Stones of Fire

54

Neck inclined at an awkward angle, Cædmon stared at the top of the stained-glass panel, the blaze of colour dazzling, casting what could only be described as psychedelic patterns of light onto the gloomy walls of the Gothic interior.

Les belles-verrières, he mused silently. Certainly more beautiful glass than one man and one woman could reasonably absorb in a single day. But mindful of the possibility that MacFarlane had correctly deciphered the quatrains, he and Edie forged on.

Some two hours into their search, they stood in the Corona, the semicircular chapel originally built to house the relics of St Thomas à Becket. Despite the fact that they had methodically examined dozens of stained-glass panels created before the mid-fourteenth century, thus far they’d seen no images or references to the Ark of the Covenant.

Swaying slightly on his feet, the coloured light almost hypnotic, several lines of Bible verse came to mind. ‘“I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay their foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of —”’

Edie raised a hand, cutting him off in mid-sentence. ‘Enough already. I am totally and completely Bibled out. Trying to decipher these windows is an awful lot like learning a foreign language. Except we don’t have the Berlitz tapes. And you spouting verses from the good book does not help matters.’

‘Understood,’ he contritely replied.

Although Cædmon had studied medieval iconography while at Oxford, to any modern observer the symbolism contained within the Canterbury windows was not unlike a foreign language. But this language had been well understood eight hundred years ago. Illiteracy the norm during the Middle Ages, stained glass had enabled the faithful to learn the stories of the Bible through pictures.

Ignoring the painful crick in his neck, Cædmon continued to study the panels, forcing himself to examine only those images specific to the Old Testament. Moses consecrating Aaron. The ascent of Elijah. Samson and Delilah.

As they continued to the next group of panels, he caught sight of a leather-clad figure in the corner of his eye. The size and shape of the figure similar to those of their assailant in Oxford, he slowed his step. Almost instantly, his heartbeat escalated, goose pimples prickling his skin. He knew this feeling, had had it any number of times when he worked for MI5. Something in Denmark most definitely stank to high heaven.

Muscles tightening, he slowly turned to face the enemy.

It took only an instant to verify that the man was simply a tourist. While the robust physique was similar, the facial features were completely different.

Bloody hell.

‘Is something the matter?’ his companion asked. ‘All of a sudden, you’re looking awfully tight around the jaw.’

‘No, no, nothing is the matter,’ he assured her, taking her by the elbow and steering her towards the aisle of the cathedral choir. To one side of them, massive columns supported incised stone arches; on the other side, stained-glass windows gleamed beautifully.

‘Ah! The famed Typology Windows,’ he announced, effectively changing the subject. Knowing that the Typology Windows had been created prior to the thirteenth century, he angled his head to examine the upper panes of glass, ignoring the bolt of pain that travelled from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

Edie elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Explanation, please. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m a novice at this.’

‘Typology was a tool often used in the Middle Ages to confirm the legitimacy of the New Testament using stories taken from the Old,’ he explained. ‘A typical example is the tale of Jonah and the whale. According to the Old Testament, Jonah remained within the whale’s belly for three days and three nights.’

‘Prefiguring Jesus being entombed for the same length of time,’ she astutely commented.

‘Precisely. Usually the stories were paired, thus reinforcing a particular theological point through the manipulation of biblical imagery.’

‘Thought control at its very best.’

He winked at her. ‘How else does one control the masses?’

‘Hey, look, it’s Noah and the Ark!’ she exclaimed, pointing to a half-roundel. Placing a hand to her mouth, she stifled a snicker. ‘Yeah, I know, wrong ark. Although at this point I’m happy to see any ark.’

Not nearly so amused, Cædmon led the way to the next panel. Again, he began the slow process of identifying each and every biblical figure, his gaze systematically beginning at the top and moving down. A monumental window, the panel was divided into seven horizontal sections, each section containing three separate scenes. When he came to the fifth section, he did a double take.

‘Bloody hell! I think I’ve found it.’

Edie’s eyes slowly scanned the length of the window, opening wide when they hit the telltale image. ‘Ohmygosh! It’s a four-sided gold box.’

‘Actually, it’s the four-sided gold box. None other than the Ark of the Covenant.’ Barely able to contain his excitement, he had the overwhelming urge to laugh aloud, to raise his voice to the heavens and whoop with joy. Instead, he pulled Edie into his arms, hugging her close. ‘We’ve found it,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘We’ve actually found the bloody thing.’

Disengaging her right arm, Edie excitedly pointed to the window in question. ‘Did you notice the two baby geese in the basket?’

He nodded, certain they’d found the very panel that Philippa had intended them to find. The scene, the presentation of Christ, depicted the well-known New Testament story of Mary and Joseph presenting the infant Jesus to the high priest in the Temple at Jerusalem. Two seemingly innocuous items within the scene screamed at him: Joseph carrying a basket that contained two goslings, and Mary, holding the baby Jesus aloft, standing before the Ark of the Covenant.

‘Yesterday you and Sir Kenneth were rambling on about the medieval comparisons between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant. Is this what you were talking about?’

Deciding not to take issue with the ‘rambling’ charge, he nodded. ‘It was a religious concept known as Faederis Arca. No less a theologian than St Bernard of Clairvaux explicitly compared the womb of Mary to the Ark of the Covenant, for, as the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, so Mary carried Christ within her womb.’

‘The symbolism of the Old Testament reinforcing the New Testament.’

‘Precisely.’

Clearly excited, Edie yanked the Virgin bag off her shoulder. Unzipping it, she hurriedly rifled through its contents, removing her digital camera.

Excitement was soon replaced with a crestfallen expression. ‘It’s a dead dog,’ she muttered, showing him the darkened display. ‘The digital camera has yet to be invented that will run on a drained battery.’ She glanced at the exit located on the far side of the nave. ‘I could run out and buy some new batteries at one of the souvenir shops.’

Cædmon checked his watch. ‘I don’t know if you’ll have enough time. The cathedral closes in twenty minutes. The photo will have to wait until the morning.’

‘Do you really want to wait that long? Yeah, we found the window, but now we have to figure out what it means. And to do that, we need a picture.’

‘I agree. However —’

She put a hand on his chest. ‘Don’t move. I’ll be right back.’

He watched as Edie rushed towards the northwest transept. When she disappeared from sight, he returned his gaze to the stained-glass panel. As he stared, spellbound, the distinctive scent of incense wafted through the chill air. It suddenly occurred to him that here, within the confines of one of the world’s great cathedrals, where man-made bread daily became God’s flesh, anything was possible.

Turning away from the panel, he watched as Edie returned with a bespectacled, long-haired young man in tow. ‘This is William. He’s agreed to do a quick line drawing of the window.’

A man of few words, William removed an artist’s sketch pad from his satchel. Ignoring them, he negligently leaned against a nine-hundred-year-old column and began to draw.

‘I earlier noticed him sketching the St Thomas memorial inside the transept,’ Edie explained.

‘A budding artist then.’

‘More like a budding con artist,’ she replied, lowering her voice to a whisper. ‘He refused to put pencil to paper for less than fifty bucks. Since we need an image in order to decipher the window, I agreed.’

The silent seconds ticked past. Cædmon anxiously checked his watch, hoping the young artist completed his masterpiece before the attendants herded them out.

‘What happens if we actually find the Ark?’ Edie asked, staring at the four-sided gold box in the glass panel.

That question again.

And still he didn’t have an answer. Only a mounting sense of excitement.

The Ark of the Covenant.

Truly the stuff of dreams.

Having yet to utter a word, the artist ripped the sheet from his pad. Paper in hand, he walked over to where they stood and silently handed Edie the drawing he’d made. She in turn handed him a small wad of American bills. Transaction concluded, she politely thanked him for his services.

‘This better be worth fifty dollars,’ she muttered under her breath as William wordlessly took his leave.

Cædmon examined the drawing, pleased with the result. ‘I’d say it’s bang on.’ Thrilled that all was going so well, he unthinkingly said the first thing that came into his mind. ‘Fancy a quick bonk?’

Her eyes opened wide. ‘What? Here? In the middle of Canterbury cathedral?’

‘We passed a dimly lit niche on the other side of the choir earlier on.’

‘Are you crazy? In case you haven’t noticed, O horny one, we’re in a church.’

This being the stuff of fantasies, he smiled. ‘Nothing the Almighty hasn’t seen countless times before. Come on, Edie. Surely you can spare me a moment of your time?’

‘Not with all the angels and saints watching from on high, I can’t.’ She glanced pointedly at a haloed figure in a nearby stained-glass panel. ‘But just so you don’t think me a complete killjoy, I might be amenable to a bonk in a hotel room.’

Cædmon grabbed her by the hand and dragged her towards the nearest exit. ‘We passed a guest house on Mercery Lane. If we hurry, we can be between the sheets within the half-hour.’