Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [28]
He paused, muttering to himself, then exclaimed,
‘Thankfully, I had learnt many skills over the years... if only you could see the manuscripts I illuminated!’
He held up his fingers for me to see. They looked normal to my eyes, but I said nothing.
‘You can see the gold on my hands from the hours I spent in the scriptorium,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘All this knowledge would have come in useful in Kiev.’
‘It did – but it also led to my imprisonment. Adviser Yevhen had obtained a manuscript of some sort. Now, his family are a rustic bunch, and Yevhen is the first to achieve any prominence.
Even so, he could not make head or tail of the text, so he came to me for a translation. Although it was in some obscure rural dialect I could tell immediately that this was no mere note of family history. Yevhen claimed that the document revealed many great secrets, specifically the tale of Kiev’s heavenly guardian which had been brought to the city long ago while the cathedral was being built. He was not wrong.’
‘What did the manuscript say?’
‘Taken at face value, it seemed to confirm many of the details of Yevhen’s claim. That an angel had fallen from heaven after some sort of battle against the Evil One; that this celestial creature was contained within a coffin or a casket, but that, though it seemed dead, it was in fact only sleeping. It was waiting for a time of tribulation, at which point it would wake and come to the defence of the people of Kiev.’
‘The people who found this “angel”. . How did they know all this?’
Olexander paused, trying to remember. ‘The manuscript was not specific, though there was a suggestion that the angel had somehow spoken directly to the men who found its casket.’ He paused, glancing around him as if to confirm that we were quite alone. ‘The manuscript claims to have been written soon after the coffin’s arrival. However, I suppose it may have been based on little more than the fanciful stories of Yevhen’s forefathers, given permanence by the scribe to whom the task was entrusted.’
‘And where is the casket now?’
‘The terminology was vague,’ said Olexander. ‘The vocabulary, the syntax, deliberately obscure. But I believe that it referred to a series of tunnels and chambers set deep in the very foundations of the cathedral.’
‘Do these tunnels exist?’
‘Some believe them to, though I have only seen them mentioned in the manuscript.’
‘They could provide some refuge from the coming attack for the people of Kiev,’ I suggested.
Olexander smiled. ‘I said as much, but Yevhen was dismissive. He may be right. Yes, a few hundred people, possibly more, could lock themselves away in the catacombs with whatever provisions they could muster. But what then? The food runs out, and they die. Or they emerge from the tunnels – and find the Tartars patiently waiting for them.’
I nodded, taking all this in, though I could not see how either the tunnels or the casket could have much to do with Yevhen’s plans now Or, indeed, Olexander’s imprisonment. I said as much.
‘Ah, I was coming to that,’ Olexander said. ‘Yevhen became obsessed with this angel. It was, he concluded, the only hope for Kiev, the only way we could avoid death at the hands of the Tartars. When I questioned the wisdom of trusting in so ancient a document, he told the ecclesiastical authorities I was a dangerous heretic working on translating the Holy Gospels into base Russian.’
‘Were you?’
‘No, the idea does not interest me in the slightest,’ said Olexander. ‘I am quite content with the Latin, the Greek. But my skill with languages, and my background within the cloisters, worked against me. Yevhen had no evidence against me, but there was little I could do to dispute the charges. Bishop Vasil sent entreaties to the prince, requesting my immediate imprisonment on