Stones of Fire

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.

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.’