“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.
“Darkly near a son who sinned,” Will said. “I guess we need a shovel.”
Isabelle returned from the garden shed with two. They were isolated but they began their work guiltily, looking over their shoulders since they weren’t engaging in the most socially acceptable of activities.
“I’ve never done dug up a grave.” She giggled.
“I have,” Will said. He wasn’t kidding. Years ago he had a case in Indiana, but he wasn’t going to go there, and she didn’t press for details. “I wonder how deep they planted them in the old days?” He was doing the heavy work and was starting to sweat. There were two other ancestors close by, so there wasn’t enough room for both of them to dig simultaneously.
He shed his jacket and sweater and kept the shovelfuls coming, producing a mound of dark, rich soil on top of a neighboring grave. An hour into the enterprise, both of them were getting discouraged; they wondered if William was there after all. Will climbed out of the hole and sat on the grass. The afternoon sunlight was autumn-hard, and there was a crisp chill. Isabelle’s lime tree was noisily rustling overhead.
She took over and jumped in like a little girl diving into a swimming pool, both feet hitting the bottom at once. There was a curious dull thunk when she landed.
As one, they both asked, “What was that?”
Isabelle choked up on her shovel, dropped to all fours, and began scraping the ground with the blade exposing a rough metallic surface. “God, Will! I think we’ve found it!” she shouted.
She dug around the object and identified its edges. It was a rectangle about eighteen inches in length, ten inches in width. As Will watched, she pushed the shovel into the ground beside one of the long edges and pried it up.
It was a heavily tarnished copper box. Below it was the rotting, green-stained wood of a coffin lid. She handed the box up to Will.
It had a heavy patina of green and black but it was evident that it was a nicely etched piece of metalwork with little round feet. The edges of its lid were encrusted in a hard, red material. Will dug at it with his thumbnail, and pieces chipped away. “It’s some kind of wax,” he said. “Sealing wax or candle wax. They wanted it to be watertight.”
She was at his side now. “I hope they were successful,” she said expectantly.
They had the discipline to cover up the grave before addressing the box, but they raced through the task. When they were done with the backfilling, they ran to the house and made straight for the kitchen, where Isabelle found a sturdy little paring knife. She worked the hard wax from the whole perimeter and, like a child opening the first present of Christmas morning, ripped the lid off.
There were three parchment pages, stained copper green, but they were dry and legible. She recognized them immediately for what they were. “Will,” she whispered. “It’s the last pages of Felix’s letter!”
They sat at the kitchen table. Will watched her eyes dart and her lips make small movements, and he exhorted her to translate on the fly. She began to read it slowly, out loud.
On the ninth day of January of the year of our Lord 1297, the end came to the library and to the Order of the Names. The scribes who numbered greater than one hundred had been acting strangely, lacking their ordinary diligence of task. It was as if a pall had been cast over them. Indeed, it seemed a lassitude which we were unable to fathom as they did not and could not speak their minds. And prior to this day a harbinger occurred which foretold the coming events. One of the scribes did incredibly violate the rules of man and God by taking his own life, thrusting his quill through his eye into the substance of his brain.
Then on the Last Day, I was summoned to the library, whereupon I found a sight that to the present makes my blood run cold on its contemplation. Every last one of the scribes by which I mean every green-eyed man and boy did by his own hand pierce an eye with the tip of his quill and cause his own death. And on their writing desks each one had completed one last page of writing, many of these pages stained red with blood. And on each page were written the selfsame words-9 February 2027. Finis Dierum. Their work was done. They had no need to write more names. They had reached the End of Days.
The great Baldwin, in his supreme wisdom, did proclaim that the Library should be razed as mankind was not ready for the revelation it contained. I did oversee the placement of the slain writers in their crypts, and I was the last man to walk through the vastness of the Library chambers amidst the endless shelves of sacred books. But these, dear Lord are my great confessions. I did light with my own hand the stacks of hay placed around the Library. and I used as torches the pages upon which were writ Finis Dierum until all were burned. I watched the timbers consumed by fire and saw the building collapse upon itself. But I did not, as Baldwin had proclaimed, throw a torch down into the vaults. I could not bear to be the earthly cause of the destruction of the Library. I fervently believed then, as I do now, that this decision should rest solely in the hands of God Almighty. In truth I do not know if the vast Library underneath the building was destroyed by the conflagration. The ground did smolder for a very long time. My soul too has smoldered for a very long time, and when I walk over the charred ground, I know not whether ashes or pages lie beneath my feet.
But I confess, dear Lord, that out of blasphemous madness I did randomly pick one book from the Library before it was sealed and burned. To this day I know not why. Please, I beg Your forgiveness for my wickedness. It is the book that lies before me. This book and this epistle are evidence and testimony for what has occurred. If, dear Lord, you want me to destroy this book and this letter I will gladly do so. If You wish me to preserve them,
