Bertie and the Hairdresser Who Ruled the World (19 page)

‘These books open the wrong way!' exclaimed Celeste.

‘No they don't. Arabic script is read from right to left, therefore the spines are on the right. It's very peculiar, isn't it, but no more peculiar than an Arab trying to read Mills and Boon in English. That calligraphy, though! Astonishing, isn't it.'

Celeste finally managed to open the book and thumbed carefully through the pages – backwards – admiring the beautifully flowing script and detailed illustrations. ‘Why have I never heard of these men?' she asked.

‘Let's just say our Western culture has been a little slow in coming to appreciate the contributions to science made by Islam. I'm ever hopeful that one day soon the situation will be rectified,' replied Cutie. ‘Knowledge, whatever its source, should be treasured, and we're so thankful to have such a wonderful collection of early Islamic works here in the Temple. Aha! This is one of my favourites.' She pulled out a small volume that was obviously made from gold. The gleaming cover was pristine, totally untouched by any signs of tarnishing, and was inlaid with precious stones. She opened it up, stroking the thin gold pages gently. ‘This is Persian, a personal account by King Darius of how he established an astronomical observatory at Pasargadae to celebrate consolidating the Persian Empire. Look at this Cuneiform – have you ever seen anything so delicate. This is simply gorgeous, magnificently illuminated in his own hand, too. Loved his diaries, did Darius.' She replaced the beautiful book and indicated the rest of the shelf. ‘All these works are original, but as a precaution, as I've already mentioned, we're now copying the more valuable and fragile documents by inscribing onto slate with a diamond-tipped stylus to ensure their preservation for all time. That's what good old Mama and I do most of the time – when we're not reading, that is.'

‘Surely you don't keep the copies in the same building as the originals?' asked Celeste.

‘Not even I'm that much of a numpty,' replied Cutie. ‘No, the slates are returned to the same mine as they came from in North Wales and stored underground in the abandoned caverns. We still like to keep ourselves as distant as we can from centres of importance and, let's face it, you can't get any more desolate than North Wales.'

‘You've never been to Swadlincote, I take it?' observed Celeste wryly.

Cutie giggled again and Bertie copied the chuckle expertly.

‘Oh, God,' muttered Martha in despair, ‘now there's two of them!'

‘What's in there?' asked Celeste, pointing to an ordinary, yellow cardboard box. Rather incongruously, there were bunches of bananas printed on its exterior and a florid sign announcing the contents were the proud product of Ecuador. ‘Surely you're not storing bananas as well?'

‘Might have held them once,' said Cutie, lifting down the box and opening its flaps, ‘but not now. Have a look at this.' She pulled out a large white satin sheet and shook it open. Figures marched across the cloth in black ink, meandering tracks of arcane symbols connected by a plethora of arrows and herded between brackets. ‘The writing is Albert Einstein's and this tablecloth belonged to the wife of his friend and fellow physicist, Freundlich. Once she'd finished scolding their guest for ruining her finest linen, she thought it might be of interest to us and so it found its way into our care. She told him she'd washed the cloth when he came back to check his maths the following morning. Now, there was a night of alcohol-fuelled genius. The poor man was most upset because he was convinced he'd solved the Unification Theory, but couldn't remember how.' There was an almost hypnotic beauty to the equations. ‘Looks kind of important, don't you think?'

Cutie folded the unique cloth, put it away and popped the box back onto its shelf. ‘Come over here, Celeste. You might find this more interesting.' There was a single wooden case with a glass lid standing alone in the centre of the apse floor. Beneath lay a very old leather-bound volume.

‘What is it?' asked Celeste, thankful to be spared the arcane intricacies of Albert's work. All she'd ever wanted to do whenever she saw pictures of the iconic physicist was pin him to the floor and run around his wayward hair with a pair of clippers!

‘Just about one of the most important books ever written,' replied Cutie brightly. She opened the case and lovingly caressed the rough, cracked hide of the front cover with her fingertips. ‘
De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
, by Nicholas Copernicus, signed by the author and dated 24
^th
May 1543, the day he died. A rebel to the very end, he scrawled in Latin below his signature, “The Holy Mother Church, although most blessed and wise in matters spiritual, is not wise in this matter.” Had a bit of trouble with the Pope, did our Nicky Boy! His sister, Katharina, was one of ours. Her support for him was vital in his long struggle against religious zealotry.'

Celeste turned to Doreen. ‘You mentioned Copernicus earlier.'

‘Yes, I did indeed. He proved beyond doubt that the earth orbited the sun and so ignited the astronomical revolution, shattering the dogmatic stranglehold of the church that had lasted for fifteen hundred years.'

‘Ah!' sighed Cutie, clasping her hands to her heart theatrically. ‘My hero! I want his babies! Lots and lots of babies!'

‘Stop fooling around, you young minx!' growled Martha, unable to take any more of Cutie's horseplay. ‘This is a serious business.'

Cutie put on a mock face, pulling the corners of her mouth downward. ‘This is a serious business,' she repeated, dropping her voice an octave, then scampered off, beckoning for them to follow her into the next apse.

‘She's not usually this disrespectful,' muttered Martha. ‘I can only apologise, Gaia.'

‘Martha, she's just turned nineteen and has spent almost every day of her life for the last three years studying in this cave. Give the girl a break, will you.'

‘I think she's lovely,' said Celeste. ‘A bit cracked, but lovely.'

‘I like Cutie,' announced Bertie firmly.

‘That's settled, then,' murmured Doreen. Martha threw up her hands in dismay and scuttled away as if to make sure Cutie wasn't causing any damage. Celeste glanced up at the inscription over the entrance.
Betelgeuse
. Scrolls were neatly stacked in ordered lines along the stone shelves. Cutie took them down one by one and displayed them to Celeste. ‘Works by Anaximander and Anaxagoras – mustn't get those two mixed up – Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Thucydides, Diogenes, Tacitus and Livy to name but a few.'

‘Sounds like a boy band,' smiled Celeste. A really smart one.'

‘Somehow, I can't see songs in Latin taking the charts by storm,' said Doreen.

‘But these are in fantastic condition. How on earth have you managed to keep them from deteriorating? I'm no librarian, but even I can see these are still fresh. I thought parchment had a sell-by date after which it falls apart.'

‘Normally it does,' replied Cutie. ‘You'll get maybe a thousand or fifteen hundred years from a really good scroll before it crumbles into a dust bunny, but we discovered the perfect preservative centuries ago. Tell me, Celeste, what food was found in Tutankhamun's tomb that could still be eaten? What popular breakfast spread contains natural antibacterial properties and never goes off, even after millennia?'

‘Er … marmalade?'

Cutie giggled again at Celeste's stab-in-the-dark answer. ‘Not quite. It's honey. We soak all our ancient documents in a special honey mix. The papyrus is absorbent and the honey keeps it supple and resistant to ageing.'

‘Surely that makes the pages stick together?'

‘If you used normal honey, yes, it would, but there are one or two other natural ingredients added into the mixture which prevents that from happening, including olive oil. All you have to do is wait a few years for the solution to cure and Bob's your uncle, and let's face it, a few years down here mean nothing! This also allows us to handle documents without the need for gloves and all the other assorted paraphernalia that normally restrict archivists when dealing with really old and fragile documents.' Cutie cast around for a second and then eased a scroll off a nearby shelf. ‘Let me introduce you to one of the giants of science,' she said. ‘Although this document is reasonably robust, I'd appreciate you showing a little respect, after all, it is the thick end of two and a half thousand years old!'

Celeste accepted the honey-soaked scroll and unrolled it very gently. Although the papyrus had darkened over the aeons, the writing was still clearly visible, the angular symbols indicating the language was Greek. She marvelled that she was actually touching something that was truly ancient, yet it seemed almost as fresh as modern paper. The papyrus was soft and supple to the touch, as flexible as a damp chamois cloth. She held it to her nose and inhaled cautiously.

‘Most people prefer to read Archimedes, not sniff him!' observed Mama with a rare smile.

‘There is a faint sweetness to it, I must admit,' said Celeste, handing the scroll back to Cutie.

‘Not all of our documents are so fragile,' she said. ‘We have diptychs made from ivory, for instance, and before you ask, a diptych is a pair of wooden plates hinged along one edge like the covers of a modern book, with the text protected inside. Now, let's see if we can find one to show you.' She scanned the shelves and picked up a flat box that looked uncommonly like a slim-line backgammon set. ‘Here we are, this is Greek and from about the second century BC, which makes it an extremely early example. See how the opening edge can be tied shut with twine to keep the contents from prying eyes.' Cutie opened the two wooden halves of the diptych to reveal the interior. Inside, the age-old ivory writing surface was covered in line after line of finely tooled geometric symbols. It was an exquisite piece of work, complete with tiny etched diagrams.

‘What does it say?' asked Celeste out of sheer curiosity.

‘Why, Celeste Timbrill, are you trying to test me?' said Cutie with the indignant air of a professor confronted by an upstart, long-haired student, but then she winked, pushed up her half-moon glasses into their operating position and peered at the script, her mouth working silently. ‘Hmm,' she said after a minute or so. ‘Yes, I've got it. This is a treatise by the Greek mathematician and inventor Ctesibius on hydraulic engineering, and on this sheet of ivory is the first ever explanation of the concept and mechanics of the siphon. Interesting and important, particularly if you're planning the water system for a city. There's still a really impressive siphonic aqueduct just outside Patara that's over fifteen hundred feet long and would work today if the stones were realigned. Siphonic aqueducts allow water to flow uphill. Very clever. All our modern toilet cisterns work on the siphonic principle, so it's a good example of how the ancients helped make your trips to the loo more pleasant and stopped you getting typhus.' She carefully closed the diptych and replaced it on the shelf. Celeste wondered how long it would be before it was opened again.

Cutie moved on. The Apse of Sirius beckoned. She skipped in and gave an exaggerated flourish, like a magician's assistant relieved at the unexpected but welcome return of the white rabbit. ‘In here we have the history of the Sisterhood, an accurate and unbroken archive from Helen of Troy to Doreen of Chipping Sodbury, over three thousand years of meticulous records, all preserved by us women. We're mentally suited to the job, you see. We're methodical and careful. This is why most librarians have always been – and remain to this day – women. It's our legacy to the world. We protect knowledge with the same intensity as we protect our children. Most people think librarians just boring old biddies, but we have helped control the destiny of mankind for millennia! Of course,' she added thoughtfully, ‘Mama is continuing the fine tradition in boring old biddies!'

Martha hissed sibilantly, but Doreen placated her with a touch on the shoulder. Cutie blew a kiss at her seething companion and forged on. She waved her arms around again, as if unable to encompass everything in the Temple. Her excitement knew no bounds. She was really fired up now, her face flushed, her eyes shining. She spoke with an intoxicating passion that reached out to Celeste. ‘Once it had assimilated the library of Pergamum, the great library at Alexandria was the only other to ever rival ours, but whereas that library was renowned throughout the ancient world, the Sisterhood's has always been shrouded in secrecy. We spirited the originals away and left copies in their place, so when the library burnt to the ground, thousands of the most significant documents were saved, thus preserving the ancient knowledge. Snuck 'em out right under the nose of Eratosthenes, the chief librarian. He's the chappie who measured the size of the Earth using a stick, a well and a bit of simple maths! Clever man – I'd have liked to have met him. We've also got many Aramaic scripts that recount the life of Jesus and the Apostles, scripts that were mysteriously omitted from the Bible. Even the Vatican library has no idea they exist. Contrary to a whole raft of recent popular adventure novels, there never was any conspiracy at the advent of Christianity, no super-secret organisations vying for power. Jesus most certainly did live and was a great prophet, even though he wasn't quite the saint the Bible makes him out to be!'

‘So I believe. What treasure's kept over here?' Celeste wandered into the next apse, walked up to the case at its centre and peered in through the glass cover.

‘These three volumes are Uncle Isaac's own handwritten
Philosophiae Naturalis Mathematica Principia
,' smiled Cutie fondly, ‘the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. These journals contain the first really important and mathematically sound laws of nature. In here you'll find Newton's three laws of motion and his universal law of gravitation.' She lifted the glass lid and opened one of the books. Latin text interspersed with lines of equations marched across the yellowed pages, with later marginal notes added in English. ‘Without doubt, you are looking at the greatest single feat of intellectual achievement in the history of our species,' murmured Cutie, gently thumbing through the pages. ‘Look at the elegance of the calculations and wonder! This was published in 1687 – over three hundred years ago, and yet here we find an explanation as to why the planets orbit the sun, a method of calculating gravitational pull just about anywhere in the universe and equations to determine the motion of all objects. The laws set down in these books are all pervasive, from influencing the design of pinball machines to allowing Neil Armstrong to stroll around the moon!' She turned to the back. ‘And here's Isaac's solution to Fermat's Last Theorem. Even today there are almost certainly more fingers on one hand than mathematicians alive who can truly understand this, and I'm certainly not one of them, but I do recognise that!' She pointed at a little sketch down in the bottom corner of the page.