Stones of Fire

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.’