“No, Arthur’s right,” said Oscar. “She needs to know now. The whole chapter will need to see this before they meet tomorrow morning.”
“We’d better get going,” said David, dropping his hand from Arthur’s shoulder and turning toward the pile of rubble they had created.
“Oscar,” said Arthur, “will you tell her?”
“Certainly,” said Oscar, “if that’s what you want. I mean, it really should be you; you’re the one who’s been looking for Ewolda all these years, and you’re Gwyn’s . . . her friend. But if you want me to . . .”
“I’ll see her in the morning,” said Arthur. “You and David should tell her.”
Arthur stepped back from the tomb without taking his eyes from the word on the stone. He turned and saw, in the dim light of the candle and the fading torch, the three people in the world whom he cared for most. A part of him wanted to draw all of them to him in an embrace, but even hidden away from society in an ancient burial chamber, this seem distinctly undignified. Instead he smiled at each of them in turn, trying to express with his eyes what he could not express in words.
“Do you mind if I take a minute?” said Arthur. “I mean, a minute alone?”
“Of course not,” said Bethany. “Take as long as you need. David and Oscar will go to talk to Gwyn, and I’ll wait for you in the main crypt.”
“Wait for me in the Epiphany Chapel,” said Arthur.
“Are you sure?” said Bethany. “Your candle is burning pretty low.”
“I won’t be long.”
Bethany leaned forward and kissed Arthur lightly on the cheek. This had none of the passion of this morning’s kisses, but Arthur felt such warmth and tenderness that he had a sudden vision of what a life with Bethany might be like—a life with passion, to be sure, but more important, a life where the lightest kiss, the gentlest touch, the merest glance could communicate concern and affection and, above all, connection at the deepest level of their beings. When the vision had passed, he was alone in the burial chamber.
Almost without thinking, Arthur lowered himself to his knees in front of Ewolda’s tomb. He was not used to praying. The prayers he read as part of the daily cathedral services were printed in the Book of Common Prayer and, to Arthur, served as markers of the rhythm of his days and aids to reflection, but he never really saw them as communications with the divine, and he certainly never entertained the notion of praying to a specific saint. Now he knelt at the tomb of Ewolda and simply responded to the impulse he felt. He spoke aloud and the chamber swallowed up his words.
“I don’t understand how you did it,” said Arthur, “or why you did it. I’ve been going to this cathedral all my adult life, and I still can’t muster the courage to take that leap of faith and simply believe. And I have so much pushing me in that direction—people I know and respect and love, the very stones that surround me. And you . . . you had a wandering . . . what, a wandering military leader who just said, excuse me, but here’s a nice new religion. And you believed. You believed so deeply that you gave up your life. I can’t imagine caring about something so much that I would give up . . .” And then of course, he thought of Bethany. Maybe Arthur didn’t believe in God—not yet anyway, but he did at least believe in love. So he said the words he had really wanted to say all along. “Thank you.”
Arthur felt exhausted and emotionally wrung out as he climbed the stairs back to the cathedral, yet he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if he went home. His candle was almost too short to hold without burning his fingers on hot wax, so he walked briskly to the Epiphany Chapel, where he found Bethany, kneeling in prayer. She had lit the candles on the altar, and Arthur stood silently watching her for several minutes until she eased herself back onto the pew and looked up at him.
“How about a drink?” said Bethany.
“I’m not sure I can face a pub at this hour,” said Arthur.
“Oscar has an open bottle of wine in the library anteroom,” said Bethany. “Left over from his last BBs meeting.”
“That sounds nice,” said Arthur, taking her hand as she rose.
“Besides, I know the library is where you want to be right now,” said Bethany, blowing out the candles and turning on the light on her phone. She took his hand and they walked quietly back through the cathedral, into the cloister, stopping at the lavatory to wash off the grime of the crypt, and then climbing the stairs to the library. There was so much to say that Arthur found it easier to say nothing. Once Bethany had poured them each a generous glass of wine, she respected Arthur’s need to simply sit in silence, absorbing the reality of what had happened. Well, she respected it for about ten minutes, but then she couldn’t contain herself.
“A pretty amazing evening,” said Bethany, “even if there was no Grail.” They sat on opposite sides of Oscar’s desk. Arthur withdrew the ciphered text and its translation from the desk drawer and set the papers between them.
“I still wonder why she’s shown with the Grail in that picture,” said Arthur.
“It seems like all the rest of the Grail lore.”
“How do you mean?”
“Almost every literary reference to the Grail dates from centuries after the stories are alleged to have happened. Here we have a manuscript with no mention of the Grail and a drawing, from almost a thousand years after Ewolda’s story, that shows the Grail. Maybe it was wishful thinking on some late medieval monk’s part.”
“My grandfather believed in the Grail,” said Arthur. “And I thought you were the one who said you can decide to believe.”
“You can,” said Bethany. “I’m not saying I don’t believe in the Grail; I’m just saying we might not find it in Barchester.”
“What is the Grail, for you?” said Arthur.
“I suppose it’s a physical connection to the story of my faith,” said Bethany. “I don’t need it to support that faith, I can believe in Christ without the Grail. I’m not sure that’s true for everyone. Some people are just wired to need proof. Maybe you’re that way, Arthur. I suspect Jesse Johnson, my boss, is that way. I think if you got him drunk he would tell you that the reason he is spending millions of dollars searching for biblical artifacts is that he can’t quite believe without them.”
“Sad, in a way.”
“Well, it’s—” began Bethany when she was interrupted by a blip from her phone. “Hold on a sec. That’s it, these are the last of the key words from Chicago. I got the Edinburgh ones earlier this evening.”
“Might as well finish up that last section,” said Arthur. “I think the chances of my getting sleep tonight are minimal.” He pulled out the page of the ciphered manuscript that included the end of Ewolda’s story. The last few lines were as yet undeciphered, as their key words all came from the manuscripts that Bethany had tracked down that evening. Bethany quickly looked up the key words, and within a half hour they had, together, decoded the passage into Latin.