Constantino

  The General Inquisitor Bellarmine has captured The Nolan in Venice and believes he will find the Theatre through him. If Bellarmine comes over Thoth´s secret Master Plethos work is lost. Master Pletho had foreseen this and detailed instructions are provided in the Scriptures about the changing of the pilgrimage route to The Theatre. We must pray that the church and Bellarmine does not beat us to it.

  Your Master,

  Rome in the holy year MDIC

  7

  The Castle Ruotkerspurch, Riegersburg

  April 2

  August had understood at once that it was Victoria who had worked in the room. The reason why she had locked the room he knew not. He could not help thinking that the room had something to do with her death.

  He wondered what it was that was so secret, so secret that even he was kept in the dark.

  Desperate to find out what had happened to her, he started with a lump in the stomach to go through the books on the table. Simply sat down and looked at the books was exhausting and August almost immediately began to cry.

  He could not escape the fact that it felt as if the books were the corpse of Victoria.

  He thought that after she touched the books the last time she went to bed at his side at night. Now she was shot in the head. A bullet had penetrated what she read, shattered the nerves and erased the memory of the books on the table.

  He couldn´t stomach it.

  August tried several days in a row, no one can blame him for not having tried. But he felt the same horror, the same nails on the slate every time.

  In the middle of April he took the bull by its horns. He strong-armed himself that he would at least open some of the books. To his great surprise, he succeeded to skim through the titles on the table.

  He was mildly surprised by the books. What Victoria had read was almost entirely mysterious titles. There were books on magic. Books about the old country Egypt. The works of philosophers from the classical period: Plato, Theophrastus, Aristotle. Books on numerology, Renaissance philosopher Ficino and Giordano Bruno, the mysterious Nolan, magic.

  He understood that if he were at his normal liquids he could figure out what she was doing just by looking at the book titles. But now everything was just a big blur.

  A week ago the police had put the investigation on hold for lack of leads. August had a good mind to ask them to come over to the castle. But he hesitated at the thought of having some blunt men browse through Victoria's books and it was not as strange as it may sound, he was so incredibly careful not to disturb anything. He could see them mess on the sides, tear in the books, note the edges, see their crude brains process her material. It just did not work for August.

  Finally August took to his senses, as he saw it, and now in retrospect I can say that yes, August, he really took to his senses on this day even if it was in a special way.

  He walked carefully down the stairs to his office which was on the lower floor of the castle, he thought about it carefully.

  He started the computer on the desk navigated to Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter´s website.

  He wanted to be discreet, because of the nature of the matter, and hire someone in Austria was not to think of considering how known he was in certain circles. Hopefully, he was not as well known in Sweden, the country he had been in exile from almost all his life but where he still had his roots.

  August took out the contact information of the newspaper ad salesman. He wrote an email. Doubtful he pressed Send.

  His sent his desire to establish an ad in the next day's paper. It would be difficult for him, almost impossible, to tell someone. About the books. About her. But he felt it was right.