He stepped away, picked up his translation of the Latin, and read again the unbelievable words.
Here written in the first month of the archbishopric of Ethelhard is a true and real account of that most sacred of relics, the Mensa Christi. In his youth at Nazareth, our Lord, with his father Joseph, did fashion this table, for he was raised as a carpenter and would build the kingdom of God on earth. Those who knew Christ and that disciple who loved him brought the table from Nazareth to Jerusalem and here it rested in the upper room of a home near the city. On this table did our Lord bless the bread and wine on the night he was betrayed. After the Crucifixion of our Savior, Joseph of Arimathea did take the Mensa and the cup upon it—our Lord’s cup. It came to pass that Joseph gave the Mensa and the cup to Aristobulus, who had been charged by Jesus to take the Gospel to the island of the Britons. Aristobulus, arriving in Briton, became the bishop of that land and built a church near the hill of Glastonbury, making the Mensa his altar. This same church, the Vetusta Ecclesia, did Paulinus protect and here the Mensa remained, its secret protected by the holy brothers. Those who knew the true nature of the Mensa did call it in secret the Grael or Platter of our Lord. Now we hear of brutal attacks by savages from the north, and the Mensa and its secret are to be borne to a remote and undistinguished house at a place called Barchester.
To this account, which is a true transcription of the history brought to us by the monks of Glastonbury in the year of our Lord 793, I, James, of the Priory of St. Ewolda, do add the following honest history of the Mensa—that it did come to Barchester and there remained until the foundation of St. Ewolda was moved from that place. The Mensa then removed to the new foundation, always under the protection of a Guardian, each in his own generation the sole protector of the Mensa’s secret. From generation to generation was the mantle passed. Now the king’s commissioners approach. The Mensa will once again be moved to Barchester, and I prepare this account in cipher and pray to our Savior that as I pass the secrets to the next Guardian they may be kept safe from the evil that is to befall us. Written this twelfth day of October in the year of our Lord 1539.
“You can’t tell her,” said a voice from behind him. Arthur turned and saw the precentor standing just inside the doorway. “You probably shouldn’t even tell me.”
“You?” said Arthur.
“Until a few minutes ago, I was the Guardian,” said the precentor. “But I never knew what the manuscript said or what the Mensa really was. I only knew it was my duty to guard them.”
“But how do you know . . .”
“Of course I knew that you and your friends borrowed the manuscript. I was the Guardian, after all. You don’t really think you could take the manuscript right out from under my nose without my knowing about it. But I thought, what’s the harm. It was only when I realized that the images had been sent to that American billionaire that I began to worry. I could imagine your keeping a secret, but I couldn’t imagine his doing it. And then this morning Gwyn rang to tell me the news. She even read me your translation and, thank God, there was nothing there about the Mensa. So I knew the real secret was safe. But judging from the way you were looking at the table, and the expression on your face as you were reading just now, I’d guess you somehow figured out the secret of the Mensa and why it needs guarding.”
“What do you mean, up until a few minutes ago you were the Guardian?” said Arthur.
“You decoded the manuscript, Arthur. Only you know what the Mensa really means. That makes you the Guardian. And if that’s not enough, there’s the fact that I’ve been doing this for thirty-five years, and I’d like to retire to Majorca. So I’m making you the Guardian.”
“But this is . . .”
“Don’t tell me,” said the precentor. “It’s your secret now, and the only person you should ever tell is whomever you choose to be the next Guardian.”
“You were the Guardian for thirty-five years, and you didn’t know what you were guarding?”
“Some things we do on faith, Arthur. No matter what it says in that manuscript, the Mensa may be nothing more than an old table, but for over a thousand years the Guardians have had faith, and so have I.”
Arthur thought about this unbroken chain of faith. He realized, looking at the Mensa, that he was not like Jesse Johnson; he did not need evidence to believe, but being a part of a guardianship that reached through the faith of more than a millennium might just allow him to make the leap.
“Is that why you were always . . .”
“An ass? Yes, that’s part of it, I suppose. I always had my eye on you. After all, Arthur, it was your grandfather who passed the guardianship to me. He was a good man and a good friend, and when he made me Guardian, I promised to at least consider you as my successor.
“My grandfather was Guardian of the Mensa?” said Arthur.
“And of the manuscript,” said the precentor. Of course it made perfect sense. When he read his grandson the Arthur stories, when he swore him to secrecy on the subject of the Holy Grail, Arthur’s grandfather had been preparing him to be the Guardian and testing his worthiness. Even though his grandfather, and probably every Guardian since the Reformation, couldn’t read the manuscript, he’d had his suspicions, and he had, without betraying the secrets of the Guardian, nudged Arthur toward the discovery he had finally made.
“From the day you arrived at the cathedral library and chose the Mensa as your favorite spot,” said the precentor, “I knew you would either be trouble or you would be the next Guardian—possibly both.”
“And what does it mean, exactly,” said Arthur, “being the Guardian?”
“It means whatever secrets you know, you protect. It means that keeping the Mensa and the manuscript safe until you can pass them on to the next generation is your first priority. It means no foreign travel or long absences from Barchester.”
“And what about . . .” Arthur couldn’t believe what he was about to ask, but the precentor seemed one step ahead of him.
“Love?” he said. “I was in love once, and I had to choose. It’s hard to be married when you’re handcuffed to a cathedral and you can’t tell your wife why. So I chose to sacrifice myself for what I truly believed was a higher calling. I think about her sometimes and wonder if I chose well, but I’ve lived with my choice, and that’s enough.”