Ark of Fire

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by C. M. Palov


  “You heard me—strip off your clothes.” To ensure that the order was obeyed, the other man pulled aside his jacket lapel, revealing a holstered gun.

  Bang goes the smarty-smarty plan to use the nail file.

  There being nothing he could do but comply, Caedmon removed his anorak, dropping it onto the ground. Then, giving every indication that he was a man with nothing to hide, he toed off his right leather oxford, purposely kicking it in his escort’s direction.

  The subterfuge worked; his surrendered shoe warranted little more than a disinterested glance.

  As he divested himself of his garments, he noticed that the thick fog provided a surreal modicum of privacy.

  Naked, he stood before his captors. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt more vulnerable. “I know. I should probably be more diligent about my exercise regimen.”

  Neither man responded, although the one with the holstered weapon did reach inside his jacket pocket. Removing a dark length of fabric, he tossed it at Caedmon’s bare chest.

  “Put on the blindfold.”

  “Such measures seem a bit draconian, don’t you think?”

  Evidently not draconian enough; the other man’s response was quick and unpitying. Removing the gun from its holster, he stepped forward, smashing the revolver butt against the side of Caedmon’s head.

  A myriad splash of color, like a Jackson Pollock abstract, instantly flashed behind his eyes.

  An instant later, the colors bled together, turning a deep, dark inky shade of black.

  CHAPTER 61

  Lucidity still beyond his grasp, Caedmon shuffled into the room, clutching his wool jumper and various undergarments to his chest. 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, but his head hurt.

  “Caedmon! 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 the particulars 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.”

  Hearing her automatic reply proved that they were woven from the same piece of fabric.

  His vision clearing, he surveyed what was obviously the first floor of an old millhouse. All around him he saw solid eighteenth-century construction. Shuttered windows. Wood-planked floors. Thick stone walls. It was a prison from which there would be no escape, even if he could somehow disable his adversaries, of which he counted four. He wondered which of the quartet was responsible for the bruise on Edie’s cheek; any one of the brutes appeared capable of hitting a defenseless woman.

  “Caedmon, what did they do to you?” Edie worriedly inquired, barred from approaching by an older man who had a hand manacled around her upper arm.

  As though he were caught in one of those bizarre dreams in which he was naked and everyone else was fully clothed, he belatedly realized that while he was attired in 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, mirthlessly smiling. “I ordered them to go easy on you.”

  Assuming the gray-haired man to be none other than Stanford MacFarlane, Caedmon summoned an equally humorless smile. “No need to sound the alarm. Your boys merely tapped the claret.” He wiped his hand under his bloodied nostrils, his armed 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.”

  “Mmmm. I believe this is where I’m supposed to say, ‘I want my solicitor,’” he deadpanned.

  “First and foremost, where is the Ark of the Covenant?”

  Knowing that Edie’s life was very much at stake, he truthfully replied, “I have no idea. Although I’m certain that if we put on our team bonnets, we can uncover its location.”

  “That’s what the last scholar I enlisted said to me . . . right before his death.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Edie put a hand to her mouth, horrified. In truth, he felt a bit queasy himself at hearing of his predecessor’s demise.

  “I’m not a bloody psychic. I’m an academic. And as such, I must insist that you give logic a chance to put on its pants. That said, in my anorak pocket, you’ll find a sketched drawing which I believe may be of some interest.”

  Properly enticed, MacFarlane walked over to the thug in possession of his anorak. Removing two sheets of folded paper from the front pocket, he first examined the translated quartets, 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 know that the quatrains were not written by Galen of Godmersham.” MacFarlane’s head jerked, 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 the morsel for several seconds. “And what about St. Lawrence the Martyr?”

  “Another red herring,” Caedmon replied, suspecting the other scholar’s fate had been sealed with that particular mistranslation. “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 sketched drawing, 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 language structures are all jumbled together in that one seemingly innocuous drawing. Admittedly, it will take time to sort out the various strands.” Seeing the displeased expression 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?”

  “When I am sufficiently rested.” Caedmon stood his ground, knowing that if he didn’t, there would be precious few roots to cling to. Then, gesturing to Edie, he said, “We both require bed and board.”

  The added caveat was more for Edie’s sake than his own. He could see it in her strained expression; she was utterly exhausted. If an opportunity arose to escape, she would need to be sufficiently rested to turn opportunity to advantage.

  MacFarlane impatiently tapped his watch crystal. “If the Ark of the Covenant is not in my hands in sixteen hours’ time, I’ll kill the woman.”

  Although the proceedings had thus far proved civil, Caedmon 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 the controlled expression. “Behave like a guest and you’ll continue to be treated as such. Am I making myself clear?”

  “As a bell.”

  CHAPTER 62

  “I don’
t know about you, but I’ve had enough chips for one day,” Caedmon grumbled.

  “And guys with big guns and things that go bump in the night.” Edie squinted, there being only a small glimmer of light shining through the locked door. MacFarlane’s twisted idea of “bed and board” was a small storage closet and a couple of bags of soggy fries.

  “But on a bright note, we shall be lulled to sleep by the babbling brook that runs beneath the mill.”

  Edie made no reply; a damp chill oozed up from the floorboards on account of that same babbling brook. Already she could feel the ache in her joints.

  “By the by, I’ve got your metal nail file hidden under the insole of my shoe.”

  “I can top that . . . I’ve got a thousand dollars stuffed inside my boot. After the attack in Oxford, I was worried someone might steal the Virgin Air bag.” Her thoughts running every which way, she abruptly changed gears. “There’s something I need to tell you . . . I have intimate knowledge of Stanford MacFarlane.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Not that I have biblical knowledge of the man,” Edie quickly amended. “But I do know the heart of Stanford MacFarlane.”

  “And how is that?” There was no mistaking the interest in his voice.

  “My maternal grandfather was something of a religious zealot. If not cut from the same bolt of cloth as MacFarlane, Pops was certainly cut from a similar one.” She caustically laughed, the memory an unpleasant one. “My grandfather believed that freedom of religion extended only to other fundamental Christians.”

  “Being a young girl, I’m surprised that you weren’t, er—”

  “Indoctrinated? Having been raised by a mother who repeatedly told me that she would clean up her act, and who repeatedly failed to make good on the promise, made me a hard sell. Deep-seated trust issues, I suppose.” She readjusted her legs, the dark space a tight fit for the two of them. “Having sat through all those Sunday sermons, I know that men like my pops and Stanford MacFarlane lie awake at night, consumed with visions of a global theocracy.”

  She paused a moment, recalling the earlier one-on-one conversation. “Although I get the feeling that, unlike Pops, MacFarlane thinks of himself as some sort of Old Testament patriarch.”

  “One of those unsavory bastards who prays before the bloodletting, hmm?”

  Edie shuddered. “He’s probably praying as we speak.”

  Putting an arm around her shoulder, Caedmon pulled her close. “As long as there’s a chance of finding the Ark, you will be safe. MacFarlane knows that if he harms you in any way, I’ll refuse to comply with his wishes.”

  “You don’t actually trust him to keep his word, do you?”

  It being too dark in the closet for her to discern Caedmon’s features, she sensed rather than saw his sardonic smile.

  “In my experience, trusting one’s enemy is a fine art.”

  In the same way that she sensed the smile, Edie suddenly sensed its disappearance.

  “It’s my fault that you got dragged into this mess. I should never have agreed to—”

  Edie put a hand over his mouth, sshhing him. “Since meeting you at the National Gallery of Art, everything that I’ve done—and I mean everything—from coming to England to making love to riding in the back of that refrigerated truck, I’ve done of my own free will. We’re in this together, Caedmon. And don’t for one second think that we’re not. There was no way that either of us could have known they’d place a tracking device on me.”

  “Are you saying that the punch-up at the Covered Market was merely a feint? Bloody hell. I should have seen that one coming. From the onset, MacFarlane has remained one step ahead of me.”

  Hearing the self-recrimination in his voice, she thought a change of subject in order. “We now have less than sixteen hours to figure out the meaning of those two geese in the basket. All we know is that one of the geese represents Philippa.” She sighed, well aware that it was a very brief allotment of time. “I wish we knew more about Philippa. Other than the fact that she married Galen and she joined a nunnery, we’ve got precious few clues.”

  “The nunnery . . . that’s it. You, Edie Miller, are bloody beautiful!”

  Without warning, Caedmon began to loudly bang on the closet door with his balled fist.

  “What the hell’s goin’ on in there?” came a deep-throated voice on the other side of the locked door.

  “Tell MacFarlane that I know where the Ark is hidden.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Onward, Christian soldiers, Caedmon silently mused, realizing that each of the four armed men gathered around the table wore a Jerusalem cross ring on his right hand.

  “And you’re absolutely certain that the two geese depicted in the stained glass window will lead us to the Ark of the Covenant?” MacFarlane gestured to the Canterbury drawing that lay on the tabletop.

  Seated in front of a laptop computer, Caedmon stopped typing, taking a moment to glance at his adversary. He knew that he served but one purpose. Once he fulfilled that purpose, he would no longer be in a position to safeguard Edie.

  Surreptitiously, he glanced at the locked closet door on the far side of the room.

  Somehow he had to devise a suitable enticement, a bargaining chip, that he could use to garner Edie’s freedom. Until then, he would merely reveal enough to whet MacFarlane’s voracious appetite. But not so much that he lessened his overall worth. Stanford MacFarlane had to believe that without him, he would never find the Ark.

  “As I mentioned earlier, one of the geese symbolizes Philippa in her role as the good housewife to her husband, Galen of Godmersham. After Galen’s death, Philippa joined a nunnery, where she lived out her remaining days. With that in mind, I believe that the second goose also represents Philippa; nuns are often referred to as the bride of Christ. Or the good housewife of Christ, as it were.”

  MacFarlane took a moment to digest the crumb just tossed to him. “What does Galen’s widow being a nun have to do with anything?” he asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. He’d already been led down a false path by one man. Clearly, he was not about to venture forth without a proper road map.

  “It’s possible that Philippa took the Ark with her to the nunnery.” He jutted his chin at the Oxford University search engine that he’d pulled up on the Internet. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to find out which order Philippa joined. Although it may take some time, as there were scores of now-defunct religious orders active in the fourteenth century.”

  “Time is the one thing I’ve got in short supply.”

  As he waited for the search results, Caedmon couldn’t help but wonder at MacFarlane’s impatience to find the Ark. It made him think that the self-styled Warriors of God were operating under some sort of deadline.

  But a deadline for what?

  Though he was tantalized by the ancient mystery that had beguiled such luminaries as Newton and Freud, he was keenly aware that lives had been ruthlessly taken; MacFarlane’s obsession with the Ark knew no bounds.

  “Ah! We have a hit,” he announced, pointing to the computer screen. “According to a fourteenth-century document called the Regestrum Archiepiscopi—”

  “Can the Latin,” MacFarlane snarled.

  “Right.” Properly chastened, he decided to dumb down all relayed material. “What you are looking at is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s registry of nunneries compiled in the year 1350. That being two years after the plague, I suspect the archbishop was very keen to take a head count. Since most folk in the Middle Ages rarely traveled more than thirty miles from the place of their birth, I’ll first search for Philippa in the Kent listings.”

  As he scrolled the register, Caedmon knew that he was operating on nothing more than a strong hunch. A hunch that if proved wrong could have tragic results.

  “There she is,” he murmured. “Philippa, widowed wife of Galen of Godmersham, is listed as a member of the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the entry, she entered the nunnery with a dowry worth approxi
mately—”

  “Just tell me where the priory is located,” MacFarlane i nterrupted.

  “It is located in the hamlet of Swanley, southeast of London.”

  MacFarlane turned to the behemoth with the sutured head. “Pull it up on the GPS.”

  Using a small stylus that looked ridiculous in his oversized hand, the brute began pecking away on a handheld device.

  “I’ve got it. It’s at the intersection of highways M20 and M25,” he announced, passing the handheld computer to his superior.

  MacFarlane studied the computer-generated map. “You were right. Swanley is exactly thirty miles from Canterbury. Which means we can be there within the hour.”

  Caedmon vetoed the idea with a shake of the head. Knowing that MacFarlane was a man willing to punch above his own weight, he calmly pointed out the obvious. “If we traipse around a medieval priory in the middle of the night, we might very well be confronted by the local constabulary. Particularly if the nunnery is listed on the Heritage Trust. Given the delicate task at hand, we will be better aided by the light of day than the gloom of night.”

  MacFarlane stared at him, long and hard.

  “We hit the road at first light,” he said at last. Then, his gaze narrowing. “But if you’re thinking about sidestepping me like that li’l Harvard pencil dick, you think again, boy.”

  Although he took exception to being called “boy” Caedmon kept his ire in check. “Bear in mind that Swanley may simply be where we find the next clue.”

  “What are you saying, that this is going to turn into some sort of scavenger hunt?”

  “If you wish to hide a tree, you must hide it in a forest. We won’t know if the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the forest we seek until we can properly examine the site.”

  “Well, you better hope to God that it is the right forest.”

  At hearing that, Caedmon intuited what would happen should they not find the Ark. It was an intuition that involved slit throats and bodies buried at the low-water mark.

  CHAPTER 64

  Dawn arrived, damp and gray, the passenger windows on the Range Rover still ice-rimmed. The cold went right through Edie, causing her teeth to loudly clatter—though she suspected that fear had as much to do with her teeth clacking as the outside temperature.

 

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