The Courtship - Catherine Coulter [52]
He said, “It’s Old French.”
“The French Edward the First spoke?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Just a moment.” Helen set the lantern down and reached into her cloak pocket. This time she pulled out some ribbon-tied papers and a chunk of charcoal wrapped in a white cloth.
“Are you always so prepared, Helen?”
“I sketch,” she said. She gave him a quick sideways look. “I had thought perhaps that later I would draw you on the beach, just over where the tide pool is.”
“I should like that,” he said. She looked down then. Was she mayhap embarrassed because her level of skill wasn’t sufficient? He was pleased, very pleased.
“Naked. Perhaps standing with your hands on your hips, staring out to sea, the tide pool flowing over your bare feet. What do you think?”
He stared at her, mesmerized. “Be quiet. I prefer you pulling off my boots.”
She was grinning as she smoothed out a piece of foolscap on the ledge. She held the charcoal, waiting for him to translate.
“The words are written on top of each other. This won’t be easy.” He read slowly, translating as he went, “ ‘It is blessed or it is nothing. It is here and yet it is not here. It is the light of his dawn.’ ” He paused, frowned.
“Yes,” he said, staring at that word, “it does say ‘his dawn,’ not ‘the dawn.’ ”
Helen was tugging on his sleeve. “Hurry, Spenser.”
“Let me think a moment. Oh, yes. ‘It is powerful but it cannot be proved. It is something other, but no one knows what. Whatever truths it holds we do not understand them. We fear its power. We bury it and pray that its spirit survives. If it is evil, withal, we pray it journeys back to hell.’ ”
Spenser looked up. “That’s all of it. I think I got most of it right. Have you gotten it all down?”
“Just a moment, a bit more. Now, let me take a few moments and copy down the original as well.”
He watched her very carefully copy down the Old French. When she was finished, she looked up at him and shuddered. “I’m cold. It’s from the inside out. What can it mean?” He rose slowly, then gave her his hand. “Why was this with the leather scroll?”
He just shook his head.
“Where is the lamp? Why wasn’t the lamp here? Surely this Old French speaks directly of the lamp.”
“Yes, it does. There is nothing else that fits.”
“Then where is it?”
“I begin to think that the Templar who gave King Edward the lamp presented it to him in the iron cask along with the leather scroll. I do not believe that anyone could have translated the scroll back then. I think that when the king decided to hide the lamp, perhaps at overwhelming urging from churchmen, he simply placed it back into its original cask, with the scroll, then buried it in the cave wall. He had someone write on this ledge—giving some sort of explanation, some sort of reasoning.”
“But none of it makes any sense. It seems it was just as great a mystery to them as it is to us.”
“Possibly. But perhaps they did understand a bit of it, enough to be frightened of it. Who knows? It is said that the medieval mind was a labyrinth with more twists and shadows than we modern folk can begin to comprehend.
“Or, Helen, perhaps someone found the lamp hundreds of years ago and simply removed it. He left the cask and the scroll behind because he perceived no value in them.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “that sounds reasonable.” She looked as if she would cry. “Then the lamp is gone, found by someone long ago, perhaps disposed of again, and now there is simply no trace of it.”
“No, I could easily be wrong. The lamp could have been hidden elsewhere. Perhaps the scroll instructs that the lamp should be kept separate from it. That would mean, then, that someone did translate the scroll. If that is true, then the scroll will have to speak of it.” He saw that she wanted to believe him. He wasn’t at all sure what he himself believed at this moment. A riddle in Old French engraved on a ledge at the back of a cave. And out of the wall of that cave, just above that ledge, had fallen