by Glenn Cooper
Oswyn never saw the completion of the abbey reconstruction, nor would he, he reckoned, but the church, the Scriptorium, and the Chapter House were done and work was progressing on the dormitories. But more important, Octavus's library was on his mind. He could never truly fathom its purpose and he'd stopped trying to make sense of it. He simply knew these things:
It existed.
It was divine.
One day Christ would reveal its purpose.
It must be protected.
It must be allowed to grow.
Yet, as he watched the blood drain slowly from him with every passage of his water, he feared for the mission. Who would guard and defend his library when he was gone?
In the distance he saw Primus sitting in the dirt of the guest vegetable garden, a barren, harvested plot beside the Hospicium. The boy was alone, which was not unusual since his mother was inattentive. He had not seen him for a while and was now curious enough to spy on him.
The boy was nearly the age of Octavus when Josephus first took him in, and the resemblance was uncanny. The same reddish hair, the same bloodless complexion, the same frail body.
When Josephus was thirty paces away he stopped in his tracks and felt his heart race and his head swim. If he had not taken to using a walking staff he might have stumbled. The boy had a stick and was holding it in his hand. Then, before Josephus's eyes, he began using it to scrape the dirt in large swirling motions.
He was writing, Josephus was certain of it.
Josephus struggled to get through None prayers. After the congregation dispersed, he tapped three people on the shoulder and pulled them to a corner of the nave. There, he huddled with Paulinus, Magdalena, and Jose, who had been included in his inner circle ever since the young monk discovered the rape. Josephus had never regretted his decision to open up to the Iberian, who was calm and wise and discreet to a fault. And the abbot, the prioress, and the astronomer, who all were growing old, appreciated Jose's strength and vigor.
"The boy has begun to write," Josephus whispered. Even at a whisper, his voice echoed in the cavernous nave. They crossed themselves. "Jose, bring the boy to Octavus's chamber."
They sat the boy on the floor next to his father. Octavus took no notice of him nor any of the others who had invaded his sanctum. Magdalena had shunned Octavus since the atrocity, and even with the passage of time she recoiled at his sight. She no longer allowed her girls to tend him-those tasks were now delegated to young male novices. She kept as far away from his writing table as she could, half worried he might spring up and violate her too.
Jose placed a large sheet of vellum before Primus and surrounded it with a semicircle of candles.
"Give him a dipped quill," Paulinus rasped.
Jose dangled a quill in front of the boy as one might tempt a cat to pounce upon a feather. A drop of ink fell and splashed the page.
The boy suddenly reached out, grabbed the quill with his tiny right fist and put the tip onto the page.
He moved his hand in circles. The quill loudly scraped the parchment.
The letters were large and clumsy but clear enough to decipher.
V-a-a-s-c-o
"Vaasco," Paulinus said when the last letter was written.
S-u-a-r-i-z
"Vaasco Suariz," Jose intoned. "Portuguese nombre. "
Then numbers also sprang childlike from the juvenile hand.
8 6 800 Mors
"The eighth day of Junius, 800," Paulinus said.
Josephus said, "Please, Jose, check Octavus's current page. What year is he recording?"
Jose stood over Octavus's shoulder and studied the page. "His last entry is the seventh day of Junius, 800!"
"Dear Jesus!" Josephus exclaimed. "The two of them are connected as one!"
The four ministers tried to read each other in the dancing candlelight.
"I know what you are thinking," Magdalena said, "and I cannot abide by it."
"How can you know, Prioress, when I myself do not," Josephus answered.
"Search your soul, Josephus," she said skeptically. "I am certain you know your own mind."
Paulinus threw up his hands. "You are both talking in riddles. Can an old man not expect to know of what you are speaking?"
Josephus rose slowly to avoid wooziness. "Come, let us leave the boy with Octavus for a short while. No harm will come of him. I would have my three friends join me upstairs where we might have a prayerful discussion."
It was warmer and more comfortable than in the damp cellar. Josephus had them sit at copy desks, Josephus facing Magdalena, Paulinus facing Jose.
He recounted the night of Octavus's birth and each remarkable milestone in the youth's history. To be sure, they all knew these details, but Josephus had never before laid out an oral history and they were sure he had a purpose for doing so now. He then turned to the briefer though no less remarkable history of Primus, including the events that had just transpired.
"Can any of us doubt," Josephus asked, "that we have a sacred obligation to preserve and sustain this divine work? For reasons which we may never know, God has entrusted us, His servants at Vectis Abbey, to be the keepers of these miraculous texts. He has endowed this youth, Octavus, born in miraculous circumstances, with the power-nay, the imperative-to chronicle the entry and passage of all the souls entering and departing from this Earth. Man's destiny is thus laid bare. The texts are a testament to the power and omniscience of the Creator, and we are humbled by the love and care He has for His children." A tear formed and started to slide down his face. "Octavus is but one special though surely mortal being. I have wondered, and so have you, how the enormity of his task might be perpetuated. We now have our answer."
He paused and noted their solemn nods.
"I am dying."
"No!" Jose protested, showing the concern a son might have for a father.
"Yes, it is true. I am quite sure that none of you are too shocked. You have only to look at me to know that I am gravely ill."
Paulinus reached out to touch his wrist and Magdalena wrung her hands.
"And Paulinus, will you not acknowledge that you have seen the name Josephus of Vectis entered in one of the books?"
Paulinus answered through parched lips, "I have."
"And you know my date certain?"
"I do."
"It is soon?"
"It is."
"It is not tomorrow, I trust," he jested.
"It is not."
"Excellent," he said, lightly tapping his fingertips together. "It is my duty to prepare for the future, not only for the abbey, but for Octavus and the Library. So here, tonight, I declare that I will send for the bishop and beseech him, upon my passing, to elevate Sister Magdalena to Abbess of Vectis and Brother Jose to prior. Brother Paulinus, dear friend, you will continue to serve them as you have done so faithfully for me."
Magdalena bowed her head deeply to hide the thin smile she could scarcely suppress. Paulinus and Jose were mute with grief.
"And I have one further declaration," Josephus continued. "Tonight we are forming a new order within Vectis, a secret and holy order for the protection and preservation of the Library. We four are the founding members, which will henceforth be known as the Order of the Names. Let us pray."
He led them in deep prayer, and when he was done they rose as one.
Josephus touched Magdalena on her bony shoulder. "When Vespers is complete, we will do what must be done. Will you do this willingly?"
The old woman hesitated and silently prayed to the Holy Mother. Josephus was waiting for her response. "I will," she said.
After Vespers, Josephus retired to his room to meditate. He knew what was transpiring but did not wish to witness the events personally. His resolve was strong but he remained at the core a kind, gentle soul with no stomach for this kind of business.
He knew that as he bowed his head in prayer, Magdalena and Jose were leading Mary from the Hospicium down the dark path to the Scriptorium. He knew sh
e would be softly weeping. He knew the weeping would turn to loud sobbing when they pulled her by the hand down the stairs into the cellar. And he knew the sobs would turn to screams when Paulinus opened the door to Octavus's chamber and Jose bodily forced her through the threshold then latched the door behind her.
JANUARY 30, 1947
ISLE OF WIGHT, ENGLAND
R eggie Saunders was having a roll in the hay, as he called it, with Laurel Barnes, the buxom wife of Wing Commander Julian Barnes, in the middle of the wing commander's four-poster bed. He was enjoying himself a great deal. It was a grand country house with a grand master bedroom, a nice little fire to take the chill off, and an appreciative Mrs. Barnes, who had grown accustomed to faring for herself during her husband's war hiatus.
Reggie was a florid, burly fellow with a manly beer belly. A childish smile and impossibly large shoulders were the one-two punch that matted all sorts of women, the present one included. Concealed by his impishness and gabby affability was a moral compass that was broken. The arrow pointed in one direction only, toward Reggie Saunders. He always felt the world owed him for his existence, and his successful navigation of the World War with eyes, limbs, and genitals intact was a sign to him that a grateful nation should continue to provide for his needs be they financial or sensual. Laws of the Crown and societal mores were approximate guide posts in his world, things to consider perhaps, then ignore.
His army war service started nasty and inconvenient as a staff sergeant in Montgomery's Eighth Army trying to dislodge Rommel from Tobruk. After too long in the desert, he wheedled a transfer in 1944 from North Africa to liberated France to a regiment tasked with recovering and cataloguing Nazi art loot.
His boss was the nicest gentleman he had ever met, a Cambridge don whose idea of commanding men was to ask them politely whether they might be able to help him with this or that. Incredibly, the army had gotten it right with Major Geoffrey Atwood, finding a job for the Professor of Archaeology and Antiquities that actually suited his skills rather than dangerously and ineffectively sticking him somewhere with a map, field glasses, and large guns.
Saunders's job mainly consisted of ordering a squad of lads to shift heavy wooden crates out of basements and transport them to other basements. He never shared a sense of moral outrage at the Germans' takings. He found their thievery quite understandable under the circumstances. In fact, under his watch a knickknack or two made it through his hands in exchange for a few quid, and why not? Postwar, he wandered from job to job, doing a bit of construction here and there, absconding when necessary from romantic entanglements. When Atwood rang to see if he'd be interested in a little adventure on the Isle of Wight, he was in between engagements and replied, "Blow in my ear, boss, and I'll follow you anywhere."
Now, Reggie was pounding away, pleasantly lost in a sea of pink flesh that smelled of talc and lavender. The lady of the house was making little cooing sounds that sent him drifting to the aviary at Kew Gardens where he was brought as a young boy for a bit of natural culture. He soon reeled his mind back to the moment. The vinegar stroke was coming, and a job worth doing was a job worth doing well, his granddad had always said. Then he heard something mechanical, a throaty rumble.
Years of night patrol in the Libyan and Moroccan deserts had trained his ears, a survival skill he was drawing on one more time.
"Don't stop, Reggie!" Mrs. Barnes moaned.
"Hang on a sec, petal. Ya hear that?"
"I don't hear anything."
"The motor." It wasn't a servant's car, not this one. He could tell it was a thoroughbred. "You sure hubby's not due?"
"I told you. He's in London." She grabbed his buttocks and tried to get him going again.
"Someone's coming, luv, and it's not the bloody postman."
He left the bed naked and parted the nearest curtains. A pair of headlights pierced the darkness.
Rolling up to the front, crunching the gravel drive, was a cherry Invicta, a rare beauty so distinctive, he recognized it as soon as the entryway lanterns hit it.
"Who d'ya know drives a red Invicta?" he asked.
He might as well have asked, Did you hear that Satan was at the front door?
She leapt out of bed, grabbing at her underthings, making high-pitched sounds of fear and alarm.
"That would be the wing commander's vehicle," Reggie said fatalistically, shrugging his big shoulders. "I'll be off now, luv. Ta-ta."
He hopped into his trousers and gathered his other clothes to his chest as he flew down the rear stairs into the kitchen. He was through the servants' back door just as the wing commander was entering the reception hall, merrily calling out to his wife, "Hi ho! Guess who's home a day early!"
Reggie finished dressing in the garden and started to shiver straightaway. While the previous week had been unseasonably warm, a mass of cold air from the north was hammering the thermometer. He had met up with the missus outside the pub and she had driven them to the house. Now he was stranded at least six miles from the camp and there was no flippin' way, he thought, he was going to hoof it.
He tiptoed around to the front. The 1930 Invicta was radiating heat. Its cabin was deep, like a bathtub with fluted red-leather seats. The keys were dangling in the ignition. His analytical process was uncomplicated: I'm cold, the automobile is warm, I'll just borrow it to nip down the road. He hopped in and turned the key. The 140-horsepower Lagonda engine roared to life, too loud. A second later he panicked. Where the hell was the gear lever? He moved his hands all over, feeling for it. The front door of the house flew open.
Then he remembered: it was a bleeding automatic transmission, the first one in Britain! He pushed the accelerator and the transmission performed smoothly. The car sped forward, spraying gravel. In the rearview mirror he caught sight of an angry middle-aged man pumping his balled-up fists into the air. The engine drowned out whatever he was shouting.
"Same to you, mate," Reggie called out. "Thanks for your motor and thanks for your missus."
He ditched the Invicta at the pub in Fishbourne and fast-walked the final mile, whistling in the dark and rubbing his hands for warmth. A log fire supercharged with paraffin was blazing at the camp and it helped him find his way. A dense cloud cover diffused the moonlight, turning the night sky the color of gray flannel. The vapors from the fire hurtled upward thick and black like depraved harpies, and Reginald followed their ascendancy until he lost them against the looming spire of the cathedral of Vectis Abbey.
A door to one of the dilapidated caravans opened as Reggie was nearing the fire to warm himself. A lanky young man called out, "Gawd! Will you look who's come back! Reg's been booted!"
"I left of my own bloody accord, mate," Reggie replied curtly. "Any food about?"
"Tin of beans I should think."
"Well, toss one out then, I'm famished after me shag."
The young man guffawed but the word had a magical quality because every one of the four caravan doors opened and their inhabitants spilled out to hear more. Even Geoffrey Atwood emerged from the boss's caravan, wearing a heavy woolen turtleneck, thoughtfully puffing on a pipe. "Did someone say shag?"
"You lot aren't expecting me to kiss and tell?"
"Yes please," the lanky young man, Dennis Spencer, said salaciously. He was a pimply first-year at Cambridge, young enough to have skirted national service.
There were four others, three men and a woman, all of them from Atwood's department. Martin Bancroft and Timothy Brown, like Spencer, were undergraduates, albeit mature students who had returned from the war to complete their tolled degrees. Martin had never left England. He had been stationed in London as an intelligence officer. Timothy had been a radar man on a naval frigate operating mainly in the Baltic. Both of them were giddy to be back at Cambridge and over-the-moon at the prospect of a bit of fieldwork.
Ernest Murray was older, in his thirties, currently wrapping up his D. Phil. in Antiquities, which he hurriedly abandoned when the Germans invaded Poland. He had seen heav
y action in Indochina, which left him painfully diffident. Somehow, Anglo-Saxon archaeology didn't seem as relevant to him anymore, and he couldn't fathom what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
The only woman in the party was Beatrice Slade, a lecturer in Medieval History and Atwood's academic confidante who had pretty much run his department during the war. She was a tough wisecracking fireplug of a lady, openly lesbian, famously so. She and Reggie were essentially incompatible human beings. When her back was turned he crudely mocked her sexuality, and when his was turned she did the same to him.
"Ah, we're all up and about," Atwood said, blinking at the stinging fire. "Shall we have a coffee while Reg tells us his tale?"
"I'll brew a pot, Prof," Timothy offered.
"So what happened then, Reg?" Martin asked. "Figured you'd be kippin' in a feather bed tonight, not back here in the rust bucket."
"Had a spot of bother, mate," he replied. "Nothing I couldn't handle." He rolled a cigarette and licked the paper.
"Nothing you couldn't handle?" Beatrice asked mockingly. "Stymied because she wanted to go again?" At that she swung her hips like a burlesque queen and all of them, even Atwood, began to howl at his expense.
"Very funny, very amusing," Reggie said. "Her husband came home on the early side and I had to remove my person from the premises forthwith to avoid an unpleasant encounter."
"I say, Mr. Saunders," Dennis said with mock respect to his elder, "was your arse clothed or unclothed during this removal?"
They erupted again. Atwood took a few puffs of his pipe and said pensively, "That's a rather unpleasant mental image."
The morning was wintry with a few flakes of snow; the ground looked like it had been lightly salted. Ernest was an excellent caterer and managed to do a full-cooked breakfast for seven on two gas rings. They sat around the fire on milk crates, bundled in layers of wool, fortifying themselves with steaming mugs of sweet tea. Crunching into a triangle of fired bread dipped into yolk, Atwood looked across the frigid field at the icy sea and remarked, "Who's idea was it to excavate in January?"
