by Chloe Palov
Neither man responded, although the one with the holstered weapon did reach inside his jacket pocket. Removing a dark length of fabric, he tossed it at Cædmon’s bare chest.
‘Put on the blindfold.’
‘That’s a bit draconian, don’t you think?’
Evidently not draconian enough, the man’s response quick and ruthless. Pulling his gun from its holster, he stepped forward and smashed the revolver butt into Cædmon’s face.
Myriad splashes of colour, like a Jackson Pollock abstract, instantly flashed behind his eyes. An instant later, the colours bled together, turning a deep, dark inky black.
61
Lucidity still beyond his grasp, Cædmon shuffled into the room. He heard himself nattering on about something. George Eliot and The Mill on the Floss. Or some such nonsense.
He tried to focus but couldn’t contain his flyaway thoughts. Couldn’t stop the ringing in his ears.
Bloody hell, my head hurts.
‘Cædmon! Are you all right?’
He turned, his vision still blurred.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied, uncertain to whom he spoke.
He blinked several times, willing vague shapes to come into focus. They came in bits and bobs. Two parallel worry lines between two equally worried brown eyes. Long curly hair. A red bruise on a pale cheek.
‘Edie… Thank God. Are you all right?’ He immediately realized that it was an asinine question; he could see that she wasn’t.
‘I’m fine.’
His vision clearing, he looked about. All around him he saw solid eighteenth-century construction. Shuttered windows. Wooden floor. Thick stone walls. It was a prison from which there would be no escape, even if he could somehow disable his captors, of which he counted four. He wondered which of the quartet had been responsible for the bruise on Edie’s cheek; any one of the brutes appeared capable of hitting a defenceless woman.
‘Cædmon, what did they do to you?’ Edie cried, prevented from approaching him by an older man who had a hand clamped around her upper arm.
As though he were caught in one of those bizarre dreams in which he was naked and everyone else fully clothed, he belatedly realized that while he was wearing his trousers, shirt and shoes, he held in his hands jumper, pants and socks. Mercifully, his trousers were zipped, although his shirt was completely unbuttoned.
‘I was subjected to a somewhat thorough body search. Needless to say, I feel a bit violated.’
‘I hope my men weren’t too rough,’ the older man remarked, smiling mirthlessly. ‘I ordered them to go easy on you.’
Assuming the grey-haired man to be none other than Stanford MacFarlane, Cædmon summoned up an equally humourless smile. He wiped his hand under his bloodied nostrils, his escorts having come damn close to breaking his nose. ‘I shall live to fight another day.’
‘As you can well imagine, I have several questions that I’m hoping you can answer for me.’
‘I believe this is where I’m supposed to say, “I want my solicitor.”’
Ignoring Cædmon’s sally, MacFarlane asked quietly, ‘First and foremost, where is the Ark of the Covenant?’
Knowing that Edie’s life was at stake, he replied as sincerely as he could, ‘I have no idea. Although I’m certain that if we put on our thinking caps, we can uncover its location.’
‘That’s what the last scholar said to me… right before his death.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Cædmon saw Edie put a hand to her mouth. In truth, he felt a bit queasy himself.
‘I’m not a bloody psychic; I’m an academic. And as such, I must insist that you give logic a chance. In my anorak pocket you’ll find a sketch which I believe may be of some interest.’
MacFarlane walked over to the thug holding his anorak. Removing two sheets of folded paper from the front pocket, he first examined the translated quatrains, then the sketched drawing of the presentation of Christ.
‘Before I get to the drawing, I should tell you what we’ve learned to date. We now believe that the quatrains were not written by Galen of Godmersham.’ MacFarlane’s head jerked round, the man clearly thunderstruck. ‘Rather they were written by Galen’s third wife, Philippa of Canterbury.’
‘You’re certain of this?’
‘There is no doubt in my mind.’
MacFarlane chewed on this morsel for several seconds. ‘And what about St Lawrence the Martyr?’
‘A red herring,’ Cædmon replied, suspecting the ‘last scholar’s’ fate had been sealed with that particular misinterpretation. ‘The “blessed martyr” in question is Thomas à Becket. Which led us to Canterbury cathedral, where we discovered a stained-glass window.’
MacFarlane stared at the sketch like an addict staring at a full needle.
‘As to the specifics of the window, one must bear in mind that it was created by an artisan with a very different set of cultural references. From a semiotic standpoint, deciphering the window is akin to peering through a dark lens. Complex theological tenets, historical fact and archaic linguistic structures are all jumbled together in that one seemingly innocuous drawing. It will take time to sort out the various strands.’ Seeing the frown on MacFarlane’s face, he hastily added, ‘However, we have reason to believe that the two geese in the basket are significant.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because one of the geese represents Philippa herself, in the medieval guise of the good housewife. Unfortunately, we have yet to decipher the meaning of the second goose.’
‘When will you have it deciphered?’
‘Not until I have recovered.’ Cædmon stood his ground, knowing that if he didn’t, there was no hope. Then, gesturing to Edie, he said, ‘We both need food and rest.’
The caveat was more for Edie’s sake then his own. He could see by her strained expression that she was utterly exhausted. If an opportunity arose to escape, she would need to be sufficiently rested to turn that opportunity to advantage.
MacFarlane impatiently tapped his watch. ‘If the Ark of the Covenant is not in my hands in sixteen hours, I’ll kill the woman.’
Although the proceedings had so far proved civilized, Cædmon recalled the old proverb advising the unsuspecting diner to use a long spoon when supping with the devil.
‘I will do all in my power to find the Ark,’ he assured his adversary.
MacFarlane locked gazes with him, a barely contained malevolence lurking beneath his controlled expression. ‘Behave like a guest and you’ll continue to be treated as such. Am I making myself clear?’
‘As a bell.’
62
‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough chips for one day,’ Cædmon grumbled.
‘And guys with big guns and things that go bump in the night.’ Edie squinted, there being only a glimmer of light shining under the locked door. MacFarlane’s idea of food and rest was a cupboard and a couple of bags of soggy fried potatoes.
‘But on a bright note, we shall be lulled to sleep by the babbling brook that runs beneath the mill.’
Edie made no reply, a damp chill oozing up through the floorboards on account of that same babbling brook. Already she could feel the ache in her joints.
‘By the by, I’ve got your metal nail file hidden under the insole of my shoe.’
‘I can top that. I’ve got a thousand dollars stuffed inside my boot. After the attack in Oxford, I was worried someone might steal the Virgin bag.’ She abruptly changed gear. ‘There’s something I need to tell you: I have intimate knowledge of Stanford MacFarlane.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Not biblical knowledge,’ Edie quickly amended. ‘But I do know the heart of Stanford MacFarlane.’
‘And how is that?’ There was no mistaking the interest in his voice.
‘My maternal grandfather was something of a religious zealot. If not from the same bolt of cloth as MacFarlane, Pops was certainly cut from a similar one.’ She laughed caustically, the memory an unpleasant one. ‘My
grandfather believed that freedom of religion extended only to other evangelical Christians.’
‘Being a young girl, I’m surprised that you weren’t, er…’
‘Indoctrinated? Having been raised by a mother who repeatedly told me she would clean up her act and who repeatedly failed made me a hard sell. Deep-seated trust issues, I suppose.’ She readjusted her legs, the dark space a tight fit for the two of them. ‘Having sat through all those Sunday sermons, I know that men like Pops and Stanford MacFarlane lie awake at night consumed with visions of a global theocracy.’
She paused a moment, recalling her conversation with MacFarlane. ‘Although I get the feeling that, unlike Pops, MacFarlane thinks of himself as some sort of Old Testament patriarch.’
‘One of those bastards who prays before the bloodletting, hmm?’
Edie shuddered. ‘He’s probably praying as we speak.’
Putting an arm round her shoulder, Cædmon pulled her close. ‘As long as there’s a chance of finding the Ark, you’re safe. MacFarlane knows that if he harms you in any way, I’ll refuse to comply with his demands.’
‘You don’t actually trust him to keep his word, do you?’
It being too dark in the closet for her to discern Cædmon’s features, she sensed rather than saw his sardonic smile.
‘In my experience, deciding how much to trust one’s enemy is a fine art.’
In the same way that she had sensed the smile, Edie intuited its disappearance.
‘It’s my fault you got dragged into this mess. I should never have agreed to –’
Edie put a hand over his mouth, hushing him. ‘Since meeting you at the National Gallery of Art, everything I’ve done, and I mean everything – from coming to England, to making love, to riding in the back of that refrigerated truck – I’ve done of my own free will. We’re in this together, Cædmon. And don’t for one second think that we’re not. There was no way either of us could have known that MacFarlane’s goon had planted a tracking device on me.’
‘Are you saying the punch-up in the alley was a blind? Bloody hell. From the outset MacFarlane has been one step ahead of me.’
Hearing the self-recrimination in his voice, she thought a change of subject in order. ‘We’ve got sixteen hours to figure out the meaning of those two geese in the basket. All we know is that one of them represents Philippa.’ She sighed, sixteen hours suddenly a very brief amount of time. ‘I wish we knew more about Philippa. Other than the fact that she married Galen and joined a nunnery, we’ve got precious few clues.’
‘The nunnery… The nunnery! That’s it! You, Edie Miller, are bloody beautiful!’
Cædmon began to bang on the cupboard door with his fist.
‘What the hell’s goin’ on in there?’
‘Tell MacFarlane that I know where the Ark is hidden.’
63
Onward, Christian soldiers, Cædmon mused silently, noticing that each of the four armed men gathered around the table wore a Jerusalem cross ring on his right hand.
‘And you’re absolutely certain that the two geese depicted in the stained-glass window will lead us to the Ark of the Covenant?’ MacFarlane gestured to the drawing on the tabletop.
Seated in front of a laptop computer, Cædmon stopped typing, taking a moment to glance at his adversary. He knew that for this man he served but one purpose. Once he had fulfilled that purpose, he would no longer be in a position to safeguard Edie.
Surreptitiously, he glanced at the locked cupboard door on the far side of the room.
Somehow he had to devise a suitable enticement, a bargaining chip, that he could use to gain Edie’s freedom. Until then he would reveal enough to whet MacFarlane’s voracious appetite but not so much that he lessened his worth. Stanford MacFarlane had to continue to believe that without him he would never find the Ark.
‘As I earlier mentioned, one of the geese symbolizes Philippa in her role as the good housewife to her husband Galen of Godmersham. After Galen’s death, Philippa joined a nunnery, where she lived out her remaining days. With that in mind, I believe that the second goose also represents Philippa, nuns often referred to as brides of Christ. So Philippa was the good housewife of Christ, as it were.’
MacFarlane took a moment to digest the crumb tossed to him. ‘What does Galen’s widow being a nun have to do with anything?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. He’d already been led down a false path by one man. Clearly, he was not about to proceed without a clear map.
‘It’s possible that Philippa took the Ark with her to the nunnery.’ Cædmon jutted his chin at the Oxford University search engine he’d brought up on the internet. ‘Hopefully, I’ll be able to find out which order Philippa joined, although it may take some time as there were scores of now-defunct religious orders active in the fourteenth century.’
‘Time is the one thing we’ve got in short supply.’
As he waited for the search results, Cædmon couldn’t help but wonder at MacFarlane’s impatience. It made him think that the Warriors of God were working to some sort of deadline. But a deadline for what? Although tantalized by an ancient mystery that had beguiled such luminaries as Newton and Freud, Cædmon was keenly aware that lives had been ruthlessly taken, MacFarlane’s obsession with the Ark clearly knowing no bounds.
‘Ah! We have a hit,’ he announced, pointing to the computer screen. ‘According to a fourteenth-century document called the Regestrum Archiepiscopi –’
‘Can the Latin,’ MacFarlane snarled.
‘Right.’ Cædmon decided to dumb down. ‘What you are looking at is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s register of nunneries compiled in the year 1350. That being two years after the plague, I suspect the archbishop was very keen to have a head count. Since most folk in the Middle Ages rarely travelled more than thirty miles from the place of their birth, I’ll first search for Philippa in the Kent listings.’
As he scrolled through the register, Cædmon knew that he was operating on nothing more than a strong hunch. A hunch that if proved wrong could have tragic results.
‘There she is,’ he murmured. ‘Philippa, widowed wife of Galen of Godmersham, is listed as a member of the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the entry, she entered the nunnery with a dowry worth approximately –
‘Just tell me where the priory is located,’ MacFarlane interrupted.
‘It is located in the hamlet of Swanley, south-east of London.’
MacFarlane turned to the behemoth with the sutured head. ‘Pull it up on the GPS system.’
Using a stylus that looked ridiculous in his oversized hand, the brute began pecking away at a hand-held device.
‘I’ve got it. It’s at the intersection of highways M20 and M25,’ he announced, passing the apparatus to his superior.
MacFarlane studied the computer-generated map. ‘You were right. Swanley is exactly thirty miles from Canterbury. Which means we can be there within the hour.’
Cædmon shook his head and calmly pointed out the obvious. ‘If we traipse around a medieval priory in the middle of the night, we might very well be confronted by the local constabulary, particularly if the nunnery is a National Trust property. Given the importance of the task, we would be better off waiting for daylight.’
MacFarlane stared at him, long and hard.
‘We hit the road at first light,’ he said at last. Then, his gaze boring into Cædmon, he hissed, ‘If you’re thinking about sidestepping me like that Harvard pencil dick, you think again, boy.’
Although he took exception to being called a ‘boy’, Cædmon kept himself in check. ‘Bear in mind that Swanley may simply be where we find the next clue.’
‘What are you saying, that this is going to turn into some sort of scavenger hunt?’
‘If you wish to hide a tree, put it in a forest. We won’t know if the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the forest until we can properly examine the site.’
‘Well, you better hope to God that it is the right forest.
’
Cædmon wondered what would happen should they not find the Ark. He guessed slit throats and bodies buried at low-water mark featured somewhere.
64
Dawn arrived, damp and grey, the passenger windows on the Range Rover still ice-rimmed. The cold went right through Edie, causing her teeth to chatter loudly. Although she suspected that fear had more to do with her rattling teeth than the outside temperature.
Rudely awakened only a short time earlier, she and Cædmon had been bundled into the back seat of the waiting vehicle. Seated in front of them was the driver, Sanchez, a sullen man given to muttering in Spanish, and his co-pilot Harliss, a southerner with an accent so thick he might as well have been speaking in Spanish. Both men were armed. And both had made it very clear that they would not hesitate to use their weapons.
Leading the pack in a second Range Rover were Stanford MacFarlane and his right-hand man Boyd Braxton. To Edie’s relief, she’d had little to no contact with the hulking brute since the attempted rape. Knowing that Cædmon had enough on his plate, she’d made no mention of the near miss.
‘Didn’t you say something about swans and geese being interchangeable in the medieval lexicon?’
‘Hmm?’ Clearly lost in thought, Cædmon tore his gaze away from the window. ‘Er, yes, I did say that.’
‘Making it all the more likely that this place Swanley is where we’ll find the Ark.’
‘I have no idea if the Ark is hidden at the nunnery. The Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary may simply be where we find the next clue.’
Enviously she watched as Harliss passed a cup filled from a Thermos of hot coffee to Sanchez.
‘My feet feel like two blocks of ice,’ she complained in a low voice, pointedly glancing at the pair of green wellies she’d been issued with.
Cædmon, decked out in an identical pair of boots, commiserated. ‘The English wellington was designed to keep the foot dry not warm. Although we’ll be glad of them should we have to tramp through a damp field.’
