The Giant's Almanac Andrew Zurcher (books to read fiction TXT) 📖

early sixteenth century. It was printed in Basle, in Switzerland. It’s a rare annotated copy of a famous work by the Roman writer Cicero. It’s worth tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, solely on account of the person who owned it. I was excited when I noticed it, because this person, like me, was interested in Near East antiquities. Which is what makes the coincidence I’m about to show you so very bizarre.’

He put the book down, and gently closed the cover. From the inside of his jacket, he drew a pair of wooden tweezers.

‘It was the practice in the early days of printing, when binding books in leather, to stuff the inside of the binding with pieces of old manuscripts – whatever waste material happened to be lying around. Pages from much older manuscripts, sometimes cut into little pieces, can for this reason be found inside later books. Now, what a Swiss printer in 1500 considered to be worthless – it boggles the mind. Because he couldn’t read Middle Persian, for example, he packed this manuscript page into his copy of Cicero.’

Using his tweezers, Professor Farzan carefully drew from inside the leather cover of the book a sturdy sheet of parchment, which was entirely covered with neat, small writing – in an elegant script that Fitz couldn’t recognize at all.

‘When I saw this last week, I immediately phoned Ned, because it reminded me of something he had told me about years before. In fact, it is the other half of a document once given to him in a Baghdad hotel, which –’

‘I told her,’ said Ned, cutting him off. ‘And I think Fitz might have heard it, too, if I’m not mistaken.’

Professor Farzan turned over the manuscript page. Clare only had eyes for Fitz.

– ‘which, as I was saying, includes a drawing of a statue you have now seen.’

Fitz’s heart began to pound. The drawing on the reverse of the manuscript page, like the statue itself, so closely resembled him that he felt he could be looking in a mirror. Executed in black ink, it was indistinguishable from the portraits Clare so often did, absent-mindedly, whenever they were sitting together.

‘The moment I saw this manuscript – perfectly preserved, undisturbed, for the last five hundred years in the binding of this book – I knew it would help us to understand the statue. What I didn’t know is that it would help us to understand you.’ Here he turned to Fitz.

‘The manuscript contains a long passage about the statue. I have composed a rough translation of the central portion of it. I will read it to you.’

Professor Farzan replaced the manuscript in the binding with care, and retrieved a folded piece of lined white paper from his pocket. He straightened it and began to read, stumbling here and there over his own crabbed handwriting, and once or twice adjusting his glasses, or raising them to peer under them at something especially illegible.

‘The Great Hoard of the shāhanshāh is his Kingdom. It will not be recovered by any man. It is the joy of his heart that he has buried in the sands and in the rock far from the tread of any man, and belongs to no man but to the shāhanshāh alone. But even the tamarisk that grows in the desert may bloom, and its roots drink the salt of many tears. So if the son of the king shall appear, at any time, before the eyes of his father, he shall inherit the Kingdom, and having the Great Hoard he shall be known to be the shāhanshāh.’

Professor Farzan folded the paper again and placed it back in his pocket. He took off his glasses, and wiped the sleeve of his coat across his bushy, greying eyebrows, then replaced his glasses. He blinked at them all, searching their faces for something that was not in them.

‘Don’t you understand?’ he said. ‘They cast the statue and placed it on a plinth in Bishapur, so that when the heir of the shāhanshāh was found, he should be known. At any time.’

No one said a word.

‘The heir,’ insisted the Professor. ‘The statue is the figure of the heir, the shapur, the son of the king of kings.’

‘You don’t seriously think –’ started Ned.

‘Of course I don’t,’ laughed Professor Farzan; his voice was merry, Fitz thought, but his eyes were hard. ‘But it doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is that there appear to be a great many people who have suddenly become interested in this young man. And you can’t deny the likeness. For many people – ignorant, superstitious – that will be more than enough. Many people want to find the Kingdom. They have wanted to find it for years. They think the boy will lead them to it.’

Ned took off his glasses and with two fingers rubbed his eyes, then pinched his nose and squinted, hard. Fitz wondered if he was wincing from the difficult thoughts he was thinking, or from the pain he was causing himself.

‘And how is a boy supposed to find this Kingdom, this treasure, he is due to inherit?’

‘How old are you, child?’ asked Farzan, turning suddenly to look Fitz full in the face. ‘Answer carefully.’

‘He’s twelve,’ said Clare.

Mr Ahmadi, watching the Professor, shook his head.

‘Are you?’ Farzan asked him. His eyebrows lifted.

‘Nearly,’ answered Fitz. ‘At the end of next month.’

Professor Farzan leaned back in his seat, folding his hands across his lap. He looked at Mr Ahmadi. ‘Tradition has it that the heir will find the Kingdom when he comes of age.’

‘And tradition has it that he comes of age when he is twelve?’ asked Ned.

‘Yes,’ answered Mr Ahmadi. ‘Then he will be a man. Hence the appearance, now, of Sassani – and all of them.’

‘Grave robbers as a rule are fairly superstitious, and they are a nasty bunch,’ added the Professor, ‘whether they work in museums or in the dead of the night. And when time is short, and thieves fall out with thieves