He straightened like a foxhound who had just spied a fox. "Chaos? Are they here?"
"If they aren't yet, they will be soon. There was a nasty surprise waiting for us at the Antiquities Service in Cairo." I proceeded to tell him of finding von Braggenschnott in Maspero's office. "So you see, sir, Chaos now knows all of my mother's plans. And consequently, a number of mine."
"If you tell me your plans for the next few days, I'll arrange for some additional security."
"Mother is visiting with the inspector even as we speak. She'll also be interviewing a few last men to include in her work party. After that, I should think we'll be heading over to the Valley of the Kings to begin documenting Thutmose Ill's tomb."
"Very well. I shall get some men right on it."
"Thank you, sir."
"I am glad to see you wearing Professor Quillings's Homing Beacon and Curse-Repelling Device. He has sent me the tracking mechanism, should the need to track you arise."
"About Professor Quillings, sir," I began, glad for the opening. "I have some things I would like you to return to him." I reached into my pocket, retrieved the fountain pen and the compact, then placed them on Major Grindle's desk.
The major raised an eyebrow in question. "You might need those, Miss Throckmorton."
I eyed him warily. "You know what they do?"
"Of course."
"And you are comfortable with that? With me carrying around the sorts of curses the Brotherhood is supposed to remove from artifacts?"
Major Grindle leaned back in his chair. "What precisely has Wigmere told you about the Brotherhood?"
"That the Brotherhood exists in order to protect the innocent against the black magic and curses that still cling to ancient artifacts found in museums and private collections."
"Well, that is partly correct." Major Grindle studied me, as if weighing something in his own mind. "But not the whole of it."
It felt as if the bottom dropped out of my stomach. "It's not?"
"No," he said, and I had the most horrible feeling that I almost didn't want to know what he was going to say next. "Perhaps if Wigmere hadn't wanted me to know, it's better that I don't?" I said.
"Is that what you really believe, Miss Throckmorton?"
"No," I said miserably. The truth was, I was crushed that Wigmere hadn't told me the entire story, whatever it might end up being.
"It is not the Chosen Keepers' job to simply remove curses and protect the innocent from their effects," the major said. "We have a much greater task than that." He took a deep breath. "The Chosen Keepers are descendants of the ancient librarians of the Royal Library of Alexandria—the few, the proud, and the learned. We have sworn an oath to seek out and replace all the ancient knowledge that was lost when our great library was destroyed by Emperor Theodosius. Our goal is to reignite the flame of knowledge and restore it to mankind."
I gaped at him.
"Wigmere oversees one branch of our organization, a last line of defense. His branch is the last bastion that can stop the artifacts with dark magic from coming into the country when they get by us. A fallback position, if you will. But our greater mission is to search out the artifacts and extract their knowledge so we can reconstruct all the wisdom and learning once held in the library. Then we remove the magic and curses from the artifacts so they can go into museums and private collections."
My head began to spin. "But surely some of that magic shouldn't be reintroduced to mankind."
"Agreed. But nor should it be lost for all eternity, either. There is a secret vault in which we store that sort of information. It is quite full, as you can imagine. But even more important is that we seek out and acquire that information before other organizations who wish to use that knowledge for the wrong reasons do."
"The Serpents of Chaos," I murmured.
"Exactly."
"But sir, why are you telling me all this?" Normally, I was quite fond of answers, of knowing things, but for some reason this revelation unsettled me.
Major Grindle studied me for a long moment, as if taking my full measure. "You need to know the truth," he said at last. "Because the blood of the Chosen Keepers of Alexandria flows in your veins."
CHAPTER TEN
A Hidden Heritage
I BOLTED UPRIGHT IN MY CHAIR. "What do you mean?"
He sighed, a deep, heavy sound full of sorrow and disappointment. "Has no one spoken to you of your grandfather Throckmorton?"
"No," I whispered, suddenly feeling as brittle and fragile as spun glass.
Major Grindle's intense blue eyes never left my face. "No one told you he was in the Brotherhood? That he was a Chosen Keeper, too?"
His words brought me up out of my chair. "My grandfather was a Chosen Keeper?" This went beyond anything I could ever have imagined.
"Oh, I'm not surprised your family didn't tell you. But Wigmere, now. I would have expected him to explain it to you. After all, they were great friends, Wigmere and your grandfather. You look like him, you know."
"I do?" I plopped back into my chair as all the air went out of me in a whoosh.
"Very much. The eyes in particular. And you have the same stubborn chin."
"But sir ... are you certain my family knew? My grandmother hates anything to do with archaeology." My words dribbled to a stop as I realized the implications. Perhaps she hated it because he had been involved.
"She knew, up to a point. Although I suspect she knew more than she ought. And at the end, well, there was almost no way she couldn't have known."
I looked up sharply. "At the end?"
"It killed him, in the end." He turned and looked to his cabinet full of oddities, collected from a lifetime of dealing with magical remnants and artifacts. "But not before everyone thought he'd lost his mind and gone off the deep end. It was a tragic end to a great man."
A heavy, solemn silence filled the room, and in that silence, realization began pinging through my mind like bolts of lightning. Grandmother's aversion to all that heathenish knowledge. Father's fear that I was exhibiting signs of impending lunacy. All of that stemmed from a grandfather I'd never met. Slowly, I looked up to meet the major's patient, understanding gaze. "Did my father know?"
"He was invited to join us when he was of age. He declined. Told Wigmere in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to be involved with a group that dabbled in fringe beliefs."
That sounded like Father. Grindle had given me a gift—a painful, horrible gift. And he knew it.
He rose to his feet and went over to the shelves against the wall. "I feel certain your grandfather would want you to have this," he said. "And it wouldn't hurt for you to carry a piece of it with you in your current circumstances." He reached out, lifted one of the crumbled corners from the old mud brick, and held it out to me. "It was the last thing your grandfather was working on before he died. He was certain he had located the foundation stones of the Tower of Babel just south of the ancient city of Ur."
I stared at it with a combination of disbelief and fascination. "Er, thank you."
His mustache twitched. "Be advised that it is not any old brick, Miss Throckmorton. You hold in your hand a sliver of the Tower of Babel itself." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "It works. When you hold that in your hand, you can understand any language spoken by man."
My jaw dropped open and I stared at the small piece of brick with new appreciation.
"Keep it, Miss Throckmorton. Other than memories, it is all I can give you of your grandfather."
I could feel Major Grindle's servant watching me as I started down the narrow road that led from the bungalow. His intent gaze made my neck itch. I did not even pretend to understand the relationship between Major Grindle and his strange servant.