Silas raced through the transept connecting the south and north porches, stumbling through an empty row of wooden chairs to the other side. The sky was growing dark from the thickening clouds and setting sun, and the cathedral would be closing soon. The center entrance doors were open, so he quickly went through them and down the stairs, a foot slipping before he recovered, then turned around to survey the landscape.
He went back up the stairs to the left bay of statues and started examining them. One was of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ child. Joining her were Isaiah and Daniel. Moral tales were also depicted, where Virtues triumphed over Vices. Another portrayed the beatitudes of the body and soul, which Silas knew to have been described by the twelfth-century mystic monk Bernard of Clairvaux, an interesting connection, to be sure, given he was one of the names in Pryce's journal.
Finding nothing of interest, he moved on to the central portico, which was dominated by ancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets from the Old Testament. What caught Silas’s attention was the figure of Melchizedek, described in Genesis 14 as the mysterious priest-king of Salem and traditionally identified with Jerusalem. He was surrounded by more ancient Jewish figures: Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and Elisha, as well as Peter from the New Testament Christian Scriptures. A relief depicted the Garden of Eden, with its four rivers, and a crowned Virgin Mary seated beside Jesus in Heaven.
Where was the Queen of Sheba?
He shuffled over to the final portico, and there she was. The Queen herself. But this time, she wasn't some obscure statue on an arch, as she was at the South Porch. Instead, she dominated the bay as a full-size statue and positioned next to Solomon. What caught his eye, though, was that she was standing on a crouching African. He furrowed his brow, then flipped to his guidebook, where it described him as her Ethiopian servant.
He looked back at the statue and smiled. An Ethiopian servant?
To Silas, the depiction meant that the Queen was understood to be Ethiopian. Just as Kebra Nagast itself said. And that the sculptors who worked on the North Porch at Chartres in the thirteenth century believed her to be African, placing her in an obvious Ethiopian context. Which meant they could have been familiar with the tradition surrounding her in the legend. Why else put a pagan ruler in such a sacred Christian building if there weren't a critical religious memory attached to her?
Like the Ark of the Covenant.
Silas stood back, brow furrowed and stroking his chin in thought. But how could such a story have filtered into northern France, and during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries?
As he contemplated the piece of revelation, Silas saw something on a column between the central and right-hand columns. The carving of Latin he had seen in the photo in his guidebook.
ARCHA CEDERIS.
He smiled and crouched down to get a closer look. Though the stonework had not aged well, having been damaged and eroded with time, he could still make out a miniaturized depiction of a box or some sort of chest of a sacred nature etched into the stonework being transported on an oxcart. Beneath it were those Latin letters. To its right was a man who looked as though he was stooping over the chest, with another set of Latin letters, though a little difficult to make out:
HIC AMICITUR ARCHA CEDERIS.
He checked his guidebook, but it had rendered it differently: HIC AMITITUR ARCHA CEDERIS. He looked at the etchings again, noticing that some of the letters could be perceived in different ways. Either way, ARCHA seemed clear: chest or ark. But what of the other words? Was this sculpture depicting the Ark being transported on an oxcart? The scale seemed right, as described in Exodus, and given that it was positioned close to the Queen of Sheba it appeared the builders of Chartres knew something, perhaps being influenced by the Kebra Nagast legend itself.
Then he noticed something else: the chest/Ark object was smack-dab between Melchizedek and the Queen of Sheba. As he studied it further, he realized the chest/Ark resting on its oxcart was positioned away from Melchizedek and toward the Queen of Sheba.
He stepped back, considering this depiction. A crucial question rose to the surface, an almost farcical one: Did this portico contain an echo of the legend, as found in a thirteenth-century Ethiopian text, that the Ark of the Covenant had been transported away from ancient Israel and to Ethiopia?
Silas went back to the Queen, again noting the African figure on which she was standing. Then he went over to Melchizedek. He studied him more, looking for clues to the puzzle his mind was beginning to piece together. Dangling beneath the priest’s right hand was a censer, the kind that holds incense and the kind priests in the Most Holy Place would have used to cloud their vision and prevent them from laying eyes upon the Ark, requiring their death if they ever did catch its glimpse. In his other hand was another curious object: a long-stemmed chalice or cup, holding a round object of sorts, rather than liquid.
Silas opened his guidebook again, searching for answers. One caption read that Melchizedek was meant to be a sort of Christ figure, where the chalice and the object represented “the bread and the wine, symbols of Eucharist.”
Another photo with caption actually compelled him to draw his face closer to the book:
Melchizedek bearing the Grail cup out of which comes the Stone. With this, we may connect the poem of Wolfram von Eschenbach, who is said to have been a Templar—though there is no proof of this—for whom the Grail is a Stone.
He startled audibly, dropping his jaw and the hand holding his guidebook to his side and raising his other to his forehead.
“Are you kidding me?”
There was the other name. Wolfram von Eschenbach. And Grail and Templars? What the heck?
His mind was reeling, trying to make connections between all of what he had discovered. But one thing was certain, he couldn't deny that a connection had been made eight hundred years ago that seemed to have considerable bearing now.
There he was, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and standing on an African holding an orb-like chalice. Melchizedek, the Priest of Salem, holding the same orb-like chalice. A cart with what could reasonably be considered a sacred box. Like the Ark. And it was positioned directly between Melchizedek and Sheba. And it was moving away from the one and toward the other.
Away from the Priest-King Melchizedek and toward the Queen of Sheba; away from Jerusalem and toward Ethiopia.
Maybe there really was something to the Kebra Nagast legend.
He raised his phone and started taking a few pictures of the statues and the sacred object upon the cart, and then the carved letters beneath it.
But the world suddenly burst into stars, and then went dark.
Celeste saw it happen in slow motion from inside the cathedral. It didn't make sense. A man came up behind Silas, with chocolate-colored skin and a shiny, eight-ball head.
Oliver Tulu.
He loomed over Silas quietly. And then suddenly, he hit him on the back of the head. He went down like a sack of potatoes, flopping to the ground in one heap.
She froze, taken aback by what was happening. It was all so sudden, so unexpected.
Several tourists joined Celeste in her confusion and appall, screaming and scattering.
Two men suddenly joined Tulu and began dragging Silas away from the entrance and down the wet, cobble stairway.
That’s when she sprang into action.
She grabbed her SIG Sauer from behind her waist and ran out of the South Porch entrance yelling.
“Tulu! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tulu froze, as well as the two men. The look on his face made it clear he wasn’t expecting to be recognized or have company. His companions reminded her of a few of the young men she’d seen hanging on Tulu’s clipboard around the dig site. They held Silas steady, tightening their grip, their faces unflinching.
Whatever they were doing at Chartres and whatever they were planning to do with Silas was over. No way were they going to get away with it!
She kept her weapon trained on Tulu. She narrowed her eyes and glanced at the other two men to make sure they knew she was in charge. A few tourists behind them eyed her with concern, mobile phones at their ears.
“Please. Put the weapon down,” Tulu said, his voice smooth and commanding.
“Not a chance. Put down my partner.”
“You don’t know what you are doing. What you are mixing yourself up in. You’ve made a massive miscalculation.”
“Are you mad? You accost my partner and try to kidnap him, and you have the gall to suggest I've made a mistake? No, sir, you're the one who's made the massive miscalculation. Did Nous send you? Here to clean up your boss's mess after having lost the Ark? Trying to divine an alternative location of the Ark?”
Tulu said nothing, his face hard and unmoving.
“What is this all about, anyway? This business with the Ark? Clearly, Pryce knew it wasn't in the chamber. So this has to be more than just an archaeological fishing expedition aimed at bolstering his academic credentials and byline in the history books. And what is your play in all of this?”
The man said nothing for several seconds. Then he narrowed his eyes and lowered his head, and said, “The Order of Thaddeus would be wise to leave this alone. You, too, Bourne. Put the gun down and walk away.”
Bourne? She hadn’t remembered sharing her name with either Tulu or Pryce. She gripped her weapon tighter.
"The Order pledges to preserve and protect religious artifacts," she said. "Like the Ark. You would be wise to come clean and lay your play out for the world to see."
Silas began to stir while slumped over by each arm between his two kidnappers. Sirens started sounding, their wail distant, but growing closer. Tulu glanced at his men.
Good. A few more minutes and this will all be over.
Tulu took a step forward.
Celeste gripped the gun tighter and leveled it at his chest. “I said stay where you are.”
His face was set like flint, eyes narrow and haunting.
In one movement, his two associates hoisted Silas upright between them, causing her to switch her attention and her aim to their distraction.
It worked.
They shoved Silas forward at her, and bolted across the street, causing her to drop her aim in order to catch him. They both went down, her gun skittered across the cobblestone stairs.
Tulu lunged for the weapon. Celeste gently pushed Silas off of her and laid him on the cobblestone stairs, then side-kicked Tulu in his hip while he was reaching for the SIG Sauer, sending him to the ground.
But only after laying hold of it.
He fumbled with the weapon, managing to get off two shots. Both went wide into the surrounding buildings, sending onlookers screaming for cover.
Celeste launched a roundhouse kick at the man’s arm, sending the gun flying once again, several yards away. But she received an equal reply.
Tulu’s right foot smashed into the left side of her face, the force of it jerking her neck and sending her across the pavement in front of the cathedral stairs.
Pain blossomed on the side of her face, but that wasn't important. What was, was stopping this madman from doing any more damage and protecting the Ark. She recovered and positioned herself to engage her opponent once again.
But the man fled down a small path between the buildings across the road bordering the cathedral grounds.
She huffed and went after him.
When she reached the road, a car sitting in an alleyway burst out of its den to the right, its tires screeching on the wet pavement and stopping feet from her, forcing her to stumble back to narrowly escape its front end.
Tulu flung open the rear door and dove into the back seat. The rust-colored Peugeot floored it south, just as the police began arriving at the north end.
Bloody hell.
Celeste was breathing hard, the left side of her face tender and bruising. She hobbled back to where Silas was lying in front of the cathedral. A few onlookers rushed over to see if they could help, speaking in rushed German. She waved them away. Silas was moaning and stirring and trying to push himself off of the ground.
“Silas? It’s Celeste. You’ve been attacked.”
He sat upright, clutching the back of his head. There didn't appear to be any blood, thank God. But a sizable goose egg had already formed.
“What…What happened?” he moaned.
“It was Tulu. He hit you from behind. I saw him from inside the cathedral. A few of his men tried to carry you off.”
He looked up into her eyes. “That’s twice now you’ve saved my life. I’m not liking this pattern.”
She smiled. “Here, maybe you should sit against this stone barrier.”
“Nonsense,” he said slowly trying to stand, but stumbling from the beating. “We’ve found the missing clues.”
“What do you mean? What did you find?”
She helped him to his feet, and up the stairs. He showed her what he had discovered. She wasn't entirely convinced, but thought it was enough to keep pursuing the line of inquiry. She called Radcliffe to inform him of their developments.
“I want you two to report back to the Order’s Paris operation,” Radcliffe instructed. “The extensive on-site library should help you make sense of these new pieces of revelation.”
“What about support?” she asked. “There’s a lot to work through here and not a lot of time.”
“Zoe is putting together a dossier of her own research and will conference with you in the morning.”
He paused, clearing his throat. “On a side note, I’ve got unfortunate news out of Rome.”
Celeste looked at Silas, who looked at the phone. “Gapinski?”
“No, his partner. Naomi Torres. She’s been captured.”
“No…” Celeste said.
“What happened?” Silas asked.
“I don’t want to get into it other than they were tracking a lead on the stolen Passion relic. And things went off the rails. Greer has been dispatched as back up for Gapinski, and an all-out effort at finding her is underway.”
Celeste and Silas said nothing.
“The gears of Nous’s plot are slowly turning into place,” Radcliffe continued. “Yet the picture is far from clear. Which means you need to figure out what is really going on. And fast.”