Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

him climb the ladder of fame and honors. He has little talent.You will be his secret soul. Write, and live in the shadow of hisglory. Only you and I, Kelley, will know that the glory isyours."

So for years I've beenturning out work for the queen and for all England that goes underthe name of this pale youth. If I have seen further, it is bystanding on ye shoulders of a Dwarfe. I was thirty, and I willallow no man to say that thirty is the most beautiful time oflife.

"William," I said tohim, "let your hair grow down over your ears: it's becoming." I hada plan (to take his place?).

Can one live in hatredof this Spear-shaker, who in reality is oneself? That sweet thiefwhich sourly robs from me. "Calm down, Kelley," Dee says to me. "Togrow in the shadows is the privilege of those who prepare toconquer the world. Keepe a Lowe Profyle. William will be one of ourcovers." And he informed me¡Xoh, only in part¡Xof the Cosmic Plot.The secret of the Templars. "And the stakes?" I asked.

"Ye Globe."

For a long time I wentto bed early, but one evening at midnight I rummaged in Dee'sprivate strongbox and discovered some formulas and tried summoningangels as he does on nights of full moon. Dee found me sprawled, inthe center of the circle of the Macrocosm, as if struck by a lash.On my brow, the Pentacle of Solomon. Now I must pull my cap evenfarther down, half over my eyes.

"You don't know how todo it yet," Dee said to me. "Watch yourself, or I'll have your nosecut off, too. I will show you fear in a handful ofdust..."

He raised a bony handand uttered the terrible word: Garamond! I felt myself burn with aninner flame. I fled (into the night).

It was a year before Deeforgave me and dedicated to me his Fourth Book of Mysteries, "postreconciliationem kellianam."

That summer I was seizedby abstract rages. Dee summoned me to Mortlake. There were Williamand I, Spenser, and a young aristocrat with shifty eyes, FrancisBacon. He had a delicate, lively, hazel Eie.

Dr. Dee said it was theEie of a Viper. Dee told us more about the Cosmic Plot. It was amatter of meeting the Prankish wing of the Templars in Paris andputting together two parts of the same map. Dee and Spenser were togo, accompanied by Pedro Nunes. To me and Bacon he entrusted somedocuments, which we swore to open only in the event that theyfailed to return.

They did return,exchanging floods of insults. "It's not possible," Dee said. "ThePlan is mathematical; it has the astral perfection of my MonasHieroglyphica. We were supposed to meet the Franks on Saint John'sEve."

Innocently I asked:"Saint John's Eve by their reckoning or by ours?"

Dee slapped himself onthe brow, spewing out horrible curses. "O," he said, "from whatpower hast thou this powerful might?" The pale William made a noteof the sentence, the cowardly plagiarist. Dee feverishly consultedlunar tables and almanacs. " ¡¥Sblood! ¡¥Swounds! How could I havebeen such a dolt?" He insulted Nunes and Spenser. "Do I have tothink of everything? Cosmographer, my foot!" he screamed at Nunes.And then: "Amanasiel Zorobabel!" And Nunes was struck in thestomach as if by an invisible ram; he blanched, drew back a fewsteps, and slumped to the ground.

"Fool," Dee said tohim.

Spenser was pale. Hesaid, with some effort: "We can cast sortie bait. I am finishing apoem. An allegory about the queen of the fairies. What if I put ina knight of the Red Cross? The real Templars will recognizethemselves, will understand that we know, will get in touch withus..."

"I know you," Dee said."Before you finish your poem and people find out about it, alustrum will pass, maybe more. Still, the bait idea isn'tbad."

"Why not communicatewith them through your angels, Doctor?" I asked.

"Fool," he said to me."Haven't you read Trithemius? The angels of the addressee interveneonly to clarify a message if one is received. My angels are notcouriers on horseback. The French are lost. But I have a plan. Iknow' how to find some of the German line. I must go toPrague."

We heard a noise, aheavy damask curtain was raised, we glimpsed a diaphanous hand,then She appeared, the Haughty Virgin.

"Your Majesty," we said,kneeling.

"Dee," she said. "I knoweverything. Do not think my ancestors saved the knights in order togrant them dominion over the world. I demand, you hear me, I demandthat the secret be the property of the Crown only."

"Your Majesty, I wantthe secret at all costs, and I want it for the Crown. But I mustfind the other possessors; it is the shortest way. When they havefoolishly confided in me what they know, it will not be hard toeliminate them. Whether with a dagger or with arsenicwater."

On the face of theVirgin Queen a ghastly smile appeared. "Very well then, my goodDee," she said. "I do not ask much, only Total Power. For you, ifyou succeed, the garter. For you, William"¡Xand she addressed thelittle parasite with lewd sweetness¡X"another garter, and anothergolden fleece. Follow me."

I murmured intoWilliam's ear: "I perforce am thine, and all that is in me..."William rewarded me with a look of unctuous gratitude and followedthe queen, disappearing beyond the curtain. Je tiens la

* * *

I was with Dr. Dee inthe Golden City. We went along narrow and evil-smelling passagewaysnot far from the cemetery of the Jews, and Dee told me to becareful. "If the news of the failed encounter has spread," he said,"the other groups will even now be acting on their own. I fear theJews; the Jerusalemites have too many agents here inPrague..."

It was evening. The snowglistened, bluish. At the dark entrance to the Jewish quarterclustered the little stands of the Christmas market, and in theirmidst, decked in red cloth, was the obscene stage of a puppettheater lit by smoky torches. We passed beneath an arch of dressedstone, near a bronze fountain from whose grille long icicles hung,and there another passage opened. On old doors, gilded lion's headssank their teeth into bronze rings. A slight shudder ran along thewalls, inexplicable sounds came from the low roofs, rattlings fromthe