Ark of Fire

CHAPTER 40

More slowly this time, Caedmon reread Galen of Godmersham’s poetic quatrains.

“Admittedly, we are clinging to the thinnest of reeds.”

Or the thinnest of reads, depending on one’s take.

This wasn’t the first time he’d been ensconced in the wood-paneled reading room of Duke Humfrey’s Library, muddling his way through a thorny conundrum. In his student days, he’d spent countless hours in this very room seated at the very same table, medieval texts piled high.

Believing that a tidy work area elicited a similar tidiness in one’s thinking, he organized the miscellaneous items that had been placed on the reading table. The librarian, no doubt spurred by Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown’s advance phone call, had been most solicitous in delivering the requested materials to their table. In addition to a leather-bound codex that contained a selection of fourteenth-century poetry, including Galen’s quatrains, she had conveyed a slim volume that contained the Godmersham Feet of Fines records for the years 1300 to 1350. Paper, pencils, and cotton gloves had also been provided.

An exasperated frown on her face, Edie pointed a gloved index finger at the open codex. “Just look at this, will ya. It’s written in Old English. Which is whole lot like saying it’s written in a dead language.”

Noticing that several library patrons irritably glowered, Caedmon raised a finger to his lips, reminding Edie that silence reigned supreme within the paneled walls of Duke Humfrey’s Library. If one must speak, a muffled whisper was the preferred mode of communication.

“Actually, the quatrains are written in Middle English rather than the more remote Old English—thus enabling me to produce a fairly accurate interlinear translation.”

“You’re talking about a line-by-line translation, right?” Her voice had noticeably lowered. “When I was a graduate student, I wrote a research paper on the Wife of Bath. You know, from The Canterbury Tales. The paper was for a seminar class on women in the Middle Ages, and it darned near did me in.”

Hoping to bolster her spirits, he patted her hand. “Don’t worry. I’m certain that you’ll survive the ordeal.” Then, not wanting to dwell on the fact that an ordeal was by its very nature a trying endeavor, he reached for a pencil and a sheet of blank paper.

Although it’d been a number of years since he’d last translated Middle English, he managed to quickly work his way through the archaic spelling and phraseology with only a few missteps.

“Hopefully, this will make for more coherent verse,” he said, pushing the sheet of paper in his companion’s direction.

Lifting the handwritten sheet off the table, Edie held it at arm’s length from her face. Lips silently moving, she read the translation.

The merciless west wind rode forth from Solomon’s city jubilantly singing But a ghost fire followed like a deadly tempest Repentant for his sins, the befouled shepherd did penance Then homeward he sped, the ill-gotten treasure left on holy shores

From Jerusalem, a company of knights rode out in heathen lands Each of them tried to profit from the other on the field of Esdraelon They battled to the death, the virtuous knight winning the field.

And with his show of valor, he kept the holy covenant

This same worthy knight went from sundry lands to England He carried a chest and bright gold to the town where he was born With open eyes he now saw the black plague that he wrought And when the wretched knight saw this, his death was well deserved

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

As she wordlessly lowered the sheet of paper to the table, Caedmon discerned from Edie’s frown that she was as befuddled by the translation as she had been by the original text.

“I suggest that we take the allegorical and symbolic references in turn. Phrases such as ‘the merciless west wind,’ ‘the befouled shepherd,’ and ‘the veil between two worlds’ should be thought of as pieces of code which have been strategically placed within the quatrains. The key to solving the riddle will hinge on how we decode the symbols contained within each line of verse.”

“And what if Galen loaded his word puzzle with a bunch of mixed signals?” she asked, still frowning.

“Oh, I have no doubt that Galen deliberately inserted semiotic decoys into the quatrains. The medieval mind was quite nimble when it came to inserting secret messages into seemingly innocuous text.”

Edie stared at the handwritten sheet of paper. “Something tells me that we’re gonna need a CIA code breaker.”

“Here, take this, for instance,” he said, pointing to the first line of text. “‘The merciless west wind rode forth from Solomon’s city jubilantly singing.’ I detect a bit of linguistic legerdemain at work. Clearly, this refers to the pharaoh Shishak leaving Jerusalem after successfully pillaging Solomon’s Temple. Death then followed in the Egyptian’s wake, the first quatrain ending with Shishak leaving the pilfered treasure behind as he and his army scurried back to Egypt.”

Edie’s eyes suspiciously narrowed. “Unless I’m greatly mistaken, you’re actually enjoying yourself.”

“Who among us does not enjoy the intricacies of a well-constructed word puzzle?”

“Well, me, for starters,” his companion groused. “I’m more of a sudoku person. It’s a number puzzle that—Never mind.” She waved away the thought. “You know, the only reason we’re sitting here in Duke Humfrey’s Library is because we assume that when Galen of Godmersham composed his quatrains, he was actually leaving clues as to where he hid the gold chest.”

“That is our base assumption,” he said with a nod.

“Then I guess it’s already crossed your mind that someone may have deciphered the quatrains and recovered the treasure long years ago.”

“Since the cart has yet to pull the horse, we shall deal with that issue if and when it presents itself.”

Edie smiled, a teasing glint in her eyes. “I think this is where I’m supposed to make a rude comparison between you and the back end of a horse.”

Unable to help himself, he stared into those lively brown eyes. Since the earlier kiss on the Oxford coach, the air between them had become more sexually charged. He wondered if the storm would pass without fanfare. Or if they would be caught in a driving rain.

“Shall we continue?” Tapping the pencil on the handwritten sheet of paper, he redirected her attention.

Catching him by surprise, Edie snatched the pencil out of his hand. “This is just a guess, mind you, but I think Galen’s puzzle is configured like a square.”