The Last Enemy(10)

‘Quite a lot,’ said Jake.

‘Well, maybe you can fill me in,’ said Guy. ‘After all, it’s Saturday night, and there’s no sign yet of our solicitors. It’ll be as good a way to pass the time as any.’

Yes, thought Jake. Though the young earl was a self-confessed rogue — unless he’d been exaggerating — there might be some memory of the ancient books from his childhood at de Courcey Hall, and maybe telling him about the Order and the hidden books might trigger something. It might even lead Jake to The Index.

‘OK,’ said Jake. ‘The story starts way back in the seventh century, on the island of Lindisfarne.’

‘Oh my God,’ groaned Guy. ‘That far back? This is going to take for ever!’

‘Not that long,’ Jake reassured him.

‘OK,’ said Guy. ‘So, what happened on Lindisfarne in . . . whenever?’

‘A monk founded a monastery there. Over the years, as word about it spread, scholars from across the world came to exchange scientific research. Then the Spanish Inquisition came. Because lots of the scientific works in their library were by Arabic or Islamic scholars, and quite a few dated from pre-Christian Roman or Greek times, most of them would be considered heretical, as would any texts that went against the orthodox Church view of the world.’

‘So they’d be destroyed,’ commented Guy.

‘Absolutely,’ said Jake. ‘To save the texts from destruction, they moved the library to Glastonbury Abbey, where they hid the books in secret rooms behind the official library. But the threat spread, and the leader of the Order of Malichea instructed the monks of the Order to take these so-called “heretical” science books and hide them in a place that was unlikely to be disturbed because it was either sacred, or said to be cursed, or claimed to be haunted. A coded list of the different books and their hiding places was kept, known as The Index. The intention was for the books to stay hidden until the threat of the Inquisition had passed, and then the books could be recovered.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The plague. It returned to Britain and wiped out a huge percentage of the population, including many of the monks who had hidden the scientific texts. With them went the knowledge of where they’d hidden them. The only evidence that these “lost sciences” actually existed and had been hidden was in the Journal of the Order of Malichea, which was a history of the Order handed down through the ages, and The Index, the list of where the scientific books were hidden.’

‘Bummer,’ murmured Guy. ‘So where do we come in? The de Courceys?’

‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Jake. ‘Your family could have been tied in with the Order? Or, maybe, with Henry VIII.’

‘Yes, now that is quite likely.’ Guy nodded. ‘There are paintings in the hall, or, rather, there used to be, with the earl at the time and Henry VIII.’ He looked inquisitively at Jake. ‘But why would my family being pally with King Henry tie us in with these missing books?’

‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries,’ explained Jake. ‘Henry VIII ordered most of the monasteries to be shut down. It was part of his getting rid of the old Catholic religion and replacing it with one of his own, the Church of England.

‘Henry VIII’s forces looted the abbey at Glastonbury and the books in the priory’s library came into the hands of the king, and so into the possession of the State. But it’s not known what happened to The Index or the Journal of the Order of Malichea.’

‘According to Munro, he thinks they ended up in our family library,’ said Guy. ‘Are they worth much? I expect so, if Munro was prepared to pay for me to come all the way back here from Mexico.’

‘Millions,’ said Jake. ‘Possibly billions.’

Guy stared at Jake, and for the first time his air of casual nonchalance had vanished. He looked at Jake, his mouth open in bewilderment.

‘Billions?’ he echoed.

‘Billions.’ Jake nodded.

‘But . . . just for a couple of old books? Why?’

‘Not so much the Journal of the Order of Malichea, it’s The Index that’s the valuable one. Because it’s said to show where every one of the books was hidden.’

‘But . . . but so what? These are just old books!’

‘No,’ Jake corrected him. ‘These are books that are said to contain some secrets of science that had to remain hidden because they were seen as heretical. Books about time travel, invisibility . . .’

‘Sci-fi and fantasy,’ chuckled Guy.

‘Not all of them,’ said Jake. ‘I saw the effects of the science of one of them when a book was dug up and opened accidentally. It was about creating food from the water in the air. A sort of fungus. The trouble was, the fungus grew all over the poor bloke who found it.’