“Even if it’s wasted time, I’d still like to hear it.” And so Bethany read.
It begins with a field of sheep, tended carefully from the time they are lambs, shorn of their wool and slaughtered not just to provide meat for the village, but to make a great book. A hundred sheep hides are soaked in lime to soften the skin and loosen the hair, scraped clean, and dried on frames. Cut into rectangles, what was once a sheep is now parchment—soft and flexible, durable for centuries, and easily bound. But not yet. Now the scribe takes over. He has labored for years copying manuscripts in the light of the cloister, perhaps saving works that might otherwise have been lost to time. He “pounces” the parchment, rubbing it with a small stone to achieve the right texture for the adhering of the ink. Then he carefully rules faint lines in red ink to guide him in writing evenly. A young monk has brought swan feathers gathered at the nearby river, and the scribe cuts one of these to make his pen. He has mixed his own ink, using a combination of charcoal and gum arabic. It is an ancient recipe, one he understands better than the iron gall ink used by the younger scribes. He dips the pen in the ink and begins his task—he is copying a Gospel of John. The quill scratching on the vellum and the birds in the yew tree are the only sounds that disturb the silence of the cloister. Days, weeks, and months pass and the scribe scratches away, as many hours a day as the sunlight allows. At other, wealthier monasteries he might pass the pages to an illuminator, who would decorate capital letters and add illustrations using colored ink and even gold. But Barchester can afford no such luxuries. And so the manuscript is at last delivered to the binder, who cleans any stray smudges from the parchment, sews the gatherings of pages onto bands of fabric, and then into wooden covers wrapped in parchment. The new Gospel of John is complete, and at the next day’s service a priest will read from the pristine pages, “In principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum.”
“What do you think?” said Arthur.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Bethany, “but you can’t put it in the guidebook. The library isn’t even open to tourists.”
“Maybe it should be,” said Arthur.
Bethany stood up to stretch and glanced at the clock on her computer. “Arthur, it’s almost three A.M.,” she said. “You should get some sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” said Arthur, “I’m . . . what do you Americans call it? I’m on a roll. But I need to check something.”
“OK, what book can I bring you?”
“Not in a book, in the cathedral.”
“I am not going into the cathedral by myself at three o’clock in the morning,” said Bethany.
“I know,” said Arthur. “We’re going together.”
Arthur took a key from the top drawer of Oscar’s desk and led Bethany down the winding library stairs and into the cloister. A pale moon shone overhead, giving just enough light for them to find their way to the south transept door, where Arthur fiddled with the keys in the darkness for a moment before he heard a click in the lock. He pushed and the door creaked open. They peered into blackness, feeling a slight flow of air from the cathedral. The bell tolled three times. When the final hour had died in the night, Bethany took a small step forward.
“It’s pitch-dark in there,” she said. “I have a flashlight on my phone.”
“That’s hardly the thing for wandering round a cathedral in the dead of night,” said Arthur. “Luckily the key isn’t the only thing I borrowed from Oscar’s desk.” He withdrew a partially burned altar candle from his pocket along with a packet of matches from the Indian restaurant in the High Street. In a moment a warm yellow light illuminated the doorway.
“Oscar keeps candles in his desk?”
“We’ve been known to have a power cut now and then,” said Arthur. They stepped into the transept and Arthur shut the door behind them. The darkness above and around them seemed to suck the light from the candle. After only a few steps they could see neither walls nor ceiling, which made the cathedral feel even more cavernous than it was.
“This is spooky,” said Bethany, slipping her hand into the crook of Arthur’s arm.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” said Arthur, leading her toward the quire. “I’ve never been in here quite this deep into the night, but it’s . . . mystical.” It was just the word Arthur was searching for. He always felt moved when he entered the cathedral—such a space, with its soaring vaults and ancient arches, could never seem commonplace to him. But he usually felt the history of the building—from the Saxons to the Normans, from one bishop to the next, from the Reformation to the Civil War—the wonder of Barchester Cathedral to Arthur was the way it connected him to a thousand years of the past. Tonight’s feeling was different. Tonight the cathedral felt mysterious and laden with . . . well, Arthur supposed, laden with religion. In his unbelief, he thought much more about the political and artistic history of the cathedral than about the fact that for more than a millennium, people of faith had poured forth that faith on this spot. Tonight, Arthur felt as if he were swimming in a pool of that ancient belief.
In the quire, the huge stained glass window above the denuded altar screen admitted the merest hint of moonlight. Arthur walked away from the high altar toward the rood screen, stopping just before they passed under the organ to step up into a short pew that faced the altar.
“What are we looking for?” said Bethany. Around them the candlelight provided glimpses of grotesque carvings—griffins and trees with “green man” faces peeking from the foliage, mermaids and batwinged men.
Arthur stopped in front of a pair of misericords. These “mercy seats” were ledges carved so that monks, required to stand for hours of services each day, could lean against them for some relief. They were hinged to create regular seats when lowered. Under each ledge was a decorative carving. Arthur held his candle low so they could see the figures. On the left was a woman with flowing, almost Pre-Raphaelite hair that extended out on either side of her head to support the misericord. It was an elaborate carving, especially considering that at the time it was carved, it was intended to stay hidden. By comparison, the image on the right was plain—a simple chalice with no markings.
“These were carved in the thirteenth century,” said Arthur.
“Is that the Grail?” said Bethany, leaning to take a closer look at the carving of the chalice.”
“It’s probably just a Communion vessel,” said Arthur.
“Wouldn’t a Communion vessel have a cross on it?”
“Usually.”
“And this is what you came to see?”
“No, I needed to copy down the wording on a memorial in the Epiphany Chapel.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
Arthur reached down and lowered each misericord to create two seats. “It seemed like a good place to have a chat.”