The Lost Book of the Grail
Charlie Lovett
I
THE LADY CHAPEL
The Lady Chapel, at the east end of the cathedral beyond the high altar, once housed the shrine of St. Ewolda, founder of the Saxon monastery on which the cathedral was built. The shrine was pulled down during the Reformation, and for over five hundred years a simple black stone cross in the floor marked its location. Little is known of Ewolda beyond a brief mention by the Venerable Bede: “On the twelfth of October is the feast of the martyr Saint Ewolda, who converted the kingdom of Barsyt and founded a monastery there. With the sacrifice of her life she kept the light of Christ burning in that place.”
February 7, 1941, Barchester
Barchester was not equipped with air-raid sirens, being both beyond the range of German bombers and of no strategic value—but bomber squadrons could become lost on nights when fog unexpectedly blanketed the south of England, and while the emergence of a cathedral spire from that fog might confirm to the navigator that he was too far off course to return home safely, to the bombardier it would recall the words of the commanding officer: “Some target is better than no target.” And so Edward was woken from his dreams not by sirens but by shouts and the blaring of car horns and a roaring overhead that grew louder every minute.
His brother’s bed was empty, and when he had pulled on some clothes and emerged from his room, he found no one else in the house. A sudden flash of light was followed by an explosion, and in an instant Edward was covered with glass, his ears ringing so loudly that for a moment they drowned out all other sound. Being nine years old hadn’t kept him from reading the papers and listening to the wireless—he knew what had been happening in London. His parents had told him Barchester was safe from air raids; obviously, they had been wrong. Edward stumbled to the front door and flung it open. Across the street, the Greshams’ house was a blazing pile of rubble. He heard screams and cries from all directions and was just about to add his own to the raucous cacophony when he saw a familiar face and felt a hand on his arm.
“Edward, are you all right? Your parents asked me to look in on you.”
“Quite all right, sir,” said Edward, for whom the presence of his neighbor and choirmaster was exactly what he needed to steel his nerves and change his outlook from fear to determination. “What can I do to help?”
“Come with me,” said Mr. Grantly.
“Where are we going?”
“To the library.”
By the time they reached the cathedral precincts, four other members of the choir had joined them—two older boys, and two of the vicars choral, the men who sang the tenor and bass parts. Orange light outlined the spire of the cathedral and as they ran toward the cloister the source became apparent—a raging fire at the east end. Edward could hardly see through the smoke, but it looked as if the Lady Chapel, in which the choir often practiced, was at the center of the blaze.
Mr. Grantly allowed no time for gawking, however, and the musicians quickly made their way through the cloister and up the winding stone stairs to the library, lit only by the flames that flickered outside the windows.
“The fire could reach here any minute,” said Mr. Grantly. “We need to save as much as we can. Start with these manuscripts.”
Edward had never had occasion to visit the cathedral library, but there was no time to admire the cases of ancient books that glowed in the light of the fire. He reached up and took hold of a vellum-bound manuscript on the shelf in front of him. It was not a huge volume—larger than his schoolbooks, but not as large as the family Bible—yet it felt weighted with mystery. He had just settled the book in his arms and was turning to go when it jerked out of his hands. He reached out to keep it from falling to the floor, only to find the ancient tome floating in midair. It must be a magic book, he thought, watching transfixed as it swayed in front of him, its pages illuminated by the orange light.
Edward loved languages. He had already learned a lot of Latin and a smattering of Old English, but even though he caught only a glimpse of them, the words before him made no sense. The letters were what he expected from Medieval Latin, but the combinations in which they filled the page were meaningless. Each word was the same length, and Edward was just thinking that perhaps all magical incantations came in words of exactly nine letters when a desperate voice rang out next to him.
“How do we get them loose?” asked one of the vicars choral. Edward realized that the volume he had been holding was not hovering in the air through some enchantment but hanging from a chain that connected it to the shelf. Each of the manuscripts in the case before him, he saw, was similarly chained.
“The librarian keeps the key in his lodgings,” said the other vicar choral. “But he’s gone to Wells to visit his mother.” Suddenly there was a crashing sound as one of the high windows burst inward and glass rained down upon a library table.
“There’s no time,” said Mr. Grantly. “Tear off the covers.”
The man next to Edward grabbed the chain of the dangling manuscript in one hand and the book in the other. With a loud grunt, he rent the two apart, leaving the manuscript’s front cover hanging by its chain. He thrust the volume at Edward, who clasped it to his chest. As the vicar choral pulled the next manuscript off the shelf, Edward ran for the exit, winding down the stairs until he stumbled into the cloister. He saw that Mr. Grantly, who had dashed down the steps ahead of him, had already begun a pile of books near the yew tree on the far side of the cloister, but the volume Edward held seemed too important to merely cast onto the heap. He crept into the darkest corner of the cloister and laid the book in a niche in the stone wall. He stood breathing heavily for a few seconds, then dashed back to the library.