The Gawain Legacy Read online

  ‘Sounds like she wouldn’t get a good deal either.’

  ‘The Lord knew what she was up to. She was part of the plan. Gawain might have lost the challenge, but he’s older and wiser because of the test.’

  ‘He probably knows better than to take up daft challenges,’ Lara said.

  ‘The Green Knight turns out to have been Gawain’s host all along. He praises Gawain for his handling of a delicate situation, but Gawain only sees his shame. He wears the green girdle for the rest of his life as a symbol of dishonour, but, when he returns to Camelot, the whole court wears the green girdle to honour his adventure.’

  ‘So they all lived happily ever after?’ Lara sounded cynical.

  ‘Well, I doubt Gawain liked being reminded he cheated his host. And then the court fell apart with war, treason, adultery and the battle between Arthur and Mordred.’

  Lara smiled up at him. ‘It’s a nice story, but it doesn’t explain why Hitler was interested in it, or why you’d die before giving it up.’ She looked away, ‘Unless you think standing in front of a train represents a feigned attempt with the axe.’

  Will tapped the cover. ‘There’s power here,’ he explained. ‘There are too many coincidences: the number of times the number three is mentioned. Or two for that matter. Or four. Or five. There’s another poem in the collection called Pearl, with one hundred and one stanzas, exactly the same as Gawain.’

  ‘Maybe that’s all the poet could count up to,’ Lara said flippantly.

  ‘Maybe. But maybe the numbers are significant. It’s like signing a letter. We know nothing about the author. But the poem’s got secrets in it. The clue’s in the numbers. That’s why I’m going to Chester. I’ll start with what the poet would’ve seen.’

  ‘It could be anything,’ Lara protested. ‘Also, it could have been destroyed since the poet died. There’s been a lot of wars, and what happens if they’ve put a road through the poet’s favourite hill?’

  ‘I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.’

  ‘And another thing. Those men … if they know you’ve got the book, then they’ll look wherever they think the trail’s leading you.’

  ‘The poem’s been around for six hundred years, Lara. No one’s found the answers in that time. Why should they start now?’

  Lara nodded. ‘And why should you?’

  Will stood up. ‘This is Chester. Time to go.’

  *

  ‘Do you know Chester at all?’ Lara asked as they came out of the station and walked towards the city.

  ‘Not very well. I had an aunt who lived near here, so my mother brought me every once in a while. We saw the same things: the Roman amphitheatre, the Rows, the Guildhall Museum, the Cathedral. Not much more.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Lara said earnestly. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Fifteen, twenty years ago?’ He marched purposefully past the city walls. In the distance, looming over the houses like a guardian, the cathedral glowed with the tinge of red sandstone.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Somewhere to stay. We’re not sleeping rough tonight.’

  She felt a sudden chill. ‘Will, I’m not sure I can afford that. My savings …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Will said with a wry smile. ‘This is my nightmare, so while I’m dragging you along, I’ll cover for you.’

  ‘There’s loads of Bed and Breakfast houses and hotels here,’ Lara said pointing.

  ‘I know, but they’re all too big. Anywhere with more than a couple of rooms and someone might know us.’

  Lara considered this. ‘You’re worried about meeting someone we know in a place neither of us has been for years? That’s really paranoid, Will.’

  Will grimaced. ‘Let’s just say the world’s a small place.’ He turned into a residential street and walked quickly along the road. He stopped outside a modest black and white timber-framed house with a laminated sign stating ‘Vacancies’. Aside from the sign, there was nothing to show it was a business of any sort, no enticing house name: Lara had expected it to be called ‘Cathedral View’ or some such thing. It didn’t say how many rooms there were, or what facilities were available.

  ‘This is what we want,’ Will said. ‘Not far from the Cathedral and quiet as well.’ He looked at Lara. ‘I want an early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Will, it’s just gone two thirty. There’s still things we can do today.’

  Will nodded. ‘We need lunch first. I can’t think on an empty stomach. Then we need some clothes and a bath.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘I feel like I haven’t had a bath in years.’ He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘And I don’t need to be Einstein to see you’re exhausted. You need sleep.’ He glanced around him. Daylight had never really broken through the overcast winter sky. ‘Darkness is oppressive. It conceals. Useful for us, but I also don’t want to be walking when I can’t see who’s following me.’

  ‘You really take this seriously, don’t you?’

  ‘Only because I have to.’ Will marched forward and knocked on the door.

  The door was opened by a middle-aged woman with snowy hair. She would have been pretty once, Lara thought, but age had etched itself into her face. She smiled welcomingly ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m Will, this is Lara. We need a couple of rooms.’

  The woman seemed to hesitate. She knows, Lara thought, knows that we’re running.

  ‘I have a double room,’ the woman said. ‘The other rooms are being decorated,’ she added apologetically. Lara was about to protest, but Will was already shaking his head. ‘Lara and I are friends,’ he explained. ‘Perhaps we should go somewhere else.’

  The woman hesitated again, seemingly struggling with a dilemma. Then, seeing Lara, her face, already welcoming, softened further. ‘My daughter’s bedroom …’ she said gently, to Lara, not to Will; there was a faint stammer in her voice. ‘You could stay there.’ She seemed to need to provide an explanation. ‘She … I keep forgetting I can use that room as well.’ She smiled again, but this time Lara felt uncomfortable.

  The woman seemed to compose herself. ‘I’m Elaine Victor,’ she said, shaking hands with Will. ‘Welcome to my house.’ She led them upstairs. ‘Bathroom’s here,’ she said, indicating a door identified with the sign ‘Yer tiz’. Lara groaned inwardly at an older mentality where ‘lavatory’ was replaced by euphemisms.

  She led Will to a room at the end of a corridor. It was sparsely decorated in pastel colours. There was a cupboard and sink against one wall and a double bed against another. A kettle and sachets of tea and coffee sat on a bedside cabinet beside the bed. Will thanked her and dropped his bag on the floor. ‘We’ll head out soon,’ Will said to Lara. ‘I need to freshen up first.’ He smiled at Mrs Victor and indicated down the corridor. ‘The loo’s down there as well, is it?’

  Mrs Victor nodded, embarrassed. ‘Come on, I’ll show you to your room,’ she said to Lara, as Will advanced down the corridor. Lara nodded and followed.

  It was a large room; a single bed rested against one wall. Orange and blue material covered the ceiling, concealing four spotlights which bathed the room in subdued light. A large oval wicker-framed mirror stood in one corner. Behind it was a hanging basket of flowers, while on the frame was a white mask and a Peruvian hat. Opposite the bed was a black and white picture from The Third Man and two pencil drawings of young girls: they were either sisters or the same girl aged six and ten.

  She realised she was staring, analysing the decor, and Mrs Victor seemed embarrassed by the attention. ‘Did your daughter decorate this all herself?’

  Mrs Victor nodded, but said nothing.

  ‘She must be very talented,’ Lara said.

  ‘She was,’ was Mrs Victor’s solemn reply. She retreated from the room mumbling a vague apology, leaving Lara feeling she had made a tremendous faux pas.

  Twenty minutes later, Will knocked on Lara’s door. His hair was still wet from the bath. ‘I want visiting rights to that towel,’ h
e said, smiling. ‘I didn’t want to leave.’

  ‘What good was a bath when you changed back into the same clothes?’ Lara asked.

  ‘I feel clean now, even if the clothes are dirty. It makes all the difference. Anyway, let’s get some food and some shopping. Then we can plan for tomorrow.’

  ‘We won’t be too late back,’ Will said. ‘Probably not much after six, so we won’t trouble you for a key.’

  Mrs Victor smiled and nodded. Lara smiled uncertainly, but whatever error she had made seemed to have been forgiven.

  As they went outside, Will glanced disdainfully at the darkening sky. ‘What do you want first, food or clothes?’

  Hunger pangs mixed with anxiety had been attacking Lara all day: ‘Food.’

  *

  ‘The good thing about eating at this time of day is no one else wants to,’ Will said, leading her into a modest restaurant with a mock Tudor façade, near the Rows. It was dimly lit, with mauve curtains at the window. The music was gentle, almost inaudible.

  The waitress seated them at a table in an alcove. Will peered over his shoulder at the cathedral outside. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’

  Lara said nothing. She was too tired to admire the architecture. Will smiled. ‘Poor little button, you’re shattered, aren’t you?’

  The waitress arrived with a couple of menus. ‘Have whatever you want,’ he said.

  Lara glanced at the menu. ‘Steak,’ she said with a wry grin.

  ‘Good idea!’ Will said. He caught the attention of the waitress and ordered two steaks.

  ‘I was kidding,’ Lara protested.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for, it might come true,’ Will said and thought for a second. ‘I am a great eater of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.’

  ‘You really know your Shakespeare, don’t you?’

  Will waved his hand noncommittally. ‘Sometimes I had to stand in for the English teachers.’ Realising the waitress was waiting for a drink order, he asked for two cups of coffee. The waitress returned a few moments later.

  ‘Do you drink anything except coffee?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Sometimes. Caffeine’s as much a drug as alcohol, but I prefer to keep my senses sharp.’ He looked away. ‘I drank enough alcohol to last me a lifetime. Now I need my wits about me.’ He seemed to sniff the air. ‘They’re close,’ he said. ‘They may not know we’re in Chester, but they’ll find a way to smoke us out.’

  ‘So we’d better put a move on, what can we do tonight?’

  Will turned, gazing at the cathedral. It had been illuminated, both inside and out. The lower part of the building was highlighted, the upper sections bathed in shadow. The lights inside emphasised the shapes of the mid-Gothic windows. ‘The cathedral will be closed tonight. I think that’s where we’ll find … something. Of course, we don’t actually know if the cathedral is the right place. The poet could have seen something in the Roman ruins. Impossible to say.’

  ‘And once we get inside, what are we looking for?’

  ‘There’s a passage in the poem. I think it’s part of the code. You should take a look.’

  Will took the manuscript from his pocket and flicked through the pages. He opened it at a paragraph with an illuminated letter. ‘These letters are scattered through the book to mark the four different sections,’ Will explained. ‘But, in some places, smaller letters are used. I think it draws attention to the stanza.’

  The words wove in front of Lara like a magical charm:

  And quy þe pentangel apendez to þat prince nobel

  I am in tent yow to telle, þof tary hyt me schulde:

  Hit is a syngne þat Salamon set sumquyle …

  Lara shook her head. ‘I’ve told you. I can’t read this.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Will said. ‘I wanted you to see the illuminated letters.’ He pointed to the top of the paragraph. ‘It says here,’ he paused while translating it in his head. ‘“Then they brought out a shield that was of bright gules …”’

  ‘Bright what?’

  ‘Red,’ Will said. ‘Don’t interrupt. “With the pentangle depicted in pure gold hues”.’ He jumped a few lines. ‘“And why the pentangle belongs to that noble prince, I intend to tell you, though it will delay me. It is a sign which Solomon once set as a token of truth, for it is a figure which has five points, and each line overlaps and locks with the other, and everywhere is its endless and the English call it, all over the place, as I hear, the endless knot.”’ He tapped a word. ‘The pentangle – he spells it “Pent-Angel” – is like putting an asterisk at the top of a page to remind yourself it’s important.’

  ‘And that’s your theory?’ Lara shook her head in disbelief. ‘Gawain’s shield has an arrow pointing in five directions. How do you expect to follow a map from that?’

  Will smiled. ‘The shield is the marker. This is the first time in English literature that the Seal of Solomon is mentioned. The poet goes to great lengths to explain the details of the shield. His audience wouldn’t have heard of it before.’

  ‘And …?’ Lara realised she was leaning forward in anticipation.

  ‘At any time before this poem, someone might have thought of Jewish mythology where the star has six points.’

  ‘So maybe the poet didn’t do his research properly?’

  Will shook his head. ‘He knew what he was doing. The positioning of the star was equally important. He says, It is a sign that Solomon once set It’s the first time Solomon is mentioned. That’s at line 625, which is 5×5×5×5.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I counted. Then I started to think about how I’d disguise a code if I were writing the poem. I thought the best way would be to hide the code in the lines.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what you’ve already found?’ Lara asked.

  Will grinned. ‘Sorry, am I in “teacher mode” again?’

  The waitress reappeared and set two plates of steak in front of them. Will started to eat. Lara eyed him cautiously. ‘You were saying?’

  Will nodded as he swallowed. ‘It’s hard to explain, but if Solomon’s Seal represents the number five, it could be telling the audience to look at the nearest number in base five.’

  Lara thought about it. ‘I suppose. So what’s the nearest number?’

  ‘I spent hours looking for this one,’ Will admitted. ‘The poem then talks about the five senses, the five fingers, the five wounds of Christ, the five joys of the virgin and the five virtues of Gawain. I thought it would be a total of twenty-five. Then I realised the nearest number would be the line number, 625. If you multiply that by base 5 then you get the number: one, zero, zero, zero, zero.’

  ‘Ten thousand,’ Lara said.

  ‘Well, yes, but it wouldn’t be ten thousand because it’s in base five. It’s the same if you add up the total of the five representations of the pentangle you also get twenty-five, or one, zero, zero, in base five. Either way you get the perfect “one”.’

  ‘The perfect “one” what?’

  ‘Pythagoras said numbers represented something else. You add up the numbers so you’d get a number between one and nine. Your name for example, the first letter is “L” so that’s worth twelve. Then you’d get one for “A”, eighteen for the “R” and another one for the “A”. A total of thirty two, and you add the three and two together to make …’ he hesitated. ‘Five,’ he said eventually.

  ‘You’re making this up,’ Lara said.

  ‘A coincidence,’ Will admitted. ‘Anyway, the seal represents the perfect “one”.’

  ‘So what does five represent? Is there some kind of horoscope behind it.’

  ‘Five symbolises freedom and independence. It’s the number of perfection in the poem.’ He smiled mischievously. ‘Do you feel that describes your character?’

  ‘I guess it’s what I’ve been looking for, even if I haven’t found it.’ She shifted uncomfortably. ‘What about number “one”?’

  ‘Activation. You know, like
the first prime number, or the one who was alone to create the universe.’

  Lara’s eyes narrowed. ‘So if you changed your name would your personality change as well?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Will said. ‘Anyway,’ he glanced back over his shoulder as if the cathedral would leave if he stopped keeping vigil on it. ‘We have to find Solomon’s Seal, and find the perfect “one” near it. Hopefully it’ll point us in the right direction.’

  ‘This is a lot of speculation,’ Lara said. ‘You don’t know anything about the poet. Why d’you expect to find something in Chester? Why not London?’

  ‘Because the poet wrote in a Chester dialect. He didn’t come from London. Chaucer was writing at the same time. Practically a different language.’ He took a long sigh. ‘It would be helpful if they included an “About the Author” section.’

  Lara picked at the remains of her steak. ‘If you think the numbers are important, why not try all the lines which add up to five? 5, 14, 32, 41, 50?’

  ‘I tried it,’ Will admitted. ‘I thought I was getting somewhere when the poet said “teach me truly with this” in line 401. But when he said, Who brings us this beverage, this bargain is made, I realised it might not be so clever.’

  ‘Maybe we ought to ask the waitress?’

  ‘I doubt her training covers medieval codes.’ He looked at the two empty plates. ‘You wolfed that lot down. Do you feel better?’

  Lara nodded. With food inside her she was thinking clearly. ‘But this Seal of Solomon,’ she said. ‘Isn’t the five pointed star an occult symbol?’

  ‘Partly true,’ Will said. ‘Nineteenth-century occultists inverted it, just like the crucifix was inverted to turn the divinity of Christ on its head. Sometimes it’s connected with demonology, like in Göethe’s Faust, but it’s older than Christian and Jewish symbolism.’ He slipped the manuscript back into his pocket, then politely called the waitress and asked for the bill. He paid cash as he pulled his coat on.

  It was cold when they went back outside. A premature darkness had fallen. The streetlights reflected against the wet roads. A blanket of clouds smothered the sky.

  ‘Shopping time,’ he told her, leading her into The Rows, the black and white Tudor-style arcaded shops with projecting second storeys. The familiar High Street names seemed out of place in streets that should have been filled with antique and curio shops. He pointed her away from the historic arcades, past the Eastgate and in the direction of Marks and Spencer. ‘Just the essentials,’ he warned her. ‘A couple of changes of clothes and some toiletries. We need to travel light.’