The Deadly Game(8)
‘Yes, but you being kidnapped and tied up for a couple of hours is nothing,’ said Michelle. ‘It doesn’t look like there’s anything big. No killings or sex scandals. No celebrities involved.’
‘Oh, there have been killings,’ said Jake, and he remembered the dead man in his living room, and Carl Parsons stabbed to death by Lauren.
Michelle hesitated, then she said: ‘OK, you’ve got my interest, for the moment. Let’s see if you can keep it going.’ She looked around the kitchen. ‘My guess is, this is going to take a bit of time. You got any coffee? Just in case I get bored and start to fall asleep.’
Jake couldn’t help but grin at that. Michelle could only have been about the same age as him, yet she was acting as if she was a hard-bitten, tough old reporter who’d seen it all and was determined not to be impressed. But Jake remembered the look on her face when he’d first seen her, when she’d taken that blindfold off his eyes.
He put on the kettle to make coffee for them.
‘What I know I got from a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘She’s sort of an expert on it.’
‘Maybe I should talk to her,’ said Michelle.
‘That would be difficult,’ said Jake. ‘She’s in New Zealand. And there’s a government ban on talking to her about any of this. If you tried, your system would be shut down, whether it’s phone, email or Skype. Trust me, I’ve tried.’
‘OK.’ Michelle nodded. ‘Now I’m more interested.’
‘Right,’ said Jake. ‘A lot of the history stuff I’m going to tell you is available on the internet, but you’ll need to know about it so you realise what’s happening now.’
‘Still interested,’ said Michelle, ‘but only if you get on with it.’
Jake nodded and began.
‘The seventh and eighth centuries saw scholars from across the globe come to the monastery at Lindisfarne on Holy Island, off the north-east coast of Britain. It was the centre for all learning in the known world,’ he told her. ‘They exchanged ideas on a huge range of topics, especially the sciences. The library at Lindisfarne held most scientific knowledge of that time and an Order dedicated to the development of science sprang up there. This was the Order of Malichea.’
Michelle looked at the embossed symbol on the black leather cover on the kitchen table.
‘These people?’ she said.
Jake nodded.
‘In 793, the Vikings invaded Britain. The monks of Lindisfarne were afraid that the Vikings would come to Holy Island, and if they did they’d destroy the library with all these precious scientific texts. So they reckon that some members of the Order of Malichea decided to take all the scientific texts away to a sympathetic monastery in northern France, where the library would be safe.
‘The library of scientific texts, now held by the Order of Malichea at Caen in France, was added to, with scientists from all faiths, all nations, bringing their researches.’
‘Yeah, and?’ complained Michelle.
‘And so the library of the Order of Malichea in the monastery in Caen became the hub of all knowledge of the global scientific community.
‘But when the Inquisition spread beyond Spain to Italy, and there were real fears that the Inquisition would spread through the rest of Continental Europe ―’
‘This is the one where they burnt all the unbelievers and heretics.’ Michelle nodded. ‘I saw a documentary about it.’
‘That’s the one,’ agreed Jake. ‘The Order of Malichea in Caen were worried: lots of the scientific works in their library were by Arabic or Islamic scholars, and many dated from pre-Christian Roman or Greek times. For that reason alone, most of them would be considered heretical, and would be destroyed, as would any texts that went against the orthodox Church view of the world. Not to mention the monks would be burned as heretics. So they moved the library again.
‘A party of monks was sent to Britain, under the guise of making a pilgrimage to Glastonbury. Each monk took with him a number of books. And at Glastonbury Abbey they hid the library in secret rooms behind the official library.’
‘This is the same Glastonbury of King Arthur and the Holy Grail and all that?’ asked Michelle.
Jake shook his head.
‘It’s the same Glastonbury,’ he said, slightly irritated at her interruption, ‘but it’s nothing to do with King Arthur or the Holy Grail. This is about something real, not fictional.’
‘There are plenty of people who think King Arthur was real,’ pointed out Michelle. ‘He’s even mentioned in old history books of the time.’ She smiled.