The Sword of Moses (33 page)

He stared across at her, baffled. “What then? What is it?”

She looked at him with rising excitement. “I can’t tell you what it means, yet. But I’m willing to bet you any money that it’s very old, and was cast by an extremely powerful and secretive organization with something highly important to say.”

“You’ve lost me completely,” Ferguson shook his head.

Ava could feel her eyes shining. “It’s not a bull or a seal. It was never attached to a document.” She paused breathlessly. “Don’t you see? The message
is on the object
itself. The words on the front. They’re a puzzle. A clue. A code. A centuries-old riddle. And whatever the hidden message is, it comes straight from the heart of one of the world’s most secretive and shadowy organizations—the medieval Vatican.”

——————— ◆ ———————

10b St James
’
s Gardens

Piccadilly

London SW1

England

The United Kingdom

Ava was leaning forward in the sofa, poring over the images Drewitt had sent.

“If it’s not a seal,” Ferguson asked, “then what is it?”

Ava was still unclear in her own mind “At a guess, it’s a religious medal.”

Ferguson looked quizzically at her. “The Vatican gave out medals?”

Ava nodded. “But not like military ones for gallantry or service. The Roman world was obsessed with magical talismans, amulets, and charms. When the early Church was born among the bazaars of pagan Rome, the first Christians still wanted all the comforting trinkets they were used to. So the Church tolerated and even encouraged them. They soon created Christian talismans and medals for every need—to ward off the devil, to protect from disease, to mark pilgrimages, and everything else you can think of. People wearing crosses around their necks today is a direct continuation of that ancient pagan tradition.”

“But if it’s a medal,” he countered, “why would it have a puzzle on it and not a clear open meaning?”

She had been asking herself the same question, but needed pen and paper to think clearly.

She got up and went to her study, where she picked up a pad of clean paper and a packet of felt tip pens.

Returning to the sitting room, she sat down on the sofa and began carefully copying out the words from the medal, writing them on a sheet of white paper in big capital letters, leaving a large space beneath each line.

“Can you translate it?” Ferguson asked.

“See the first sentence?” She took a red felt tip pen. “It’s basic medieval French.” She pointed at the line:

and underneath it quickly wrote out the translation:

“Which fits with the Vatican theory,” Ferguson noted, squinting at the photo more closely. “But what are the little crosses between every word?”

“They’re common on medieval seals,” she answered without looking up, “usually just stylistic, for decoration.”

She turned back to the photograph. “The next line is even easier. ‘CLEMENS III’ is a pope’s name, in Latin.” She wrote it out in English underneath:

CLEMENT THE THIRD

“Could we date the medal?” Ferguson asked. “By knowing when Clement was pope?”

Ava had never been good at remembering the order of popes. She recalled once looking through a list of them and realizing that, including the disputed popes, there had been around three hundred of them—or one every six-and-a-half years for the last twenty centuries.

She had better things to do with her time than memorize them all.

She pointed to the far side of the room, to a set of thick white wooden bookshelves running the length of the wall. They were filled with books of every colour, shape, and size. “That large blue book on the left of the bottom shelf will tell you.”

Ferguson walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out the volume she had indicated, and returned with it.

“This next line is also straightforward.” She pointed to it:

HAM OF ÞE HOOLY BLODIG BULLE

“It looks like very old English,” Ferguson said, “like something out of
The Lord of the Rings
. But what’s that?” He pointed at the sixth letter.

“Ah,” Ava nodded. “Ye olde monke’s habite.”

Ferguson frowned. “Sorry?”

“It’s a thorn,” she explained. “An old Nordic rune that survived in written English until several hundred years ago. It’s a ‘th’ sound. When printing started, early typesetters often used a ‘y’ instead because it was all they had in their box of largely Roman letters. So whenever you see a teashop called
Ye Olde Creame Bunne
or a pub called
Ye Olde Cuppe and Mitre
, it’s just an old-fashioned way of writing ‘the’.”

“You mean all those people earnestly saying ‘yee oldee’ are off the mark?” Ferguson looked amused.

Ava nodded. “Way off.”

“How disappointing.” He began flicking through the book.

Ava started writing again. “Anyway, it’s straightforward medieval English.” She wrote out the translation:

HOME OF THE HOLY BLOODY BULL

“A bloody bull?” Ferguson paused. “Like a papal bull, soaked in blood?”

Ava shrugged. She was not at all clear what it meant. She turned back to the photo. “And the last line, ‘SUB TUTELA STELLARUM’ is Latin.”

She added the translation underneath it:

UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE STARS

Ferguson put his finger on a line in the book. “Clement the third was pope from 1187 to 1191. Apparently there was also an anti-pope called Clement the third, but he was a hundred years earlier, 1080 to 1100.” He frowned. “What’s an anti-pope? A cure for the first one?”

“Something like that,” she smiled, holding up the sheet and standing back. “So if we put it all together, we get: ‘THE HOLY CHURCH OF ROME, CLEMENT THE THIRD, HOME OF THE HOLY BLOODY BULL, UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE STARS’.”

“I see what you mean,” Ferguson frowned, slipping the book of popes back onto the shelf. “The meaning’s no clearer in plain English.”

She looked at the sheet.

He was right.

But why?

She read the lines again.

Why was it so mysterious?

What was it trying to hide?

She stared at it, letting it wash over her.

But it still made no sense.

What was she missing?

Her phone buzzed to life again, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s another message from Drewitt,” she said, glancing down at it. “He’s been busy.”

As she clicked the image open and peered at it, a wave of nausea passed over her.

Oh God.

The blood drained completely from her face and ran cold.

Although it had taken her a moment to recognize, it was unmistakeably a photograph of Drewitt.

The image only showed his top half. But it was enough.

His head was lolling impossibly to one side, leaving no doubt his neck had been violently snapped. His mouth was gaping open, and his jaw was dangling at an ugly angle. With a rush of horror, she could see from the amount of blood inside his mouth and from the jagged stump visible in his throat that his tongue had been hacked out.

Feeling the bile rising, she looked down to where his shirt had been removed, and what had at first appeared to be random frenzied lacerations on his chest in fact spelled out letters, carved into his flesh with long deep cuts.

She turned away, her insides churning.

Ferguson had seen her reaction, and leant over to get a look at the screen.

“Christ,” he mumbled. “They’ve done a job on him.”

Ava was feeling physically ill.

She got up quickly and hurried to the bathroom. She was not normally squeamish—but this was different.

Drewitt had been helping her.

She could not escape the inevitable conclusion, which burst into her mind with another wave of nausea, stronger this time.

It was her fault.

Before she could stop herself, she vomited into the lavatory.

Two thoughts were echoing round her mind.

If she had not approached him, he would still be alive.

If she had not put pressure on him, he would still be up in Oxford, looking out of the window at the quad and the flowers.

She was sick again.

Ferguson appeared in the doorway, and handed her a towel off the rail.

She took it gratefully, too overwhelmed with the gruesome images of Drewitt to say anything.

Another person dead.

Her head reverberated with questions.

How many more was Malchus going to kill?

She needed desperately to understand what he was up to.

What was important enough to kill Drewitt?

And how did the Ark fit into it all?

What seemed sure was that wherever Malchus went, death invariably followed.

Emerging from the bathroom, she could smell fresh coffee coming from the sitting room. She wandered in, and saw Ferguson putting two cups down on the table.

He sat down on the sofa and looked again at the photograph of Drewitt. “Did you see what’s cut into his chest,” he asked as Ava walked over and sat down next to him.

She took the phone from him, and gazed again at the bloody mess where his chest had been.

As she tried to filter out the blood and gore, she thought she could make out individual letters. It looked like:

Ferguson squinted at it. “It looks like it was carved in a hurry. From the amount of blood, I’d guess he was still alive at the time.”

For a moment, Ava thought she would be sick again. But it passed.

“It looks like APOC ZOZB,” she answered, “whatever that means.” She felt her voice trail off as her eyes moved up from the phone and into the middle distance, where they gazed unfocused.

What kind of people did this?

She had seen many things in her time, but the animalistic savagery of Malchus and his men ranked up there with the worst she could imagine.

As she struggled to understand, a fresh wave of guilt hit her.

Drewitt would be alive if she hadn
’
t interfered.

“It’s not your fault,” Ferguson broke the silence. He was looking at her closely, concern on his face. “Drewitt made his own choices. He knew what he was getting into.”

Ava did not answer.

“Just like you. You know who Malchus is, and what he does.”

Ava shook her head. “I’m doing this because I need to. I want to. But I involved Drewitt. I forced him. This wasn’t his fight, and I pushed him into it.”

Ferguson shook his head. “He didn’t get where he is—or rather … was,” he corrected himself, “by being pushed around. He could’ve said no. But, just like you, he wanted the chance to go after Malchus. And you gave it to him.”

“Look, I know you’re trying to make me feel better … ,” she shot him an appreciative glance, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid.