The Doomsday Code

CHAPTER 21

1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire

They watched from either side of the path, mouths slung open in curious ‘o’s — a dozen monks who’d been tending lanes of withered grapevines as Liam, flanked by his two support units, strode up the dirt path towards the priory’s main entrance.

‘Morning!’ called out Liam self-consciously.

One of the monks dropped his basket and scrambled across the vegetable gardens towards a nearby barn, stammering Latin blessings to himself. The others shrank back, their eyes darting nervously across all three of them, but lingering unhappily on Becks.

Standing in the doorway was a young lad. Liam guessed he was a year younger than himself, watching them approach, fear making his eyes comically round.

‘Ye … c-c-canaught entre h-h-hier!’ the boy stammered.

Liam cocked his head then turned to Becks. ‘Did he just say we can’t enter here?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Well, it’s not so hard, then, this Old English.’ He turned back to the young man, wearing the white robe and black apron of a Cistercian monk. ‘Can … you … understand … me?’ he said slowly.

The boy swallowed, eyes darting left and right, and up at Bob’s expressionless big-boned face. Eventually his shaking head nodded. ‘A-aye …’

Liam relaxed a little. This is going to be easier than I thought.

‘We’re after someone called Cabot. He’s supposed to live here. Do you know him?’

The boy’s eyes narrowed.

‘This is Kirklees Priory, right? We got the right place, have we?’

‘Kirk-laigh,’ the boy uttered.

‘Yes, Kirklees Priory? This place?’

The boy nodded slowly. ‘Aye, Kirk-laigh.’

‘And Cabot? Is there a man called Cabot living here?’

The frowning again.

‘Information,’ uttered Becks quietly.

‘What?’

‘Your pronunciation of the name may be incorrect.’

‘Well then, how would you say it?’

‘Try Car-boh.’

The boy’s eyes widened at the sound of that. ‘S-seek ye … S-Sebastien Cabot?’

Liam shrugged. ‘Aye, that’s him.’

The boy pointed a wobbling finger towards a low, thatched stable on the far side of the gardens. ‘Yonder … B-Brother Sebastien tends to the h-horses.’

Liam handed the boy a broad smile. ‘Thanking you.’

They crossed the gardens, watching the silent monks edging back from them. In the stillness a cluster of loose chickens happily pecked and clucked brainlessly. Liam pulled open the barn door; it creaked deafeningly in the still grey morning. Inside it was dark save for faint dapples of weak light that had found a way through threadbare patches of thatch above. He could hear the hoarse rasp of animals breathing.

‘Is there a Say-bas-tee-en Cay-bow in here?’ He cringed at his own mangling of the pronunciation.

‘Aye!’ a voice called back. Grating and deep. ‘Who seekes him?’

‘Uhh … my name’s Liam.’

He heard the scrape and rustle of movement from somewhere among dark stalls and a moment later a robed figure emerged into the thin light of the open doorway.

Cabot wore the same Cistercian robe and apron, but looked unlike the other pale-faced monks still standing amid furrowed lanes of turned soil like forlorn ghosts. He stood an inch shorter than Liam, but a great deal broader; wide shoulders accustomed to bearing old muscle. A greying beard covered pockmarked and leathery skin, and battle-hardened muddy green eyes stared out beneath a thick brow broken by a livid pink scar that ran diagonally across the bridge of his nose and down across his right cheek.

‘Liam, is it?’ he growled softly.

‘Liam O’Connor. But you can call me Liam.’

‘Liam, ye say?’ he said again, rolling the name around his mouth. ‘Tis a name I’ve not heard before.’ Cabot glanced over his shoulder at Bob. ‘Ye have the look of a man-at-arms, sir?’

‘Nay,’ replied Bob. The rumble of his deep baritone stirred the horses in the darkness.

‘Mr Cabot, is there a place we can talk? Somewhere …’ Liam looked back over his shoulder at a dozen faces, still slack-jawed, still standing motionless with garden tools held in their hands, watching and listening curiously. ‘Somewhere private?’

Cabot glanced at Becks. ‘She cannot enter the priory itself. My brothers seek to avoid distractions of the flesh. The stables will do.’

The old man nodded and waved them into the dim interior of the stables. At the far end of the long building were guest lodgings, little more than four bare stone walls, a couple of wooden cots softened with a hay-stuffed sack and a tiny rectangular window in the gable wall that let in the poorest glimmer of light. He sat down on one of the cots and gestured for the others to do likewise.

‘Dark times as these,’ Cabot began quietly, ‘my brothers outside are full of fear. Evil stalks these woods, stalks this country. So ’tis — ’ he spread his hands — ‘we are all most cautious of strangers.’ His eyes narrowed and the scar across his brow flexed. ‘Ye know of my name, Liam of Connor. Tell me how is that?’

Liam gave a small defensive shrug. ‘That’s a little difficult to explain, Mr Cabot. But … well, we came here because we got a message to find you.’

‘A message, say? By who?’

‘Well, that’s the thing. We don’t exactly know.’

‘So, ye seek me. Now ye have me. For what reason is it?’

Liam made a face. ‘Not really sure of that either.’

Cabot shook his head, confused for a moment, then he laughed. ‘What good is this, then? I have horses I need tend to this morning.’ He made to get up.

Liam decided to play their trump card. ‘Mr Cabot, have you heard of a thing called the Voynich Manuscript?’

Cabot stopped and resumed his seat, considering Liam’s words for a moment then shook his head. ‘Voynich? I have not heard of such a thing.’

‘Well then — ’ Liam bit his lip — ‘have you written some sort of important manuscript?’

‘Of course not!’ Cabot laughed. ‘I wield a sword far better than I do a quill.’

‘Well, how about someone else here? Is anyone working on any manuscripts? Scrolls of any kind?’

He shook his head again. ‘We keep scrolls of prayers and records of the priory. This is a place of quiet devotion to God. That is all. Now … if that be the last of yer questions I must ask ye and yer fellows to go about yer business,’ he said, hefting himself wearily to his feet.

Liam cursed quietly. Almost as an afterthought he had one last try. ‘Mr Cabot, what do you know of Pandora?’

The word stopped Cabot in his tracks. He glanced at Liam, at the other two. Finally, in a voice almost as soft as a whisper he spoke. ‘Ye know of this?’

Great, what do I say now? Liam decided the only thing he could do was to bluff his way. He nodded sternly. ‘Oh yes, Mr Cabot … I know all about Pandora.’

‘These two?’ the old man asked, a furtive glance again at Bob and Becks. They both took Liam’s lead and nodded.

Cabot pulled absently on his beard, studying Liam silently. ‘Ye do not have the look of the order about ye, lad. Ye look barely old enough to be a squire.’

Order? What order? Jay-zus, what do I say now?

‘But … ye do, sir,’ he said to Bob. ‘A fighting man if ever I saw one. Ye have come back?’

Bob glanced at Liam for help. All Liam could do was nod vigorously for him to say something.

‘Aye,’ said Bob slowly, ‘I … have … returned.’

‘Do ye know of King Richard’s predicament? Does he return?’

Bob’s eyelids flickered for a moment before he replied. ‘King Richard will return in five months.’

Cabot cursed. ‘Then his rage will know no bounds! There will be much blood! He will kill all in his way to find it again. God have mercy on us if we have not found it by then.’

It?

Liam looked at Cabot. ‘Find … err … it?’ He wished he had the slightest idea what ‘it’ was right now. It would make bluffing his way through this conversation a thousand times easier.

‘Yes! It is lost! They say it is the Hooded Man who has taken it.’

‘The Hooded Man?’

Cabot nodded. ‘Yes! Know ye not of this?’

Liam shook his head. ‘We’ve, uh … we only recently returned.’

‘From the Holy Land?’

Liam thought it best to just nod briskly at that. ‘Right, yes.’

‘Then ’tis possible ye will not have heard. Two winters ago, a party of our Templar brethren had it in their care. They were to bring it back to safety. Away from danger, away from the Saracens, from Saladin. But it was that they were attacked in woods not so far from here. A party of our order’s best and bravest knights.’

Cabot looked up at the small window. ‘A squire, one who escaped the murder, told of a single hooded man. One man who attacked them and killed every last knight and many of the sergeants-at-arms. He said he saw with his own eyes blows land full square on the hood, many crossbow bolts and arrows pass through it, but whatever was inside — and surely not a man — did not but stop until the forest path was soaked with their blood.’

‘And it … the — the … Pandora?’

‘Yes,’ said Cabot, ‘he took it. He took away with him the Word of God. And it has been lost these last two years.’

Liam glanced at the other two. Word of God?

‘My fellow Cistercians do not know what they fear more, the wrath of King Richard on his return, or this — this … hooded wraith. But I know it is Richard Coeur de Lion I would fear the most.’ He almost spat the nickname Richard the Lionheart. ‘I fought alongside him. I have seen the bloodshed he leaves in his path. Thousands of prisoners beheaded at his whim, unspeakable things done to them in the name of the Lord.’ Cabot shook his head. ‘He will burn the woods of England black, level every village and put the sword to every man, woman and child in his way until he has the Grail back in his possession. He cares not for this country.’

The sound of voices outside the barn caught Cabot’s attention. ‘My brothers are unhappy at yer arrival.’ He shot a quick look at Becks. ‘And the presence of a woman. This will unsettle them.’ He got up. ‘I will be back. I trust yer intentions are friendly? Yes?’

‘We mean no harm,’ Bob rumbled.

‘We’re friends,’ said Liam. That seemed to reassure Cabot. They watched him weave his way through the darkness towards the slatted light of the barn door.

He turned to the others. ‘Did he just say “grail”?’

‘Affirmative,’ said Bob.

Becks cocked her head for a moment, consulting her database. ‘Information: there are many historical cross-references linking the Knights Templar to an object referred to as the Holy Grail.’

‘Holy Grail? What’s that?’

‘There are many references to the Holy Grail being the cup Jesus Christ drank from at the “Last Supper”. Supposedly having magical properties.’ She looked at him. ‘This is of course entirely illogical. It is more likely to refer to some religious text.’

‘We also have detailed files,’ added Bob, ‘that describe the Templars as being a military religious order set up to protect Christian pilgrims entering the Holy Lands from Muslim raiders. But also many uncited records that claim the real reason for the establishment of the Templars was specifically to seek and safeguard the Holy Grail.’

Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Hold on … so, does that mean this Grail and Pandora are one and the same thing?’

Both of them nodded. ‘That is a possibility,’ added Becks.

Liam’s eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose we’ve missed our one-hour return window?’

‘Two minutes and twenty-seven seconds to go.’

‘All right, no point running back across that field like mad things. We can catch the one tomorrow. Presuming Mr Cabot will put us up here for tonight, we can talk to him some more about this Holy Grail thing.’