The Gospel of Sheba Read online

  The Gospel of Sheba

  Lyndsay Faye

  Letter sent from Mrs. Colette Lomax to Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 3rd, 1902.

  My only darling,

  You cannot possibly comprehend the level of incompetence to which I was subjected today.

  You know full well I never demand a private dressing room when stationary, as the very notion implies a callous disrespect for the sensitivities of other artists. However, it cannot pass my notice when I am engaged in a second class chamber en route from Reims to Strasbourg. The porter assured me that private cars were simply not available on so small a railway line as our company was forced to book—and yet, I feel justified in suspecting the managers have hoaxed their “rising star” once again. The reek of soup from the dining car’s proximity alone would depress my spirits, even were my ankles not confined one atop the other in a padlock-like fashion.

  I do so loathe krautsuppe. Hell, I assure you, my love, simmers with the aroma of softening cabbage.

  The little towns with their sloping roofs and single church spires whir past whilst I write to you as if they were so many picture postcards. It’s dreadfully tedious. Loss of privacy for my vocal exercises notwithstanding, my usual transitory repose is impaired by the snores of a typist en route to a new position as well as a mother whose infant does us the discourtesy of weeping infinitely. Bless fair fortune that our Grace has already grown to be guiltless of such alarming impositions—though as you often remind me, I am not present at our home often enough to state so with scientific certitude. The fact you are right pains me more than I can express. Please pull our daughter close, and know in the meanwhile that I have never been more revoltingly ungrateful to be engaged in an operatic tour.

  How have your colleagues responded to your request for a more appropriate wage as sublibrarian? The Librarian in particular? I cannot imagine a more worthy candidate than you for promotion, and thus live in hope that you have been celebrating so ardently that you simply neglected to inform your wife of the good news.

  All my love, infinitely,

  Mrs. Colette Lomax

  Note pasted in the commonplace book of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 3rd, 1902.

  Papa,

  This morning after chasing butterflys in the back area with the net you gav me I was asked by Miss Church if I wanted to go inside and record the shapes of their wings as I remembered them, I wanted to but more than that thought if there are butterflys why not faeries? You’ve allways said they don’t exist apart from our imaginashuns but I know we must use the sientific method to find out for certain and maybe they are real after all. I tried to find proof they weren’t real and didn’t manage it.

  Love, Grace

  Excerpt from the private journal of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 3rd, 1902.

  I have been pondering imponderables of late.

  How comes it, for instance, that within mortal viruses like anthrax and rabies, potions can be extracted from poisons, and a doctor the caliber of Pasteur can create a vaccine from the disease itself? How comes it that my wife, Lettie, who apparently loves me “infinitely,” accepts operatic contracts removing her from my presence for the foreseeable future? How comes it that a sublibrarian constantly assured of the value of his scholarship cannot so much as afford to keep his own carriage, let alone an automobile, and more often than not travels via Underground?

  I’ve always adored paradox but, admittedly, some are far more tedious than others.

  Take this contradiction, for example: compliments, at least insofar as my position at the London Library is concerned, have become a decided blight. The moment I accept a semi-public compliment from the Librarian—a press of his withered hand to my shoulder as we pass amidst the stacks, a wet and fibrous cough of approval when he is within earshot of my advice to our members—I am automatically consulted upon countless further topics. Last week it was rare species of maidenhair ferns, this week the principles of bridge engineering. Next week, I brace myself to field queries upon monophonic chants and perhaps the dietary habits of the domestic black pig.

  The life of a sublibrarian surely wasn’t intended to be quite this difficult? Walking through St. James’s Square towards the queerly narrow building, the fog’s perennial grime painting a thin veneer upon the Portland stone and the many windowpanes distorting movements of blurred, faceless strangers within, I feel worn after merely setting boot upon the Library’s foyer rug. By the time I’ve hung my overcoat in the cloakroom, I’ve practically exhausted myself. I adore learning of all types, but one cannot imagine that Sisyphean labour was countenanced in Carlyle’s day.

  Or perhaps it was, and the sublibrarians present wisely elected not to record their woes.

  To boot, Lettie’s travels leave me the indisputable guardian of little Grace’s heart and mind. I find myself fretting over this critical task more often than is remotely necessary, given that 1) I am a scholar of some note, and an intellectual omnivore, and thus should act with confidence 2), Grace is a singularly apt and gentle child, and 3) Lettie has not been at home for longer than a fortnight in six months’ time, so I ought to be accustomed to this by now.

  Her absence is far more wearing than her presence is costly. Mind, I knew when we wed that her tastes ran more to champagne and cracked oysters than beer and peanut shells. But Lettie is brilliant in her own whimsical fashion, and back when I rhapsodized more over lights flickering across her hair arrangements than what was beneath the tiara, we hadn’t a daughter demanding to know whether moonbeams possess the quality of weight. Lacking Lettie, who would have delivered a wonderfully silly answer, I found myself at an absurd crossroads this morning between wanting to assure Grace that one could feel the weight of a moonbeam if sensitive enough and to tell her that, according to recent postulations, velocity is much more relevant to the subject than density.

  Well, never mind Lettie. I ever want to think of her as happy, and I’ve told her so numberless times, and she is happiest when singing. Therefore the rest of us will toddle along on our own and no one the worse for it. I shall think of Lettie with her golden hair piled atop her head, smiling in a sly, knowing fashion over the footlights, and be content.

  After all, I find myself effortlessly contented when with Grace. And she with me, shockingly. All is watercolours and learning to whistle, and nothing extraneous to distract us from the immediate bright sun of the rear yard or the cheerful green ivy paper of the nursery walls. Arrogantly, I suspect spending more time with Grace will prove a benefit to her. I trust that Miss Church does her best, but she is neither a close reasoner nor an artist, and thus as a governess cannot be expected to shape a child into anything other than a prosaic mouse.

  Earlier today, speaking of mice, I enjoyed a bizarre appointment with one at the London Library. Mr. Theodore Grange entered my little office with the stated purpose of consulting me upon the subject of ceremonial magic, but he could as easily have wondered where the best cheese rinds were to be found (either way, I am armed with sufficient books to oblige him). His thin lips twitched following every pronouncement, his eyes were dull and brown, his hair without shine, his blinks frequent, the skin beneath his eyes too loose, his aspect altogether melancholy.

  “I was sent to you upon the very best recommendation, Mr. Lomax,” he squeaked, mopping the sweat from his upper lip though it is quite frigid in the library for September, and the light through the windows tinged coolly blue. “It’s imperative you tell me everything you know about black magic—and at once.”

  “In that case, I shall,” I answered hesitantly, this request being without precedent. “Mr. …?”

  “Grange, sir, Mr. Theodore Gr
ange. Thank heaven,” he exhaled. “I feared lest you hadn’t the time. I have it from the head Librarian himself that you are positively encyclopedic in your studies, sir!”

  “Do you,” I sighed.

  “Indeed so! You are my last and best hope—the Brotherhood of Solomon may not exist in a year, sir, without your expert support. We are tearing apart as a society! Ripping at the very seams, and even as its newest member, my heart breaks at the prospect.”

  “Then we cannot allow such a thing to happen,” I said dubiously, leading him through tall byways of polished wood shelves and worn leather binding to the appropriate stacks.

  Whilst eager folk demanding I tell them definitively whether faeries or dragons or succubi exist are often fanciful simpletons (leaving aside little Grace, who ought to be asking such things), I found myself feeling strangely sympathetic towards Mr. Grange. The man seems fragile as antique paper, and I lent him a friendly ear as we went, our boots singing softly against the wrought iron stairs. Specifically, Mr. Grange is interested in grimoires and their efficacy. I felt nearly as delicate in telling him their efficacy was negligible as I would discrediting Father Christmas to Grace, so determined not to press the issue. We’ve several occult texts within the collection which ought to suit him admirably well.

  “With your expert help, I can now prove or disprove the validity of The Gospel of Sheba once and for all!” he proclaimed, shaking my hand.

  “I should like nothing better,” I assured him, as in the dark as previous and increasingly amused by the fact.

  Mr. Theodore Grange lingers in my memory still, brandy in hand and feet stretched towards the hearth as Grace flips through my astronomical charts. I admit my preoccupation strange, for I cannot know whether I shall exchange words with him again at all; I lent him our most reliable books upon the dubious topic of dark magic, and I may not be present when he returns them to the collection. My curiosity over the man is likely to go unslaked. In any case, I must assist Grace in constructing a mobile of the solar system at her request and then pen a reply to Lettie. Mr. Grange’s intentions are by no means the business of a sublibrarian after his duty has been executed.

  Unsettling, the way a man’s mind can wander from subject to subject. I sit here adoring every aspect of Grace which makes her unmistakably Lettie’s this evening—pale skin pearlescent in the firelight, the nearly stubborn pout of her lip, the green-tinged blue of her eye—while simultaneously experiencing a joy akin to relief that she owns copious soft brown curls like mine, that her hands are steady and deft as mine are, and that her chin is square and without cleft.

  What an altogether unworthy observation, though I suppose a predictably paternal one. Who the devil else should Grace look like? I shall make every effort never to repeat such a brutish study and consider the subject well closed.

  Letter sent from Mrs. Colette Lomax to Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 8th, 1902.

  My only darling,

  Have just attempted to rectify a ghastly nightmare in which my production company saw fit to house me in a dwelling which could rock the scientific community were mould studies a lucrative exploit. (Are they, love? Hasten to me and capitalize upon a fresh source of riches!) In lieu of longer explanation, I shall state that the colour of the bedclothes were not typical and leave the remainder to your fertile imagination.

  How is Grace faring? The picture she sent of the star system you were studying through your telescope was such a comfort to me. Shortly before I come down with fatal pneumonia—as seems inevitable when I allow myself to study the state of this place in any detail—I’ll mark down the constellations I can see from my thin little window and request you quiz her on the subject.

  Performing Massenet’s Sapho in a European pretension of a city is not the activity I wish to be engaged in during my final days, alas. Think of me fondly, and know that I suffered for my art.

  All my love,

  Mrs. Colette Lomax

  Excerpt from the private journal of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 9th, 1902.

  “It’s absolutely no good, Mr. Lomax!” Mr. Theodore Grange piped shrilly this morning, reappearing after an absence of six days and dropping the magical texts I’d recommended upon a table from emphatic height. “This grimoire of Mr. Sebastian Scovil’s is the genuine article. I have researched extensively along the lines which you suggested and am forced to conclude that a hitherto undiscovered demonic text of great power and possibly greater malevolence has been unearthed!”

  Looking up while removing my set of half-spectacles, I took a moment to goggle at the poor fellow. He’d discovered me in the reading and periodicals room. I’d tucked myself out of immediate sight under one of the tall white pillars in a commodious leather armchair, subtly hiding from the Librarian as I studied ancient Celtic coins on behalf of a member. Mr. Grange landed in the chair opposite, the hearth’s glow illuminating the unhealthy sweat upon his brow.

  “Your friend Mr. Scovil is likewise interested in occult studies?” I hazarded, glad to see him again in spite of my preoccupation.

  He waved an unsteady hand before his face. “All of us are, to a man—the Brotherhood of Solomon exists to study the supernatural. I am its newest member, as I told you, and thus less tutored than my fellows in what ignorant folk term the dark arts. The club is a small one, and consists of influential men of business, you understand. My firm invests in a wide variety of securities, and thus cultivating acquaintances with such people is essential to me—and really, what is the difference between forming friendships over whiskey and cigars at a horse race versus whiskey and cigars hunched over magical manuscripts?”

  There seemed to me to be quite a bit of difference, but I neglected to point this out.

  “I was a skeptic, I’ll admit as much,” Mr. Grange said hoarsely, shuddering. “A grimoire which poisons all who dare to study it, save for those with the purest of intentions and keenest skills? Preposterous. And yet, I am convinced. The Gospel of Sheba is a text of extraordinary power, and a power Mr. Scovil alone can wield.”

  Tapping my spectacles against my lip, I pondered. Grimoires are paradoxes after my own heart. They tend to contain explicit instructions as to the rituals necessary to summon demons and, having summoned them, bind them to the magician’s will. Ceremonial magic to an enormous extent, however, is said to depend upon the virtue of the sorcerer—his altruism in calling upon angels or their fallen brethren to do his bidding—and by definition, to my mind, a chap whistling for Beelzebub is likely to be up to no good.

  “A book which poisons those who study it?” I repeated, fascinated. “Surely that is impossible.”

  Mr. Grange shook his head, pulling a small square of silk from his pocket and mopping the back of his neck. His appearance was, if anything, more unhealthy than the man I’d met six days previous. An ashen quality dulled the limp folds of his throat, and his eyes reflected steady pain.

  “I am myself suffering from the effects of reading The Gospel of Sheba,” he assured me. “After reaching the conclusion, thanks to the volumes you lent me, that its provenance is undoubtedly genuine, I lost no time in returning the wretched thing to Mr. Scovil. He is a great scholar of the esoteric, the discoverer of the gospel, and the one man who suffers no ill effects from it.”

  A numismatist, perhaps, would have absorbed this madness with aplomb and returned to the study of the lyrical golden images stamped upon the coinage of the Parisii. I am not a numismatist, however, and thus closed the volume on Celtic coinage and begged Mr. Grange to tell me more. The poor man seemed eager to unburden himself. He shifted in his chair, darting glances along the sparsely populated reading room as if he feared being overheard.

  “It’s been two months since I joined the Brotherhood of Solomon,” he murmured. “An acquaintance of mine, a Mr. Cornelius Pyatt, recommended it to me as a worthy hobby—one followed by men of intellect and character and means. I attended a m
eeting and found the company and the wine cellar both to my liking, and the subject to be of considerable interest. Are you familiar with the types of ceremonial magic? I confess I was not, and have since grown quite obsessed, sir.”

  “Somewhat familiar,” I owned, wiping my half-spectacles upon my sleeve. “Spellcasting is divided in the broadest sense into white magic and black magic, which differ less in execution than in intention. White magic attempts to summon good spirits, and to a good purpose—black magic evil spirits, and to a wicked purpose. Other categorical distinctions are regional, of course. One would find different instructions in a text of Parisian diabolism than in the Hebrew Kabalah, but all are paths to mastery of the spirit realm. Or so they claim.”

  “Just so!” he approved. “Just so, sir, and the Brotherhood of Solomon’s express purpose is to explore the sacred mysteries recorded by the legendarily wise Biblical King Solomon.”

  A less than comfortable thrill wormed its way through my belly. “You should study S. Liddell Mathers’ eighteen eighty-eight English translation of The Key of Solomon the King, in that case. I read it with interest when I was at university.”

  “Did you indeed? Wonderful! What drew you to it?”

  “I felt I needed to see for myself what the fuss was about, probably because all types of knowledge interest me and that one seemed marvelously forbidden. I’m sorry to tell you I didn’t find much sense in it.”

  The Key of Solomon the King is the monarch of all the grimoires, the eldest surviving copies dating from the Italian Renaissance, though its purported author was the great Hebrew ruler himself. The Latin codex translated by Mathers resides at the British Museum. It’s full of orations, conjurations, invocations, and recitations, some of them for the purpose of summoning spirits and others for tricking one’s enemies or for finding lost objects. I never went so far as to write anything out in bat’s blood, but I do recall, as a more than half-humourous experiment, searching for a lost penknife by means of reciting: