The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  “Sit down. Jason, isn't it? Good. Relax, Jason. You too, Carver, for heaven’s sake, don't stand there, take your coats off and make yourselves comfortable.”

  When they were seated, Fr Cunningham returned to the chair he had been sitting in and was just shifting his bulk into position when he sprang up again. “Gracious, me. Where are my manners? Would either of you like a drink? I have some very nice sherry, here. Or some port, if it’s not too early for you.”

  “Sherry would be fine, John, thank you.”

  “And you, Jason?”

  “Ahh, no, thank you, it’s a little early for me.”

  “I know. How about a beer? I have some Old Speckled Hen in the fridge, here.”

  Offering a smile and a nod, Jason said “Thanks, I could do a beer. That would be great.”

  A few minutes later, crystal glasses filled with ruby and gold liquid had been passed around and Fr Cunningham had settled back into his chair. Taking an appreciative sip from his sherry, he sat the glass on a small table next to his chair and stared at Jason. “Now, tell me what it is you want to know about the Ark.”

  “Anything you can tell me, really. I mean, I know that Moses had it built to hold the Ten Commandments and that it was kept in Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem for a long time and that it finally disappeared, but that’s about all, really.”

  “Then let me start at the beginning and give you some background. Then we can move on to the particulars. Is that all right?”

  “Yeah, fine. I appreciate anything you can tell me.”

  “Well, according to the Book of Exodus, chapter 25...verses 10 through 15, I believe, the Ark was made of acacia wood and covered with beaten gold. Its dimensions were one-and-a-half cubits high, one-and-a-half cubits wide and two-and-a-half cubits in length; a cubit being the distance from a man's elbow to his fingertips, so think of it as about twenty inches. On the lid of the Ark there were supposedly statues of kneeling angels with their wings either upraised, or tilted forward so they pointed toward each other. The space between the angels was known as the Mercy Seat, and was supposedly the throne of God when He visited the temple to speak to His people. Presumably, The Lord's presence was always known to the people and the High Priests because there appeared above the Mercy Seat a glow, or a shimmering light, or something similar; and this was known as the Schechinah.

  “The original purpose of the Ark was presumably to hold the Ten Commandments. We assume this to have been true, because in Exodus 25, verse 16, God tells Moses "Thou shalt put into the Ark the testimony which I shall give thee". This information is again repeated in Exodus, chapter 40, verses 1 and 2, and we can suppose that the reference to ‘the testimony’ indicates the Tablets of the Law, known as the Ten Commandments. But you already know this much.” Cunningham waved one hand through the air as though erasing his words. “However, along with the tablets, other items of the utmost religious significance were also supposedly kept there, but we can get to that later.”

  Jason really wanted to know what these other items might have been, and if somewhere among them were the keys to good and evil that the Lady of the Lake had told them about. But he was already so enthralled by this encyclopedic knowledge of ancient Hebrew lore that he managed to keep his questions to himself. Because he considered this part of the story to be legitimate history, even Carver Daniels was leaning forward in rapt attention.

  Warming to his subject, Fr Cunningham shifted deeper into his chair and continued. “After The Hebrews ended their wanderings and King Solomon had built his great temple, the Ark was kept in the area known as The Holy of Holies, a place forbidden to all but the High Priests. Sadly, the Ark, along with numerous other religious treasures, disappeared when the Egyptians, under Pharaoh Shoshenk I - the first ruler of the twenty-second dynasty, who is incorrectly referred to in the first Book of Kings as Pharaoh Shishak - sacked the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and carried away all the treasures as war booty. Accounts of the sack of Jerusalem are given both in First Kings, chapter fourteen and Chronicles chapter twelve. According to the Egyptian records this would have taken place around 928 or 927 BC, only a few years after Solomon's death and the subsequent division of his Kingdom into two parts, Israel and Judah.

  “The temple was eventually rebuilt, but nearly three centuries later, Israel was again conquered, this time by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar the second, and the temple was completely destroyed and the Hebrews were driven into exile where they remained for nearly five centuries. The point is that the Ark and the other treasures must have been long gone by the time of the Babylonian conquest because there is no record of their ever having been recovered from the Egyptians, or having been seized later during the Babylonian invasion.” Cunningham smiled and let out a huge sigh. “Now that we have established the background of the story, what precisely, was it that you wanted to know?”

  Jason's head was already spinning. He didn't know how he was going to remember all this and relay it to Merlin and Beverley, let alone how he was going to remember any additional information. Still, he pressed ahead, putting his questions into some kind of chronological order.

  “So...the ark was built at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, and…”

  Father Cunningham smiled an enigmatic smile, held up an index finger, and interrupted him. “Supposedly. However, it’s also possible that it was stolen out of Egypt.”

  “You mean the Hebrews might have built it earlier and then taken it with them?”

  “No. Not exactly. You see, Jason, the Hebrews had no previous history of using arks, but the Egyptians did. They were kept in the temples of the gods to hold religious objects in the same way the Hebrews used theirs later on. It’s even possible that the Hebrews picked up the custom of using an ark as a part of their temple furnishings from the Egyptians. Here, let me show you.”

  Pushing himself up from his chair, the priest stepped toward a large book shelf standing along one wall of the room, his eyes following his index finger as it searched along one of the shelves. When he located what he was looking for, he pulled a massive, leather bound volume from a shelf and began thumbing through it on his way back to the fire. By the time he reached his chair, he had found what he was looking for and handed the book to Jason before taking his seat. “There. That gives you examples of an Egyptian ark as well as the Ark of the Covenant.”

  The heavy volume was a religious encyclopedia laid open to one of the first pages under 'A'. In the entry dealing with Arks, were two illustrations. The first, obviously a 19th century engraving of the Ark of the Covenant, showed a rectangular box with paneled sides. Along the bottom of each long side was a carrying pole inserted through two rings. Surmounting the lid were the figures of two kneeling angels, leaning forward in prayer, their wings upraised and tilted forward until they nearly met. The second picture was a simple line drawing that had apparently been copied from an ancient Egyptian painting or temple carving. Here, two hawks - representing the god Horus - stood on a rectangular box, their wings awkwardly stretched forward and upward, reaching toward each other across the top of the ark. Between their wings was a circle, described in the caption as being a representation of the disc of the sun god, Amun-Ra.

  “So,” Jason said, still staring at the pictures, “has anyone ever discovered one of these Egyptian arks?” Vaguely, in the distance, he heard the priest say that he was not aware of any which had come to light, but his mind was elsewhere -specifically on the words of the Lady of the Lake who had described the figures on the Ark as being birds rather than angels. Maybe she's right; maybe they were birds after all. Maybe the Jews stole the thing and re-carved them to look like angels. It was, of course, not the sort of thing one said to a priest, even one as obviously liberal as Fr John Cunningham.

  “...but then again, there is nothing to say that one won't eventually be discovered. As an archaeologist yourself, you know there are always new finds coming to light. As for the Ark itself, after nearly three thousand years...”
Fr Cunningham shrugged in resignation and then leaned forward to take the closed book from Jason's hands.

  “Yeah, it is kind of a long time for something to remain lost and still expect it to turn up, isn't it?”

  Father John's round stomach bounced with suppressed laughter. “Indeed it is, Jason.”

  “It would be impressive if it did, though.” Jason was just making conversation to fill time till he got around to the real reason he was here.

  “My son, even if it were found tomorrow, and was duly authenticated by every recognized archaeologist in the world, there is no reason to suppose that the Church, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Anglican Church or even the Jewish authorities in Israel, would ever recognize it as being the real Ark of the Covenant.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Because the foundation of the church rests on faith, not on scientific proof. Even the shroud of Turin has never been claimed as being the actual burial cloth of our Lord. Or as being any other kind of holy object, for that matter.”

  “Why?”

  “Because to do so would remove the element of faith in religion and replace it with hard facts. Belief in God is all about faith taking precedent over fact.”

  “But wouldn't that strengthen the church's position? You know, like, get more people to believe.”

  “Possibly, possibly not. Let me give you an example. In the 1190s, the monks at Glastonbury Abbey discovered an ancient Celtic tomb containing the bodies of a man and woman, and judging by their jewelry, they were obviously of high social rank. Well, the monks immediately claimed them to be the bodies of King Arthur and Guinevere and moved Arthur's body into the abbey church and placed it in a massive black marble shrine. Over the years, the shrine made them a lot of money in the form of gifts left by pilgrims. But the fact is, it couldn't have been Arthur because he was probably not even a real person. Even if he was, it’s highly unlikely that he would have been conveniently buried inside the abbey precinct.”

  Oh, he was very real, alright. You might not know it, but I do and so does a friend of mine.

  “...and that’s only one example. In the middle ages there were two heads of St John the Baptist held in different churches, one in Spain and one in Italy. The official Vatican line was that one was the head of St John as a young man, the other the head from the time John was executed on the order of King Herod. It sounds absurd, I know, but such things were common during the middle ages. They called it ‘the miraculous multiplication of relics’. Since then, the church has become a lot more circumspect in making claims for miraculous objects and events. It’s largely a matter of self-protection, you understand?”

  “Yeah, I can see that. But…um… back to the Ark.” Finally, Jason was going to bring the conversation around to where he wanted it. “What all might have been kept inside it? Beside the tablets with the Ten Commandments, I mean?”

  “Of course, we don't know, exactly, but presumably many of the sacred objects of worship used by the High Priests. Probably the apron, or breast plate, that they wore when performing their official duties. This apron supposedly was decorated with twelve great jewels, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel.”

  “Was there anything there that might have had to do with controlling good and evil, like keys, or something?”

  “Ahh, you’re referring to the Urim and Thummim.”

  “The what?”

  “Urim and Thummim. No one even knows with any certainty what they really were. They are only mentioned once in the Old Testament; in the book of Exodus, chapter 28, verse 30, where their function is vaguely described. It would seem that they were worn inside, or underneath, the High Priest's apron - referred to as the ‘breastplate of judgment’ - during special ceremonies and they supposedly gave the priest the unfailing ability to divine between good and evil, or between truth and lie, or something to that effect. The only other reference to them that I know of is in one of the Dead Sea scrolls.” Here, Fr John paused, staring into the distance, seeking just the right bit of information from the warehouse of arcane facts tucked away under the tousled yellow hair. “Scroll number 4Q376, if I'm not mistaken…but don’t quote me on that one. In the scrolls the Urim and Thummim are said to have been carried ahead of a newly consecrated priest in a ceremony known as the ‘Ritual of Three Flames’.”

  “What, exactly, did these Urim and Thummim things do? I mean, how did they work?”

  “The only thing we really know about them is what can be gleaned from the translation of their names. In the ancient Hebraic language, Urim means either 'truth' or 'light' and Thummim means 'perfection' or 'completeness'. Combine the two and you have something like 'the light of perfect truth', which is also a phrase they used to describe the Schechinah which I mentioned earlier.”

  Jason said “The light that appeared above the Ark of the Covenant, right?”

  “Correct. But we are still left with the fact that there is no mention of what the Urim and Thummim really were.”

  “And nobody has any idea?”

  The priest gave a great sigh, his stomach swelling and collapsing with the effort. “There are a lot of guesses but that’s all they are, guesses. Understand the Urim and Thummim occupy a key position in the history of religious myth. Their provenance is intriguing but it is very incomplete. The most accepted explanation is that they were some kind of jewels, like those on the breastplate of judgment. Some believe they were made of sardonyx, a semi-precious stone comprised of sard and white chalcedony. A thousand years BC - the period we are talking about - sardonyx was considered more precious than gold or sapphires, so from the standpoint of sheer rarity, this theory would make sense.”

  “That's it then, they were just stones?”

  “Not entirely. There is also a theory that on the back of the gems were carved two of the secret names of God, or Yahweh, the old Hebrew name for God. Supposedly, the Urim had a forty-two letter version of one of His secret names and the Thummim bore a seventy-two letter version of another. But this is all just speculation, Jason. No one really knows what they might have been, or what happened to them.”

  “Well then, just supposing that they, and the Ark, did exist. What are the best theories as to what might have happened to them?”

  “I fear, John, that our Mr Carpenter may have been watching too many supposed documentary programs on the telly.” It was the first time Carver Daniels had spoken in more than an hour and a half. Although there was obvious criticism in his words, his tone of voice was playful.

  “Ahh, I see. Well, so long as we approach it from the angle of pure speculation and legend,” Fr Cunningham looked at Dr Daniels, who nodded his head with limited approval. “There are two prevailing theories, neither of which quite fits the historical facts. The nearest we have to historical reality is that the Ark may have been looted by the Egyptians when they attacked Israel and sacked Solomon's temple around 950 BC. If this is true, then chances are it, along with all of its contents, found their way into the Pharaoh’s treasury where its gold covering would probably have been stripped off and melted down. Of course, if the Ark had originally been stolen from Egypt by the Hebrews then it could have been restored to an Egyptian temple. In either case it would have simply vanished from history.

  “On the purely speculative side, one theory has it that sometime shortly before the end of his reign, King Solomon was visited by a prince of Sheba named Menelik, who was supposedly Solomon’s son by the Queen of Sheba, with whom he had had a liaison some twenty, or twenty-five years earlier. This story says that Solomon gave the Ark to his son to take back to Sheba. Why he would do a thing like that, I cannot possibly imagine. Certainly there is no evidence that he had converted the Shebans to Judaism and it would have been a great sacrilege to have given the holiest objects in the Hebrew world to a pagan.

  “The other theory - and this is even more incredible than the first - is that during the crusades the Knight's Templars discovered the Ark among the ruins of Solomon's temp
le and removed it themselves to what was then called Nubia. You understand, Sheba and Nubia were both names given to what we call Ethiopia, at different periods of history. Again, why the Templars would have done that is anybody's guess. Like most conquering armies the Templars were greedy. If they were going to remove it from Jerusalem it would have likely been taken to one of their own treasuries in Europe, or given to the Holy See in Rome as a gift.”

  Jason offered a lop-sided smile. “I guess if they had sent it to Rome it would have made quite an impression on the Pope.” Fr Cunningham laughed, nodding his head in agreement, but before he could answer, Jason continued with his questioning. “So why all this connection with Ethiopia?”

  “As I’m sure you already know, a lot of people believe that the Ark of the Covenant has been kept there for centuries, if not millennia.”

  “Where there?”

  “Supposedly in the Church of St Mary's in the town of Axum.”

  Jason had heard something that sounded like Axum recently. What was it? Merlin. What had Merlin said? Axumia. “Axum. Is that something like Axumia?”

  “I’m duly impressed, Mr Carpenter. That’s a very obscure reference, congratulations. Axumia was another name for Ethiopia, the name the Roman's used for it from about 100 BC through 400 or 450 AD. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just something I heard somebody say.”

  “It must have been a pretty well versed somebody to know Axumia.”

  “Oh, yes. Very well versed.”

  “Be that as it may, as I was saying, the Bishops of Axum, who are members of the Coptic Church, have claimed for centuries that they were entrusted with the safekeeping of the Ark. Certainly the Ethiopian Coptic Church is one of the oldest established Christian communities in the world - supposedly founded by St Mark - and Ethiopia is one of the few countries which has never been taken over by an invading army. But the chances of something like the Ark having ever come to be there, let alone surviving all these thousands of years, is pretty slim.”