“So we have a map without a key,” Verlaine said.
“Perhaps,” Gabriella said, and asked Sabine to repeat the clue.
Sabine repeated it word for word.
“The allegory of the hunt tells a tale within a tale. Follow the creature’s course from freedom to captivity. Disavow the hounds, feign modesty at the maid, reject the brutality of slaughter, and seek music where the creature lives again. As a hand at the loom wove this mystery, so a hand must unravel it. Ex angelis-the instrument reveals itself.”
“Clearly she’s telling us to follow the order of the hunt, which begins in the first tapestry,” Verlaine said, stepping through clusters of people to the first panel. “Here a hunting party makes its way to the forest, where they discover a unicorn, chase it vigorously, and then kill it. The hounds-which Mrs. Rockefeller advises us to ignore-are part of the hunting party, and the maid-whom we should also bypass-must be one of the women hanging around watching. We’re supposed to ignore all that and look where the creature lives again. That,” Verlaine said, leading Gabriella by the arm to the last tapestry, “must be this one.”
They stood before the most famous of the tapestries, a lush green meadow filled with wildflowers. The unicorn reclined at the center of a circular fence, tamed.
Gabriella said, “This is most definitely the tapestry in which we should ‘seek music where the creature lives again.’ ”
“Although there doesn’t seem to be anything at all referring to music here,” Verlaine said.
“Ex angelis,” Gabriella said to herself, as if turning the phrase over in her mind.
“Mrs. Rockefeller never used Latin phrases in her letters to Innocenta,” Verlaine said. “It’s obvious that the use of it here has been meant to draw our attention.”
“Angels appear in nearly every piece of art in this place,” Gabriella said, clearly frustrated. “But there isn’t a single one here.”
“You’re right,” Verlaine agreed, studying the unicorn. “These tapestries are an anomaly. Although the hunt for the unicorn can be interpreted, as Mrs. Rockefeller mentioned, as an allegory-most obviously a retelling of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection-it’s one of the few pieces here without overt Christian figures or images. No depictions of Christ, no images from the Old Testament, and no angels.”
“Notice,” Gabriella said, pointing to the corners of the tapestry, “how the letters A and E are woven everywhere throughout the scenes. They’re in each tapestry and always paired. They must have been the initials of the patron who commissioned the tapestries.”
“Perhaps,” Verlaine said, looking more closely at the letters and noticing that they had been stitched with golden thread. “But look: The letter E is turned backward in each instance. The letters have been inverted.”
“And if we flip them,” Gabriella said, “we have E A.”
“Ex angelis,” Verlaine said.
Verlaine stepped so close to the tapestry that he could see the intricate patterns of threads composing the fabric of the scene. The material smelled loamy, centuries of exposure to dust and air an inextricable part of it. Sabine Clementine, who had been standing quietly nearby, waiting to be of assistance, came to their side. “Come,” she said softly. “You are here for the tapestries. They are my specialty.”
Without waiting for a response, Sabine walked to the first panel. She said, “The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries are the great masterpieces of the medieval era, seven panels woven of wool and silk. Together the panels depict a courtly hunting party-you can see for yourself the hounds, knights, maidens, and castles, framed by fountains and forests. The precise provenance of the tapestries remains something of a mystery, even after years of study, but art historians agree that the style points to Brussels around the year 1500. The first written documentation of the Unicorn Tapestries emerged in the seventeenth century, when the tapestries were cataloged as part of the estate of a noble French family. They were discovered and restored in the mid-nineteenth century. John D. Rockefeller Jr. paid over one million dollars for them in the 1920s. In my opinion it was a bargain. Many historians believe them to be the finest example of medieval art in the world.”
Verlaine gazed at the tapestry, drawn to its vibrant color and the unicorn that reclined at the center of the woven panel, a milk-white beast, its great horn raised.
“Tell me, mademoiselle,” Gabriella said, a hint of challenge in her voice, “have you come to help us or to give us a guided tour?”
“You will need a guide,” Sabine replied pointedly. “Do you see the block of stitches between the letters?” She gestured to the E A initials above the unicorn.
“It looks like there was pretty intensive restoration work,” Verlaine replied, as if the answer to Gabriella’s question were the most obvious one in the world. “It was damaged?”
“Extensively,” Sabine Clementine said. “The tapestries were looted during the French Revolution-stolen from a chateau and used for decades to cover peasants’ fruit trees from frost. Although the fabric has been lovingly, painstakingly restored, the damage is apparent if one looks closely.”
As Gabriella examined the tapestry, her thoughts appeared to take a new turn. She said, “Mrs. Rockefeller was given the enormous challenge of hiding the instrument, and according to the clue she gave as instructions, she indeed chose to hide it here, in the Cloisters.”
“It would seem that way,” Verlaine said, gazing at her expectantly.
“To accomplish this she would have needed to find a location that was well guarded and yet exposed, safe yet accessible, so that the instrument could eventually be recovered.” Gabriella took a deep breath and looked about the room-crowds had gathered in clusters before the tapestries. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We can see firsthand that hiding something as unwieldy as a lyre-an instrument consisting of a large body and crossbars, which are generally of sizable proportions-in an intimate museum like the Cloisters would be almost impossible. And yet we know she has managed it.”
“Are you suggesting that the lyre isn’t really here?” Verlaine asked.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Gabriella said. “It is exactly the opposite. I don’t think Abigail Rockefeller would send us on a wild-goose chase. I have been thinking over the dilemma of there being four locations for one instrument and have come to the conclusion that Abigail Rockefeller was extremely savvy about hiding the lyre. She found the safest locations, but she also put the lyre in its more secure form. I believe that the instrument may not be in the form we expect.”
“Now you’ve lost me,” Verlaine said.
Sabine said, “As any angelologist who has spent a semester in Ethereal Musicology, the History of the Angelic Choruses, or any of the other seminars that focus upon the construction and implementation of the instruments would know, there is one essential component to the lyre: the strings. While many other heavenly instruments were fashioned from the precious celestial metal known as Valkine, the lyre’s unique resonance arises from its strings. They were made of an unidentifiable substance that angelologists have long believed to be a mixture of silk and strands of the angels’ own hair. Whatever the material, the sound is extraordinary because of the substance of the strings and the way they are stretched. The frame is, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable.”
“You have attended the academy in Paris,” Gabriella said, impressed.
“Bien sûr, Dr. Valko,” Sabine said, smiling slightly. “How else would I be entrusted with such a position as this? You may not recall, but I attended your Introduction to Spiritual Warfare Seminar.”