Ben said.
‘It was a vile affair,’ Rose continued. ‘And it was during this time that the Catholic Church formed its Inquisition, a new wing of Church officialdom to lend greater authority to the atrocities performed by the army. They oversaw duties of interrogation, torture and execution. They were answerable only to the Pope personally. Their power was absolute. At one point in 1242, the Inquisitors were acting so bloodthirstily that a detachment of disgusted knights broke away from their station and slaughtered a whole bunch of them at a place called Avignonet. Of course, the rebel knights were quickly suppressed. Then, finally in 1243, after the Cathar resistance had held out much longer than anyone had anticipated, the Pope decided it was time to finish them off once and for all. Eight thousand knights laid siege to the last Cathar stronghold, the mountaintop castle of Montségur, firing enormous rocks at its ramparts from their catapults for ten solid months until the Cathars were finally betrayed and forced to surrender. Two hundred of the poor souls were brought down the mountain and roasted alive by the Inquisitors. And that was more or less the end of them. The end of one of the most scandalous holocausts of all time.’
‘I can see alchemical heresy might have been a risky thing to get into,’ Ben said.
‘Still is, in some ways,’ Rose replied playfully.
Ben was taken aback. ‘What?’
The professor threw his head back and laughed. ‘I don’t mean they’re still executing heretics in the public square. I was thinking of the danger for people like myself, academics or scientists. The reason nobody wants to touch this subject with a bargepole is the reputation you’d get for being a crank. Every so often someone takes a bite of the forbidden apple and their head rolls. Some poor sod got the sack for just that reason, a while ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was at a Parisian university. American biology lecturer got into hot water over some unauthorized research…’
‘On alchemy?’
‘Something of that sort. Wrote some articles in the press that rubbed a few people up the wrong way.’
‘Who was this American?’ Ben asked.
‘I’m trying to remember the name,’ Rose said. A Dr.…Dr. Roper, no, Ryder, that’s it. There was a big furore about it in the academic world. It even got mentioned in the French Medieval Society bulletin. Apparently Ryder went to a university tribunal for unfair dismissal. Didn’t do any good, though. As I said, once they brand you a crank it’s a real witch-hunt.’
‘Dr. Ryder in Paris,’ Ben repeated, noting it down.
‘There’s a whole article about it in a back issue of Scientific American that was lying about in the college common room. When I’m back there later I’ll look it out for you and give you a call. There might be a contact number for Ryder.’
‘Thanks, I might well check that out.’
‘Oh…’ Rose suddenly remembered. ‘Just a thought. If you do find yourself in Paris, another person you might want to contact is a chap called Maurice Loriot. He’s a big book publisher, fascinated by all sorts of esoteric subjects, publishes a lot of that sort of stuff. He’s a good friend of mine. This is his card…if you meet him, tell him I said hello.’
Ben took the card. ‘I will. And do let me know that Dr. Ryder’s number, if you can find it. I’d really like to meet him.’
They parted with a warm handshake. ‘Good luck with your research, Benedict,’ said Professor Rose. ‘Try not to leave it another twenty years next time.’
Far away, two voices were speaking on the phone.
‘His name is Hope,’ one of them repeated. ‘Benedict Hope.’ The man’s voice was English and spoke in a hurried, furtive whisper, slightly damped as though he were cupping his hand around the receiver to prevent others from hearing.
‘Do not be concerned,’ said the second voice. The Italian sounded confident and unruffled. ‘We will deal with him as we dealt with the others.’
‘That’s the problem,’ the first voice hissed. ‘This one isn’t like the others. I think he may cause trouble for us.’
A pause. ‘Keep me informed. We will take care of it.’
Rome, Italy
The big man flipped through the old copy of Scientific American until he reached the bookmarked page. The article he was looking for was called Medieval Quantum Science. Its author was Dr. Roberta Ryder, an American biologist working out of Paris. He’d read it before, but because of the reports he’d been receiving over the last few days, he was reading it again in a whole new light.
When he’d first seen Ryder’s article he’d been pleased at the way the magazine editors had attacked her work. They’d torn her to pieces, devoting an entire editorial to debunking and ridiculing everything she’d said. They’d even made a fool of her on the front page. Making such a public example of her had been an undisguised hatchet job, but what else could you do with a once-respected, award-winning young scientist who suddenly started making wild and unsubstantiated claims about such a thing as alchemy? The scientific establishment would not, could not tolerate a radical of this sort who demanded that alchemical research should be taken seriously and given proper funding, asserting that its popular reputation as quackery was undeserved, possibly even a conspiracy, and that it would one day revolutionize physics and biology.
He’d followed her career since then, and been pleased at the way it had plummeted. Ryder had been thoroughly discredited. The science world had turned its back on her, virtually had her excommunicated. She’d even lost her university job. When he’d heard this news at the time, he’d been delighted.
But now he wasn’t so happy. In fact, he was furious, and anxious.
This damn woman wouldn’t go away. She’d shown an unexpected toughness and determination in the face of adversity. Despite the universal derision of her peers, despite almost running out of money, she continued to persist in her private research. Now the reports from his source were telling him she’d had a breakthrough. Not a major one, necessarily–but big enough for him to worry about it.
Clever, this Ryder woman. Dangerously clever. On a shoestring budget she was getting better results than his whole well-equipped, highly-paid team. She couldn’t be allowed to go on like this. What if she discovered too much? She’d have to be stopped.
Paris
If the choice of items a person went to the trouble of keeping in a heavily guarded bank vault said something about their priorities, then Ben Hope was a man with a very simple view of life.
His safe deposit box at the Banque Nationale de Paris was virtually identical to the ones he kept in London, Milan, Madrid, Berlin and Prague. They all contained only two things. The first thing they contained varied only in its currency from country to country. The amount was always the same, enough
