The Lost Book of the Grail Read online

  ALSO BY CHARLIE LOVETT

  The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge

  First Impressions

  The Bookman’s Tale

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  penguin.com

  Copyright © 2017 by Charles Lovett

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lovett, Charles C., author.

  Title: The lost book of the Grail, or, a visitors guide to Barchester Cathedral / Charlie Lovett.

  Description: New York : Viking, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016056682 (print) | LCCN 2017003000 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399562518 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780399562525 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3612.O86 L67 2017 (print) | LCC PS3612.O86 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016056682

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Hanna and Katie

  and for Christin,

  who have brought joy into my life.

  No age lives entirely alone; every civilization is formed not merely by its own achievements but by what it has inherited from the past. If these things are destroyed, we have lost a part of our past, and we shall be the poorer for it.

  —MAJOR RONALD BALFOUR

  To me Barset has been a real county, and its city a real city, and the spires and towers have been before my eyes, and the voices of the people are known to my ears, and the pavement of the city ways are familiar to my footsteps.

  —ANTHONY TROLLOPE

  CONTENTS

  Also by Charlie Lovett

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter I: The Lady Chapel

  Chapter II: The Nave

  Chapter III: The Chapter House

  Chapter IV: The Cloister

  Chapter V: The Tower

  Chapter VI: The Regimental Chapel

  Chapter VII: The Quire

  Chapter VIII: The High Altar

  Chapter IX: The Library

  Chapter X: St. Dunstan’s Chapel

  Chapter XI: The West Façade

  Chapter XII: The Priory of St. Ewolda

  Chapter XIII: The Great East Window

  Chapter XIV: The Crypt

  Chapter XV: The Close

  Chapter XVI: The Epiphany Chapel

  Chapter XVII: The Lady Chapel

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  I

  THE LADY CHAPEL

  The Lady Chapel, at the east end of the cathedral beyond the high altar, once housed the shrine of St. Ewolda, founder of the Saxon monastery on which the cathedral was built. The shrine was pulled down during the Reformation, and for over five hundred years a simple black stone cross in the floor marked its location. Little is known of Ewolda beyond a brief mention by the Venerable Bede: “On the twelfth of October is the feast of the martyr Saint Ewolda, who converted the kingdom of Barsyt and founded a monastery there. With the sacrifice of her life she kept the light of Christ burning in that place.”

  February 7, 1941, Barchester

  Barchester was not equipped with air-raid sirens, being both beyond the range of German bombers and of no strategic value—but bomber squadrons could become lost on nights when fog unexpectedly blanketed the south of England, and while the emergence of a cathedral spire from that fog might confirm to the navigator that he was too far off course to return home safely, to the bombardier it would recall the words of the commanding officer: “Some target is better than no target.” And so Edward was woken from his dreams not by sirens but by shouts and the blaring of car horns and a roaring overhead that grew louder every minute.

  His brother’s bed was empty, and when he had pulled on some clothes and emerged from his room, he found no one else in the house. A sudden flash of light was followed by an explosion, and in an instant Edward was covered with glass, his ears ringing so loudly that for a moment they drowned out all other sound. Being nine years old hadn’t kept him from reading the papers and listening to the wireless—he knew what had been happening in London. His parents had told him Barchester was safe from air raids; obviously, they had been wrong. Edward stumbled to the front door and flung it open. Across the street, the Greshams’ house was a blazing pile of rubble. He heard screams and cries from all directions and was just about to add his own to the raucous cacophony when he saw a familiar face and felt a hand on his arm.

  “Edward, are you all right? Your parents asked me to look in on you.”

  “Quite all right, sir,” said Edward, for whom the presence of his neighbor and choirmaster was exactly what he needed to steel his nerves and change his outlook from fear to determination. “What can I do to help?”

  “Come with me,” said Mr. Grantly.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the library.”

  By the time they reached the cathedral precincts, four other members of the choir had joined them—two older boys, and two of the vicars choral, the men who sang the tenor and bass parts. Orange light outlined the spire of the cathedral and as they ran toward the cloister the source became apparent—a raging fire at the east end. Edward could hardly see through the smoke, but it looked as if the Lady Chapel, in which the choir often practiced, was at the center of the blaze.

  Mr. Grantly allowed no time for gawking, however, and the musicians quickly made their way through the cloister and up the winding stone stairs to the library, lit only by the flames that flickered outside the windows.

  “The fire could reach here any minute,” said Mr. Grantly. “We need to save as much as we can. Start with these manuscripts.”

  Edward had never had occasion to visit the cathedral library, but there was no time to admire the cases of ancient books that glowed in the light of the fire. He reached up and took hold of a vellum-bound manuscript on the shelf in front of him. It was not a huge volume—larger than his schoolbooks, but not as large as the family Bible—yet it felt weighted with mystery. He had just settled the book in his arms and was turning to go when it jerked out of his hands. He reached out to keep it from falling to the floor, only to find the ancient tome floating in midair. It must be a magic book, he thought, watching transfixed as it swayed in front of him, its pages illuminated by the orange light.

  Edward loved languages. He had already learned a lot of Latin and a smattering of Old English, but even though he caught only a glimpse of them, the words before him made no sense. The letters were what he expected from Medieval Latin, but the combinations in which they filled the page were meaningless. Each word was the same length, and Edward
was just thinking that perhaps all magical incantations came in words of exactly nine letters when a desperate voice rang out next to him.

  “How do we get them loose?” asked one of the vicars choral. Edward realized that the volume he had been holding was not hovering in the air through some enchantment but hanging from a chain that connected it to the shelf. Each of the manuscripts in the case before him, he saw, was similarly chained.

  “The librarian keeps the key in his lodgings,” said the other vicar choral. “But he’s gone to Wells to visit his mother.” Suddenly there was a crashing sound as one of the high windows burst inward and glass rained down upon a library table.

  “There’s no time,” said Mr. Grantly. “Tear off the covers.”

  The man next to Edward grabbed the chain of the dangling manuscript in one hand and the book in the other. With a loud grunt, he rent the two apart, leaving the manuscript’s front cover hanging by its chain. He thrust the volume at Edward, who clasped it to his chest. As the vicar choral pulled the next manuscript off the shelf, Edward ran for the exit, winding down the stairs until he stumbled into the cloister. He saw that Mr. Grantly, who had dashed down the steps ahead of him, had already begun a pile of books near the yew tree on the far side of the cloister, but the volume Edward held seemed too important to merely cast onto the heap. He crept into the darkest corner of the cloister and laid the book in a niche in the stone wall. He stood breathing heavily for a few seconds, then dashed back to the library.

  More and more people crowded the room, and soon a line had formed from the shelves down the stairs and into the cloister. Edward found himself at the top of the stairs, passing volume after volume to a pair of hands that reached out from the shadows. At first the books were like the manuscript he had taken to the cloister—their front covers torn off. Soon the manuscripts were replaced with leather-bound books of every size, boxes of letters and papers, and stacks of documents, some bearing huge wax seals. Edward’s arms began to ache as he passed everything that came his way to those mysterious hands. Every few minutes another window broke from the heat of the fire. Edward could feel the room growing hotter.

  After more than an hour, he heard Mr. Grantly’s voice shouting, “Get out! Get out! The fire’s here.” Edward looked up to see flames shooting through the windows and licking the tops of the now empty bookcases that lined the far wall. In another second, he felt himself pressed along by the line of people and almost carried down the stairs. He followed the line across the cloister toward the cathedral close.

  The mound of books Mr. Grantly had begun in the cloister had been moved far from harm’s way by people who had flocked from all over the city to save the cathedral’s treasures. Edward stood for a minute gulping in the cool night air. As Mr. Grantly and several others carried the last of the books from the cloister and farther away from the fire, Edward suddenly remembered the manuscript. He ran to the corner of the cloister where he had secreted it, but a man in a strange gray clerical robe was lifting the book from its hiding place. He had seen this man in the library helping to remove a few of the smaller furnishings. Now the man glanced around and, apparently not seeing the choirboy, disappeared around a corner. Edward followed him out of the cloister and beheld a scene of chaos.

  Some who had helped empty the library were now passing buckets of water from the river to the fire. Others were busy loading the books and manuscripts, along with other valuables, into a variety of transport. Wagons and carts full of books disappeared into the darkness. In the shadows, Edward saw the man in gray slipping through the crowd toward St. Martin’s Lane. He was just about to chase after him, to ask why he had taken the manuscript, when he felt a hand clap on his shoulder.

  “A good night’s work, Edward,” said Mr. Grantly. “But we’d better get you home. Your parents are sure to be worried.”

  “Won’t they need help unloading?”

  Mr. Grantly laughed. “You’ve done enough. We’ll unload the wagons in the morning and find safe places for all the books until this”—he waved his hand at the sky in disgust—“until all this is over.”

  They turned toward Edward’s home, and as they walked away from the crowd, the boy glanced back toward the arch that led into St. Martin’s Lane, but the strange figure was gone.

  The next morning, Edward learned that his father and older brother had helped extinguish the fire, while his mother had worked with the other women of the Flower Guild to remove the plate from the cathedral. Save for some smoke damage, the main body of the cathedral was unharmed. The Lady Chapel had been completely destroyed, and the row of buildings on the east side of the cloister, including the library, had suffered significant damage. Edward read in the newspaper that over eighty medieval manuscripts and almost three thousand books had been saved from the library. Assisting in that rescue was the only part he ever played in the war, but for the rest of his life he was proud of what he had done that night.

  April 4, 2016

  SECOND MONDAY AFTER EASTER

  Arthur Prescott sometimes thought he was born in the wrong generation. It’s not that he thought he should be a Knight of the Round Table, but he should at least be living in the 1920s with Jeeves pulling on his morning coat for him, or better yet in the 1880s, discussing the relative merits of Gladstone and Disraeli in a first-class railway carriage. These daydreams generally came to an abrupt end as soon as he thought about things like public sanitation and penicillin. Still, if he was not living in the wrong time, he was at least teaching at the wrong institution—one must grant him that. Arthur was not born for the concrete and glass confines of the modern University of Barchester. Arthur was molded for the ancient stonework of Oxford. Arthur, by all rights, should be climbing a creaking staircase to his top-floor rooms in the great quadrangle of Lazarus College. He should be reading The Daily Jupiter in the paneled Senior Common Room and taking his meals in the cavernous hall hung with portraits of scholars past. Instead, he taught at a plate-glass university, which, in a recent ranking of the top fifty universities in the U.K., did not rate a mention, honorable or otherwise.

  But Arthur had come to Barchester willingly, not because of the university but in spite of it. For as much as he hated those breeze-block walls that imprisoned him each day, he loved Barchester itself, with its narrow streets, its meandering river, and its ancient cathedral towering over the compact city center. Arthur had taken the job at the university so he could live in his favorite place in the world, the only place he had known happiness as a child. During Arthur’s childhood, his father had hopped from job to job and his parents had fought and broken up and gotten back together in an unending cycle. But every summer, Arthur had spent two glorious weeks with his maternal grandfather in Barchester. They had swum in the river and taken long walks in the countryside; they had played chess on rainy days; they had even climbed the tower of the cathedral. Arthur’s grandfather was a retired clergyman, and seemed to know every churchman for miles around, from the bishop of Barchester to the verger who kept the keys to every secret part of the cathedral. Arthur’s love for his grandfather had expanded into a love for Barchester. He loved how every stone of the old city had a story, how every wall and corner and rooftop dripped with history, and he loved that his grandfather knew all those stories and all that history and shared it all with him. Arthur was eight when he first visited and by the time he was a teenager he had promised himself he would live in Barchester someday. Unfortunately, keeping that promise meant that every morning he rode to the third floor of the humanities building in a lift that somehow managed to seem simultaneously sterile and unsanitary.

  The doors opened jerkily to reveal the scowling face of Frederick Slopes, head of the Department of Literature in which Arthur toiled away as a junior lecturer.

  “Late again, Prescott,” said Slopes.

  “And good morning to you, sir,” said Arthur.

  “You do realize that we had a meeting of the Cu
rriculum Expansion Committee at eight.”

  “This may be a radical notion, sir, but do you think perhaps the Curriculum Expansion Committee ought to be populated by members of the faculty who actually favor curriculum expansion?”

  “Your personal tastes are entirely irrelevant to your committee work, Prescott.”

  “Now, if you had asked me to serve on the Curriculum Contraction Committee, I would have been here at seven.” Arthur turned to walk down the hall, but heard Slopes’s steps close behind.

  “Prescott, I cannot allow your continued absence from the work of this department to go unpunished.”

  “Do you know, sir,” said Arthur, turning on his heels and facing his tormentor, “that we teach a seminar in this department called ‘Anagnorisis in the Existential Hogwarts,’ but we do not teach a seminar on Shakespeare?”

  “Prescott, you—”

  “That’s William Shakespeare. He was a playwright. Not bad, actually. Nor do we teach seminars on Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. They wrote books. Cracking good ones.”

  “They are all covered in the core module. And by the way, Prescott, the Hogwarts course is oversubscribed this term.”

  “I have no doubt. But that shouldn’t mean—”

  “This university must move with the times, Prescott. And so must you, or you will be left behind. Do I make myself clear?”

  “There was a time,” said Arthur, “when universities led the culture rather than followed it.”

  “There was also a time,” barked Slopes, “when the Committee on Curriculum Expansion met. And that time was eight o’clock. Now, if you miss one more meeting, I will have to report you to the Committee on Faculty Disciplinary Affairs.”

  And no doubt they, thought Arthur as Slopes stomped off, will report my actions to the Committee on Flushing British Culture Down the Loo.