The Quest for Eternal Life: The Last Librarian, #1

By John C De Groot

Cleopatra and Mark Antony have died by their own hands as Octavian's Roman forces prepare to attack Alexandria itself. The Great Alexandrian Library, containing the greatest collection of scientific academic and historical documents the world has ever known is under threat of destruction. Only Amanishakete a Nubian Princess knows where the Royal Library, a complete copy of the Great Library, is hidden and she is the only one who holds the key to its survival.

 

With a puzzling list of ingredients, found in a secret document in the library, Amanishakete must make a perilous journey across the wastes and dangers of the Sahara desert to find them and make an elixir of eternal life so she can return and protect the Royal Library for the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John C De Groot
• Release date: Jan 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215843277

John C De Groot

Albert Einstein said that ‘it is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge’. That was certainly the case with my high school history teacher, who brought history alive and started my fascination in Ancient and Early Modern history. There are countless mysteries that still remain unsolved and I have a real suspicion that we have lost or forgotten more knowledge than we have ever gained. After a career in business, business support and as a trainer for Dale Carnegie, I did some consulting. It was a client who once said to me that ‘I was a useful man to have around’, based to some degree on my ability with the written word. When retirement loomed his words, my interest in history and a very patient and supportive wife encouraged me to ‘put pen to paper’ and with heart in hand resulted in my first book ‘The Quest for Eternal Life', the first in the ‘Last Librarian’ Series. That was several books ago in a growing portfolio.

Book preview

PART ONE – The Mystery Begins

Chapter One – Clifton England 1995

Charles Westgate was , at sixty-eight and by all reports, one of the rudest and most cantankerous individuals you could ever meet. Not that many people met him nowadays, not since he’d become a virtual recluse in the large house. Even his groceries were delivered to his door to be snatched inside with a glowering look around before slamming the door.

The only people who saw him regularly were Molly Parsons, the lady who cleaned and did some laundry on a Tuesday and Thursday; infrequently his solicitor James Taylor and on rare occasions his son Thomas Westgate.

Molly Parsons was as rude and difficult as Charles Westgate. At sixty-three she could, with a cold stare and thin lips, freeze someone’s question before the words even reached their tongue. She’d tolerate no questions about her employer, or anything else come to that. She’d outlived two husbands and rumour had it, that both of them had sighed with relief as they prematurely left this earthly plane.

James Taylor had threatened, on more than one occasion, to terminate his professional association with Charles Westgate. It was only that he never questioned a billing or delayed payment that kept him coming back. 

Thomas Westgate was a different story. He’d been the only child of Charles Westgate and his wife Mary, now deceased. At forty-three he had most fortunately, inherited his mother’s disposition and his father’s looks, thus making him a ruggedly good looking tall and strongly built man, with a temperament that was slow to anger and patient. Several failed relationships, mainly due to his commitment to his career, meant he was still a bachelor. He had however inherited two traits of his father, those of inquisitiveness and an indefatigable persistence. Once he got his teeth into something he never let go until he reached a conclusion. 

Thomas had, despite his good nature, fallen out with his father some ten or so years ago when his mother had died. It was only in the last few years that he’d visited and then only if there was a good reason.

However, there was one person who bucked the relationship trend with Charles Westgate and that was Doctor Olaf Jorgenson. Doctor Jorgenson visited at least twice a week and seemed to be on unusually friendly terms with Charles Westgate. In his late fifties, Doctor Jorgenson was a general practitioner of long standing in the village of Clifton, whose population hadn’t varied much from its three hundred and seventy odd souls for fifty years or more. Doctor Jorgenson knew practically every one of them, intimately.

It was the urgent telephone call from Doctor Jorgenson that had Thomas hurrying to Clifton one Friday afternoon from his legal practice office in London. Charles Westgate was apparently dying.

Thomas hadn’t seen Doctor Jorgenson for a number of years. In fact, not since he’d left Clifton to take up his first job after qualifying as a solicitor where he’d gone on to become a partner in the firm. Thomas remembered Doctor Jorgenson as a bear of a man with unruly shaggy dark brown hair and side whiskers on a square face. He reminded Thomas of a character out of a Dickens novel. However it was the keen intelligent grey eyes and genuine interest in people that lifted Doctor Jorgenson to be an outstandingly well-respected local GP. It was an older and greyer Doctor Jorgenson that met Thomas at the front door of the large house.

Hello Thomas, I don’t give him more than a few hours, Jorgenson said without preamble, he’s asking for you. They went straight up to his father’s bedroom to find him lying deathly pale in his bed. Thomas advanced to the bedside.

Father, I am sorry that you are not well, he said sympathetically. He was genuinely overcome by his father’s frailty since he’d last seen him.

Thomas was completely taken aback when his father suddenly rose to a sitting position.

Not well! he croaked. I’m bloody dying, you fool boy! His eyes rolled up and he fell back on the pillows. Doctor Jorgenson rushed forward urging Thomas aside as he bent over his patient and started searched for vital signs.

He’s gone. Doctor Jorgenson stated with a sigh as he straightened up.

Gone? Thomas queried shakily.

He’s dead Thomas.

Thomas looked down at his father his mind in a confused whirl.

He seemed in such robust health the last time I was here.

Heart.

Oh.

He forbade me from telling anyone. He knew it would take him eventually. I told him as much.

Thomas then noticed the piece of paper clutched in his father’s hand.

He wanted you to have that. He told me so before I came down to let you in.

Still reeling from the suddenness of his father’s death Thomas carefully pulled the paper from the dead hand. It was a page from a small notebook and bore his father’s close handwriting.

It’s so dark in here I can’t read what he has written.

Doctor Jorgenson looked closely at Thomas and decided that, whilst not surprisingly in a state of shock, he was in control and didn’t need his professional attention.

He seemed to think it was important. Why don’t you go down and make yourself a cup of tea, and I’ll be down in a few minutes after I finish up here.

Yes, OK. Thomas replied vaguely, and made his way down to the kitchen.

Everything was much as Thomas remembered in the old house. After all, he was born and brought up here. His father had maintained it well, even if it hadn’t been modernised. Filling a kettle at the kitchen sink he lit a gas ring on the stove put the kettle on to boil and sat down at the long, scrubbed pine kitchen table. The light was much better here and despite the spidery nature of the handwriting, that he put down to his father’s age, he read the note. It was written on both sides of the paper.

He read it once, frowned and read it again and after a pause he read it yet again.

By now the kettle was whistling, so collecting a mug from a cupboard and dropping in a tea bag from a jar in the same cupboard, he poured the boiling water into the mug.  He tried a couple of drawers before remembering where the teaspoons were and absently stirred the tea his mind elsewhere.

You’ll break the teabag if you keep doing that Doctor Jorgenson said from the doorway. It broke Thomas’s preoccupation.

Would you like some tea, Doctor?

No thank you. I must be getting on. I’ll write out a death certificate, advise the authorities about your father’s death and notify the funeral home. They’ll probably call for your father in the morning unless you’d prefer them to come out tonight?

Up to that point Thomas had not given thought where he might stay for the night. He’d brought nothing with him. Did he want to stay in the big house with his father’s body here? No, he thought, he’d rather stay at the local pub if they had space.

Err, tomorrow should be OK Doctor. I’m going to see if I can get into the Red Lion tonight.

I don’t think your father cleared out your old room, if you needed anything, Doctor Jorgenson added helpfully. He was a good man, you know.

I’m sorry? Thomas frowned, he’d been distracted.

Your father, Thomas, he was a good man despite his bad temper.

You knew him well?

Yes, probably better than most.

Thomas looked at Doctor Jorgenson for a few moments and handed him his father’s note.

Can you make anything of this note he left me?

The Doctor read it and, like Thomas, he read it again his shaggy eyebrows like hairy caterpillars moved closer together in his confusion.

Makes no sense to me Thomas. He gave the note back. Well, I must be on my way. I am sorry about your father, he was a good friend, he said a little distantly, adding here are the keys to the house, as he handed over a small bunch of keys. He took his overcoat from the hall stand picked up his leather medical bag and left.

Thomas shivered involuntarily in the sudden silence. The first thing he did was to turn on as many lights as he could as he went back up the stairs. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he passed his father’s room, his father’s final words ringing in his ears.

‘Not well! I’m bloody dying, you fool boy!’

He couldn’t resist a look back at his father’s door, but it was firmly closed. Thomas’s old room was at the end of the corridor, he hadn’t been in here since he’d last visited over a year ago, when he’d stayed a couple of days. His memory of those days was not a pleasant one. Endless arguments and his father’s bad temper were enough to avoid his return until today.

He collected a few things from his room and hurriedly left the house, leaving only the porch light on.

The Red Lion was a very welcome relief with its bright lights and warm fire the chatter of customers and the clink of glasses. Even though it was late there was a room available. Thomas booked in ordered a meal and a beer and settled down at a corner table to read the note again. But it didn’t help it made absolutely no sense at all. ‘Perhaps the old man had lost his mind at last’, he thought.

He was feeling tired now and the reality of his father’s death was upon him, maybe a fresh mind in the morning would help. So, folding the note and putting it in his pocket, he finished his meal and went up to his room.

It was the middle of the night when he woke up with a start. There was dim light from the hallway coming under the door otherwise it was pitch dark. Jumping out of bed he switched on the light and retrieved the note from his pocket. Smoothing out the crumpled paper on the small desk he switched on the desk lamp and examined the note again.

Sing the hymn of the book

First the third are you right

When you’re next in old Rome

You will find it is missing

Holy the chapters.

Taking a pencil, he underlined every third word. Now it made sense and read, ‘hymn book third right next Rome find missing chapters.’ His father wasn’t daft after all. He was using a simple code that they’d used for secret messages when Thomas was a boy. He must also have counted on Thomas’s knowledge of the old house and that he would know where to look.

‘It must have been very important’, he thought, ‘to use his last act to get this message to me’.

Thomas returned to bed and slept fitfully until the alarm clock woke him at six. He was up dressed showered and standing in the dining room when they opened it for breakfast at six thirty. A coffee and toast and in twenty minutes he was into his overcoat and on his way to the old house after he’d secured his room for another night.

The grey dawn was still young as the car scrunched up the short gravel driveway to the front door. He fumbled through the bunch of keys under the porch light and once again switched on lights in the old house. This time he went straight to the library-come-study where he knew his father had spent much of his time in his later years and switched on the lights there too. They were brighter than he remembered. ‘Perhaps’, he thought, ‘father’s eyesight was fading towards the end and he needed the extra light’. There was a tall window facing Thomas made up of small panes. Two of the panes had been replaced with squares of plywood. A large desk was off to the left with a comfortable well-worn leather chair behind it. Thomas remembered the desk being in front of the window when he was here last. Either side of the window were shelves crammed with books and papers, but it was only on the right that there was a large etching of ancient Rome on the wall before the shelves started.

Thomas went to the third set of shelves past the etching and started to search them. It didn’t take long to find the book amongst some stacks of papers and more modern tomes. His father had clipped a piece of paper to the cover on which was written ‘Hymn Book’. Thomas took it down and carried it across to the desk, clearing a space for it on the large well used blotter.

It suddenly felt odd sitting here in his father’s chair and for a moment Thomas felt like an intruder as his mind went to the fact that his father’s body still lay upstairs. It was strange, everything had happened so quickly that he’d not had a real emotional reaction to his father’s death. Perhaps it will come, he thought.

The ringing of the front doorbell was sudden and loud in the silence and made Thomas literally jump out of the seat. Shaking his head to steady himself he went to the front door and opened it. Dawn was well established now and a watery sun was edging its way through the greyness. It silhouetted the figure standing in the porch. Thomas nearly slammed the door closed in fright. The silhouette was of a large man wearing a high collared cape and a top hat. It was like something out of a horror movie. But before he could act a soft Irish voice said.

Good morning, is it Mister Thomas Westgate I’m speaking to?

I beg your pardon? Thomas said hesitantly.

You are Mister Thomas Westgate now?

Err, yes I am.

Surr, I’m Kevin from the funeral home. Doctor Jorgenson asked us to call. Please to accept my condolences on your father’s passing. Thomas recovered his wits.

Yes, yes of course. Please come in. Kevin turned and signalled to someone in the driveway where Thomas could just see the front grill of a large black Daimler. A small ferret of a man in a black suit and thin black tie appeared at Kevin’ side.

This is Alan, my assistant Surr. If you could show us where your father is?

Yes, yes of course. Follow me. Thomas led the two men up the stairs and to his father’s room. He hesitated as he reached for the door handle.

Would you like us to take things from here, Surr? Kevin said gently, moving to the door in front of Thomas. I know it can be quite upsetting. Thomas agreed with some relief.

Yes I’ll leave you to do what you have to do. I’ll be in the study, err library. And with that he retreated downstairs.

Twenty minutes later Kevin knocked respectfully on the library door. Thomas had been in limbo, just waiting for them to finish.

Ahem. Surr, we’ll be on our way now.

Yes, thank you Kevin. Thomas closed the front door as the cloaked figure of Kevin followed Alan to the car. A minute later the big Daimler crunched down the driveway and silence returned to the old house.

Taking a full breath Thomas went to the kitchen and made a mug of coffee which he took to the library and settled more comfortably into the leather chair. In front of him was the hymn book. It was a little bigger than A4 size, but was easily two inches thick. He removed the piece of paper from the leather cover that must at one time have been quite impressive. There were still traces of colour and intricate tooling, but now it was quite dilapidated. Interestingly there was no title or wording on either the cover or the spine. Thomas turned his attention to his father’s note.

Now what were the last words in the note he muttered as he smoothed it out beside the old hymn book and ran his finger down the words. "Hmm, find missing chapters."

Thomas opened the cover of the book and gasped. In total contrast to the poor state of the cover, the frontispiece was of beautiful hand coloured, illuminated calligraphy. It seemed as fresh as when it had been created.

Thomas was no stranger to such work. He occasionally came across ancient hand written documents and illuminated texts when working in the libraries of the great London legal Inns. But what was now in front of him was the most magnificent he’d ever seen. He turned the page, which he was sure was made of vellum. ‘This must have been worked on by monks in the Middle Ages’, he thought, but his thoughts stopped there as he turned the page. There was a small notebook. He opened it to find it full of his father’s handwriting. He read.

‘If you are reading this’, it said simply on the first page, ‘then I am gone before solving the puzzle. Thomas I know we have not been on the best of terms, but I cannot leave this mystery unfinished, and I can think of no one better than you to go on and complete it. If you are anything like me, and I think you are, then your inquisitive nature will already be piqued.’

You know me better than I thought, Thomas said softly, he already knew he was genuinely intrigued. His father, like himself, had been a successful city lawyer having built a career in commercial litigation. He’d become the senior partner in an international legal firm that spanned the globe. The combination of his lucrative income while he was practising and sensible investments, resulted in the large house in Clifton, a villa in Greece and a sizeable pension.

One of the many things that had been the cause of dispute between father and son was Thomas’s determination to forge his own way. He hated the money grabbing, self-centred world of corporate business. His father would often be taking action on behalf of a client purely for their financial gain and often to the commercial detriment of a small or weaker opponent.

It had been only a year after retirement that Westgate Senior had started to act strangely, at least that’s how Thomas remembered it. His father had become less sociable and more bad-tempered. He’d always been a difficult man. Although Thomas remembered him as a good father in his youth, taking time to play and encourage Thomas. It was the same through his school and university years too. ‘I wonder why he changed so much?’ he pondered.

He read on.

‘This mystery has consumed me for the past couple of years. I have travelled widely in search of pieces of the puzzle and have assembled most of what I have found within the covers of this hymn book. But there is much more still to be found and there are parts of the puzzle that still elude me.

I will give you the starting point and then you must work your own way through the material. In that way you may see something that I have missed, some clue or link, that will bring clarity to this mystery. You have seen the illuminated text, but as you turn the page you will see that I have removed the text from subsequent pages. You may think that sacrilege, but it was common practice in the monasteries to reuse vellum, as it was such an expensive commodity. So, underneath one set of text, there is often another that has been scraped away so the vellum can be reused. It took a long time, but I have developed a method to recover the old text. I have written out instructions of how to do this.

You may remember when you were younger that many of our holidays were to parts of the world where there were remnants of ancient history. There were the obvious ones, such as the Acropolis or the Parthenon, but I had a deep interest in the mysteries of the past. One such ancient mystery was Greek Fire, which was reputed to be a devastating weapon that could be discharged from a ship. Any enemy vessel hit by it was doomed to be destroyed by unstoppable fire. You may remember the experiments we did in the back garden. Your mother was most upset when we burned down the potting shed and she complained that it was too dangerous.’

Thomas smiled. Yes, I remember Dad.

‘I always believed’, the notes continued, ‘that we have lost more knowledge than we have gained and that the ancient civilisations were far more advanced in some things than we are even today.

One of my great friends was Ivor Reynolds. He’s gone now, but he was librarian at the Abbey of Saint Francis near Glastonbury. It was while I was studying some of the ancient books there, that most people never get the opportunity to touch, that I first saw the shadow of older text underneath some of the work of monks in the ninth century. It was a few sheets of vellum in very poor condition that Ivor had put to one side for possible restoration. He was the one who explained about the practice of reusing vellum. I asked him if he’d tried to recover the older writing, which he hadn’t, so I asked him if I could try. He gave me those few sheets to work on as he’d decided that they were not important texts and would probably just be stored away for ever. Apparently, they were part of a batch of books and documents that the Abbey had been gifted from a church in Greece, which had been destroyed in the Second World War.

I went to see Professor John McKinnon at Cambridge University. He was a Professor of ancient history. You’ll remember that he helped us with the Greek Fire experiments. He explained that the underwriting was called palimpsests and that in the past these faint legible remains were read by eye before 20th-century techniques helped make lost texts readable. To read palimpsests, scholars of the 19th century used chemicals that were sometimes very destructive, but modern methods of reading palimpsests using ultraviolet light and photography are less damaging. Now they use what is called multispectral filming, that can increase the contrast of faded ink on parchment and X-ray fluorescence imaging, which reveals the iron in the ink.

But this is all background. The really exciting thing is that when I uncovered the original writing on those few pages and John helped to have them translated, they told part of a story about one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world; the lost library of Alexandria.

Like many others I was familiar with the mystery and knew that it was reputed to hold texts older than the Dead Sea Scrolls and had scientific texts describing many things that would be invaluable as well as the original books and scrolls of Greek and other philosophers and scholars and even Buddhist texts. It was the greatest collection of works the world had ever known. History records that the library was destroyed by fire two millennia ago, but no one has ever been able to prove this, and no trace of the library has ever been found.

I asked John to come with me to visit Ivor in Glastonbury, and although Ivor was very sceptical, he agreed that we could work on a few more of the vellum pages from Greece which were in bad condition. Although giving us a very disjointed text, these additional pages only seemed to confirm that they were a record of what happened to the great library of Alexandria. There were, of course, many questions that we could not answer. Questions such as, were they written at the time the library was destroyed or moved; were they an accurate record; and could we find more pages that would give us enough information to do something about it.

The first question was fairly easy to answer as the university could date the age of the vellum, assuming it was new at the time of the original writing. They dated it as being in the third century BC. So, we had our confirmation that the date was about right as this was the century in which Ptolemy II expanded the library. After that, history has conflicting ideas of what may have happened to it.

To answer the second question, we did indeed need more information. That meant more pages. Ivor gave us all he could, and the additional information this yielded us our first real lead.

Chapter Two - The Palace of Ptolemy II Philadelphus - Alexandria 280BC

The King, Pharaoh of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, passed through the magnificent gateway to the temple of the nine Muses in the palace grounds of Alexandria. He was the son of Ptolemy I Soter, who was a General and companion to Alexander the Great and the first Satrap of Egypt.

Ptolemy II was accompanied by a retinue of attendants, some of whom led exotic beasts on leads, while others carried feathered fans to cool and shade the great Pharaoh who strode ahead confidently in a simple robe edged in gold. The one sign of his position displayed in the gold circlet with a cobra’s head encircling the tight curls of his dark hair. He was tall and broad faced, with a strong nose and chin, in the prime of life. Most said he was a worthy successor to his warring father, being of a more peaceful and cultured disposition.

They passed the shrines of the Nine Muses and crossed a garden square being tended by gardeners, who prostrated themselves as the procession passed on into the covered walkways, much used by the philosophers and scientists who studied at the Musaeum.  A tall military man in the retinue called the attention of Pharaoh.

Sire, in the workroom to your right is the renowned mathematician, Archimedes. He has been here for several weeks now. I understand that he is studying the works of Aristarchus of Samos, who was here in your father’s time.

Yes, I met Aristarchus when I was very young. He was an ingenious astronomer. It is encouraging to see such great thinkers here in our centre of learning General, but now I wish to see the Chief Librarian.

He is in the cataloguing section Sire, I understand that he is expecting your arrival.

The procession passed the zoo where the quiet studious air of the Musaeum was broken by the cries of animals, not all native to Egypt. The trumpeting of an Indian elephant started a responsive series of cries from other animals and birds as if it was a welcome for their royal visitor.

The screens in the cataloguing section had been rolled up to let in the maximum amount of light. It was a large cool room occupied by around twenty scribes who, under the direction of Chief Librarian Zenodotus, were writing out long lists of documents and allocating them the sections that they were to be stored in.  They attached a small tag to the end of each scroll containing information on each work’s author, title and subject, so that library users did not have to unroll each scroll in order to see what it contained. Zenodotus had introduced the principle of allocating different sections, or rooms, for each subject and then alphabetic organisation of each scroll using the first letter of the name of the author.

As Ptolemy entered, Zenodotus rushed forward and knelt before him.

My dear Zenodotus, how go things?

Well, my Lord Ptolemy, thank you.

And the library?

My Lord Ptolemy, Zenodotus swept his arm around to indicate the scribes, we are progressing well with the documentation of the scrolls.

And the collection, it is growing?

Greatly my Lord. Since your father and our Founding Librarian, Demetrius of Phaleron, first conceived the idea of collecting all the world’s books here in one place the collection has grown to over forty thousand scrolls.

Indeed Zenodotus, and you know I am committed to building on what he has started. We will have here in Alexandria the greatest library the world has ever known, and Alexandria will be the centre of learning and research.

Ptolemy and a single armed bodyguard, together with Zenodotus, were ushered into a side room where refreshments were laid out on marble tables. Ptolemy settled himself into a comfortable upholstered chair that had been raised on a small dais for the occasion. Several less comfortable looking chairs and cushions were scattered around. Zenodotus offered the Pharaoh a small bowl of grapes, which he accepted.

Now, Zenodotus, come and sit near me so we can discuss your concerns, as I can see them etched upon your face.

You are very perceptive my Lord Ptolemy, and yes I am concerned.

"Why so? The Musaeum is becoming well established amongst the