The Brothers of Glastonbury (22 page)

‘I’m not stating it as
fact,
’ he recanted hurriedly, ‘but only as a far more probable interpretation of events. The Grail story has always been a little … um … a little suspect, shall I say? In spite of its figuring so strongly in the stories of King Arthur.’

‘Who, as we all know,’ I cut in blandly, ‘lies buried with Queen Guinevere in the nave of the abbey, and who must, therefore, have existed in truth as well as legend.’

I felt Brother Hilarion stir uneasily behind me, while the round, rosy features of Brother Librarian stiffened into lines of disapproval.

‘Of course! That goes without saying. But that doesn’t mean,’ he continued coldly, ‘that there were no inaccuracies made in the accounts of Arthur’s life. The Grail stories, after all, do vary. One tells us that what Joseph of Arimathea brought with him from Palestine was a pair of cruets, one containing the sweat, and the other the blood, of Our Saviour. Then again, Wolfram von Eschenbach, in his epic,
Parzival,
declares that the Grail is a stone or jewel, called the Lapis Exilis. So you see, there are doubts about what form the Grail actually took.’

‘Brother,’ I said, ‘with all due respect, I cannot see that your argument proves my theory wrong. Passover cup, cruets or precious stone, the Grail could still have been the relic hidden by Brother Begninus. Nowhere does he state exactly what it was.’

‘But can’t you see,’ Brother Librarian demanded in growing exasperation, ‘that the differing descriptions throw doubt on its very existence? No, no, boy! Take it from me that this parchment of yours refers to something else. And in my view, that something else is Saint Patrick’s ossuary.’

‘But that theory is as suspect as mine,’ I retorted. ‘In fact any Irishman would know it for a downright lie!’

Brother Hilarion touched me on the shoulder. ‘I think we should be going,’ he whispered anxiously, noting the swelling veins on Brother Librarian’s neck and his blood-congested cheeks.

I at once felt ashamed of myself. Why do we always want people to agree with us, and resent our preconceptions being challenged? So I humbly begged the little monk’s pardon, thanked him for his help, and added for good measure that beyond doubt his wisdom and superior knowledge would prevail with me, when once I had had a chance to mull things over.

I don’t think he really believed me, for his face was still very red when Brother Hilarion and I emerged into the open air.

‘You haven’t improved, Roger,’ the Novice Master reproved me sternly in the disappointed tones I remembered only too well. ‘You must learn respect for your elders.’

I tried to look suitably abashed, but failed dismally if Brother Hilarion’s reproachful expression was anything to judge by. But that had always been a part of my trouble: I could never accept that because a person was older than myself, he was also necessarily wiser. (And even now that I am one of the old ones I cannot feel certain that I know more than my children do. Perhaps it is just as well, for they all have very definite and forthright opinions on almost every subject.)

‘Brother Librarian was most enlightening,’ I said. ‘I shall have much to think about when I return to Dame Joan’s.’

The bell began to toll for Compline and I quickened my step. ‘Thank you, Brother, for your time and patience.’

He raised his hand in blessing. ‘Won’t you come to the service?’ he asked.

But he knew as well as I did that I should derive small benefit from it, that my mind would be on other things. It was surely better to wait until I could concentrate my thoughts as I should. So he let me go without any further attempt at persuasion.

*   *   *

I sat on the edge of the bed in Peter and Mark Gildersleeve’s bedchamber and tried to marshal my thoughts into some sort of order.

I had returned to the house to be told by Lydia that I was expected in the solar as soon as I set foot indoors. There I had been met by the tired, drawn face of Dame Joan and the sullen, anxious features of Cicely. The strain was making both women ill, especially now that the bracing presence of Gilbert Honeyman had been withdrawn, and the need for courtesy to the stranger within their gates was no longer necessary.

Dame Joan had lived with the disappearance of her elder son for a week now, and with Mark’s since the day before yesterday. All the same, I was still not prepared to take them further into my confidence until I had treated myself to a period of quiet reflection, in order to clarify my ideas. I therefore had begged them both to excuse me, and to allow me to retire for the night.

‘I told you so!’ Cicely had flung at her aunt. ‘I told you that we should learn nothing from Master Chapman! And why? Because, as I said before, it’s my belief that all that boasting about how he’s solved mysteries in the past is so much nonsense! I was never more deceived in anyone in my life.’

I had fully expected the Dame to call her niece to order as she had done previously, but the older woman seemed oblivious to the insult, labouring with some decision of her own.

‘I’ve made up my mind,’ she had remarked with sudden purpose, emphasized by tapping her fingers on the table. She looked at Cicely. ‘I’m sending for your father. Where did he say the Duke was bound for when he left Farleigh Castle?’

The younger woman had wrinkled her brow. ‘London, I think. Yes, London, but only for a couple of days. Father said he would leave word of their next destination, however, for anyone enquiring after him. And I do remember now,’ she added guiltily, ‘that he particularly asked to be kept informed of what was happening. He wanted to know that Peter was all right.’

Dame Joan had nodded. ‘That settles it. I have been very remiss in not requesting his presence here earlier. First thing tomorrow I shall instruct Rob Undershaft to search out anyone in the town who is despatching goods to London within the next few days, and if there is someone his carter shall take a message from me to William. I’ll visit the scrivener in the morning and get him to pen a letter, simply stating that my brother is needed here as soon as possible.’

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to have proposed that I write the letter for her, and in more detail than she would trust to the scrivener’s discretion, but I had the feeling that the offer would not have been welcomed. I was being deliberately cold-shouldered by the aunt as well as the niece, as though I had been put on trial and found sadly wanting. So I had retired to my bedchamber in a huff, where I had spent the first half-hour making plans to wash my hands of the entire sorry business and set out for home at the crack of dawn.

I should have known better, alas, than to waste my time in this fashion, for once my curiosity is aroused I cannot rest until it is assuaged. And this mystery in particular held me in thrall, just as if it were indeed a spell cast by Merlin. But the longer I thought, the more confused I became, reason and fantasy struggling together for possession of my mind like the magical beasts of the enchanted forest, thrown up by the Wizard about his domains …

My head jerked forward, and I realized that I had almost fallen asleep where I sat. The Holy Grail! The Holy Grail! The words spun round and round in my reeling brain. Had it ever actually existed? And if it had, did Joseph of Arimathea truly bring it to Glastonbury after Our Lord’s death upon the Cross? And if so, what form had it taken? Had Joseph himself really come here, crossing from Little Britain, which we now call Brittany, to Great Britain across the Narrow Sea? Or was that just another myth, as some of our neighbours, jealous of the standing it gave this country in the Christian hierarchy, would have us believe?

My head felt as though it was being squeezed by a band of red-hot iron, and my legs were as heavy as lead. Without even bothering to remove my boots, I swung them on to the bed and was sound asleep before my head touched the pillows.

*   *   *

When I awoke it was dark, the unshuttered window making an oblong of grey in the blackness of one wall. The house was silent, and I assumed that everyone else had retired for the night. I had no idea how long I had been asleep, but it was obviously for some hours. I must have been more tired than I knew.

But my rest had refreshed me. My mind, which had been so befuddled earlier, was now crystal clear. I realized, as though hit by a blinding truth like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, that whether or not the Holy Grail had ever existed, whether or not it had taken the form of a cup, a cruet or a gemstone was of no importance. Nor did it really matter what the relic secreted by the long-dead Brother Begninus had actually been. What was of moment was the interpretation put upon the story by Peter Gildersleeve. I had to look at the riddle through
his
eyes, not through my own.

I got up and closed the shutters, for the downpour of the afternoon had been followed by a chillier night than those we had grown accustomed to during that long, hot summer. The faintest hint of autumn was in the air, the first intimation of a colder wind blowing from the east. I suddenly found myself thinking with almost nostalgic longing of my mother-in-law’s little house in Bristol, of the fire on the hearth with the cooking-pot suspended over it, of my daughter perched on my knee while the winter gales roared along the Backs, whipping the river to a frenzy and howling amongst the roof-tops, leaving us cosy and warm inside.

I groped around until I discovered the tinder-box, lit the two lanterns and then retired again to the bed. This time I removed my boots, although otherwise remaining fully clothed, then banked up the pillows high enough to support my back and resumed my seat, my legs stretched out in front of me.

I had to try to imagine myself inside the mind of Peter Gildersleeve. When Blethyn Goode had translated the parchment’s contents for him, what did he imagine was the relic hidden by Brother Begninus? What secret did he think it held? Had he too hit upon the possibility of the Holy Grail? Or had he, unlike me, indulged in less outrageous flights of fancy? But whatever had been his conclusions, he had considered himself the possessor of information which was ‘valuable beyond price’.

On Mark’s telling, Peter had grown secretive about his books for those last few months before he disappeared, locking the chest where they were stored, a thing he had never done previously. And when his brother had idly questioned him as to the reason for his action he had flown out at Mark, cautioning him to mind his own business. And when he had found Maud Jarrold studying the parchment, which he had left spread out on the shop bench, Peter had bundled her out of the room, shouting at her and frightening her half to death. Later on, once his fear had subsided, he had realized how stupid he had been, for Maud could not even read, let alone translate the arcane alphabet of a thousand years ago, written in the old Celtic language. He had realized too that his uncharacteristic behaviour might arouse suspicion, and had therefore apologized to her and pleaded illness as the cause of his ill temper. But he had been badly, if senselessly, scared, and shortly afterwards had removed the parchment to the greater safety of the secret drawer in the bed-head.

So! After Peter had been to see Blethyn Goode, he must have decided, as I had done, that he had guessed the identity of the relic. How long it had taken him to reach his conclusion I could not say with any certainty, but it was obvious from his encounter with Maud Jarrold that he had made up his mind sometime before he had vanished. Had he been looking for whatever he thought it was during those weeks? Or was he simply mulling things over, trying to work out where his search must begin? And was it that search which had taken him on to Pennard land?

I was now faced with another question to which I did not know the answer: did Peter Gildersleeve’s strange disappearance have anything at all to do with his acquiring the parchment and his knowledge of its contents, or were the two things unconnected? Had he visited the farm purely on a matter of business (he and Mark were accustomed to buying some of their sheepskins and cowhides from Anthony and his sons)? Yet he had not gone straight to the house or to the sheds where the fleeces were stored. Instead he had shown up at the shepherd’s hut on the eastern perimeters of the holding, and there, minutes later, he had completely and mysteriously vanished, apparently into thin air …

I had just reached this point in my deliberations when something happened that was perhaps the most frightening experience of my life. As I have so frequently said in these tales of my youth, I inherited from my mother the capacity to dream strange dreams. I have never claimed to have the Sight, and my ‘visions’ usually do no more than point me in a direction which I have carelessly overlooked, or which has not been obvious to me before. The people and places in them are normally people and places I have encountered in daily life, but distorted by the unreality which comes with sleep. I have often suspected that they are no more than my own perceptions floating up from the dark and hidden corners of my mind.

But that night it was different. To begin with, one moment I was wide awake – refreshed, as I have already said, by my earlier doze – the next, I was deeply asleep … or was I? I have never been able to determine in all the years between then and now, and I still cannot decide today. There was none of that drifting through a twilight world, half real, half imaginary, that normally precedes unconsciousness, only an abrupt transition from wakefulness to the heart of my dream.

I was standing in a landscape both terrifyingly strange and yet oddly familiar, inside a circle of palings which housed a large, round, central building of daub and wattle with a thatched, conical roof. This was ringed by twelve smaller but almost identical huts, with paths radiating inwards from each one to the edifice in the middle. The stockade was too high for me to see over it, yet I knew without being told how the surrounding countryside looked. Bleak marshland was interspersed with swathes of primaeval forest, and the howling of wolves was borne to my ears on the ice-cold air. Thus far all was unrecognizable, but when I raised my eyes to the great mound which towered above the enclave, and to the adjoining promontory of land, I knew them at once for the Tor and Weary-All Hill.