Stones of Fire

by Chloe Palov

  Marshall inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Although crafted on the fly, the lie had the ring of truth about it. Actually, when the Ark had been housed in Solomon’s Temple, inside the Holy of Holies, a veil had been hung in front of it to keep it hidden, the “veyl” in Galen’s last quatrain referring to the Ark not a medieval death shroud.

  While the quatrains provided scant clues, he figured the Ark was really hidden inside the church under a statue of the martyred St Lawrence. Or maybe behind a plaque or wall carving. Which is why he intended to steer the old dude and his three big bad bears away from the church itself, focusing instead on the adjacent cemetery. Then, once his benefactor had given up the search, he would return on the sly to St Lawrence the Martyr and lay claim to the prize.

  A drum roll, please…

  ‘Galen of Godmersham’s tomb – you’re completely certain of this?’

  ‘Certain enough,’ he retorted, not liking the way he was being hauled over the coals.

  A man clearly accustomed to giving orders, the older dude brusquely gestured to the paper-laden table. ‘Pack it up. We leave in ten minutes.’

  44

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of dark and dreary weather,’ Edie grumbled. For the last few minutes she’d been standing guard at their hotel window, closely monitoring the courtyard below, relieved they weren’t in a ground-floor room.

  Relieved because her sixth sense told her that they were being watched.

  Although, given that she had zilch in the way of psychic ability, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that her intuition was nothing more than irrational fear.

  Busying himself with placing pencils and paper on the small circular table tucked into the oriel window on the other side of the room, Cædmon glanced over at her. ‘Small wonder we English are such a gloomy lot.’

  ‘The Mahler doesn’t help.’ Turning her head from the window, Edie pointedly glanced at the small radio on the bedside table. The incessant sound of rain striking cobblestones competed with the ponderous strains of the Sixth Symphony in A minor.

  ‘Ah, but it doesn’t hurt.’ Cædmon had earlier informed her that the drippy classical music helped him to think. Something about musical notes and higher maths.

  Preferring rhythm and blues, Macy Gray her favourite singer, Edie let it go. There were worse faults than questionable taste in music.

  With a quick tug, she pulled the damask curtains across the window. That done, she glanced around the small hotel room. As had repeatedly happened since they checked in, her gaze landed on the king-sized bed under its red-striped coverlet. Evidently a hotel room with two doubles was unheard of in England, the receptionist staring at her as though she were bonkers when she made the request.

  She averted her gaze.

  If she overlooked the bed – and it was darned difficult – the room had a warm, inviting feel to it. Ivory-coloured walls punctuated with dark wood beams and lots of pleated floral fabric. In a nod to the season, a ribbon-strewn garland hung above the door.

  Again she glanced at the bed.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Cædmon said, seeing the direction of her gaze. ‘Rather imposing, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s just that we’re not… You know.’ She fought the urge to look away, the unspoken topic of sex rearing its tempting head.

  Cædmon held her gaze a second too long. Although her dating skills were rusty, she had the distinct impression that he was silently asking. When no answer was forthcoming, he strode over to the foot of the bed. His jaw tight, he placed a palm on either side of the mattress and…

  … separated the double into two single beds.

  ‘Not certain what we should do about the bedding.’ He gestured to the red coverlet sagging between the beds.

  Acting on a hunch, Edie walked over to the wardrobe, opened it and removed two sets of single sheets. ‘We’re in luck. There’s sheets stowed away for this very emergency.’ She tossed the folded sheets onto the bed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it later.’

  If he was disappointed, he hid it well.

  ‘Afraid we’ll have to share the loo. My powers don’t extend beyond dividing the bed.’ Turning away from the coverlet, he reached for the bottle of port. ‘For some reason, I feel oddly buoyed by our progress today. Like a medieval monk who’s completed his duties and can now sit down to a jug of wine in the full knowledge that he has earned his simple pleasure.’ As he spoke, Cædmon inserted a corkscrew into the top of the bottle, having procured the implement from reception.

  A wet plunk! ensued as the cork slid from the bottle. He poured.

  Holding a glass in each hand, he walked over to where she stood. ‘I apologize that the port isn’t decanted. Since we’re slumming it, we must make do.’ Then, smiling, ‘Careful. This stuff is dangerously gluggable.’

  Edie took the proffered glass. Returning his smile, she took a sip of the ruby-coloured wine. ‘Yum. This stuff is gluggable.’

  Cædmon laughed, the sound deep, rich, inviting. A lot like the port wine, it made her smile.

  ‘Now, to the task at hand.’ He motioned to the oriel window and the small circular table. ‘Hopefully, we’ll be able to yoke together the last four lines of verse.’

  Not sure how much help she would be, her brain working in slo-mo due to the jet lag, Edie seated herself in one of the two wingback chairs wedged into the projecting window. Having a funny feeling that the port wine wasn’t going to help, she stared at the last four lines of translated text.

  The trusted goose sorely wept for all of them were dead

  I know not how the world be served by such adversity

  But if a man with a fully devout heart seek the blessed martyr

  There in the veil between two worlds, the hidden truth be found

  Using her index finger as a pointer, she underscored the first line. ‘Undoubtedly, a thinly disguised reference to Mother Goose.’ Tongue literally in cheek, she winked at him.

  All business, Cædmon circled ‘goose’ with a pencil. ‘The words “goose” and “swan” were interchangeable in the medieval lexicon, the goose symbolic of vigilance. In the light of all that we know, that makes complete and utter sense.’

  ‘It does? Sorry, but I’m not following.’

  ‘Remember that Galen took upon himself the role of Ark guardian, vigilance the most important attribute of a sentinel.’

  ‘And let’s not forget that the quatrains were also Galen’s swansong.’

  Cædmon glanced at her glass as if to enquire, Just how much of that stuff have you had?

  Edie pushed her glass aside. ‘Sir Kenneth mentioned that everyone in Godmersham except for Galen’s wife succumbed to the plague. So, I’m guessing that’s the gist of line two.’

  ‘That looks to be a correct assumption. As for the third line –’ lifting his glass, Cædmon took a measured sip ‘– it’s the typical admonition one finds in any medieval tale.’

  ‘Only the knight who is pure of heart can seek the Holy Grail, right?’

  ‘Mmmm, quite.’

  Slowly, he drummed his fingers on the table, lost in thought.

  A few moments later the tapping increased to a rapid rat-a-tat-tat.

  ‘I take it that’s a good sign.’

  ‘So good it makes my bollocks tingle,’ he replied bawdily, slapping his palm on the tabletop. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, the bloody “blessed martyr” is none other than St Lawrence the Martyr.’

  Edie searched her memory banks, the name vaguely familiar. It took a second for her to access the correct data file, the one about Galen donating a slew of ‘sacred relics’ to the local church. ‘Ohmygosh! Galen hid the Ark at –’

  ‘St Lawrence the Martyr church!’ they exclaimed in unison, grinning at each other.

  ‘According to the Old Testament accounts,’ Cædmon excitedly continued, underlining the last line of the quatrain with his finger, ‘when the Ark of the Covenant was placed inside Solomon’s Temple, in the Holy of Holies, a
veil was placed over the entrance to shield that most sacred place. The expression “beyond the veil” was thus coined because no one, not even the priests, could enter that sacred space.’

  ‘Which means that the last line is a direct reference to the Ark.’ When he nodded, she switched gears entirely. ‘Okay, when do leave?’

  ‘We don’t have a coach timetable. However, I suspect we can be in Godmersham by early tomorrow afternoon. Sooner if we hire a car.’

  ‘Gee, I’m surprised you don’t want to leave tonight. It’s only pouring down rain out there,’ she teased.

  ‘While I refuse to entertain the notion that MacFarlane may yet steal the prize, we need our rest.’

  On that point they were in complete agreement.

  ‘Do you think the church is still standing?’

  ‘Difficult to say. Any number of churches and monasteries were destroyed during the Reformation and the Civil War. Tomorrow will be soon enough to ascertain if St Lawrence the Martyr is intact.’

  ‘Even if it’s still there, we have no idea where in or around the church the Ark is hidden.’

  ‘I never said this would be an easy venture.’ Pushing back his chair, Cædmon rose to his feet. As he walked over to the divided bed, one of Bach’s melancholy cello suites droned from the radio. Edie thought it sounded like a funeral march.

  Ignoring the music, she surreptitiously watched as Cædmon took a packet of biscuits from the bedside table. No doubt about it, Cædmon Aisquith was very much his own man, his quirky intellectualism strangely appealing. As he headed back to the oriel, biscuits in hand, Edie could see that something was wrong, his expression not nearly as ebullient as it had been seconds before.

  ‘Uh oh. What happened? You’re no longer in a John Philip Sousa mood.’

  Cædmon handed her the packet of chocolate-covered biscuits. ‘Here, tuck in.’

  ‘You’re not going to have one?’

  Waving them away, he reseated himself at the table. ‘Something about the solution is too neat and tidy. Too bloody obvious.’

  ‘Maybe Galen wanted the solution to be obvious.’

  ‘Had that been his intention, he would never have gone to the trouble of writing the quatrains.’

  Her sweet tooth having also gone south, she put the biscuits aside.

  ‘Yeah, I see your point.’ She stared at the quatrain. ‘Maybe a not-so-neat solution will come to you in the morning.’

  ‘Or to you. Your chain-of-custody box showed a marked talent for analytical reasoning.’

  Edie smiled. ‘You liked that, huh?’

  ‘It’s one of many things that I like about you.’

  Cædmon’s reply made her instantly regret the parting of the red bed.

  ‘Well, what do you know? I like you too.’ A great deal, in fact. Maybe more than she should, given that she knew so little about him. Other than he had once attended Oxford, had worked for MI5 and recently wrote a book, she knew nothing about Cædmon Aisquith. A man of mystery was one thing. A man without a past was something else entirely.

  But then she’d not been very forthcoming herself.

  ‘Cædmon, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ she blurted without preamble.

  His blue eyes locked on to hers.

  Edie took a deep breath, bracing herself for the backlash.

  ‘I lied to you.’

  45

  ‘Nothing here but a bunch of old bones.’

  Stan MacFarlane shone his Maglite into the open grave, in which his man stood chest deep. Scattered at Braxton’s booted feet were the mortal remains of Galen of Godmersham. And a whole lot of mud, the grave quickly filling with water. Earlier the night sky had opened up, the rain coming down in buckets.

  Stan next shone his torch into the face of the Harvard scholar, who stood shivering on the other side of the grave, the beam casting a golden light onto the driving rain.

  ‘You told me it would be here.’

  ‘Based on the quatrains, I thought there was a good possibility that the gold chest would be found in Galen’s grave.’ His paid medieval expert, beginning to look like a wet rat, shrugged. ‘What can I say? We played the odds and lost.’

  ‘Could you have misinterpreted the quatrains?’

  The scholar rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Hmm… it’s possible, but… I really thought I correctly deciphered them. That’s the tricky thing about Middle English, it’s all about layered meaning. Hey, do you guys mind if I sit inside the Range Rover? I’m gonna catch my death if I stand out here much longer.’

  Tuning out the man’s whiny-ass complaints, Stan carefully considered his next move, knowing it was a move twenty-five years in the making. For it was twenty-five years ago that the archangels Michael and Gabriel had appeared to him soon after the blast in Beirut. Sent by God to pull him from the rubble.

  The terror attack on the marine barracks had been the first of the signs that the End Times were near.

  Saved in body, and more importantly in spirit, he had given his life over to God’s work. Not once had he shirked his duty, commissioned with the task of building God’s holy army here on earth. What had begun as an informal prayer group in the First Gulf War had become a twenty-thousand-strong faith-based force by the time the tanks rolled into Baghdad eleven years later.

  Twenty-five years had come and gone, yet his mission was still incomplete.

  God had something great and glorious intended for him.

  But only if he uncovered the Ark.

  The Ark was the key that would unlock the gates of the Millennial Kingdom.

  The Ark was the weapon that would destroy the Muslim infidels.

  Just as it had destroyed the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites.

  ‘You know, I’m as stumped as you.’ The scholar had apparently decided not to go back to the Range Rover.

  His train of thought interrupted, Stan realized that the remark didn’t ring true, the other man too pat. Too well rehearsed. As though it were a gun aimed at point-blank range, Stan shone the Maglite at the scrawny man’s face. Pupils quickly contracted into black dots. ‘Why do I suddenly not believe you?’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’ The other man affected a theatrical look of stunned disbelief. ‘What reason would I have to lie? I need the cash to pay off my loans.’

  ‘I can think of any number of reasons why you might lie to me.’ Stan continued to shine the light at the other man’s face. As though he were boring a hole right through the middle of his forehead.

  ‘Look, I thought for certain the Ark would be – I mean the gold chest would be buried with Galen.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ The beam of light drilled that much deeper.

  ‘Arca. I said arca. As in “Arca and gold ful shene he carried to the toun he was born.” Remember the third quatrain?’

  The truth revealed, Stan stared at the scholar, contempt washing over him in waves.

  Sensing the winds had suddenly shifted, the Harvard scholar nervously glanced at the car. No doubt trying to remember if the keys had been left in the ignition.

  ‘You can’t outrun a bullet,’ Boyd Braxton jeered, having climbed out of the grave.

  Judge and jury, Stan pointed an accusing finger. ‘“And then shall the wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.”’

  Surprisingly belligerent, the other man pointed a finger right back at him. ‘You’re a fucking lunatic, that’s what you are!’

  ‘Unkind words for the man who holds your fate in his hands.’

  The Harvard scholar glanced at the Israeli-made Desert Eagle automatic pistol negligently held in the gunnery sergeant’s right hand, belligerence now replaced with fear. Cowardly, snivelling fear.

  ‘You’re right, dude. Heat of the moment. Sorry. And just to prove that I’m still part of the team, I think I know where the Ark is hidden.’ The scholar jutted his chin towards the small church nestled on
the other side of the cemetery. ‘When you guys did your earlier security check in the church, I caught sight of a very large marble plaque depicting the martyrdom of St Lawrence.’ Spreading his arms, the other man indicated an expanse of some four feet. ‘I’m guessing that if we pry that mother off the wall, we’ll find the Ark hidden behind it.’

  ‘Pray that we do.’

  46

  ‘Back in DC,’ Edie clarified, not wanting Cædmon to think she’d lied to him recently.

  ‘A lie would certainly explain your embarrassment.’

  ‘Actually, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not the least bit embarrassed that I lied; I’m thoroughly ashamed.’ And, as he undoubtedly knew, shame was embarrassment on steroids.

  ‘Did you lie about Padge’s murder?’

  ‘What!’ Edie vehemently shook her head, the image of Dr Padgham’s sprawled, lifeless body flashing across her mind’s eye. ‘No, of course not. I lied about my, um, family background.’

  Crossing his legs at the knee, Cædmon sat silent, waiting for her to fill in the blanks. If he was upset or disappointed by the fact he’d been lied to, he gave no indication of it.

  ‘Remember how I told you that my parents were killed in a boating accident off the coast of Florida? Well that story was… well, it was a flat-out lie. I can’t speak for my father, but my mother never stepped in anything that ever floated on the water.’

  She snatched a mandarin orange from the bowl on the table. Hands shaking, she began to peel it, if for no other reason than to give her suddenly sweaty fingers something to do. God, I feel lousy. Unbelievably, she’d just told Cædmon Aisquith more about her childhood than she’d ever told another living soul.

  ‘Did you lie to elicit my sympathy?’

  Edie stopped peeling.

  ‘No! Absolutely not!’

  Knowing why she had told the lie, but not altogether certain why she suddenly wanted to tell the truth, Edie abandoned the orange and got up from the table. Maybe she was sick and tired of going to bed with men under false pretences. Slowly, trying to collect her thoughts, she paced back and forth in front of the divided twin mattresses. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cædmon finishing his glass of port.