In the margin next to the prayer was a crude sketch, presumably of Ewolda—a blue-robed woman who seemed to hover over the page. While her halo conferred saintly status, the marginalia also displayed the bawdy tradition of some such drawings. From the hem of her robes issued a stream of water that trickled to the bottom of the page. Why some medieval artist would choose to depict St. Ewolda urinating in the margins of her prayer Arthur could not imagine. He looked into her vacant eyes for a long minute, but she offered him no insight.
After reading the prayer one more time without further illumination, Arthur gently closed the manuscript. Perhaps Gwyn was right. Perhaps he should just get on with writing the cathedral guide, pouring into it all the things he did know about the history of Barchester. Perhaps he shouldn’t worry about the things he didn’t know. He pulled out his fountain pen; a few sheets of thick, cream-colored paper; and a leather blotter—to provide a smooth writing surface on the ancient table. In an elegant script that he had learned from a nineteenth-century handwriting manual, he wrote: A Visitor’s Guide to Barchester Cathedral. But what, thought Arthur, comes next?
He stared at the empty page and could think only one thing. If he really wanted to write the guide properly, it wasn’t the Holy Grail he needed to find but another missing treasure—the lost Book of Ewolda.
II
THE NAVE
With its massive stone columns, barrel-vaulted ceiling, and heavy Norman arches, the nave is one of the oldest parts of the cathedral. On the walls can be found memorials to various De Courcys, Greshams, and Ullathornes, and in the nave aisle lies the tomb of the Second Duke of Omnium. A much older monument can be found in the floor just inside the main west door. A small gray stone, apparently of Saxon origins, bears a single word—Wigbert. Little is known about this simple memorial. It may mark the resting place of one of the abbots of the Saxon monastery, or Norman builders may have moved it to its present location. In any case, it is likely the oldest, and certainly the most mysterious, monument in Barchester.
A.D. 560, St. Ewolda’s Monastery, Baronum Castrum
Wigbert’s chamber was nearly dark. The fire in the middle of the room had burned low, and the corner in which the aged abbot reclined was in such deep shadow that his voice seemed to emanate from nothingness. But Martin had keen eyes, and even by the light of the single taper he was able to transcribe what the abbot dictated.
Although named after Martin of Tours, Martin the scribe had been born in Brittany in 536. As a young man, he had worked as a shepherd, until the day he delivered several of his sheep to a parchment maker. Martin had never heard of parchment, but he returned day after day, watching as the man slaughtered and skinned the sheep, soaked the skin in lime, scraped off the hair, and stretched the thin, translucent material on a frame to dry. Martin had been transfixed, especially when he learned from the man that the parchment would be used by the monks of the nearby monastery of Saint-Brieuc as a writing material.
“The scribes are making a Gospel book,” said the man, “and want one hundred hides for the pages.”
Just as he had followed his sheep to the parchment maker, Martin followed the parchment to the monastery, taking the monastic vows and soon becoming an apprentice to one of the scribes. He had a remarkable talent for languages and quickly learned the techniques of the scribe, showing great dexterity with a quill and rarely making mistakes in his straight, even lines of text. His fellow scribes said no one understood the variations of the parchment better than the former shepherd. A good scribe appreciated the differences between the outside of the skin, which still had hair follicles, and the inner side; between the hides of sheep and those of goats or calves.
Martin’s technique, his work ethic, and his deep familiarity with his materials had him well on his way to becoming chief scribe of Saint-Brieuc when the abbot received a message from an obscure monastery in the kingdom of Barsyt across the water in Britannia. It was a poor house, with no scribes and few brothers who could even read. The services and psalms they committed to memory. The abbot, Wigbert, had sent from his deathbed to Saint-Brieuc for a scribe to record the story of the founding of the monastery. Since Martin was the only scribe who spoke Anglo-Saxon, having learned from a visitor to Saint-Brieuc some years earlier, he had accepted the calling and sailed across rough waters to Britannia, falling on his knees with thanksgiving when the crossing had been safely accomplished. He had traveled on foot to the former Roman settlement of Baronum Castrum and there had found Wigbert, weak in body but strong in mind and ready to tell his story. But it was not Wigbert’s story at all. It was the story of his twin sister, Ewolda.
Martin had sat many days listening to Wigbert’s tale. Each morning, the old man spent an hour telling Martin a new episode; Martin then questioned him on the details, and in the afternoon the abbot repeated the story slowly, and Martin transcribed his words onto the parchment. But Martin did more than merely transcribe—he embellished, not the facts, but the language—for Wigbert was painfully prosaic. The abbot did not understand the beauty of language, the ways the words themselves could intersect with the story. Wigbert told a tale, but Martin wrote poetry.
“That is enough for today,” the abbot said after a long pause. “You may put away your pen and leave me.”
“Reverend abbot,” said Martin. “May I speak to you freely, with no pen in hand?”
“Indeed, Brother Martin, you may. It soothes me to have company, and though my mind wearies when I reach for the details of times long past, to have your companionship has been a great pleasure in my waning days.”
“Tell me, Reverend Abbot—the tales you tell of your sister, are they true or do you . . . do you invent stories to inspire the future brothers and sisters of this house?”
“What is truth?” replied the abbot. “Are the scriptures true?”
“Of course,” said Martin.
“Then is our God a god of peace or a god of war?”
“Surely,” said Martin, “He is a god of peace—for He sent His Son to bring peace to all the nations.”
“Indeed,” said Wigbert, “yet the book of Exodus tells us He is a god of war. So which is the truth?”
Martin had not considered this before and found himself vexed by the question. “Truth is not as simple as I supposed,” he said at last.
“And so it is with the book that you write for me. It is the best truth I can recall—but what is recollection and what is exaggeration that has merged with recollection over the years? What is my own memory, and what do I trust to the memory of others? How accurate is my mind, and how accurate those of so many who have told these stories? These are questions I cannot answer, any more than you can answer whether God is a god of war or peace. But I believe the stories to contain truth.”