The Lost Book of the Grail

by Charlie Lovett

  “I wish I could have your faith. I wish I weren’t so weighed down by reason.”

  “Faith doesn’t replace reason, Arthur,” said Bethany. “Faith begins where reason leaves off.”

  “I think you may be the wisest person I know.”

  “You’re welcome at that Communion rail with doubt, Arthur—just not with cynicism. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about you these last few weeks, it’s that you may be a bit gruff on the outside, but you’re no cynic. Now, the prelude is starting, and if I don’t have the service and the music and my belief and my doubt to distract me for the next hour, I’m going to go batshit crazy waiting to get into that crypt.” She took his hand and added, “And I’d really like to be sitting in there with the man I love.”

  Arthur swallowed hard and followed her into the cathedral.

  —

  When the time came to take Communion, Bethany nudged Arthur and whispered, “Try believing, Arthur, it’s not so horrible.”

  The men of the choir were chanting the “Ecce Panis Angelorum,” a hymn written by Thomas Aquinas for Corpus Christi. Though this Roman Catholic piece was not traditionally part of the Anglican service, the precentor, Arthur knew, was always pleased to have an opportunity for a little Anglo-Catholicism. The music felt more ancient than any sound Arthur could imagine, yet he knew it dated only from the eleventh century. Ewolda’s monastery had already been five hundred years old when this Gregorian chant was written. He knelt at the altar rail, a sense, both comforting and terrifying, of the incomprehensible span of history enveloping him. How many thousands had knelt in this spot over the centuries and believed as they received Communion? What was the trickle of his doubt against that flood of faith? Even as Bethany, kneeling beside him, raised her hands to receive the Host, he was not sure what he would do. Yes, he doubted the nature of the Eucharist, but he also respected it. He was deeply moved by what it meant to those around him. As the dean stepped in front of Arthur, he looked up at her in the white vestments of this festival day that commemorated the very rite being performed. Gwyn smiled at him and waited silently, unmoving. Slowly Arthur raised his open palms toward her, but he simply could not force them into the proper attitude. His hands, almost of their own volition, it seemed, crossed over his chest, and he bowed his head as Gwyn made the sign of the cross in front of him, whispering, “May God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless you and keep you.” Maybe next time, Arthur thought. Maybe by then God would forgive him his doubts. As he walked back toward the pew, he felt Bethany’s hand slip into his and there was one thing about which he suddenly had no doubt.

  “I’m proud of you, Arthur,” she whispered as they slid back into the pew. And then, like her, Arthur knelt and prayed.

  —

  Only Arthur attended Compline. They thought it would look suspicious if all four of them suddenly showed up for a service they were not in the habit of attending, so Oscar, David, and Bethany agreed to meet Arthur in the south transept at ten o’clock, leaving plenty of time for the precentor, who was leading Compline that night, to make himself scarce. They had gone their separate ways for dinner. David had a date he didn’t want to cancel. Arthur dined at home alone. Bethany, eager to ring back her contacts to check on the progress in obtaining the last group of key words, didn’t eat at all. Oscar actually had an appointment for dinner with the dean to advise her on tomorrow’s vote about selling the manuscripts.

  “Are you going to tell her what we’ve found out?” Bethany had asked.

  “Not yet,” said Arthur. “Don’t tell her yet. If we find what we’re hoping to find tonight, we can go and roust her out of bed, but I . . . I’m too fond of Gwyn to get her hopes up.” Arthur had been embarrassed to admit his affection for Gwyn in front of Bethany, but she had squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek as if his capability for fondness made him that much more lovable.

  At Compline, Arthur had scrupulously avoided eye contact with the precentor. He felt as if his body glowed with conspiracy. How the precentor could be alone with him, for they were the only two in attendance, and not see guilt and treachery oozing from his every pore Arthur did not know, especially when the precentor spoke the words, “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this night without sin,” to which Arthur responded, “O Lord, have mercy upon us.”

  “A very pleasant evening to you, Arthur,” said the precentor, shaking Arthur’s hand when the service had ended.

  “And to you, sir,” said Arthur.

  “May I leave you to extinguish the lights?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” said Arthur. He often remained behind in the chapel for a few minutes after Compline, so there was nothing unusual in this exchange, yet still Arthur felt the precentor was testing him. He sat for as long as he could bear after the sound of the precentor’s footsteps had died away, then finally looked at his watch. Nine forty. Twenty minutes to go. He knelt and repeated the simple prayer he had whispered after returning to the pew from the altar rail earlier that evening.

  Lord, may our actions tonight preserve and protect this holy place and all its treasures.

  At five till ten, he blew out all but one of the candles, taking the last one with him to light the way to the south transept. Before leaving the chapel, he reached behind the altar and retrieved a book of matches kept there for lighting candles. Who knew what ancient wind might blow on his candle before the night was over.

  Ten minutes later, the four conspirators stood next to a small wooden-and-iron door in a corner of the retrochoir, behind the main altar. They carried what looked like a fairly useless set of tools. Arthur had a Swiss Army knife, Oscar a garden trowel, and David a long bread knife, which he now pulled out of his coat.

  “What the hell is that for?” asked Oscar. “Do you think the crypt is made of wholemeal?”

  “I don’t know,” said David. “We agreed to bring tools, and I don’t have any tools, so I brought this. Besides, you look like you’re off to plant tulips.”

  “Enough, you two,” said Bethany. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it.”

  “I’ve never been down there,” said David as Oscar pulled the door slowly open. A loud creak, magnified by the stones around them, seemed to push them away from the entrance, as if history itself were trying to repel them.

  “Oscar and I went down about a year ago,” said Arthur, shivering as a blast of cold air came through the open door. “When I was working on the guidebook.” The crypt was not open to tourists, and as they descended the uneven stone steps, it was easy to understand why.

  Oscar went first with a torch. David followed, then Bethany, who was using her cell phone to help light the way, and finally Arthur, who still held the candle he had taken after Compline. The dark seemed to swallow the three lights. The crypt smelled dank and the floor, when they reached it, felt slick underfoot. They found themselves in a low space, the ceiling of which was supported by squat Norman arches. Moisture glistened on the walls, which were black with the filth of centuries.

  “One arm of the crypt runs west directly under the quire aisle to the central tower,” said Oscar, “and then at the east end, where we are, the other arm extends in a cross almost the entire width of the chancel under the east wall. So the center of this wall, where the two sections intersect, should be directly under the great east window.”

  “And directly opposite anything underneath the Lady Chapel,” said Arthur.

  “Exactly,” said Oscar.

  “Well, let’s go,” said David.

  Oscar led the way as they ducked under one arch after another. Arthur reckoned the distance couldn’t be more than twenty yards, but it seemed to take forever until they passed into an even colder patch of air and realized they had reached the intersection. In three directions, the arches disappeared into blackness. Bethany slipped her fingers around Arthur’s. “This is creeping me out,” she whispered. “Are there . . . graves and s
tuff down here?”

  “No marked ones,” said Arthur.

  “So what are we looking for?” said David, stepping up to the wall.

  “Anything that looks like it was added later,” said Oscar. They stood in a line for a moment, staring at the wall, which looked only ancient, wet, and filthy.

  “Why do you suppose it’s so wet down here?” said Oscar.

  “Obviously because there is a sacred spring on the other side of this wall,” said Bethany.

  “Ever seen the crypt at Winchester?” said Arthur. “That place literally has a lake in it.”

  “Is this wall plastered?” said David. “I don’t see obvious joints between stones, but it’s so damp and dirty that I can’t tell if there’s some kind of finishing on it.”

  “It would be strange for a crypt, but not unheard of,” said Arthur.

  “But how do we . . . ,” began Oscar.

  “Oh, give me the trowel, Oscar,” said Bethany in an exasperated tone. “If it’s plaster and it’s this wet, we won’t be doing any harm scraping the stuff off.” She handed her phone to David, took the trowel from Oscar, and scraped it loudly across the wall. Even though the cathedral was empty and they were hidden away in the crypt, they had been whispering, and the noise of metal on stone seemed deafening—as if the space hadn’t heard a sound that loud for centuries, and was rolling it around out of curiosity. Three scrapes later, Bethany turned back to the men. “I’m surprised this stuff was even staying on the wall. It’s like mush it’s so wet.”

  Oscar pointed his torch over her shoulder and they saw three wide gouges about a quarter of an inch deep in the wall. The sodden plaster was easily coming off the surface. Twenty minutes later, with the aid of both trowel and bread knife, they had cleared the entire space within the central arch, and a pile of slick, wet plaster lay on the floor.

  “Looks like there are graves down here,” said David, pointing to a stone near the bottom of the deplastered wall. “There’s lettering.”

  “Hang on,” said Arthur, pulling out his knife. He knelt down in front of the wall, feeling the wet from the plaster soaking into the knees of his pants. With the long blade of the knife, he scraped out the residue from two lines of letters on the stone David had pointed to. “That’s odd,” he said.

  “What is it?” asked Bethany, peering over his shoulder. “What’s it say?”

  “It’s Latin,” said Arthur. “It translates, ‘Sacred to the Memory.’”

  “That’s not so odd,” said David. “A fairly standard sentiment on grave markers, I’d say.”

  “Yes,” said Arthur, “but it’s written upside down.”

  “This is it,” said Oscar excitedly. “This is a new wall. Or at least newer than the rest of the crypt. And it was put up in a hurry.”

  “What makes you say that?” said Bethany.

  “Look,” said Oscar. “Let’s say you are a monk here at Barchester and you get wind of the dissolution of the monasteries. You hear that the king’s commissioners are destroying all the shrines and desecrating the tombs of the saints. The most sacred thing in your cathedral is a spring, and you don’t particularly want the commissioners tossing the rubble from Ewolda’s shrine into this holy water. But you have an advantage over other cathedrals. Your sacred spring is not right behind the altar and covered with jewels like a typical shrine. It’s in the crypt. And if you build a wall quickly, and slap some plaster on it, you can hide it. So, if I am this monk and I want to build a wall, I grab whatever building materials are at hand, including old gravestones, and I don’t worry about whether I stick them in right side up or upside down.”

  “So you think this wall was built in the 1530s?” said David.

  “Think about it,” said Arthur. “The inventory and the coded manuscript were both prepared then. Barchester was one of the last monasteries to be dissolved. They had time.”

  “But weren’t the inventory and the manuscript from St. Ewolda’s up the river?” said Bethany.

  “Yes, but the monks of the two monasteries must have known each other. And they shared an interest in protecting Ewolda. There must have been a concerted effort to hide her relics and her story from the commissioners.”

  “So what do we do now?” said David. “Just come back in the morning with a little plastic explosive and blast our way through?”

  “If this wall was built hastily and it’s not actually supporting anything, it shouldn’t be that hard to take down,” said Oscar.

  “And we’re going to do that?” asked David. “We’re simply going to disassemble a five-hundred-year-old wall that’s part of a scheduled building. Isn’t that some sort of crime?”

  “No,” said Arthur, taking the trowel from Bethany and stepping toward the wall. “I’m going to hear a strange rumbling sound from the crypt as I’m leaving after Compline. I’m going to ring Oscar and we’re going to discover that a poorly built wall has collapsed due to moisture damage.”

  “Arthur, you don’t have a cell phone,” said David.

  “OK, I’ll say I went and fetched Oscar,” said Arthur, wedging the trowel into the thin space between two stones at the top of the wall. “These stones are loose. If we can pry one or two out, it will be easy to remove the rest.”

  “If it’s a wall that’s not really attached to anything,” said David, “why don’t we just shove it over?”

  “Because,” said Bethany, “we don’t want the sacred spring filled up with rubble any more than the medieval monks did.”

  “Let me see that bread knife,” said Oscar.

  “The bread knife you made fun of?” said David.

  “Oh, don’t be a baby,” said Oscar. “The mortar may be as damp as the plaster was, especially if the wall was never really made properly. A nice long bread knife might be just the thing to completely detach one of the stones.”

  Twenty minutes later, Oscar and Arthur had loosened or removed the mortar from three stones at the top of the wall, but the spaces between the stones were still too narrow to allow them to be pulled forward.

  “How are we going to get these things out of here?” said Oscar.

  “The frustrating thing is,” said Arthur, “that once we get the first stone out, we’ll be able to reach through and drag the rest forward without much trouble.”

  “So,” said David, stepping forward and making a show of rolling up his shirtsleeves, “we don’t push the whole wall over, but we do push one block through to the other side. There’s not much chance a single stone, especially if you pick a small one, will damage your alleged spring.”

  “What do you reckon?” said Oscar to Arthur.

  “Do it,” said Bethany.

  “We could come back down with an archaeological crew,” said Oscar.

  “The chapter is voting at nine a.m.,” said Bethany. “Are there a lot of archaeologists in Barchester who work nights, do you think? Do it!” She shouted these last two words not with anger but with excitement and as they still echoed in the gloomy chamber, David gave a strong shove to the smallest of the stones on which Oscar and Arthur had been working. It slid backward an inch or more.

  “Again,” said Bethany, stepping forward until she stood right at David’s shoulder.

  He shoved again and the stone moved another couple of inches.

  “Again,” said Oscar, Arthur, and Bethany in chorus.

  David gave the stone a final shove and it slid from its place into the darkness beyond. The floor shook as the stone thudded to the ground on the other side of the wall. For a moment they all stood in silence, until Arthur realized it wasn’t silence.

  “Do you hear that?” he whispered.

  They held their collective breath and the sound was quite clear, tinkling in the dark chamber beyond the wall.

  “Water,” said Bethany. “Running water.”

  “Running water,” sa
id Arthur. “The sacred spring.”

  “Holy mother of God,” said David. “I thought this whole thing was just . . .”

  “It’s real,” whispered Bethany reverently, once again slipping her hand into Arthur’s.

  “It sounds real, anyway,” said Arthur. “But we still have a lot of stones to move before we can get in there and take a look.”

  Removing stones, even poorly mortared stones, from a wall in which they had sat for half a millennium was not as easy as they had hoped, and it was nearly two hours later when, filthy and wet, their hands scraped and bleeding, they finally stood in front of a hole big enough to climb through. The sound of running water now echoed clearly throughout the crypt, but their efforts to peer into the blackness on the other side of the wall had revealed little.

  “You go first,” said Oscar to Arthur, handing him the torch. “This is your quest most of all.”

  “OK,” said Arthur, “but not with this.” He handed the torch back to Oscar and picked up his candle from the floor. It had blown out soon after they started working on the wall, but Arthur withdrew the matches from his pocket and relit it. “If no one has been in there since 1539, I think candlelight is appropriate.”

  Bethany held the candle for Arthur as he climbed through the hole they had opened in the wall, then handed it through to him. “Be careful,” she whispered.

  Arthur turned and looked into the darkness. He took a step. And then another. Still he could see nothing ahead but blackness. He was not in a wide continuation of the main east-west arm of the crypt, he realized, as he stopped and held the candle first to one side and then the other, but in a passage about eight feet across with a roof slightly lower than the one in the main crypt. Yet the sound of water became louder as he slowly moved east, and after a few more tentative steps he felt the air suddenly change. It felt purer, and he took a deep breath. Moving the candle around, he saw he had emerged into a large chamber. The ceiling was no longer visible by the light of his candle, nor were the walls. The antepassage, he realized, was the reason they couldn’t see anything by peering through the wall.