The following morning Lara set out early, enjoying the crisp air as she made use of every detour familiar to her in order to reach Cornwall by ten a.m.
Her Aunt's house stood at the end of a quiet country road off the village of Eaton-upon-Thyne, where the church and the only little grocery store in the area were located. The landscape was as though ripped right off a postcard – the nature was visibly more luxuriant than in the London area were heavy pollution had only left the most stubborn plants standing.
The lonely road was so seldom trafficked that Lara did not have to bother ringing the doorbell – Gillian had heard her coming and was waiting in the yard with a teapot in her hand.
The greeted with a hug and sat down in the garden for tea.
Gillian's garden was small and wild, with thorny bushes lining the sides and at least a dozen varieties of roses climbing up the south wall. Some had bloomed over, but a great many were still battling the winds with their petals.
Suddenly something occurred to Lara. "Where's Churchill?"
Gillian smiled. "Martin took him to the Isle. About time he got out a little."
Lara smiled politely. Churchill was his Aunt's dog, a feisty little corgi who'd acquired a taste for Lara's calves the moment they'd met. She tried to hide her delight at the fact that the little critter was away. "How is Martin?" she asked, and let her gaze wander to the roses again.
Martin Ives, Gillian's neighbour was of the same age than Lara's Aunt, and they were great friends. Sometimes Gillian spoke of him in a way that hinted of more, and Lara was eager to tease her on the subject. "I'm too old for that sort of thing," was Gillian's usual reply, which made Lara slightly sad. I wonder if I'm already getting too old myself, she wondered every time she heard her Aunt's belittling comment.
"So, my dear, what have you been up to?" Gillian asked, and Lara returned her gaze back to her Aunt, almost unable to tear her eyes away from a stunningly beautiful, almost violet rose.
"Not much after Egypt," Lara replied, and noticed her Aunt's expression shift at the mention. She felt apologetic for the whole ordeal. Von Croy had obviously been quite eager to announce the news of her assumed death. "Tell you the truth, I haven't been offered much work lately," she sighed. She'd checked with a couple of other freelancers, and it seemed it wasn't just her problem. "Sometimes it seems as though this globe's been emptied of all treasure. Even the Jordanian trail I was on lead to nowhere. I told you about it, right?"
Gillian nodded. She'd seldom seen Lara so frustrated as when she'd found a mention in an old text about a military expedition of Marc Anthony's to try to employ the Nabataeans against his rivals. His troops had carried with them a valuable burden of gold and jewellery to aid in getting the ancient Jordanians to sympathize with their quest. Most of them had been scavenged during the ongoing wars between the former Roman members of the triumvirate of Octavian, Marc Anthony and Lepidus, but some of them were likely to have been donated by Cleopatra, Anthony's famous lover. They would've been a magnificent find. But Lara had not managed to find enough information on the subject to gain a permission from the Jordanian authorities to take a look around Petra, the ancient city of the Nabataeans, where the reasure was most likely hidden.
She could've tried posing as a tourist, but she had too high a profile in the antiquities circuit to get into the country unnoticed. And she did not have as many contacts in the Jordanian ministry of antiquities as she had into the Egyptian one, for instance.
"I thought we might take the cups inside, then walk into town. They'll be expecting us at eleven in the parish meeting hall."
Lara wiped a droplet of tea from her lips, and put down the cup. "Sounds good to me. We'll take the bridge trail?"
Gillian smiled and buttoned up her coat. "Of course," she replied, glad that Lara had remembered.
The parish hall was a small, octagonal building just southward of the small stone church and its overcrowded churchyard. According to Gillian, the yard couldn't be expanded because of the ancient stone wall that circled it was protected by the historical sites act. The parish did own a plot of land outside the village which was due to be used as a new cemetary, but noone wanted to be buried here. All wished for a plot in the old yard.
"And who could blame them?" Gillian asked as they walked into the banquet room, "The new plot faces the old mill, which is lovely, but there are no roses there."
Lara wholeheartedly agreed. She liked churchyards in general, if one didn't count in the one where her mother's grave lay, but the one in Eaton-upon-Thyne was the most wonderful she'd seen. Usually English cemeteries were overgrown with ivy but here roses had taken its place. Most of them were of the usual pale pink wild variety, but families of the deceased had almost a tradition of planting a different variety of rose on each grave.
No wonder they're so interested in this mystery variety they've come across, Lara mused to herself as she was introduced to a motley group of pension-aged ladies that the Floral society mostly consisted of. The chairwoman, Patricia Mildrew, almost forgot to let go of Lara's hand after giving it a thorough shake with her paper-thinly skinned, tanned hand that had obviously seen a lot of gardens and late-Autumn sunlight.
"Please, Lara, do sit down," she pleaded, and Lara complied.
She decided it was time for questions before the ladies flooded her over with tea and chitchat. "Thank you for the invitation. Gillian tells me you're trying to locate something and need my help."
"Oh yes," Mrs. Mildrew replied matter-of-factly, "Here, dear, take a look yourself." She passed Lara an old book. She glanced at the cover before opening the marked page.
The book was not printed, but tied together in a fashion that told either of the sixteenth of seventeenth century. It was in Latin, which Lara could read fluently and easily, but on the first page there was an inscription written with shaky handwriting. The whole book had been copied by hand, of course, but the inscription was not a result of laborous and skilled copying. It was like an owner's title or a dedication. "Psallat scholarum concio" it read, followed by "John Wellesley" or "Welsley". Lara couldn't tell as the ink had faded. The text itself meant "And the day dawns after the night".
Before concentrating on the marked pages Lara had to ask the obvious. "Where did you get this?"
This time it wasn't Mrs Mildrew who replied rather than an old, thin man who'd introduced himself as the vicar. "A monastery stood on this site for nearly five hundred years before it burned down in the war of the roses."
How appropriate, Lara thought, amused. She nodded, urging the vicar to continue.
"This was found in the ruins forty years ago when the church was being restored and this hall built. It's been lying around in the storage room for a long while. A recent inventory brought this book to my attention, and as I began reading it I noticed these pages and as a curiosity showed it to Mabel here." He nodded at another elderly woman.
Lara began reading the marked pages, trying to treat the book as carefully as possible.
It was a prayer book, which was not very unusual. In late medieval times only religious texts were considered worthy enough to be copied in the centres of civilization of those times – convents and monasteries. Prayer books were among those, and as most monks and nuns were in possession of such books, they were considered high society. Books were rare and expensive in those days.
On page seventy-four, the first of the marked ones was a short prayer to Virgin Mary. Translated, the third verse meant "and in your garden shall grow the rosa mystica". Lara dared not translate the term into "mystical rose". It was a metaphor she had not come across before. It was like it was an euphemism, but who knew for certain? Still, she ought to voice her suspicion.
"The rosa mystica. I haven't heard of it before. Though, I can't claim to be very well schooled in theology. But I do know who I could ask about this. I have to say that it could just be a religious term, at least it sounds like one."
"That's what we reasoned, too, at first. But turn the page," Mrs Mildrew pleaded.
Lara did so and began reading the next prayer. It did not withhold a mention of any sort of roses, but to Lara's astonishment a picture adorned the empty space under the text - a delicate drawing of a rose. The caption read rosa mystica. The colour of the rose was deep blood-red.
Lara gazed up from the book. "This does seem to make it more likely that there is, or maybe was, such a rose. But finding this in reality might not be possible. Plants become exist all the time. A century ago even the common dandelion was on the verge of disappearing from England," she quoted the books she'd been reading the previous evening to gain some insight into the subject.
Mrs Mildrew ignored her protest. "We can not pay you much, but if you could possibly accept this little request of ours to try and track down this rose. The annual Rose Society of England's annual fair will be held here next year, and this would truly be something interesting as a presentation."
Am I really taking up a job chasing after a plant? Lara wondered to herself. If something more pressing came up, this would certainly be low on her priorities list. But surely she could contact some old colleagues and ask a few questions.
"Money's not a problem. I'm not particularly busy at the moment so this could fit right into my schedule. I can't guarantee any results, but..."
The ladies seemed content with this. They drank up their tea, and after touring the church premises with Mrs Mildrew, her Aunt and the vicar, Lara excused herself and left for home. She did have the godawful dinner to attend.
The annual financier's dinner was one of the only things in the world that could make Lara's blood boil in what seemed to her a rather naive way. She just couldn't stand those people – business tycoons and members of parliament who only had money and no regard for archaeology. A name on the museum's funder wall was their prize, a social ticket to the "cultural circles". As polite and well-bred as Lara knew herself to be when the situation called, she knew that one of these days her curvature of annoyance towards these people would reach the top of the chart with serious consequences.
It was these people who sat in councils, committees and boards that decided to bulldoze old bridges from the way of progress, meaning motorways and Sainsburys' supermarkets. Lara had taken on paid commissions from such people, but only from those who knew what they were after. A man with a wallet thicker than their waist but who could not tell the difference between a sarcophagus and a wine barrell did not become her customers under any circumstances.
There were colleagues, of course, who took up any job. She'd even dated some of them. Many times it had been the work ethics that had dug the deepest gorges in the relationships.
She had a hard time deciding between a red and a black dress, but eventually she decided she was in favour of the the black one. She wished to be as inconspicous as possible, as her presence usually gathered more than enough attention on its own without an attention-gathering garment. She wondered who the mostly male board of funders leered on when she wasn't there – perhaps each other? Now there's a thought, Lara remarked to herself, amused. Usually museum director Garrett Graham provided a good chaperone for her – the two of them had always gotten along great, but Garrett, who was already approaching his sixties, had suffered a stroke months earlier, and had had to leave his post as head of the museum.
It had been a blow to Lara. Garrett had understood the way she wanted to work, had helped her out both unofficially and officially and even saved her neck a few times with his connections. The new director, Arthur what-was-his-name-again, had not made any radical changes, but Lara had not met him yet and was suspicious. She would meet him that night, of course. It was one of the reasons that had persuaded her to agree to show up.
Lara was positively suprised when the phone rang sometime after four p.m., and the caller introduced himself as the new director.
"Lady Croft, it's Arthur Evers, how do you do."
"Speak of the devil! I've been looking forward to hearing from you. I'm just wonderful, thank you. And you?"
"Looking forward to meeting you, of course," a polite voice said from the other end, "I've heard a great deal about you."
"All rotten lies, I'm sure," Lara smiled.
"I'm certain you'll right any wrong ideas I might have. I was wondering if we could meet at my office before the banquet? I heard that a certain Roman military expedition into Jordania has piqued your interest in the past."
The Nabataean affair! Lara's heart leaped. She certainly could begin to like this man. "It still does. Would at seven be a suitable time?"
"Absolutely, Lady Croft."
"You'd better change that to Lara if you want co-operation."
"I knew you were close to Garrett," he suddenly remarked.
Lara did not reply. She hadn't visited him in the hospital since the first week he'd gotten in. She'd been quite rattled by the visit. He hadn't even recognized her.
Evers cleared his throat. "I can assure you, I won't be making any changes concerning your work. I know you have certain guidelines you like to stick by, and that is absolutely commendable."
Lara began to feel slightly irked by his complimentary. "What are you aiming at if I may ask?"
"Just to reassure you that on my behalf we have a great chance of getting along."
Not if you keep it that slick we won't. "I'll see you at seven," Lara commented dryly, and said her farewell.
At seven o'clock sharp, Lara adjusted her earrings – a pair of dangly combinations of zirkonia and silver which felt strange as she did not often wear jewellery. Then she used her magnetocard to enter the administrative wing of the museum. It was empty save for the sound of typing coming from the room Lara had learned to think of as Garrett's office. She walked straight in.
"Evening," she commented, secretly delighted at the fact that she'd obviously startled him.
Arthur Evers was somewhere in his fifties, a quite thin man with glasses and light brownish hair which had carefully been combed into shape. She wore quite suffered-looking pants and a white dress shirt. Obviously not what he was planning on wearing at the banquet, as there was a well-tailored black suit hanging from the doorjamb.
"Lady Croft, welcome. Do take a seat." They shook hands.
I did say it was Lara, but at the moment I do not mind the lady part. Lara dropped down in an armchair. Evers joined her, taking a seat in the accompanying armchair. "Quite a wind outside," he offered.
Lara nodded and adjusted her dress, a simple black evening gown with one long sleeve and the other side completely sleeveless. "Feels as though even snow could be expected."
"Hopefully not," Arthur replied absently and passed Lara a ready-poured glass of scotch without asking her if she'd like one. There was an uncomfortable silence which Lara decided to break.
She put her glass aside. "I see you've made yourself at home here," she said and added a smile for effect but to her the comment still sounded too much like an accusation.
"Well, I'm not planning on leaving very soon," he replied quietly.
"So, what can I do for you? If you have anything on the Nabataeans I'm sure we could cook up a deal if I decide to follow the trail, Mr Evers."
"It's Arthur."
Not quite yet it isn't, Lara thought tiredly, wishing the man could get to the point.
"I attended a conference in Marseille last week, and an old friend of mine who's been leading a dig in the Amman area discovered the ruins of a pillared hall. The engravings were quite astonishing, obviously depicting Anthony's little trip to the country. The inscriptions even mention his name and some constructions which are probably located at Petra. Quite a few clues to start with." Evers passed her a wad of photocopies. Lara stuck them in her bag. They had no time to properly inspect them, and she preferred to do it on her own in the privacy of her library. "Thank you. I'll keep you posted on what I find."
She tried to conceal how much this would help her. Maybe this would even mean purchasing a plane ticket to Amman. She'd been to Jordania before but only during brief stops at the airport or quick shopping rounds for expeditions elsewhere in the Middle East. She was looking forward to touring the country more thoroughly - especially the magnificent-sounding Petra. Maybe she'd even have time to stop by at Jerash, another ancient city.
But she wasn't supposed to be planning anything just yet. She felt a pang of guilt as she remembered her botanical task, but that just would have to come in second.
"Glad to be of assistance. Now, would you possibly allow me to escort you to the banquet? I shall have to change into a more proper attire, of course."
He speaks even more formally than dear old daddy, Lara sighed to herself, and pushed her chin up. "I'll be in the hallway."