Page 98 of Lord of Fortune
Next, he fetched parchment and a pencil along with the paper on which they’d written the code from the broken heart. He set these on the table and waited for Amelia to take a seat before he joined her. They sat on adjoining sides of the table with the book set at an angle near the center between them.
They both stared at the book, neither moving.
“You should open it,” she said.
“No, you should. For your grandfather.”
She took a deep breath and opened the front cover. A brilliant illumination greeted them, and she smiled. “He would have loved this. I know how much he liked illuminated manuscripts.”
“He would’ve loved my father’s library.”
“Yes, he would.” Amelia looked at Penn askance, wishing she’d had more time to investigate Rhys Bowen’s shelves.
She carefully turned the pages, going slowly so they had time to study each page. All the while, she was incredibly aware of Penn’s presence. Thankfully, he wasn’t close enough to touch her. It was good they weren’t right next to each other, and the sides of the table weren’t long enough to support that.
Nearly halfway through, they came across the tale of Ranulf and Hilaria. Amelia’s pulse sped, and the concerns weighing her mind faded to the background. “There it is.”
“My father said this is the earliest recording of it—as we know it now. Every extant version is based on this.” He leaned over, bringing his head close to hers. “It was written by Lewys Glyn Cothi.”
“That was the monk at St. John Priory in Carmarthen?”
Penn nodded as he scanned the page. He brought the lantern closer to the book, and light splashed over the page. He squinted, then lowered his face to the parchment. “I see it,” he breathed. “It’s Old Welsh. I don’t find this terribly often.”
“Can you read it?” She knew he could read Middle Welsh.
“Yes.” He was silent another moment, during which her anticipation crested.
“Penn?”
He gave her an apologetic smile. His eyes were so animated, his excitement so palpable, she would’ve forgiven him anything. She probably would’ve forgiven him anything anyway. Wasn’t that what you did for those you loved?
“Sorry, I’m afraid I got wrapped up reading it,” he said. “Let me translate. It says the heart was hidden because it caused too much pain. The fake heart was created along with a dagger and the myth that a witch had designed it to counteract the heart, thus nullifying the power of the heart.”
“That seems like a great deal of trouble when they could just have destroyed the heart.”
“They didn’t want to. The Order—of course it was them—sought to preserve it, so they hid it and created the false objects as well as the tale of Ranulf and Hilaria.”
“So the story I grew up loving is a creation of the Order?” That left a distinctly bitter taste on her tongue.
“So it would seem. Which means Lewys Glyn Cothi was either a member or, at the very least, associated enough with them that they had him create the tale.” He looked over at her. “I’m sorry. That does rather take the charm out of it.” He bent his head once more and continued. “The location of the heart is encoded on the objects that were created.”
He leaned even closer to the paper. “There, I think that’s the cipher.” He nudged the book toward her and pointed to a spot near the bottom of the page.
She could barely make out the palimpsest. What she could see looked like a jumble of letters. In a completely foreign language. “What does it say?”
“It says heart at the beginning. I think they’ve used a keyword—in this case—heartto set up the alphabet. Then I see ‘left five.’” He lifted his head as a broad smile split his handsome face. “That’s the cipher.”
His glee was infectious, and she couldn’t contain her laughter. “I have no idea what that means.”
“Let me show you.” He pushed the book away from him and picked up the pencil and parchment. After scrawling what looked like an alphabet, he repeated it underneath. Only the second version was slightly different.
He pointed to the top line he’d written. “This is the Old Welsh alphabet. And this”—he pointed to the line beneath it—“is the alphabet with the keyword. The keyword is ‘heart,’ which makes sense, and this is the Old Welsh word for it. Those letters have been taken from the alphabet and moved to the front for the cipher. The rest of the letters follow in order, minus the letters that were moved.”
She began to understand. “Do these alphabets then match up against each other as a key?”
He stared at her in obvious admiration, causing her to blush. “You’re rather brilliant, you know. It’s one of your most attractive qualities.”
The blush spread through her, heating parts of her body that were better left forgotten as they sat here together.Alonetogether.
