Book of Souls

WILL AND ISABELLE sat in the library, the Nostradamus letter before them on a table. The enormity of their discoveries of the past two days had left them spent. Each seemed more momentous. They felt like they were two souls floating within the eye of a hurricane-everything around them peaceful and routine, but they knew they were dangerously close to a swirling, violent storm.

“Our book,” Isabelle muttered. “It’s had a profound effect on great men. When this is finished, I’m going to rush out to buy a copy of Nostradamus and read it with a newly found seriousness.”

“Maybe it was your book that made Calvin and Nostradamus great,” Will said, sipping his coffee. “Without it, they might have been historical also-rans.”

“Perhaps it will make us great too.”

“There you go again.” Will laughed. “I know it’s getting harder and harder for you to think about keeping this a secret but I’d rather you lived a long anonymous life than a short famous one.”

She ignored him. “We must find the last clue though I can’t imagine how it could top the first three. I mean, my God, the things we’ve found!”

He had an urge to call Nancy to thank her for her contribution. She’d be at work. “It’s all about the son who sinned,” he said.

Isabelle frowned. “I don’t know where to start on that one.” She heard her name being called from the Great Hall. “Granddad!” she shouted loudly. “We’re in the library.”

Lord Cantwell came in, clutching the newspaper under his arm. “Didn’t know where you were this morning. Hello, Mr. Piper. Still here?”

“Yes, sir. I’m hoping today’s my last full day.”

“Is my granddaughter not being an adequate hostess?”

“No, sir. She’s been terrific. I just need to get back home.”

“Granddad,” Isabelle asked suddenly, “do you consider any of the Cantwells as great sinners?”

“Other than me?”

“Yes, other than yourself,” she replied playfully.

“Well, my great-grandfather lost quite a bit of the family fortune in a speculative arrangement with a shipbuilder. If it’s a sin to be a fool, then he’s one, I suppose.”

“I was thinking earlier-sixteenth century thereabouts.”

“Well, as I mentioned, old Edgar Cantwell was always considered a bit of a black sheep. The man flip-flopped from Catholic to Protestant with whippetlike speed. Rather expedient, I should think, but he avoided the Tower and kept his head.”

“Any blacker marks than that?” she asked.

“Well…” By his expression, Isabelle thought he had come up with something.

“Yes?”

“There was Edgar Cantwell’s brother, William, I suppose. There’s a small portrait of him as a boy hanging somewhere or other. In the early fifteen hundreds he accidentally killed his father, Thomas Cantwell. He’s the largish picture in the Great Hall on the south wall. The one on horseback.”

“I know the one,” Isabelle said with growing intrigue. “What happened to William?”

Lord Cantwell made a throat-cutting gesture. “Did himself in, supposedly. Don’t know if any of that is true.”

“When was that? What year?” she asked.

“Damned if I can tell you. Best way would be to check the date on his headstone.”

Will and Isabelle looked at each other and sprang up. “You think he’s in the family plot?” she exclaimed.

“Don’t think so,” Lord Cantwell sniffed. “Know so.”

“Tell me there’s a family burial ground here!” Will said loudly enough to make the old man grimace.

“Follow me,” Isabelle cried, running out the door.

Lord Cantwell shook his head, sat himself down in one of the vacated chairs, and began to read the paper.

The Cantwell cemetery was in a wooded glade at the far end of the estate, not an oft-visited corner as it distressed the lord to visit his wife’s plot and the vacant patch that awaited his remains. Isabelle came by occasionally but usually on a bright, summer morning, when the cheerfulness of the day counteracted the heavy gloom of the place. It had not been attended for several weeks, and the grasses were high. The weeds were wilting from the lateness of the season, and they drooped lazily against the stones.

There were eighty or more stones in the plot, small for a village cemetery, large for a private family ground. Not all the Cantwells had made it in. Over the years, many had fallen in battle in one war or another and were buried on English battlefields or in foreign lands. As they entered the glade, Isabelle explained how difficult it had been to get the local Council to give her grandfather a permit to bury his wife there. “Health and Safety regulations,” she huffed indignantly. “What about traditions?”

“I like the idea of a family plot,” Will said gently.

“I’ve got a bit chosen for me. Under that lovely old lime tree.”

“It’s a nice spot,” Will said, “but don’t be in a hurry.”

“Out of my hands, isn’t it? All predestined, remember? Okay, then, where’s our sinner?”

William Cantwell’s headstone was one of the smallest in the graveyard, almost completely overgrown, so it required a methodical search through the centuries to find his marker near the middle of the plot. It simply had his name and the date, 1527.