Tower of the Five Orders

by Deron R. Hicks

  Bodleian Library

  Oxford, England

  Friday, June 15

  1:00 p.m.

  A short, stout middle-aged woman stood on a small stool beside the security desk in the entrance hall of the Bodleian Library and waved her arms. “Gather round, gather round,” she called in a disconcertingly deep voice. “Please hurry; we have much to see this morning.” The tourists who were scattered throughout the hall immediately clustered around her.

  Meg Letterford stood near the entrance with her daughter. “All right, it’s time for you to go,” she said. “I’ll see you back here at three.”

  “Good luck with your interview,” Colophon said.

  “Thanks. And have fun.”

  “Young lady!” the stout woman yelled in Colophon’s direction. “Are you joining us this morning?” The small crowd turned in unison and looked at Colophon.

  “Yes ma’am,” she said as she hustled toward the group. She took one last glance back at her mother and waved.

  “Now,” said the woman on the stool, “as I was getting ready to say, welcome to the Bodleian Library! I am Anne Flynn, your tour guide for this morning. The Bodleian Library is actually made up of a variety of different buildings and facilities, several of which we will visit during the course of this tour. Duke Humfrey’s Library, Radcliffe Camera, the Divinity School, the Tower of the Five Orders, and the quadrangle behind you are all part of the Bodleian Library complex.”

  Colophon remembered what Julian had said the previous December in Stratford-upon-Avon—that the next clue was probably right in front of them. And he had been right. She would need to pay close attention.

  Ms. Flynn stepped off her stool and proceeded toward a stairway at the far end of the entrance hall. “We will begin our tour this morning in Duke Humfrey’s Library,” she said. “It was built in 1488 to house a collection of manuscripts donated by the Duke of Gloucester. Even though it’s part of the Bodleian Library, it still bears the good duke’s name.”

  The small crowd followed Anne Flynn past a security desk and up a set of marble stairs to the first landing. Once everyone had gathered there, Ms. Flynn pointed out the window to the quadrangle below. “As you can see, the building we are in wraps around the entire quadrangle. Most of the building is still used by students, fellows, and researchers. For example, the second and third floors—which are not part of the tour—are known as the Upper and Lower Reading Rooms.”

  As if on cue, a student came out of a door at the top of the next landing—the entrance to the Lower Reading Room—and made his way down through the tour group to the exit below.

  Ms. Flynn waited until the student had passed, and then resumed. “We’ll now proceed up to Duke Humfrey’s Library. We’ll spend a few minutes looking around and then regroup. And remember,” she said, “don’t touch any of the books.”

  Colophon and the rest of the group followed her up the stairs to a door on the second landing. Ms. Flynn held the door open as the tour group filed into the room. With her free hand, the tour guide held a finger to her lips and whispered “Be quiet” as each member of the group edged past her.

  Colophon waited patiently as the people in front of her slowly worked their way through the doorway. She could hear gasps of amazement from inside the room. Colophon expected Ms. Flynn to be angry—she had, after all, warned them to be quiet. But to her surprise, Ms. Flynn was actually smiling—as if she expected the group to respond as they did.

  Colophon was skeptical. It was just a library. How impressive could it be?

  And then she stepped through the doorway and into the room.

  It was remarkable.

  It was two stories high, narrow and long. Despite the large arched windows at both ends of the room and in the wall facing out to the quadrangle, the room was dark—but in a comforting and warm way. Tones of amber, ochre, and crimson predominated. The room was filled from floor to ceiling with ancient books of every size, shape, and color. The uppermost books—far beyond the reach of even the tallest library ladder—were accessed by a rickety wooden walkway that skirted the room’s perimeter, supported by wooden columns. Beneath the walkway and hidden in the shadows behind the columns were dark wooden desks and benches that ran the length of each wall.

  The ceiling was constructed of large wooden beams, painted with colorful and fantastic images of animals, human heads, and strange swirling shapes. The spaces between the beams were filled with row after row of wooden panels—each decorated with a crest or coat of arms of some sort.

  “Wow,” Colophon said.

  “Indeed,” said the tour guide. “And this is only one end of Duke Humfrey’s Library.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Yes. This section was added sometime around 1610. It’s called the Arts End.”

  “Good name,” Colophon said.

  “I agree,” said Ms. Flynn. She pointed to a desk midway up the room to Colophon’s left. “Behind the librarian’s desk is the original section of Duke Humfrey’s Library. It’s not part of the tour, but you can go over there and take a look. I suspect you might recognize it.”

  “Recognize it?” Colophon asked. “How?” She had never been to Oxford.

  “It was Hogwarts Library in one of the Harry Potter movies,” replied the tour guide.

  “Hogwarts Library!”

  Ms. Flynn grinned. “Yes. Now hurry and take a quick look. We’ll gather back together in a few minutes.”

  Colophon hurried to the middle of the room and stopped next to the librarian’s desk. The librarian glanced up from some papers. Colophon smiled and whispered, “Just looking.” The librarian winked at her and then returned her attention to the papers.

  The room behind the librarian was magnificent—and Colophon recognized it instantly. Tall dark bookcases protruded from each wall. A wooden desk was built into each bookcase, and chairs were arrayed in front of each desk. On the walls above the bookcases were portraits of men dressed in all manner of ancient garb. Arched wooden beams crossed from one side of the room to the other. And as in the first room, here too the spaces between the beams were filled with row after row of peculiar wooden panels.

  Colophon stepped back. Could anything here be a clue? The images painted on the beams? The wooden panels?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the tour guide. “Gather round, everyone!” she called from the large arched window that faced out to the quadrangle.

  Colophon rejoined the group.

  “We’re going to go back downstairs in just a minute to see the Divinity School,” Ms. Flynn said. “But first I wanted to show you the building directly across the quadrangle from us.” She pointed to a large tower that dominated the far side of the quadrangle. “I mentioned it earlier—it’s called the Tower of the Five Orders.”

  Colophon gasped.

  The tower stood five stories tall. Inscribed at the top of the fourth story were two words: BEATI PACIFICI.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Denote

  Denote—To serve as a symbol or

  name for the meaning of; signify.

  Manchester, Georgia

  Friday, June 15

  8:25 a.m.

  The crawlspace was dark and claustrophobic and had an old, musty smell. Case opened his backpack and retrieved a small headlamp flashlight. He secured it to his head and turned it on. There was not enough room to stand up, so he worked his way on hands and knees toward the front of the house. Copper pipes, cast iron drains, and air conditioning ductwork crisscrossed above him. He moved carefully to avoid making any sound. He also knew that all sorts of animals had made their way into this space over the years. Snakes and mice particularly liked the dark, warm environment. The thought of encountering a huge rat snake in the cramped crawlspace did not thrill him. But he continued making his way until he came to a brick wall.

  The flashlight on his head illuminated the large brick foundation that supported the front of the house. Directly above him was the library. To his ri
ght was a small gray box that connected to the floor above his head. Silver ductwork ran from this box into the dark recesses of the crawlspace. He could hear the slight hum of air being pushed through the ductwork and into the room above. Case reached into his backpack and pulled out a small pocketknife.

  Bodleian Library

  Oxford, England

  Friday, June 15

  1:25 p.m.

  BEATI PACIFICI.

  Blessed are the peacemakers.

  There it was, directly in front of Colophon, on the building just across the quadrangle: the same Latin inscription that was on the Matriculation Quill at Corpus Christi College.

  “Excuse me,” Colophon asked Ms. Flynn, “but why is it called the Tower of the Five Orders?”

  The tour guide gestured toward the structure. “The tower has five stories, and on each story there are two pairs of columns. Do you see them?”

  The group nodded in unison.

  “Look at the tops of the columns on each story,” she continued. “Notice anything?”

  Colophon scanned the tower. “They’re different on each story,” she said.

  “Exactly,” replied Ms. Flynn. “The top of the column is called the capital—it’s the easiest way to tell them apart. There are five classical orders of columns—Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite—each with a unique design. Each order is represented on the tower—hence the name Tower of the Five Orders. The columns were used during various periods in history. For example, if you had traveled to Greece a couple thousand years ago, you would have seen Doric columns all over the place. During the Renaissance, the Composite order was popular.”

  Ms. Flynn then pointed to a statue sitting just below the window in the quadrangle. “Now the statue below is of William Herbert, the third Earl of . . .”

  Colophon didn’t hear a thing the tour guide said about the statue. She stared at the tops of the columns on the tower. She had seen the designs before and in the very same pattern—Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and then Composite.

  She edged away from the group. Off to the side, she took out her phone and scrolled through her photos. She stopped at one particular photograph—the Matriculation Quill.

  Manchester, Georgia

  Friday, June 15

  8:40 a.m.

  Case made a small incision in the silver tape around one side of the vent box, peeled the tape back, and carefully removed the ductwork. Cool air blew from the ductwork into the crawlspace. Light filtered down through the floor vent directly above him. If he was correct, that floor vent was the one beneath the windows in the library at the front of the house. He removed his iPhone from his backpack, slipped it through one of the slats in the floor vent, and took a photo of the room. The picture was a little fuzzy, but it told him what he needed to know: the room appeared to be unoccupied.

  Case reached into his backpack and retrieved a small black cylindrical object. He flipped a switch on the bottom, and a tiny green light flared to life. He listened for signs of movement in the room above but heard nothing. Case pushed up on the vent, which lifted smoothly from the cutout in the floor. With his other hand, he reached up through the hole in the floor and placed the cylindrical object against the baseboard under the window. He then carefully settled the vent back down into place and reattached the air-conditioning duct to the vent box. Cool air once again flowed into the library.

  Case returned his pocketknife to his backpack and then crawled back toward the mechanical room.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Dauntless

  Dauntless—Incapable of being

  intimidated or discouraged; fearless.

  Bodleian Library

  Oxford, England

  Friday, June 15

  1:40 p.m.

  Colophon had to find a way to get to the tower. But to do so, she had to pass through the reading rooms. And to enter the reading rooms, she had to find some excuse to get away from the tour group. And she had to accomplish all of this before her mom picked her up at the end of the tour.

  She glanced over at the tour group. They were still listening to Ms. Flynn discuss the statue in the quadrangle below. No one was paying attention to Colophon. She briefly considered just making a break for the reading rooms. No one would notice—at least not immediately. But it was a small group, and Colophon stood out as the only thirteen-year-old girl. Ms. Flynn or another member of the group would eventually realize she was missing and send someone to look for her.

  If she was going to break away from the group, she would have to do it in such a way that everyone knew she had left and why.

  Colophon stepped back over to the group just as Ms. Flynn was finishing up her discussion of the statue. “And now,” the guide said, “we’re going to return downstairs to tour the Divinity School and the rest of the building. But before we go, are there any questions?”

  Colophon raised her hand. “Is there a . . . restroom nearby?”

  Several members of the group chuckled. Colophon feigned embarrassment. An older gentleman commented under his breath—but loud enough to be heard—that children shouldn’t be going on these tours. His wife elbowed him, told him to hush, and then gave Colophon a sympathetic look.

  “I’m very sorry,” the tour guide said, “but we don’t allow guests to use the facilities.”

  This response generated a groan from the group.

  “Oh c’mon,” said one man.

  “Give the kid a break,” said a young American woman.

  Anne Flynn sighed. “Very well, vox populi it is. I’ll let you into the Lower Reading Room when we head back downstairs. The lavatory is at the far end. Just catch back up with us. The security guard downstairs can direct you.”

  Colophon nodded. “Thank you. I won’t be long—I promise.”

  Four months ago Meg Letterford’s younger sister had approached her about keeping her twin boys for a couple of days while she and her husband attended a wedding in Pittsburgh.

  No problem, Meg had eagerly said. We’d love to do it, she insisted.

  And then reality had hit home. And when it did, Meg panicked. The twin boys were three months old, and it had been years since she had taken care of an infant—let alone two at the same time. In the days leading up to the visit, she had repeatedly sanitized and resanitized the guest room downstairs. Even though the babies had yet to start crawling, she had baby-proofed everything in the house. She had washed all the linens, towels, and clothes with hypoallergenic laundry detergent. “We can’t take any chances,” she had repeatedly said to herself and to the rest of the family.

  Meg had also purchased a baby monitor. Small, black, and cylindrical, it broadcast a crystal-clear picture and sound. It could be used anywhere in the house—it operated off a battery or could be plugged directly into an electrical socket. Best of all, it streamed its signal directly through the home’s Wi-Fi system. All a user had to do was download an app from the manufacturer and voilà, a baby’s room could be monitored wirelessly from any smartphone in the house. And monitor she did. Meg’s phone had stayed by her side for the entire forty-eight-hour period that she had been responsible for the twins’ well-being.

  The day after the twins left—and after Meg had slept for fourteen hours straight—Case asked her if he could have the baby monitor.

  Colophon protested to their mom, “He’s going to use it to spy on me.”

  Case had denied having any such plan. And truth be told, he had not even thought of using it to spy on his little sister. He just thought it was an extremely cool piece of technology. After his mother gave him a stern warning about respecting his sister’s privacy, she had given it to him. He had promptly set the monitor on his shelf and forgotten about it—until two days ago.

  Now he sat in the corner of the mechanical room and plugged earbuds into his iPhone. He could watch and listen to everything that occurred in the library—albeit from the perspective of a mouse. But he had only five hours of battery life.

  He
looked at his watch. It was now 8:50 a.m.

  Bodleian Library

  Oxford, England

  Friday, June 15

  1:50 p.m.

  Anne Flynn swiped her ID card on the security panel outside the door to the Lower Reading Room. The light on the panel turned green and the door clicked open. Colophon stepped into the reading room. Ms. Flynn reminded her that students might be working and that she should be careful not to disturb anyone. Then she gave the girl a gentle pat on the shoulder and pulled the door shut. Colophon could hear the tour guide’s footsteps on the marble stairway as she descended to the ground floor below.

  She glanced at her watch. It was now 1:52 p.m. She had to move quickly.

  Colophon walked at a brisk pace through the Lower Reading Room. The difference between the Lower Reading Room and Duke Humfrey’s Library was striking. The reading room was filled with row after row of modern reading desks, glittering fluorescent lamps, and comfortable chairs. The bookshelves were lined with volumes that appeared to be of relatively recent vintage. Large windows flooded the room with light. Gone were the ancient books, the dark tones, and the ubiquitous wood paneling of Duke Humfrey’s Library. This was not a museum—it was a place for serious study.