In a hideous flash of clarity, I saw our entire relationship unraveling before me, all the way to our first meeting five years earlier. Much to my flattered amazement, this celebrated Oxford professor had approached me at a student symposium in London and expressed interest in my future plans. “If you decide to pursue an academic career,” she had said, with the bluntness so characteristic to her, “I would be happy to be your thesis adviser. Here.” She had graciously scribbled a telephone number at the top of my lecture notes, and I had called her within a week.
It had been such a magical opening, such a welcome gift…. Even if Katherine’s gesture had been dictated by outside forces, I refused to think of it in a purely negative light. She had helped me, and we had enjoyed some fine times together; I flattered myself that our relationship had been gratifying for her, too. But then something had happened. I flew away with Mr. Ludwig against Katherine’s will, left her a message from Algeria, and now her number—the very number she had given me that day in London—was disconnected.
Not until I embarked upon the final document in Nick’s envelope did I begin to grasp the complex wickedness of what was going on. The stapled papers were a compilation of newspaper articles, typewritten text, and grisly police photos showing molested corpses, confiscated weapons, and video equipment, as well as a smashed-up car at the bottom of a ravine. Only well into the first article did I come across a name I recognized: Alexander Reznik, known in snuff-film circles as “the Bone Saw.” Evidently, I was looking at the depraved death trail of Reznik’s beloved son, who had managed to squirm out of several murder trials thanks to his father’s political connections.
I scrutinized the pages for a while, nauseated by Alex Reznik’s suspected crimes, some of which involved mind-bogglingly bestial acts of cannibalism. In one memorable passage he was quoted as saying, “It’s not a crime when they come to you and agree to be eaten.”
Surfacing from the bottomless pit of real-life monsters at last, my eyes settled on a newspaper tidbit announcing that Grigor Reznik had put a million-dollar bounty on the “Amazon bitches” who had killed his son. He was quoted as saying, “I have it on tape, God help me. They should know I won’t rest until I have them impaled.”
The gruesome report—combined with the discovery that Reznik, too, was hunting Amazons with murder in mind—had made me so shivery with dread I had asked the flight attendant for a blanket. Neither Reznik nor al-Aqrab, it seemed, was looking for the Amazon gold after all; the pursuit in which I and the Historia Amazonum had become embroiled was much deadlier than a treasure hunt.
I WAS STILL FREEZING by the time I checked in to my modern but soothingly comfortable room at the Idingshof Hotel in Bramsche—the town closest to the Kalkriese Museum. Peeking through the drawn curtains, I counted eleven cars in the parking lot below my window, and while I stood there, another pulled in. It didn’t park—just stopped and idled for a while before slowly backing out again. In the twilight I could vaguely make out a man behind the steering wheel, and the way he kept looking up and holding a hand to his ear suggested he was on the phone.
Pulling back, I felt my pulse quicken. Could it be one of al-Aqrab’s detectives? Or one of Reznik’s security guards? Surely, even those kinds of people could not have found me so quickly. Furthermore, as far as Reznik was concerned, could I not be fairly certain that James had worked hard to smooth out everything before returning to Oxford? Even if he was still upset with me, surely he would not allow Reznik to believe I was in cahoots with Nick. Or would he? I was still not sure.
Once the car drove away, I paced the hotel room back and forth a few times, trying to calm myself. Of course the car’s driver had not been looking for me. It was just my imagination turning every shadow into a fiend. In fact this, I thought with another shiver, must be what it was like having paranoia. All I needed now was to let the jackal convince me I was actually an Amazon in disguise, and I would truly have found Granny … by becoming her.
I looked at the time. My original plan had been to go to the Kalkriese Museum right away, but it was already five o’clock. Tomorrow, I decided, I would drive over there first thing and have the whole day to find and interrogate the woman Mr. Telemakhos wanted me to meet.
After making sure my door was securely locked, I ordered an early room service dinner and sat down, at last, with the Historia Amazonum. I told myself it was a big moment; three weeks ago I could have imagined no greater triumph than to hold this ancient manuscript in my hands. Under the circumstances, however, I just might have been tempted to exchange it for one of Nick’s handguns.
The washed-out writing on the brittle title page announced that the Historia was dedicated to a friend and fellow exile, the Roman poet Ovid, which suggested it had been written in or near Tomi on the Romanian Black Sea coast. The remoteness of its place of origin might well explain why the text had never entered the official corpus of Latin literature, but had been passed down privately until it was transcribed into its present form sometime—I guessed—in the early eighteenth century.
The narrative—a festive cocktail of hearsay and pseudoscientific speculation—set out by relating an array of theories about the rise and fall of the Amazon nation. Most were familiar to me, but a few were not, and I was grateful to escape my anxiety-ridden present, if only for a time, on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea.
“The people of this region relate the following story,” I muttered to myself, translating a particularly interesting passage out loud, “which they all hold to be true. They claim that after the Amazons had suffered their devastating defeat at the hands of mighty Hercules, the band of humiliated women fell into a terrible disagreement, as women are wont to do.” I rolled my eyes and took another bite of my room service Wiener schnitzel before returning to the text. “Anyway … in my stuffy old Roman understanding, this was the time when the young Amazon nation first split apart. The most violent half, they say, fled into the Black Sea and founded the illustrious city of Themiscyra, while the rest, weary of destruction after their tragic losses in the Trojan War, ventured into the great woods of the north and fell into utter obscurity.”
I sat back in the armchair to digest this unexpected twist to the familiar legend. The part about the Amazons splitting into two groups was completely new to me, and I wondered why no other author had ever mentioned it before. It must, I concluded, be either because it was bollocks, or because no ancient writer but P. Exulatus had cared to record the oral tradition of the region.
Only later that night, after I had brushed my teeth and crawled into bed, did the Historia finally get around to the subject I had been keeping an eye out for from page one: the Amazon Hoard.
“As for the famous Amazon treasure,” I read, by now accustomed to the pompous rhetorical style of the text, “a few well-informed men hold the opinion that it was never taken to Themiscyra, and that only fools continue to look for it in this violent region. They claim the Amazon queen with whom King Priam entrusted Troy’s most precious objects was among those who fled into the black woods of the north. For this reason it is generally believed the treasure was long since lost, because these Amazons, by removing themselves from the map of the world, removed themselves from existence altogether. Nor have any of our brave Roman legions garrisoned in Sarmatia or Germania Magna ever reported seeing treasures there other than those primitive”—I paused to ponder the appropriate translation—”knickknacks the barbarians hold so dear, and which no army commander with a sense of shame would ever carry back to Rome in triumph.”
The text continued with more sassy observations about the barbarians of the north, but the writing was so hard to make out in the light of my bedside lamp that I decided to put it aside for tomorrow.
As I lay down, my thoughts wandered off in search of Nick. I tried to imagine his fury upon discovering that I had run away with the Historia and his secret envelope … but couldn’t. Too agitated to sleep, I reached into the bedside drawer and took out the document that ha
d shocked me so in his room that morning and scrutinized—yet again—the cover letter ordering the killing of Amazons. Was it possible I had been too rash in assuming it was a message from al-Aqrab to Nick? Now that I knew of Reznik’s million-dollar bounty it made more sense if he, and not al-Aqrab, was the author.
Reluctant to draw any conclusions I put away the letter and lay down once more. It was time, I decided, to question everything I thought I knew. P. Exulatus spoke of Amazons moving north … and why not? Was it not true that European folktales occasionally spoke of maidens devoted to the art of war? Hitherto I had scoffed at figures such as the medieval Amazons living along the Danube River and their female general, Sharka, who allegedly beheaded hundreds of men in a single battle and raped several dozen male prisoners after hours … before killing them, too.
Perhaps the Amazons really had lived on, in the wild woods of central and northern Europe, but with new appellations. Might the Valkyries and shield-maidens of Norse mythology be the proud descendants of ancient Amazons? This enticing idea kept me awake for a while, and at least it got my mind off Nick.
THE KALKRIESE MUSEUM WAS set in the middle of farmland and forest, with tall fir trees bearing down on it from all sides. As I pulled into the deserted gravel parking lot I had an uncanny feeling the trees were watching me, wondering who I was and why I had come so far to disturb their peace.
It had been raining all night, and although the sun was doing its best to find a crack in the clouds, the morning mists were still lying heavily over the landscape, filling up every dip in the dormant fields and clinging to every cluster of coniferous trees.
Half-fearing the museum and its historic park had closed down for the winter, I left the car in the parking lot and continued on foot up a slippery, muddy path to the welcome center. Only then, as I approached the building, did I see the bicycle leaning against the wall and notice there were lights on inside. Encouraged by this humble evidence of human life I opened the door and was rewarded with a warm waft of coffee.
Seeing I was the first visitor of the day—and possibly the only one—a young archaeologist by the name of Felix was kind enough to pour me a cup and tell me this and that about the place. I was tempted to ask him about Dr. Jäger right away, but felt it would be unwise to disclose the reason for my visit before I had gathered a little more information.
As I strolled outside through the soggy archaeological site, I was once again aware of the fir trees creaking overhead and whispering behind my back. Obviously, the terrain had changed considerably over the past two thousand years, but it was hard to shake a feeling that I was walking—as the Roman Army had done before me—on treacherous ground.
I had often come across the Battle of Teutoburger Wald in Roman history books, but had never thought I would visit the site in person, nor that the trail of Granny’s jackal would lead me to such haunted hinterland.
According to history, in the year A.D. 9 three Roman legions plus auxiliary forces—altogether as many as twenty thousand soldiers—had perished in the woods of northern Germania, and the Roman Empire had never successfully expanded beyond this point. Latin historians referred to the event as “the Varus disaster,” implicitly blaming the Roman commander Varus for the shocking annihilation of his entire army.
What I had never fully appreciated was that the battle had been a brilliantly executed ambush by local tribesmen, in which the Roman legions had been tricked into terrain that rendered their superior weapons useless and made battle formations impossible. Marching along a narrow forest path, the army had been stretched to a point where there was no strength in numbers, and the soldiers—no doubt unnerved by the immensity of the German wilderness—must have felt unusually small and exposed even before the attack began.
Not only had the Roman legionnaires found themselves wedged between a treacherous swamp and a densely forested ridge, they were also pummeled by a rainstorm and blinded by fog. Waterlogged and disoriented, they became easy targets for the tribesmen, who attacked them from the woods above in order to drive them into the great bog below.
After touring the park, I finally entered the museum—an oblong rust-colored building with a tall tower at one end. I could have spent all day there, but was so anxious to find the Amazon bracelet and see what the local archaeologists had to say about it that I hurried through the exhibition in twenty minutes. After that, I spent another twenty minutes going through it again the other way, only to confirm my depressing conclusion.
The bracelet wasn’t there.
Walking back through the archaeological site, I noticed the weather had taken a sinister turn. The sky was dark as lead, and the trees were swaying violently in the rising wind. In my agitated state, I almost got the impression they had sensed the presence of someone more threatening than me, and that they were now—in their ghostly, wordless way—trying to warn me.
Racing the first raindrops through the door of the welcome center, I was happy to see that Felix was still on duty, and still not too busy to chat. “This may sound a little strange,” I said, pulling up my sleeve discreetly, “but someone told me you had a bracelet just like this on display in the museum.”
“Really?” Felix studied my jackal without recognition. “I’m sure I have never seen anything like that before. Interesting.”
“I understand there is a woman here”—I looked at him hopefully—”by the name of Dr. Jäger.”
Felix brightened. “Kyme? She used to work here. She still comes in sometimes.” Mumbling to himself, he checked a laminated list of telephone numbers lying by the cash register. “Jäger … Jäger.”
A quick phone call later, all in German, Felix put down the receiver and beamed at me. “She has invited you for coffee this afternoon at three o’clock, and she looks forward to telling you all about the bracelet.”
AFTER LEAVING THE MUSEUM I passed a few rainy hours in downtown Bramsche, shopping for clothes and other essentials. When I eventually returned to the hotel I made a point of entering through a side door, just in case someone was keeping an eye on the comings and goings of guests.
My room had been cleaned in my absence, and I quickly checked that my little all was where I had left it. Granny’s notebook and the Historia Amazonum I now carried around everywhere I went, of course, but the envelope I had stolen from Nick I had left in a bedside drawer, and yes, it was still there. Only … I was sure I had put a tourist brochure on top of it, in order to conceal it a bit. The brochure was still there, but now it was lying underneath the envelope.
Jittery with nerves, I quickly went through the documents but found nothing missing. Was it possible, I thought, that the maid had moved things around? Or did I misremember how I had left the envelope?
Walking into the bathroom, I made sure everything was still there, and apart from the fact that the maid had turned my toothpaste upside down in the glass, I saw nothing to suggest a break-in.
Angry with myself for being so fanciful, I decided not to do anything too hasty. My appointment with Dr. Jäger was only an hour away; if I still felt uncertain about the room when I came back, I could always move out then.
As I drove my rental car away from the hotel, I kept checking the rearview mirror to see if anyone was following. But in the grime and gloom of this rainy November afternoon, all the vehicles seemed to blend together, and the Mercedes that worried me one moment was gone the next.
Dr. Jäger lived more or less across the road from the archaeological site I had visited that morning. Apparently, she had spent her entire life in the same small house in the woods, and it was a great and unusual honor to be invited inside. “Look out for a long driveway belonging to an abandoned farm,” Felix had explained. “Continue all the way to the end and park there. That is where the path begins. I’ve never seen it, but that’s what she told me.”
I parked my car as instructed and continued on foot into the forest beyond. As I walked up the steep dirt path, squinting against the spitting rain and striding over the little
rivulets of water winding down through the uneven gravel, it occurred to me that this forested ridge must have been a key part of the woodlands from where the German tribesmen had launched their attack on the Roman legionnaires trapped on the edge of the great bog below.
Some historical sources held that a few years after their disastrous defeat the Romans had sent yet another army to the area to recover the sacred eagle standards of the lost legions and, if possible, patch together a realistic account of what had actually happened. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, even the hardened soldiers of the recovery party were horrified by what they found, for the forest surrounding the old battlefield had been turned into a gruesome monument for death and destruction. Heaps of human bones lay unburied, and severed skulls had been nailed to trees, perhaps as part of religious rituals, or perhaps as a warning to future invaders.
Walking through the forest now, still unable to shake a feeling of being watched, I could easily sympathize with the apprehension the Roman soldiers must have felt so long ago. Down by the museum the fir trees had seemed dense and looming, but up here the woods were mature and majestic—intimidating in quite a different way. Colossal centuries-old pines stood just meters apart, shrouded in fog; despite the vicious weather there was a silent solemnity about them that made me feel they had witnessed much violence in their time and had long since learned to keep their silence. Even at three in the afternoon the place had an otherworldly feel to it that was even more chilling than the rain.
When I finally found Dr. Jäger’s house—a modest fieldstone cottage set in a small clearing and surrounded by a thicket of tall weeds—it was a quarter past three. What was supposed to have been a five-minute walk through the forest had taken me more than twenty minutes, and before knocking on the rough-hewn wooden door, I resolved to leave well before sunset, to avoid having to make my way back to the car in complete darkness.