“We can find treasures on our own,” said the Roundhead. “Now step aside, old man.”
“I shall not step aside,” said Laurence. He hoped once Wickart was clear of the cathedral precincts he would have no more trouble from the Roundheads, and there was no quicker way out of the precincts than through the cloister. In another minute, Wickart would be in the water meadows, making his way upstream toward the old monastic ruins in the deepening dusk. The Guardian would be safe.
“Do you see who I am, old man?” said the Roundhead. “I am master of this cathedral now, not you. You and your obscene chanting and your gaudy vestments and your popish ceremonies—you are past now. So step aside before I introduce you to my pike.”
He needed to stand his ground a little longer to keep Wickart safe, so Laurence did something he knew would draw both the attention and the ire of this invader. He began to chant the Nunc Dimittis:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all thy people;
To be a light for to lighten the Gentiles: and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Laurence got no further; he did not chant the Gloria Patri. The pike threw him against the wall of the cloister and tore into his flesh. He collapsed onto the paving stones and felt his blood pouring out. The Roundhead stepped into the center of the cloister and wiped his pike on the grass, then turned and walked back toward the cathedral. But Wickart and his precious cargo had escaped.
As he lay in the quiet of the cloister, Laurence thought he had picked the perfect canticle to chant—the Song of Simeon, an old man ready for death. Though he could not speak as the life ebbed out of him, in his mind he repeated the words. Just as the darkness was about to cover him, his peace was rent by a horrible thought: Canon Wickart might be safe, but he had no idea what he was protecting. The secret of Barchester’s greatest treasure was about to die in a corner of the cloister. And it did.
May 26, 2016
FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI
“Even if this works,” said Arthur as he placed the first page of the coded manuscript in the center of the table and pulled out several sheets of blank paper, “we still have the problem of the missing manuscripts. We only have about half the possible key words.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” said Bethany. “Just use the key words we do have and see if it works. And by the way, how does it work?”
Arthur pulled out the list of numbered possible key words Bethany and David had made. Next to each combination of numbers they had written two words—the first word on the leaf referenced by the number combination and the last word on that same leaf.
“OK, let’s see,” said Arthur, running his finger across the coded manuscript. “Here—this is the first numerical combination for which we have the key. He pointed to a string of letters reading ADUUFHDDR. DUU means XII and DD means XX. The rest of the letters are just trash, I think. So we look for manuscript number twelve and on leaf twenty we see our two possible key words. Corpus is the first word on the leaf, and Domine is the last word.”
“Try Corpus,” said Bethany. “We were just talking about it.”
“Right, so if Corpus is the key word, we create the cipher alphabet by writing the key word, then beginning the alphabet and leaving out any letters we have already used. Like this.” Arthur wrote out a series of letters on the blank paper.
C O R P U S A B D E F G H I J K L M N Q T V W X Y Z
“But I thought you said we were using the twenty-three-letter Latin alphabet,” said Bethany.
“That’s the alphabet we’re translating into,” said Arthur. “But if you look at the cipher text, you’ll see that those missing letters do turn up. See, there’s a J, and there’s a W down here. So now we write the shorter Latin alphabet under the cipher alphabet like this.” Arthur wrote another string of letters under the first, so that the two alphabets aligned with each other.
C O R P U S A B D E F G H I J K L M N Q T V W X Y Z
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z
“Now,” said Arthur, “the very first string of cipher text contains embedded Roman numerals, so I think the key unlocks the section of text that follows, not the one that precedes it. So here, where we found the combination twelve and twenty, we see three strings of cipher text before the next string with embedded numerals.” Arthur copied three strings onto the paper:
JLUMCURQF CMQJLCHIQ UGBCULUFD
“Now we find the cipher letter in the top alphabet, and change it to the corresponding letter in the lower alphabet.” Arthur quickly wrote a second series of letters under the first. “Hours of failure has made me pretty good at this part,” he said. The next strings of letters read:
PERSAECUL ASUPRANOV EMHAERELI
“And does that mean anything?” asked Bethany.
Arthur stared at the letters for a moment and then gave a loud “Ha!”
“It does mean something,” he nearly shouted. “See, in the middle there is the word supra and it starts out with per, so . . .” Arthur drew five vertical lines between pairs of letters and then read aloud: per saecula supra novem hae reli. That last word is a fragment—the rest must be in the next bit of cipher—but if we guess that it’s reliquiae it reads something like: ‘This holy relic for more than nine centuries.’”
“It works,” said Bethany, breathless.
“It works,” Arthur repeated, turning toward her. The two sat there for a moment, grinning like schoolchildren. Arthur desperately wanted to kiss her again. Apparently this desire was evident in his expression.
“No more snogging,” said Bethany. “We have work to do.”
“Do they call it snogging in America?” said Arthur.
“No,” said Bethany, “but I’m learning all the important parts of English culture.”
“If only we weren’t missing half the manuscripts,” said Arthur.
“Not exactly half,” said Bethany.
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“Yesterday, after David and I finished with the manuscripts in the library and you were being so stubborn about decoding the wrong way, I went online and accessed the database that I’ve been uploading all my images to.”
“But why do we need the images when we have the manuscripts right here?”
“We don’t have all the manuscripts, Arthur. You just pointed that out. But I’m not the only one who’s been uploading images to this database. You see, this part is going to make you a little more enthusiastic about digitization and bookless libraries. I managed to find eleven of the missing manuscripts.”
“You . . . you found them?” said Arthur.
“Digital images of them,” said Bethany. “You may not find yourself emotionally connected to the past through a digital image, but you can sure as hell use it to find a key word.”