“So you’re asking me to give up on . . . on life and on happiness.”
“Not at all,” said the precentor. “There are advantages, too. You are now a part of a chain of Guardians that reaches back to the earliest days of Christianity on this island. You will spend untold hours in this most glorious room in the kingdom, surrounded by the wisdom of the ages. You will possess knowledge that no one else on earth will possess, and that knowledge will change you and strengthen you and connect you to so much that is past and is yet to come. And unlike me, you know the full secret of the Mensa. I can only guess that your life as Guardian will be richer even than mine.”
Arthur could picture it, and in many ways the vision the precentor painted was the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. To be Guardian of the Grail, even if the grail was not exactly what he had expected, to keep secrets that had been hidden for over a thousand years, and to pass those secrets on to the next Guardian when the time came—the little boy who had learned of the Grail at his grandfather’s knee could imagine nothing better.
“But why should the true nature of the Mensa have to be a secret?” said Arthur. “Maybe the time is right for the world to know.”
“The cathedral is in desperate need of money and there is a billionaire American buying up Christian artifacts for a museum. The time has never been less right.”
“And if I am the Guardian, it will be part of my duty to appoint a successor?”
“Exactly,” said the precentor. “You may, for all I know, be the first layperson to guard the Mensa. Your grandfather told me the names of several previous Guardians. One of them moved that portrait of Bishop Gladwyn out of the chapter house.”
“Because it showed the Holy Grail?”
“Gladwyn was a Guardian,” said the precentor, “but he wanted to glorify medieval Barchester. I suspect he’s the one that had legs put onto the Mensa and installed it in the library. And he certainly used the drawing of the Grail from the manuscript in his portrait—a drawing I never knew of until today, by the way. A little dangerous, if you ask me. That painting doesn’t just show the Grail, you know, it shows the Mensa. Malory called it a silver table. Collier copied that from the drawing as well. I imagine that’s the real reason the portrait got banished. You never know what choices you will be called upon to make as Guardian.”
“And what if I say no?”
“If you say no, then you go on with your life. You chase after the girl; you live happily ever after.”
“And the Mensa?” said Arthur.
“For the first time in over a thousand years, the Mensa will be moved from Barchester. I will need to hide it from you and I will find another protector.”
“So you’re saying that a hiding place that survived Vikings, and Normans, and reformers, and civil war, and Nazi bombs might not survive me?”
“Dangers come from unexpected places, Arthur.”
“Can I ask you one more question? Do you believe in the Holy Grail?”
“It’s no longer about what I believe,” he said. “What do you believe?”
Arthur wasn’t quite ready to answer that question, but he looked back at the Mensa and felt an almost physical pull toward it and its history.
“Well,” said the precentor, “I’ve got a chapter meeting in a few minutes, and then I have to tell the dean of my intention to retire.” He took a few steps toward Arthur and held out his hand. “By the way, you can call me Edmund.”
“Thank you, Edmund,” said Arthur, shaking his hand firmly, and for the first time that he could remember, the precentor smiled at him.
XVII
THE LADY CHAPEL
Dedicated in 2020, the Lady Chapel is the first significant new construction in the cathedral since the Reformation. The award-winning design merges the ancient and modern, giving the visitor a true connection with the cathedral’s deep roots in Saxon history and its grand reach into the future. At the dedication service for the chapel, the archbishop of Canterbury called it “unique among worship spaces in Britain.”
October 12, 2020
FEAST DAY OF ST. EWOLDA
Arthur knelt at the altar rail and accepted the Communion wafer from Gwyn. He hoped that even in her unwavering focus while celebrating the Eucharist, she would be able to enjoy the triumph of this moment. Behind her stood the archbishop of Canterbury, the first to visit Barchester in three hundred and fifty years, here for this dedication of the new Lady Chapel. Because the chapel held only about fifty people, the bulk of the service, attended by hundreds, had taken place in the nave, but the congregation streamed through the new chapel to take Communion.
The building of the Lady Chapel was just part of a larger works project at Barchester that had included a major archaeological dig around the tomb and spring of St. Ewolda, repairs to the north transept, the restoration of the cathedral’s collection of manuscripts, and the hiring of a librarian, all financed by a grant from Heritage Lottery.
Arthur’s favorite room in the world was rarely as peaceful as it had been in years past, but he had no complaints. The previous day in the library, Oscar had brought a school group on a visit to look at the musical notation in the Barchester Breviary, a lecturer from the university had met with his class on medieval history, the new full-time librarian had checked out books to a dozen readers, and Arthur himself had delivered a lunchtime talk on the history of the collection. He was pleased to see Edward Alford, the onetime choirboy who was now a frequent visitor to the library, in the audience. That same day, and every day, hundreds of visitors climbed the stairs to see not just the beauty of the room and its books, but the new glass-fronted display that had drawn tens of thousands of people to Barchester since its installation.
The case included a coded manuscript, the only surviving record of the earliest reference to a possibly real, possibly mythical figure named King Arthur and a cup called the Holy Grail. Next to the mysterious manuscript were an English translation and the detached cover of the ancient volume, illustrated with a picture of the Grail. As Arthur had predicted, people flooded to Barchester to see the now famous Grail images. But they also came to see Ewolda’s tomb and spring. It had taken her nearly fifteen hundred years, but she had finally succeeded in making Barchester a significant place of pilgrimage.