“After a while Stoichev’s students began to drift away, either to the table, where the spitted sheep had just been carved, or to wander in the garden in twos and threes. As soon as they were gone, Stoichev turned to us with an urgent face. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk while we are able to. My niece has promised to keep Mr. Ranov busy as long as she can. I have a few things to tell you, and I understand you have much to tell me, as well.’
“‘Certainly.’ I pulled my chair closer to his, and Helen did the same.
“‘First of all, my friends,’ Stoichev said, ‘I read again carefully the letter you left with me yesterday. Here is your copy of it.’ He took it from his breast pocket. ‘I will give it to you now, to keep it safe. I read it many times, and I believe that it was written by the same hand that wrote the letter I possess-Brother Kiril, whoever he was, wrote both of them. I do not have your original to look at, of course, but if this is an accurate copy, the style of composition is the same, and the names and dates certainly agree. I think we can have little doubt that these letters were part of the same correspondence, and that they were either delivered separately or separated from each other by circumstances we will never know. Now, I have some other thoughts for you, but first you must tell me more about your research. I have the impression that you did not come to Bulgaria to learn only about our monasteries. How did you find this letter?’
“I told him that we’d begun our research for reasons that would be difficult for me to describe, because they did not sound very rational. ‘You said you had read the work of Professor Bartholomew Rossi, Helen’s father. He recently disappeared under very strange circumstances.’
“As quickly and clearly as I could, I sketched for Stoichev my discovery of the dragon book, Rossi’s disappearance, the contents of the letters and the copies of the strange maps we carried with us, and our research in Istanbul and Budapest, including the folk song and the woodcut with the wordIvireanu in it, which we’d seen in the university library in Budapest. I left out only the secret of the Crescent Guard. I didn’t dare pull any documents from my briefcase with so many other people in sight, but I described for him the three maps and the similarity of the third to the dragon in the books. He listened with the utmost patience and interest, his brow furrowed under his fine white hair and his dark eyes wide. Only once did he interrupt, to ask urgently for a more exact description of each of the dragon books-mine, Rossi’s, Hugh James’s, Turgut’s. I saw that because of his knowledge of manuscripts and early publishing, the books must hold peculiar interest for him. ‘I have mine here,’ I added, touching the briefcase in my lap.
“He started, staring at me. ‘I would like to see this book when that is possible,’ he said.
“But the point that seemed to pique his interest even more was Turgut and Selim’s discovery that the abbot to whom Brother Kiril’s letters were addressed had presided over the monastery at Snagov in Wallachia. ‘Snagov,’ he said in a whisper. His old face had flushed crimson and I wondered for a moment if he was going to faint. ‘I should have known this. And I have had that letter in my library for thirty years!’
“I hoped I would have the chance to ask him, too, where he’d found his letter. ‘You see, there is fairly good evidence that the monks of Brother Kiril’s party traveled from Wallachia to Constantinople before coming to Bulgaria,’ I said.
“‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘I have always thought it described a journey of monks from Constantinople, on pilgrimage in Bulgaria. I never realized-Maxim Eupraxius-the abbot of Snagov -’ He seemed almost overcome with swift ruminations, which flashed across his mobile old face like a windstorm and made him blink his eyes rapidly. ‘And this wordIvireanu that you found, and also Mr. Hugh James, in Budapest -’
“‘Do you know what it means?’ I asked eagerly.
“‘Yes, yes, my son.’ Stoichev seemed to be looking through me without seeing. ‘It is the name of Antim Ivireanu, a scholar and printer at Snagov at the end of the seventeenth century-long after Vlad Tepes. I have read about Ivireanu’s work. He made a great name among the scholars of his time and he attracted many illustrious visitors to Snagov. He printed the holy gospels in Romanian and Arabic, and his press was the first one in Romania, in all probability. But-my God-perhaps it was not the first, if the dragon books are much older. There is a great deal I must show you!’ He shook his head, wide-eyed. ‘Let us go into my rooms, quickly.’
“Helen and I glanced around. ‘Ranov is busy with Irina,’ I said in a low voice.
“‘Yes.’ Stoichev got to his feet. ‘We will go in this door at the side of the house. Hurry, please.’
“We needed no urging. The look on his face alone would have been enough to make me follow him up a cliff. He struggled up the stairs and we went slowly after him. At the big table he sat down to rest. I noticed it was scattered with books and manuscripts that hadn’t been there the day before. ‘I have never had very much information about that letter, or the others,’ Stoichev said when he’d caught his breath.
“‘The others?’ Helen sat down beside him.
“‘Yes. There are two more letters from Brother Kiril-with mine and the one in Istanbul, that is four. We must go to Rila Monastery immediately to see the others. This is an incredible discovery, to reunite them. But that is not what I must show you. I never made any connection -’ Again he seemed too stunned to speak for long.
“After a moment, he went into one of the other rooms and came back carrying a paper-covered volume, which proved to be an old scholarly journal printed in German. ‘I had a friend -’ he stopped. ‘If only he had lived to see this day! I told you-his name was Atanas Angelov-yes, he was a Bulgarian historian and one of my first teachers. In 1923 he was doing some researches in the library at Rila, which is one of our great treasure-houses of medieval documents. He found there a manuscript from the fifteenth century-it was hidden inside the wooden cover of an eighteenth-century folio. This manuscript he wanted to publish-it is the chronicle of a journey from Wallachia to Bulgaria. He died while he was making notes on it, and I finished them and published it. The manuscript is still at Rila-and I never knew -’ He smote his head with his frail hand. ‘Here, quickly. It is published in Bulgarian, but we will look through it and I will tell you the most important points.’
“He opened the faded journal with a hand that trembled, and his voice trembled, too, as he picked out for us an outline of Angelov’s discovery. The article that he had written from Angelov’s notes, and the document itself, have since been published in English, with many updates and with endless footnotes. But even now I can’t look at the published version without seeing Stoichev’s aging face, the wispy hair falling over protuberant ears, the great eyes bent to the page with burning concentration, and above all his halting voice.”