man. Clearly, he was not about to proceed without a clear map.
‘It’s possible that Philippa took the Ark with her to the nunnery.’ C?dmon jutted his chin at the Oxford University search engine he’d brought up on the internet. ‘Hopefully, I’ll be able to find out which order Philippa joined, although it may take some time as there were scores of now-defunct religious orders active in the fourteenth century.’
‘Time is the one thing we’ve got in short supply.’
As he waited for the search results, C?dmon couldn’t help but wonder at MacFarlane’s impatience. It made him think that the Warriors of God were working to some sort of deadline.
‘Ah! We have a hit,’ he announced, pointing to the computer screen. ‘According to a fourteenth-century document called the
‘Can the Latin,’ MacFarlane snarled.
‘Right.’ C?dmon decided to dumb down. ‘What you are looking at is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s register of nunneries compiled in the year 1350. That being two years after the plague, I suspect the archbishop was very keen to have a head count. Since most folk in the Middle Ages rarely travelled more than thirty miles from the place of their birth, I’ll first search for Philippa in the Kent listings.’
As he scrolled through the register, C?dmon knew that he was operating on nothing more than a strong hunch. A hunch that if proved wrong could have tragic results.
‘There she is,’ he murmured. ‘Philippa, widowed wife of Galen of Godmersham, is listed as a member of the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the entry, she entered the nunnery with a dowry worth approximately –
‘Just tell me where the priory is located,’ MacFarlane interrupted.
‘It is located in the hamlet of Swanley, south-east of London.’
MacFarlane turned to the behemoth with the sutured head. ‘Pull it up on the GPS system.’
Using a stylus that looked ridiculous in his oversized hand, the brute began pecking away at a hand-held device.
‘I’ve got it. It’s at the intersection of highways M20 and M25,’ he announced, passing the apparatus to his superior.
MacFarlane studied the computer-generated map. ‘You were right. Swanley is exactly thirty miles from Canterbury. Which means we can be there within the hour.’
C?dmon shook his head and calmly pointed out the obvious. ‘If we traipse around a medieval priory in the middle of the night, we might very well be confronted by the local constabulary, particularly if the nunnery is a National Trust property. Given the importance of the task, we would be better off waiting for daylight.’
MacFarlane stared at him, long and hard.
‘We hit the road at first light,’ he said at last. Then, his gaze boring into C?dmon, he hissed, ‘If you’re thinking about sidestepping me like that Harvard pencil dick, you think again, boy.’
Although he took exception to being called a ‘boy’, C?dmon kept himself in check. ‘Bear in mind that Swanley may simply be where we find the next clue.’
‘What are you saying, that this is going to turn into some sort of scavenger hunt?’
‘If you wish to hide a tree, put it in a forest. We won’t know if the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the forest until we can properly examine the site.’
‘Well, you better hope to God that it is the right forest.’
C?dmon wondered what would happen should they not find the Ark. He guessed slit throats and bodies buried at low-water mark featured somewhere.
64
Dawn arrived, damp and grey, the passenger windows on the Range Rover still ice-rimmed. The cold went right through Edie, causing her teeth to chatter loudly. Although she suspected that fear had more to do with her rattling teeth than the outside temperature.
Rudely awakened only a short time earlier, she and C?dmon had been bundled into the back seat of the waiting vehicle. Seated in front of them was the driver, Sanchez, a sullen man given to muttering in Spanish, and his co-pilot Harliss, a southerner with an accent so thick he might as well have been speaking in Spanish. Both men were armed. And both had made it very clear that they would not hesitate to use their weapons.
Leading the pack in a second Range Rover were Stanford MacFarlane and his right-hand man Boyd Braxton. To Edie’s relief, she’d had little to no contact with the hulking brute since the attempted rape. Knowing that C?dmon had enough on his plate, she’d made no mention of the near miss.
‘Didn’t you say something about swans and geese being interchangeable in the medieval lexicon?’
‘Hmm?’ Clearly lost in thought, C?dmon tore his gaze away from the window. ‘Er, yes, I did say that.’
‘Making it all the more likely that this place Swanley is where we’ll find the Ark.’
‘I have no idea if the Ark is hidden at the nunnery. The Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary may simply be where we find the next clue.’
Enviously she watched as Harliss passed a cup filled from a Thermos of hot coffee to Sanchez.
‘My feet feel like two blocks of ice,’ she complained in a low voice, pointedly glancing at the pair of green wellies she’d been issued with.
C?dmon, decked out in an identical pair of boots, commiserated. ‘The English wellington was designed to keep the foot dry not warm. Although we’ll be glad of them should we have to tramp through a damp field.’
Edie didn’t bother to point out that a sprint through that same damp field would be next to impossible in the clunky rubber boots.
They had been driving through the post-dawn gloom about twenty minutes when Edie sighted the first road sign for Swanley. Approaching the town limits, she was surprised to see that Swanley looked a lot like any American residential suburb, its outskirts littered with car dealerships and fast-food eateries.
‘The priory is located in the countryside,’ C?dmon remarked, guessing her thoughts.
As if on cue, Sanchez took the next exit off the main road, veering onto a narrow country lane. Peering out the window, she’d forgotten how simple things — trees in the distance, pastures, farm fences — could create a stark cinematic beauty, the contrast between the countryside and the nearby town like midnight and high noon.
Up ahead, MacFarlane’s Range Rover slowed and then stopped at the side of the road. Sanchez pulled in a few feet behind.
‘Is this the place?’ she asked, not seeing anything in the rural landscape that even remotely resembled a medieval nunnery.
‘I believe so,’ C?dmon replied. ‘MacFarlane plotted the course on a satellite navigation system. Although we’ll probably have to trek across a field or two to reach it.’
Harliss opened the rear door. ‘Get out.’ Gun in hand, he ushered them towards the other vehicle while Sanchez unloaded several large bulky canvas packs from the Range Rover’s boot.
Edie and C?dmon were ordered to keep their distance while MacFarlane briefed his men. She managed to see that Harliss had a hand-held GPS receiver which all four men studied intently. Although she tried to listen in, she could only catch a few snippets of what was said — ‘avenues of approach… terrain features… obstacles… reconnaissance’.
‘They’re treating this like some sort of military operation,’ she whispered to C?dmon.
‘Apparently so.’
‘Making us the enemy, huh?’
Too busy scanning the surrounding area, C?dmon made no reply.
‘Move ’em out,’ MacFarlane ordered gruffly.
