The Book of Life(202)

But the trouble did not gallop over the hill like an apocalyptic horseman, or cruise into the driveway, or even call on the phone.

The trouble was already in the house—and had been for some time.

I found Matthew in the library late one afternoon a few days after Christmas, several folded sheets of paper before him. My hands turned every color in the rainbow, and my heart sank.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A letter from Godfrey.” He slid it in my direction. I glanced at it, but it was written in Old French.

“Read it to me,” I said, sitting down next to him.

The truth was far worse than I had allowed myself to imagine. Benjamin’s killing spree had lasted centuries. He’d preyed on witches, and very probably weavers in particular. Gerbert was almost certainly involved. And that one phrase—“They search within us for the Book of Life”—turned my blood to fire and ice.

“We have to stop him, Matthew. If he finds out we’ve had a daughter . . .” I trailed off. Benjamin’s final words to me in the Bodleian haunted me. When I thought of what he might try to do to Rebecca, the power snapped through my veins like the lash of a whip.

“He already knows.” Matthew met my eyes, and I gasped at the rage I saw there.

“Since when?”

“Sometime before the christening,” Matthew said. “I’m going to look for him, Diana.”

“How will you find him?” I asked.

“Not by using computers or by trying to find his IP address. He’s too clever for that. I’ll find him the way I know best: tracking him, scenting him, cornering him,” Matthew said. “Once I do that, I’ll tear him limb from limb. If I fail—”

“You can’t,” I said flatly.

“I may.” Matthew’s eyes met mine. He needed me to hear him, not reassure him.

“Okay,” I said with a calmness I didn’t feel, “what happens if you fail?”

“You’ll need the Book of Life. It’s the only thing that may lure Benjamin out of hiding so he can be destroyed—once and for all.”

“The only thing besides me,” I said.

Matthew’s darkening eyes said that using me as bait to catch Benjamin was not an option.

“I’ll leave for Oxford tomorrow. The library is closed for the Christmas vacation. There won’t be any staff around except for security,” I said.

To my surprise, Matthew nodded. He was going to let me help.

“Will you be all right on your own?” I didn’t want to fuss over him, but I needed to know. Matthew had already suffered through one separation. He nodded.

“What shall we do about the children?” Matthew asked.

“They need to stay here, with Sarah and Ysabeau and with enough of my milk and blood to feed them until I return. I’ll take Fernando with me—no one else. If someone is watching us and reporting back to Benjamin, then we need to do what we can to make it look as though we’re still here and everything is normal.”

“Someone is watching us. There’s no doubt about it.” Matthew pushed his fingers through his hair.

“The only question is whether that someone belongs to Benjamin or to Gerbert. That wily bastard’s role in this may have been bigger than we thought.”

“If he and your son have been in league all this time, there’s no telling how much they know,” I said.

“Then our only hope is to possess information they don’t yet have. Get the book. Bring it back here and see if you can fix it by reinserting the pages Kelley removed,” Matthew said. “Meanwhile I’ll find Benjamin and do what I should have done long ago.”

“When will you leave?” I asked.

“Tomorrow. After you go, so I can make sure that you aren’t being followed,” he said, rising to his feet.

I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved—the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father—fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now.

But he was still the man I loved.

Matthew took me by the shoulders and waited until I met his eyes. “Be safe.”

His words were emphatic, and I felt the force of them. He cupped my face in his hands, searching every inch as though trying to memorize it.

“I meant what I said on Christmas Day. The family will survive if I don’t come back. There are others who can serve as its head. But you are its heart.”

I opened my mouth to protest, and Matthew pressed his fingers against my lips, staying my words.

“There is no point in arguing with me. I know this from experience,” he said. “Before you I was nothing but dust and shadows. You brought me to life. And I will do whatever it takes to keep my heart safe from further harm.”