by Alex Scarrow
‘Aye,’ said Bob slowly, ‘I … have … returned.’
‘Do ye know of King Richard’s predicament? Does he return?’
Bob’s eyelids flickered for a moment before he replied. ‘King Richard will return in five months.’
Cabot cursed. ‘Then his rage will know no bounds! There will be much blood! He will kill all in his way to find it again. God have mercy on us if we have not found it by then.’
It?
Liam looked at Cabot. ‘Find … err … it?’ He wished he had the slightest idea what ‘it’ was right now. It would make bluffing his way through this conversation a thousand times easier.
‘Yes! It is lost! They say it is the Hooded Man who has taken it.’
‘The Hooded Man?’
Cabot nodded. ‘Yes! Know ye not of this?’
Liam shook his head. ‘We’ve, uh … we only recently returned.’
‘From the Holy Land?’
Liam thought it best to just nod briskly at that. ‘Right, yes.’
‘Then ’tis possible ye will not have heard. Two winters ago, a party of our Templar brethren had it in their care. They were to bring it back to safety. Away from danger, away from the Saracens, from Saladin. But it was that they were attacked in woods not so far from here. A party of our order’s best and bravest knights.’
Cabot looked up at the small window. ‘A squire, one who escaped the murder, told of a single hooded man. One man who attacked them and killed every last knight and many of the sergeants-at-arms. He said he saw with his own eyes blows land full square on the hood, many crossbow bolts and arrows pass through it, but whatever was inside — and surely not a man — did not but stop until the forest path was soaked with their blood.’
‘And it … the — the … Pandora?’
‘Yes,’ said Cabot, ‘he took it. He took away with him the Word of God. And it has been lost these last two years.’
Liam glanced at the other two. Word of God?
‘My fellow Cistercians do not know what they fear more, the wrath of King Richard on his return, or this — this … hooded wraith. But I know it is Richard Coeur de Lion I would fear the most.’ He almost spat the nickname Richard the Lionheart. ‘I fought alongside him. I have seen the bloodshed he leaves in his path. Thousands of prisoners beheaded at his whim, unspeakable things done to them in the name of the Lord.’ Cabot shook his head. ‘He will burn the woods of England black, level every village and put the sword to every man, woman and child in his way until he has the Grail back in his possession. He cares not for this country.’
The sound of voices outside the barn caught Cabot’s attention. ‘My brothers are unhappy at yer arrival.’ He shot a quick look at Becks. ‘And the presence of a woman. This will unsettle them.’ He got up. ‘I will be back. I trust yer intentions are friendly? Yes?’
‘We mean no harm,’ Bob rumbled.
‘We’re friends,’ said Liam. That seemed to reassure Cabot. They watched him weave his way through the darkness towards the slatted light of the barn door.
He turned to the others. ‘Did he just say “grail”?’
‘Affirmative,’ said Bob.
Becks cocked her head for a moment, consulting her database. ‘Information: there are many historical cross-references linking the Knights Templar to an object referred to as the Holy Grail.’
‘Holy Grail? What’s that?’
‘There are many references to the Holy Grail being the cup Jesus Christ drank from at the “Last Supper”. Supposedly having magical properties.’ She looked at him. ‘This is of course entirely illogical. It is more likely to refer to some religious text.’
‘We also have detailed files,’ added Bob, ‘that describe the Templars as being a military religious order set up to protect Christian pilgrims entering the Holy Lands from Muslim raiders. But also many uncited records that claim the real reason for the establishment of the Templars was specifically to seek and safeguard the Holy Grail.’
Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Hold on … so, does that mean this Grail and Pandora are one and the same thing?’
Both of them nodded. ‘That is a possibility,’ added Becks.
Liam’s eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose we’ve missed our one-hour return window?’
‘Two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to go.’
‘All right, no point running back across that field like mad things. We can catch the one tomorrow. Presuming Mr Cabot will put us up here for tonight, we can talk to him some more about this Holy Grail thing.’
CHAPTER 22
2001, New York
The three of them stared in silence at the wavering image in the middle of the floor.
‘Is that … is that sky I’m seeing there?’ said Adam, squinting at the shimmering mirage. It looked like the flickering reflection one might see staring down a dark well: a dancing, glinting, shifting reflection that hinted more than showed things.
‘Yes,’ said Maddy. ‘And that looks like a field or something.’
‘Good God!’ he whispered. ‘So I’m seeing a field and — and … the actual sky! From nine hundred years ago!’
‘But no Liam and support units,’ said Sal.
‘OK,’ Maddy said, stepping back to the desk and hitting a button. ‘It’s been open long enough. They must have decided to overnight it there.’
The portal puffed out of existence.
‘I hate it when this happens,’ said Maddy. ‘I wish they could just drop us a line and let us know what they’re up to.’ She tapped the desk mic to wake up the version of Bob’s AI installed on the computer system. ‘Bob?’
› Yes, Maddy.
‘Begin recharge for the twenty-four-hour window.’
› Affirmative.
Adam joined her. ‘But you said there is a way for them to communicate? What did you call it again?’
‘A drop-point document.’
‘That’s it. So why don’t we tell them to use the Voynich? You know … if they manage to find it?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Can’t.’ She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘You’ve cracked it, someone else might. And, anyway, if another team are using it and we start overwriting their messages with ours, who knows what chaos that’ll cause.’
‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘What about gravestones?’
Both Sal and Maddy looked at him. ‘Uh?’
‘Well … not exactly a gravestone as such, but it’s in the graveyard at the back of Kirklees Priory.’
‘What is?’ asked Sal.
‘Inscribed masonry. There are dozens that date back to the building of the priory. You can find them if you dig around a bit.’
‘What, you’re saying I send us over to England and we snuffle around some cemetery — ’
‘No need,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been there. I went there years ago, after all that Voynich publicity died down. I wanted to know what was so important about Kirklees. So I went and checked it out for myself. There’s not much to see there, of course. The old priory building, and a gated orchard, which is all bloody brambles and stinging nettles. But I did uncover several slabs of masonry, some of them inscribed with Latin. They’re grave markers, knocked over or fallen but, you know, still intact — and you can still read the lettering. I photographed some of them.’
Maddy laughed. ‘And what? You’re suggesting they carve mission updates for us?’
He shrugged. ‘That would work, wouldn’t it? If carving a message in a stone causes one of your time waves, then surely the slight change in history would change the content of the photos I took?’ He looked from Maddy to Sal and back to Maddy again. ‘Or am I getting this all wrong?’
Maddy stared at him silently for a moment before finally snapping her fingers. ‘Yes … yes, I guess that could work!’ She glanced quickly at Sal. ‘If … we need it. But you know what? I really don’t plan to lose Liam in history again. Not this time.’ She looked at a display window showing the displacement machine’s charge pr
ogress bar.
‘Thirty minutes and we’ll open the portal again. I’m sure they’ll be right there waiting for us.’
CHAPTER 23
1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire
Liam heard the scraping of footsteps and the horses beyond, in the barn, stir before he heard the light tap on their wooden door.
‘Yes?’
‘I have food for ye.’ It was Sebastien Cabot.
‘Ah!’ Liam’s stomach had been grumbling for the last hour. The short winter day had passed without an opportunity to speak with Cabot in private again, and Liam was beginning to wonder whether his decision to overnight in 1194 was going to give them an opportunity to learn any more.
He hopped up eagerly and opened the door leading into their guest quarters.
The young monk he’d seen standing in the priory’s doorway earlier today brought in a couple of wooden bowls and a loaf of bread. Behind him Cabot entered with another bowl and a flagon of something that sloshed around as he placed it on the dirt floor.
‘A hot broth for a cold day,’ he said, ‘and a little mead to warm yer toes.’
Cabot dismissed the boy and then sat down on one of the wooden cots. By candlelight he looked older than he had this morning. The folds on his face, both wrinkles and the long twisting scar, told of a long life, and not much of it lived here in such a lonely and forlorn place.
‘My brothers seemed to have spent more time today gossiping like old women than in contemplation and prayer.’
Liam picked up one of the bowls and hungrily dipped a torn hunk of bread into the thick broth. ‘So, Mr Cabot, you said earlier that you fought alongside King Richard?’
He nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘In a real battle?’
‘Many battles, lad.’
‘But you’re a Cistercian monk, so you are. I didn’t think your kind got involved in wars and fighting.’
Cabot looked up at him. ‘I’ve not always been of this order, lad. Before, two winters gone now, I was one of the Order of Templars.’
‘You were a Templar Knight?’ asked Becks.
‘Not a knight,’ he replied. ‘I am not noble-born. But a sergeant.’
‘Sergeant?’ said Liam, tugging another hunk of crusty bread from the loaf.
‘Information,’ said Bob, ‘sergeant: lower-born professional soldier also serving in auxiliary roles within the order, i.e. maintenance of equipment and property.’
Cabot’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ye have an odd manner about ye, sir.’
Bob returned his stare for a moment, then offered a friendly display of upper and lower teeth.
‘And you fought with Richard, so you said?’
‘On this last Crusade, aye.’ Cabot shook his head wistfully. ‘’Tis the worst of things. Ten years I have been in the Holy Land in the service of Templars. Five years of it peace of a kind. After Saladin took Jerusalem, there was a peace.’
Liam nodded. Adam had given them a history class before they set off. Jerusalem had been besieged by Saladin and his massive army in 1187, and had fallen. After nearly ninety years of Christian rule it was back in Muslim hands. But Saladin had chosen to be shrewd in the matter; rather than slaughter every last Christian in the city, he proclaimed Christians would be at liberty to live there, to worship there. That Christian pilgrims would be allowed to enter the city at will and worship at their sacred sites. All this in the hope that outrage in Europe at the city falling would be somewhat lessened. But he hadn’t figured on the likes of King Richard and King Philip II of France, men who both hungered for battle and glory and a cause to hide behind. The Third Crusade was King Richard’s vainglorious attempt to reclaim Jerusalem, and Acre and Jaffa too — the other major cities taken by Saladin.
‘But with King Richard’s arrival came a bloodshed I have never seen before.’ Cabot’s eyes glistened in the dark. ‘He took Acre. The Saracens surrendered to Richard. And he had every last one of them beheaded. There was a hill of heads, a hill that grew gradually out of the moat and spilled on to the plain.’
Liam looked down at a potato bobbing in his soup and all of a sudden felt a little less hungry.
Cabot sighed. ‘I suspect King Richard came, not for Acre, not even for Jerusalem. He came for what was left behind.’
‘Left behind?’
‘Aye, what was left in haste when Jerusalem and Acre fell to Saladin.’ Cabot’s eyes narrowed. ‘But ye know of this already, yes?’ He smiled drily. ‘Ye claimed to be of the order, earlier. But I can see ye are not.’ He glanced at Bob. ‘And ye, sir, ye have the look of one, but not the manner. How is it ye people know of the order’s most guarded secret?’
Cabot’s gaze returned to Liam. ‘How is it ye would know of … Pandora? Pray tell, who are ye?’
Liam looked to both support units for help, but both of them stared dully back.
Great.
He put the bowl of broth down on the dirt floor. ‘We … Perhaps I better give you the truth.’
Cabot nodded. ‘I think ye better had.’
‘We’ve come from … well, a long way. We came here looking for a document called the Voynich Manuscript, and this may sound very strange, Mr Cabot, but your name is linked to it. Your name is in it for some reason.’
‘I’ve never heard of the thing!’
‘I know.’ Liam nodded. ‘I know. I believe you. But there was something else mentioned in this manuscript.’ He glanced at the support units; neither looked like they were about to caution him to stop. ‘Pandora — what you also called the Word of God when we spoke earlier?’
Cabot was reluctant to speak.
Liam decided to push him. ‘You also called it the Holy Grail?’
‘I cannot speak of these things with ye, lad. ’Tis the Templars’ business alone.’
‘But … it’s not any more, is it?’ Liam couldn’t help a mischievous grin. ‘Your brothers went and lost it, you said?’
Cabot pressed his lips together stubbornly. ‘I cannot talk of such things.’
‘But you did talk about it.’ Liam leaned forward. ‘Look, I think it’s this Grail we need to find. And if your Templar brothers have lost it to some robber, then maybe we can help?’
Cabot laughed. ‘The three of ye? Ye would hunt through all the woods of Nottingham for the Hooded Man and take it back from him?’
‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob.
The old man’s laughter dried up as he stared at the flickering light of the candle between them.
‘There are some fools who say he is but the Devil himself.’ Cabot shrugged. ‘He has attracted men, starving men, into the woods. Men who follow him like a king, like a god because it seems he cannot be killed and because of the raids on the taxmen. They have coin and they have food fighting for him. There are stories that he has a great strength, can tear a man in two with his bare hands. That he can run as fast as a horse can charge … but most of all, that he is immortal, that he cannot be killed.’ Cabot smiled wryly. ‘These are dark, troubled times and people tell stories. The poor, the hungry look to devilish stories like this.’
Cabot sighed. ‘Truth is this Hooded Man, whether ’tis true what they say about him or not, he is stirring up unrest and trouble among the poor and starving. And worse still — he has the Grail.’
Liam chewed silently on his warm broth-soaked bread.
Strong enough to tear a man apart? He glanced at Bob.
Another support unit? Another team in the area?
Cabot suddenly looked at Bob and Becks. ‘Will ye two not eat? Are ye not hungry?’
Both shook their heads. ‘We are fine,’ said Becks.
Liam cleared his throat. ‘You said you wanted to know who we are, Mr Cabot?’
‘Aye.’
‘Well, we’re from the same place as this Hooded Man.’
Cabot stared at him. ‘Ye know him?’
‘Not really. But I think I know what he is.’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘I’m not sure I can, Mr Cabot
… It’s very complicated. But I know if we could track him down in all those woods … and if we had enough help, enough people — ’ Liam glanced at his support units — ‘I’m pretty sure my friends here could make him hand back what he took.’
Cabot studied them silently for a long while. ‘I have not met the likes of ye before. There is a very strange manner about all three of ye. I almost half believe what ye say.’
‘Mr Cabot,’ said Liam, grinning, ‘you have no idea how strange we are.’
The man sensed his humour in that and shared the smile. ‘Then there is a person I have a half a mind to take ye to. A man I know who is sorely worried about the growing unrest in these parts … and, moreover, worried that he will face King Richard’s wrath should he return to find the Grail is lost. If he sees truth in ye — if he believes ye can get back this Grail, then I am sure he would be willing to provide ye all the help ye might need.’
‘Who?’
‘A man I provided sword training to as a boy. A poor swordsman by any standards. But his heart, ’tis good. Mostly.’
‘Who?’
‘The king’s younger brother, the Earl of Cornwall and Gloucester. John Lackland he is known as.’
CHAPTER 24
1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire
Liam checked over his shoulder to ensure that none of the monks had followed them out of the priory gardens and into the field. They were safely over the brow and out of sight here.
It was as grey and dark, as cold and unwelcoming as yesterday morning. Mercifully, on cue, the air before them shimmered. He could see Maddy and Sal and that Englishman, Adam, and the dim lights of the archway twisting and undulating like a film of oil on rippling water.
They stepped through and moments later the three of them were standing back in the stuffy warmth of the archway. Liam rubbed his arms, relishing the heat. For the last twenty-four hours he’d been doing little more than shivering.
Adam was silently shaking his head and marvelling at their return.
‘Well?’ said Maddy.
‘Well, we found your Cabot, so we did,’ replied Liam. ‘But I could murder for a lovely cup o’ tea before I do anything else.’
