CHAPTER 44

Thomas spent an hour in one of the packed and silent reading rooms at the British library by the Saint Pancras station. In the main exhibit hall were remarkable literary relics, including the Beowulf manuscript and hand-corrected pages from Thomas’s favorite translation by Seamus Heaney. He had had to tear himself away and descend into the bowels of the building. It had taken him almost another hour to get his library card and figure out the system, because he wasn’t permitted to get his own books. So much of the massive collection was rare or ancient that the handling and shelving was done by the staff. When they had located the books Thomas had requested, a light came on at his desk in the reading room, and he went to collect them. No one spoke, and the entire business felt secretive and protected.

Unlike the precious tomes being gingerly handled by the white-gloved woman at the desk next to him, Thomas’s selections were fairly mundane: an atlas and a couple of books on European history. He had read the character prefix “King of Navarre” a hundred times in Love’s Labour’s Lost, but none of the footnotes told him where Navarre was and he had never heard of it outside the confines of the play. It took him only minutes to see why.

He returned his books and checked out, first from the library and then from his hotel. He took the underground from Kings Cross to the Waterloo station and then called the abbey and asked for Ron Hazlehurst again, to share his discovery. The verger had news of his own, and the two discoveries meshed significantly.

“My contact at the Sorbonne says that Saint Evremond made a habit of bestowing books on his friends,” said Hazlehurst. “She knows of no reference to Love’s Labour’s Won in his letters, but she does recall a reference to a gift of books to the King of France himself in the course of their reconciliation. In a letter to an elderly dowager he mentions one book in particular that was in English but that celebrates—hold on, let me get this right—‘the royal seat of the receiver.’ She took that to be the King of France himself. Now, I know the King of France isn’t in Love’s Labour’s Lost, except that he dies offstage at the end, and that Love’s Labour’s Won would presumably not involve a King of France at all, since the princess would be queen . . .”

“That’s what I was calling to tell you,” said Thomas. “The Kingdom of Navarre was in the Basque region of the Pyrenees, occupying parts of what are today France and Spain and centered on Pamplona. The southern part was absorbed by Castille and became part of Spain in 1513, but the northern part joined with France in 1589 when King Henry of Navarre became king of France. When Shakespeare wrote the Love’s Labour’s plays, the two countries were effectively the same and were formally joined in 1620. The last Queen of Navarre—a title they continued to use—was Marie Antoinette!”

“Indeed!” said the verger. “A story celebrating that union would be a perfect gift from an estranged subject to his royal master, wouldn’t you say?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Which leaves you where?”

Thomas glanced toward the sleek train that would take him south and under the English Channel.

“En route to France,” he said.

 

Before he boarded the train, he called Kumi at home in Tokyo from a phone box. She was drowsy, but upbeat, and as she repeated what Tasha Collins had already told him about the surgery, he let her talk.

“What happens next?” he asked.

“More tests over the next few days, then they’ll want to start radiation,” she said. “Once that begins, I won’t be able to travel for six weeks.”

“I can come out,” said Thomas.

“Actually,” she said, “I was thinking I might come to you. In England. Just for a couple of days. I’d like to see you and it would be nice to be somewhere new, somewhere pleasant but unfamiliar.”

Thomas told her of his plans.

“How long do you expect to be in France?” she asked.

“No more than a couple of days,” he said. He told her what he was doing, the questions he wanted answered, the trail he was trying to follow.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll look into some flights.”

“I can meet you in London.”

“You know, I think Stratford sounds more my speed right now,” she said. “Call me in a couple of days, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And Tom?” she said. “Don’t worry. We’ll beat this.”