Book of Souls

“I have been troubled the whole of my life by what I saw that day, and I did not want to go to my grave without seeking understanding. I have long thought of coming back. I was finally able.”

“It is a shame you left the Church. I remember your great piety and generosity of spirit.”

“All gone,” Luke said bitterly. “Taken.”

“I am saddened, my son. You surely have the opinion that Vectis Abbey was a place of sin and evil, but it is not so. Our great enterprise had a holy and sacred purpose.”

“And what was that purpose, Father?”

“We were serving the needs of God by serving the needs of these frail, mute scribes. Through divine intervention, their labors spanned centuries. They were making a record, Luke, a record of the arrivals and passings of all God’s children, then and into the future.”

“How was this possible?”

Felix shrugged. “From the hand of God to the hands of these men. They had a strange, singular purpose. Otherwise, they were like children, completely dependent on us for their care.”

Luke spat out, “Not only that.”

“Yes, they had a need to reproduce. Their task was enormous. It required thousands of them laboring for hundreds of years. We had to give them the means.”

“I am sorry, Father, but that is an abomination. You forced your sisters into whoredom.”

“Not whoredom!” Felix cried. His emotion raised the pressure inside his head and made his eye throb ferociously. “It was service! Service toward a higher purpose! It was beyond outsiders to understand!” He clutched the side of his head in pain.

Luke worried that the old man would die in front of him, so he eased off. “What became of their labors?”

“There was a vast Library, Luke, surely the largest in all of Christendom. You were close to it that day but never saw it. After you fled, Abbot Baldwin, blessed be his memory, had the Library sealed and the chapel razed by fire. It is my belief the Library was consumed.”

“Why was that done, Father?”

“Baldwin believed that man was not ready for the revelations of the Library. And I daresay he feared you, Luke.”

“Me?”

“He feared you would reveal the secrets, that others would come, that outsiders would hold us in judgment, that evil men would exploit the Library for dark purposes. He made a decision, and I carried it out. I lit the fires myself.”

Luke saw his parchment on the abbot’s table, rolled back in its ribbon. “The parchment I took that day, pray tell me its meaning, Father. It has vexed me.”

“Luke, my son, I will tell you all I know. I will be dead soon. I feel a great burden upon me, as I am the last man alive who knows about the Library. I have written an account of my knowledge. Please allow me to unburden myself by giving you that account and also pressing something else upon you.”

He went to his chest and retrieved the massive book. Luke rushed over to take it from him, as it appeared too heavy for him to manage.

“It is the only surviving one,” Felix said. “You and I have another connection, Luke. You knew not why you took that parchment that day, and I know not why I saved one book from the fire. Perhaps, we were both guided by an unseen hand. Will you take back your parchment and also take this book, which has within it a letter I have written? Will you allow this old man to pass the burden to you?”

“When I was young, you were kind to me and took me in, Father. I will.”

“Thank you.”

“What am I to do with them?”

Felix lifted his eyes toward the ceiling of his fine room. “That is for God to decide.”

1344 LONDON

Baron Cantwell of Wroxall woke up scratching and thinking about boots. He inspected his arms and abdomen and found small raised bumps, the telltale signs he had shared his mattress with bedbugs. Really! It was a privilege, to be sure, to be at Court, a guest at the Palace at Westminster, but surely the king would not wish his nobles to be eaten alive while they slept. He would have a stern word with the steward.

His room was small but otherwise comfortable. A bed, a chair, a chest, a commode, candles, and a rug to take the chill off the floor. It was lacking a hearth, so he would not have wanted to spend a midwinter night there, but in the pleasant blush of spring, it was satisfactory. In his youth, before he had curried royal favor, when Charles would visit London, he would stay at inns, where even at the more salubrious ones, he would have to share a bed with a stranger. Still, in those days, he would rarely retire in a state more conscious than blind drunk, so it hardly mattered. He was older now, with higher rank, and he assiduously favored his creature comforts.