Ark of Fire ca-1

by C. M. Palov

  On the periphery of her senses, she became aware of an almost nauseating swirl of fused scents—Stilton cheese, ground coffee, fresh meat. As though a hundred years of smells had coalesced into one uniquely weird odor. She opened her mouth and gulped down a breath of air.

  Which is when she ran headlong into a pimply-faced, tattooed youth carrying a wooden box of iced fish.

  “Silly cow!” the teen bellowed as iridescent fish and white blobs of crushed ice arced through the air, pelting him on the head and shoulders. A scatologically detailed rant immediately ensued.

  Managing to stay afoot after the collision, Edie muttered an apology as she sprinted forward. Her energy flagging, her leg muscles now protested each and every forward stride. And she didn’t have to turn her head to know that her assailant was fast closing in on her, the collision with the fishmonger voiding whatever gains she’d made.

  No more than ten yards away, Edie saw what looked to be an exit; the lock bar across the steel door made her think it was intended for emergency use only. Fast running out of options, she raced forward. Slamming her palms onto the metal bar, she pushed for all she was worth.

  The door swung open.

  A heartbeat later, she emerged into a narrow alleyway. At a glance, she could see that there wasn’t a soul in sight, only a cluster of parked delivery vans.

  “Don’t even think about it, bitch!”

  Hearing that gravelly-voiced command, Edie spun around. The moment she opened her mouth to scream, her assailant slapped a hand over her mouth as he grabbed a fistful of hair. With one strong-armed tug, he yanked her toward him.

  Slamming into his chest, Edie tried to jerk free. Anticipating the move, he let go of her hair and cinched a hand around her wrists. Maliciously smiling, he yanked her arms above her head, pulling her onto her toes. With few defenses left to her, Edie tried to bite down on the hand that covered her mouth. His smile widening, her assailant pushed all the harder, mashing her lips against her teeth. Blood gushed into her mouth. Still grinning, he shoved her between two parked delivery vans, ramming her against a limestone wall. Completely out of sight.

  Unable to use her hands, Edie tried to knee him, but discovered she couldn’t move her lower body; her assailant’s hips and thighs were pressed flush against her own.

  Oh, God! She was completely immobilized against the wall.

  “I’ve got a little gift for you,” the behemoth hissed as he crudely and repeatedly shoved himself against her pelvic bone. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  Edie stared into his face—noticing the heavy shadow of whiskers, the flared nostrils, the thick lips—noticing everything and anything in a desperate attempt to block out what he was doing to her.

  Still thrusting his hips, he licked her face, his tongue moving from her jaw to her temple. “Baby girl, I’m gonna split ya right in two.”

  Like salt on a wound, old memories flashed in front of her eyes.

  Terror quickly turned to rage.

  This time she’d fight back! No way in hell would she let this animal rape her.

  Writhing, squirming, Edie did everything she could to free herself.

  But it was like fending off the monstrous devil-dog Cerberus.

  Her assailant grunted. “You want it bad, don’t you, bitch?”

  Belatedly realizing that her struggles excited him, Edie went still.

  Within seconds the dry-humping ceased.

  “Fucking cock tease!” Crisscrossed vessels bulged on either side of his head. Ready to blow.

  Able to feel that he’d gone soft, Edie contemptuously snorted against his hand. Her would-be rapist removed his palm from her mouth. Fist balled, he reared back his arm.

  Closing her eyes, Edie braced herself for what she figured would be a bone-crushing blow.

  It never came.

  Instead her assailant loudly grunted as he rolled away from her. Edie opened her eyes, surprised to see blood pouring down the side of his face, gushing from those crisscrossed vessels. She was even more surprised to see Caedmon standing a few feet away, a broken bottle gripped in his right hand. Lurching forward, she ran to his side.

  A tense stalemate ensued.

  Then, like the coward he was, the bloodied behemoth scurried down the alley. Edie saw what looked to be a gun protruding from his waistband. She and Caedmon stood silent, watching him depart. When he reached the end of the alleyway, he vanished.

  “Did you see that? He had a gun! Why didn’t he use it?”

  “He may yet.” Caedmon tossed aside the broken bottle. Edie could see that he was furious.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I simply followed the swath of destruction that followed in your wake.” As he spoke, Caedmon glanced up and down the alleyway, his eyes settling on a deliveryman who’d just exited the market.

  “The upended box of fish was an accident.”

  “Tell that to the fishmonger. Come on! We’re wasting time!” Grabbing her by the elbow, he steered her toward a black service van, the words Morton & Sons emblazoned on the side panel in a fancy Edwardian script. Exhaust fumes snaked from the muffler.

  Caedmon reached for the chrome handle on the back door.

  “Get in!” he brusquely ordered. “Before the driver takes off!”

  Edie glanced inside, surprised to see a row of trussed fowls swinging from a metal rod.

  “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way I’m hitching a ride with a bunch of dead birds.”

  “Don’t make me put my boot to your arse.”

  Having been manhandled enough for one day, Edie wordlessly climbed into the back of the van.

  CHAPTER 52

  Positioning himself near the rear of the lorry, Caedmon shoved his foot against one of the double doors, ensuring that they wouldn’t be locked inside the refrigerated vehicle. As the lorry took off, the door gently bounced against the sole of his shoe.

  “How long do we have to stay cooped up in the chickenmobile?” Edie grumped, her head and shoulders slumped to avoid being broadsided by the swinging fowl overhead. She held his wadded handkerchief to her mouth, blotting the blood from a cut lip.

  “We remain in the lorry as long as I deem it necessary. And the birds in question are geese.” Bound for Christmas tables all across the shire.

  He spared Edie a quick glance, still furious about her foolhardy sprint through the Covered Market; the woman had more blasted moves than the Bolshoi Ballet.

  Bloody hell. She’d nearly got herself killed.

  Had he not arrived in time, she would have suffered a grievous injury, the goon’s fist on the verge of making contact with her cheekbone.

  “I figured he’d take you out first,” Edie explained. “That’s why I pushed you into the street. To cause a diversion.”

  And to ensure that the assailant chased after her, not him.

  Good God, but he wanted to throttle her.

  “Like the repentant thief crucified beside our Lord, you are quick on your feet. But that doesn’t mean that you made a wise or reasoned decision,” he chastised, not in a forgiving mood. Then, dreading what her answer might be, “Did he harm you in any way?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say he violated my person, but he did take a few liberties.”

  “Bloody bastard!”

  “It was nothing. Trust me. Other than a cut lip, I’m fine.”

  Caedmon stared into Edie Miller’s brown eyes and saw the scared, vulnerable child she once had been. He fought the urge to pull her to him, worried that he might say something utterly asinine.

  Evidently suffering from no such qualms, Edie crawled toward him, nearly losing her balance when the lorry made a sudden left turn. He snatched the bottom of the door with his hand, preventing it from swinging wide open. Despite the anger, he stretched out his free arm, cradling her face in his hand.

  “It’s cold in here,” she complained, nestling alongside him.

  Caedmon gently rubbed his thumb over her swollen lip. “Thank God you’re a
ll right.”

  “What now?”

  “Taking any form of public transportation is out of the question, as MacFarlane’s men will undoubtedly be monitoring the coach depot and the train station. Therefore we’ll remain in the lorry until we’ve safely departed Oxford. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a sympathetic motorist willing to take us to London.”

  “Maybe we should notify the authorities.”

  “It’s not as though we can have the villain brought to book. And given your rampage in the market, should you contact the police, you’d probably end up an overnight guest of the Thames Valley Authority.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Floundering about like two—”

  “Geese,” she interjected, staring at the trussed birds swinging overhead.

  “I was about to say two landlocked mackerel, but I suppose a pair of frightened geese would suffice.”

  “No. I’m talking about the first line of the fourth quatrain.” Snatching the airline bag, she unzipped it, removing the folded sheet of paper with the translated quatrains. “Here it is,” she said, underscoring the line as she read aloud. “‘The trusted goose sorely wept for all of them were dead.’ Do you remember I told you that I once wrote a research paper on the Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales?”

  He nodded, wondering where this particular projectile would land.

  “Well, the swinging geese overhead reminded me of a line from the prologue to that particular tale. Mind you, it’s been more than ten years, so I’m paraphrasing big-time, but Chaucer wrote, ‘Nor does any grey goose swim there in the lake that, as you see, will be without a mate.’ In fact, the whole premise of my paper was that women in the Middle Ages had to wed. Or join a nunnery. Those were the only two options available.”

  Admittedly baffled, he raised a brow. “Your point?”

  “I just remembered that in medieval literature the word goose always refers to the good housewife. Yesterday, you said that the goose was a symbol for vigilance. And you’re right. Who in the medieval world was more vigilant than the good housewife? I suspect no one ever considered the possibility that the quatrains were written by Mrs. Galen of Godmersham, Philippa being the ‘trusted goose.’” She folded her arms over her chest, theatrically rolling her eyes. “Male chauvinism at its academic best.”

  “I admit that your theory about Philippa has rich possibilities. However—”

  “Think about it, Caedmon. How would an eighty-five-year-old man hide a heavy gold chest? What do you want to bet that Galen’s dying wish was an urgent plea to his much younger wife to hide his precious arca from the looters rampaging the countryside during the plague? Sir Kenneth told us that everyone in Godmersham perished from the plague.”

  “Save Philippa,” he murmured, her premise beginning to ring with perfect pitch. “And once her husband was dead, Philippa hid the gold arca somewhere on the grounds of St. Lawrence the Martyr Church.”

  “Actually, I’ve got a theory about that, too,” Edie countered, surprising him yet again.

  “Brains and beauty. I am totally bewitched.”

  Edie playfully hit him in the arm. “Hey, you forgot to mention the brawn.” Then, her tone more serious, she continued, “I’m beginning to think that we got the martyr part of the quatrains all wrong.”

  “I take it that you refer to the third line of the last quatrain?”

  “Correct. ‘But if a man with a fully devout heart seek the blessed martyr’ does not refer to St. Lawrence the Martyr. At least I don’t think it does. I’m thinking it refers right back to the goose.”

  “I’m not following your argument.” Unhindered by ego, he didn’t care who exposed the truth; only that it be found.

  “Okay, we now know that the goose refers to Philippa, the good housewife,” Edie replied, ticking off her first point on her pinky finger. She next moved to her ring finger. “Per Sir Kenneth, Philippa was the daughter of the justice of the peace for Canterbury.” She delineated the next point on her middle finger. “And Canterbury, as you know from having read Chaucer, is where medieval pilgrims journeyed—”

  “—to see the sight where the archbishop, Thomas à Becket, was killed in 1170 by Henry the Second’s henchmen,” Caedmon finished, well acquainted with the historical incident, the murdered archbishop a victim in the conflict that raged between church and state. “Within weeks of the murder, wild rumors began to circulate throughout England, those who came into contact with the bloodied vestments of the now-dead archbishop attesting to all sorts of astonishing miracles. Soon thereafter, the Catholic Church canonized Thomas à Becket as a martyred saint.”

  “And thus the cult of St. Thomas was born.”

  With perfect clarity, Caedmon knew that Edie was absolutely correct. When they originally deciphered the fourth quatrain, they misread the clue. As Philippa no doubt intended.

  Edie leaned against the metal wall of the lorry, a satisfied smile on her lips. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Philippa, entrusted with hiding the Ark, takes it to the only place other than Godmersham that she has any familiarity with, that being the town of her birth, Canterbury.”

  “Mmmm.” He mulled it over, still sifting through the pieces. “We don’t know that Philippa actually hid the Ark in Canterbury,” he said, well aware that Edie had a tendency to hurl herself at a conclusion.

  “Of course we know that Philippa hid the Ark at Canterbury. It’s right there in the quatrains. ‘There in the veil between two worlds—’”

  “‘He will find the truth.’ The truth, not the arca,” he quietly emphasized. “Which may be an encrypted way of saying that we’ll find our next clue at Canterbury.”

  Clearly disgruntled, Edie sighed. “And here I thought this was going to be easy. Okay, any ideas where in Canterbury we should look?”

  More accepting of the roadblock put before them, he didn’t waste his time with peevish laments, having assumed from the onset that they would traverse a crooked path.

  “Thomas à Becket was murdered inside the cathedral. I suggest that as a starting point for our search.” As he spoke, the lorry slowed to a stop.

  Caedmon peered out the rear door and saw that the driver had pulled into a car park with a roadside café. Hopefully, they would be able to hitch a ride to London from one of the dozen or so motorists parked in the lot.

  “I believe this is our stop.”

  CHAPTER 53

  “You might be interested to know that these medieval walls were built atop an older Roman foundation, the original village dubbed Durovernum Cantiacorum.”

  As they strolled across the ancient stone battlements that rimmed the town of Canterbury, Edie was relieved that she and Caedmon had reverted to their earlier camaraderie. She wasn’t altogether certain, the male beast a difficult one to decipher, but she thought Caedmon had gotten angry back in the alleyway because he hadn’t been able to adequately safeguard her from MacFarlane’s goon.

  Which raised a disturbing question . . . if the goon had a gun, why didn’t he use it?

  Able to see in her mind’s eye a massive pair of shoulders, the scary buzz cut, and a rivulet of blood zigzagging down a throbbing temple, Edie shuddered.

  “Cold?” Caedmon solicitously inquired, draping an arm over her shoulder.

  Shoving the frightening image aside, she wordlessly snuggled closer to him. Although she couldn’t be 100 percent certain, she didn’t think that they had been followed. After hitching a ride to London, they caught a train out of Victoria Station, the trip to Canterbury taking only ninety minutes. The train station being located on the outskirts of town, they were now en route to the cathedral.

  With a damp breeze raggedly sawing at her backside, Edie flipped up the collar on her coat. Overhead the clouds hung low in the sky, casting a dreary shadow.

  Taking a quick peek at the town map they’d picked up at the train station, Caedmon ushered her to the left, past the remains of an old tower that she guessed had once been
attached to an equally old church.

  “All that remains of St. George’s Church,” he remarked, “the tower having somehow weathered the travails of time and history.”

  “Although it looks like most of the town fared pretty well.” She gestured to the neat line of half-timbered structures that fronted the narrow street. “I feel like I’m walking through a medieval living history museum.”

  “Indeed the inns, taverns, and shops are little changed from the days of Chaucer, all still vying for the traveler’s coin.”

  Like Oxford, the town was dressed in its Christmas finery, fairy lights merrily twinkling behind storefront windows. But Canterbury had about it a magical air that the staid Oxford had lacked. Probably on account of its fairy-tale appearance.

  As they walked along Mercery Lane, the pavement teemed with tourists, the modern-day pilgrims undeterred by the chilly weather. With each footstep, Edie was very much aware that she walked in another woman’s footsteps—none other than Philippa of Canterbury. Like most medieval women, Philippa’s life story had been written at birth. A man’s life in the fourteenth century was recorded on vellum, enabling changes to be made. But a woman’s life was struck in stone. Unchangeable.

  As they neared the city center, the thorny spires of the cathedral began to fill more and more of the skyline. To Edie’s surprise, she began to experience a sense of agitated excitement. Caedmon evidently felt it too, taking her by the hand as they approached a massive three-story gatehouse. Bedecked with tiers of medieval shields and a contingent of stone angels, the Savior stood front and center, welcoming saint and sinner alike.

  Caedmon led her through the arched portal. “Christ Church Gate . . . the physical divide between the secular and the sacred.”

  Emerging from the portal, Edie caught her first glimpse of Canterbury Cathedral.

  “Wow,” she murmured, the cathedral so immense as to be downright daunting—one of those perpendicular Gothic structures purposefully constructed for maximum impact. Everywhere she looked, there were towers and spires and statues.