonable, we are counting on that.
- By the way, Today there is something new at the other Nomes? Alice asked.
- I don't know, communications are difficult. La Barre knows a lot about statuary, he sabotaged our vision bowls. It seems that in Berlin they are already negotiating, Hannibal Friedwald represents the Per Ankh.
- He's become quite important, hasn't he?
- He is in everyone's favor, especially the First Nome. Being an internationalist can be useful.
- In Madrid, they are preparing to attack the Nome.
- Thanks for revealing family secrets, Esme grumbled. "
Justine stared at her. "I'll try to warn Elvira then!" "
She left the room.
"No sooner have I spent an hour with you than I am a delinquent again," Esme moaned.
- That's my super magical charm.
- They will necessarily notice that the leak comes from me.
- Not necessarily… "
She sighed, unsure, and left after Justine.
I turned to Michel, but he was looking towards one of the partly blocked up windows. An ibis stood above one of the planks. My throat tightened.
" You must go?
- Yes, I said. Don't do anything stupid. "
He grinned back. I retraced my steps. In some corner of the courtyard, Justine and Esme were vehemently explaining themselves. Erwan tried to separate them, Justine yelled at him. I figured my cousin didn't really need my help and ran to catch a bus to Père Lachaise.
Iskandar was in the Map Room, with a dozen magicians, including some Sem Priests. Koité motioned to me, and I joined her discreetly in the gallery going around the room, from where we could see without being seen. Among the faces surrounding Iskandar, I easily recognized the leader of the Ninth Nome, John Dee, but also Bonifacio Voiello, the Leader of the Eighth, as well as the respective leaders of the Nomes of Amsterdam, Oran and Athens. Old Julius Kane had also come, from the Twenty-First, as had Nolan Rehataka from the Toronto Nome. Kane shocked me slightly. Since the last time I had seen him, in 1918, he had aged a lot. He was hunched over, old, almost as wrinkled as Iskandar. There's no much time left for him. Among the remaining magicians : a Pole whom I knew by sight represented his Nome, one was Portuguese, I did not know the other three.
"What did I miss?
- The Sophia Nome has fallen.
- What do you mean ?
- Twenty-one casualties.
- What?
- Kolchagovi did not wait for Iskandar's recommendations, he stormed the rebels. His Nome is still at open war with Slavic magicians, since the collapse of the Balkan's Nomes. He wanted to resolve his internal crisis as quickly as possible. "
She fell silent, I returned my attention to the conversation in Demotic below us.
"And the Nomes of the Americas? asked Iskandar.
"Safe, for most of them," Rehataka assured him. But negotiations in favor of the strikers could persuade them to act. It is about not giving in too much.
The Amsterdam Nome pleaded in favor of the strikers:
"Any bloodshed is criminal, whoever the instigator is. We are too few, we have lost too many of our young people in the war, to allow a massacre. It is contrary to our values, to all our principles of fairness and moderation.
- Who speaks of moderation when the very foundations of our House are flouted? Voiello growled.
"These same young people you defend are the bulk of the strikers today," Kane said, his voice tired. The same dissenting and ungrateful generation.
- Sacrificed generation you mean. Chief Lector ! He turned to Iskandar. "I beg you, urge patience. The negotiations in Berlin are about to be concluded. If the young Hannibal obtains the lifting of the occupation of the Nome, it will serve as an example to all, it will prove that a compromise is still possible!
- Sir Dee? asked Iskandar.
- I agree with that too, but for other reasons. Time is on our side, it weakens the strikers and destroys their resolve.
- The roots of discord are with most of them, it only remains to wait for their growth, added Rehataka.
Voiello and the Portuguese were fuming.
"Lindor won't be content with patience," pointed out one of the anonymous magicians. The Madrid Nome is on a war footing.
- We must at all costs avoid a new massacre, as in Sophia, pleaded the Dutchman.
- Send troops, suggested the same magician. Reduce him to impotence.
- Troops? blenched Kane. From the First Nome? This would significantly weaken the authority of regional governments, which is the last thing we need.
- And who will negotiate with the strikers? Voiello supported him. The Chief Reader and the First Name cannot under any circumstances stoop to such infamy.
"The Bulgarians have just provided martyrs for their cause," Rehataka pointed out. We must get rid of their other symbolic faces: Charlotte Despard, Lilian Lenton, Lehmann, Desjardins, Elena Maïko ...
- What is La Roque doing? Voiello growled. Vasseur and Desjardins are among the movement's chief agitators. Desjardins above all, he is one of the only known personalities of the movement, thanks to his (he glanced furtively at Kane) exploits against Sekhmet.
- A Champollion on the rebel side, it was evident, said Kane. I'm just astonished that you underestimated Lady Lenton's danger so much, he scolded John Dee. The young lady was well known for her quarrels with your government.
- Gentlemen, said Iskandar before the Englishman could retort, thank you all for your precious advice. Other matters now demand my attention, but please remain patient and continue your appeals for calm and moderation.
He then dismissed got out of the gallery after everyone had left. On a word from Iskandar, Bérénice Koité bowed and left the room. I was left alone with the Chief Reader. He gave me a meaningful look. My heart knotted.
"Lindor de Borja?" I whispered to him.
He nodded. "You know what to do. "
I left the room in my turn.
Traduction
Un giorno, brucero questo fottuto posto… : One day I'm gonna burn this fucking place down...
Hola prima: Hey cousin
List of Nomes with their Number :
1. Cairo (Heliopolis) - Egypt
2. Thebes - Egypt
3. Khartoum - Sudan
4. Jerusalem - Israel
5. Athens - Greece
6. Tripoli - Libya
7. Istanbul - Turkey
8. Rome - Italy
9. London - United Kingdom
10. Tunis (formerly Carthage) - Tunisia
11. Algiers - Algeria
12. Beirut - Lebanon
13. Casablanca - Morocco
14. Paris - France
15. Madrid - Spain
16. Berlin - Germany
17. Vienna - Austria
18. Saint Petersburg - Russia
19. Prague - Czech Republic
20. Lisbon - Portugal
21. New York - USA
36. Zanzibar
100. Toronto - Canada
140. Dublin - Ireland
141. Zürich - Switzerland
142. Amsterdam - Netherlands
143. Brussels - Belgium
144. Luxembourg
167. Oran - Algeria
184. Copenhagen - Denmark
185. Oslo - Norway
186. Stockholm - Sweden
187. Reykjavik - Iceland
189. Helsinki - Finland
190. Talin - Estonia
200 – Vatican City
211. Riga - Latvia
212. Vilnius - Lithuania
213. Sophia - Bulgaria
214. Bucharest - Romania
215. Sarajevo - Western Balkans
216. Belgrade - Eastern Balkans
217. Tirana - Albania
218. Budapest - Hungary
219. Bratislava - Slovakia
220. Warsaw - Poland
221. Kiev - Ukraine
222. Minsk - Belarus