The Doomsday Key (32 page)

“Get yourselves out of the wind before it kicks you in the teeth already.” Father Rye waved a bony arm to urge them through his door. “I have a pot on the stove, and Ol’ Maggie dropped off a plate of her cranberry scones. Best in all of Wales.”

They were ushered into a wood-floored room with rafters so low Kowalski had to duck. The walls were the same stone as the church, and a hearty fire danced in a small hearth. A long table had been set for a late morning tea.

Gray’s stomach growled at the floury smell of freshly baked scones, but he wanted to keep the visit short. Time squeezed his chest. He checked on Rachel. The old priest had already taken a shine to her, practically taking her by the hand to the table.

“You sit here. By me.”

Father Rye shuffled a bit. Wallace still hung at the door with Rufus, plainly not sure whether to leave his dog out in the cold.

“What are you waiting there for?” the priest scolded. “Get yourselves out of the cold.”

The invitation was for both. Rufus headed inside even before Wallace moved. The terrier made straight for the fire, curled up, and dropped with a sigh.

Once the rest of them settled, Gray started in. “Father Rye, can you tell us why Father Giovanni—”

“Poor boy.” The priest cut him off and crossed himself. “May he rest in peace.” He turned and patted Rachel on the hand. “And I’ll say a prayer for your uncle in Rome, too. I know he was a good friend of Marco’s.”

“He was and thank you.”

The priest turned back to Gray. “Marco … now let me think. He first came here to the church some three years ago.”

“That would be just after he first visited my excavation,” Wallace added.

“He came quite often after that, traipsing all over Wales. We talked about all manner of sorts, we did. Then last June, he returned quite agitated from Bardsey Island. Like he’d been spooked to the bone. He prayed all night in the church. I heard him, I’m afraid—not that I was eavesdropping, mind you—asking over and over again for forgiveness. When I woke the next morning, he was gone.”

Gray returned to that first visit. “Did Father Giovanni say why he first came here?”

“Aye. He was on a holy pilgrimage to Bardsey Island. Like many people before him. To pay homage to the dead.”

Gray tried to sort through what he was hearing. Clearly the good father hadn’t been totally honest with the elderly priest. But a few words made sense. “What dead are you talking about?”

“The twenty thousand saints buried on Bardsey.” The old man pointed an arm toward the small window, which looked out to sea. The island was all but lost to sight as rain poured heavily over it. “Marco wanted to know all about the history of the dead.”

Gray did, too. “What did you tell him?”

“What I tell all pilgrims. That Bardsey Island is a sacred place. Its history is a long one, going back to the peoples who first came to these fair lands. The ones who stood the stones on end and built the ancient cairns.”

Wallace perked up here. “You’re talking about the Neolithic tribe who first inhabited the British Isles.”

“Aye. You can still find their hut circles up on Bardsey. It was a sacred place even back then. Home of royalty. Do you know the Celtic tales of the Fomorians?”

Gray shook his head. Wallace’s eyes pinched. He plainly understood but wanted to hear what the old priest had to say. “What are Fomorians?” Rachel asked.

“Not
what,
but who. According to Irish legends, when the Celts first came to these islands, they found them occupied by an ancient race, quite monstrous. Supposedly they were descendants of Ham, who had been cursed by Noah. The Celts and Fomorians fought over Ireland and its islands for centuries. Though not as skilled with swords, the Fomorians were known to be able to cast plagues upon their invaders.”

“Plagues?” Gray asked.

“Aye. To quote one Irish ode, they cast out a ‘great withering death’ upon their enemies.”

Gray glanced at Rachel and Wallace. Could this be the same as what wiped out the highland village?

“Other stories abound over the centuries,” Father Rye continued, “of great wars and wary peace between these two peoples. The Irish storytellers do admit it was the Fomorians who passed on knowledge of agriculture to the Celts. But at the end, one last great battle was fought on Tory Island, and it resulted in the death of the Fomorian king.”

“But what does all this have to do with Bardsey Island?” Wallace asked.

The priest lifted one brow. “As it is said, Bardsey was home to ancient royalty. According to local stories, it was on Bardsey that the Fomorian queen made her home. She was a great goddess who had the power to heal the sick, even cure the plagues.”

Wallace mumbled under his breath, “No wonder Marco kept coming back.”

Gray wanted to ask Wallace what he meant, but Father Rye was on a roll.

“And so the Celts took possession of all the lands. But even their priests, the Druids, recognized how sacred this region was. They made their center of learning on nearby Anglesey Island. Students gathered from all over Europe to study there. Can you imagine? But it was Bardsey Island that the Druids considered to be the most holy. Only the most elevated of the Druids were allowed to be buried there. Including the most famous Druid of all time.”

Wallace must have known this legend. “Merlin.”

Seichan stood on the leeward side of the Land Rover, keeping out of the wind. She opened and closed a folding knife while keeping watch on the rectory door. She didn’t fear anyone trying to escape, nor even using the rectory phone. Though to ensure the latter, she had slipped over and cut the telephone wires.

She could have simply gone inside with them, but piecing together bits of history was not her specialty. She looked down at the knife in her hand. She knew where her talents lay. And she didn’t need Gray distracted. She felt the fury radiating from him, stoking higher the closer she came. So she stayed away. She needed him focused.

For all their sakes.

She had watched the Audi sedan slip into the nearby town soon after they arrived. They were being watched from afar. Her handler, Magnussen, was keeping her on a short leash, tracking them out of the mountains. The hunters skillfully swapped out vehicles. She counted at least three tails. Unless you knew to look for them, they would have been impossible to pick out.

But not for her.

With a flip of her wrist, she snapped the folding blade closed and slipped it into her pocket. Sensing eyes on her even now, she needed to move. She abandoned the vehicle and strode toward the door to the old church. Its stone face was cold and imposing, as hard as the people who
eked out a living off the sea here. The weight of centuries was palpable. Even its door was massive, scarred, and old. She tried the handle and discovered the church had been left open.

It always surprised her to find a door unlocked.

It felt somehow wrong, an unnatural state of being.

Before she thought better of it, she pulled open the door. The wind was kicking up. No telling how long the others would be. She entered the church and passed through the entry to the nave. Expecting a gloomy, somber interior, she was surprised to discover an airy and high-raftered space. The walls had been painted a creamy white that captured and held the meager daylight flowing through the arched windows. Polished wooden pews flanked either side, and a bright blue carpet led down the center aisle.

The church was empty, but she found herself unable to move any deeper into the nave. Suddenly tired, Seichan slipped into the closest pew and sat down. She stared over at the cross. She was not religious, but she recognized the pain in the crucified image of Christ.

She knew that agony.

Her breathing grew heavier as she stared. Her vision suddenly blurred. The tears came suddenly, welling up from somewhere deep inside. She covered her face as if trying to stop them, hide them, deny them.

For a long moment, she remained bent in the pew, unable to move. A pressure built inside her chest. It grew to an excruciating point, something large trying to squeeze out a small hole. She waited for it to pass, prayed for it to end—and eventually it did, leaving her both hollow and strangely disappointed. A shudder shot through her body, just once. She then took a long trembling breath, wiped her eyes, and stood up.

She turned her back on the cross and headed out of the nave and out of the church. The cold wind struck her and slammed the door behind her. It reminded her of an important lesson.

People should keep their doors locked.

Gray tried not to scoff. “You’re saying Merlin is buried on Bardsey Island? ”

Father Rye smiled and sipped his tea. “Of course, we all like to tell
that story around these parts. It’s said he’s buried in a glass tomb on the island. It’s surely fanciful, but it makes for a fine story, don’t you think?” He winked at Rachel. “Though many do believe, including a few historians, that the Arthurian legends of Avalon arise from Bardsey.”

Kowalski spoke around a mouthful of scone. “What’s Avalon?”

Gray nudged him under the table. They didn’t need the old priest rambling off the subject. They had to find out more about Father Giovanni.

But he was too late.

“Ah, according to Celtic legend,” Father Rye explained, “Avalon was an earthly paradise. It was where King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was forged. Where the enchantress Morgan Le Fay ruled. It was an island of rare apple trees, granting the place its name, from the Welsh word
afal.
Avalon was considered a place of great healing and longevity. And at the end of the Arthurian cycle, it was where King Arthur was taken to be healed by Morgan Le Fay after the Battle of Camlann. And of course, like I said, it was where the magician Merlin was buried.”

Wallace’s face grew more sour with the telling. “Bollocks,” he finally burst out. “Everyone thinks Avalon or Camelot is in their own backyard.”

Father Rye took no offense at the professor’s outburst. “As I said, it’s only legend. But like Avalon, Bardsey Island has long been considered a place of great healing. Even a travel book from 1188 attests to this claim. The writer described the people of Bardsey as being uncommonly free of disease and ‘scarcely any die except of extreme old age.’ And then, of course, we must not forget our magical apples.”

“Apples?” Kowalski asked.

“Maybe we should move past myths,” Gray commented, trying to redirect the conversation back to Father Giovanni.

“They’re not myths.” Father Rye stood up, crossed to a bowl on a counter, snatched up an apple, and tossed it toward Gray. “Does that feel like a myth to you, young man? Maggie’s son picked that from a tree growing on the island just last week.”

Gray frowned down at the fist-sized fruit.

“There is no other apple like it on earth,” Father Rye said proudly. “A few years back, some apples from that tree were taken to the National Fruit Collection in Kent. They tested the Bardsey apple and determined two things. First, that the tree was a new variety never seen before. And second, that the apple was unusually free of any rot or disease. They tested the gnarled old tree itself and found it to be in the same health. Arborists believe the tree may be the lone surviving specimen from an orchard that the monks of Saint Mary’s once planted on the island a thousand years ago.”

Gray stared at the small apple in his hand, sensing the passage of time and history it represented. No matter what one might believe, there did seem to be a long, strange history of healing tied to this island: first the Fomorian queen, then the Celtic legends of Avalon, and now in his hand, something that had been scientifically proved to be unusually healthy.

He looked out the window at the hump of green land.

What was so special about that island?

Apparently Father Rye wasn’t done with his history lesson.

“Moving forward through time, all things must come to an end,” he said. “And the Celts were no exception. The Romans eventually vanquished them, but only after years of fierce fighting. During this time, the Romans claimed that the Druids cast curses upon their troops, just as the Fomorians had done to the Celts long ago. And after the Druids were gone, the Church came here and settled these pagan lands. They set up an abbey on the island in the thirteenth century. The ruins of its tower can still be found there.”

Wallace drew their conversation full around. “But what about the twenty thousand saints you mentioned at the beginning?”

Father Rye sipped his tea, nodding at the same time, but somehow never spilling a drop. “Bardsey is known as the Isle of Twenty Thousand Saints. A name marking the number of persecuted Christians buried there.”

“So many?” Wallace pressed. “Surely there’s no archaeological evidence for such a mass burial?”

“You are right. I imagine the legend is more allegorical than literal.
Though local folklore does whisper of a great death that fell on Bardsey, a withering sickness that slew most of the villagers and monks. Their bodies were burned to ashes and cast out to sea.”

Gray recognized the pattern of that story. Just like the highland village. All evidence burned and swept away, leaving only rumor and a cryptic entry in the Domesday Book.

“Either way, the island has been considered holy ground since the Church first came here. Bardsey grew to become a place of pilgrimage, from ancient times to today. The Vatican declared that three trips to Bardsey were equivalent to one trip to Rome. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. And many others thought the same.”

Father Rye pointed in the direction of his church. “The oldest part of Saint Hywyn’s dates back to 1137. Through its doors, thousands and thousands of pilgrims have flowed on their way to Bardsey. Including most of the Irish and English saints of that time.”

As if summoned by the priest’s words, the rectory door burst open and a tall boy pounded into the room with all the verve that only a thirteen-year-old could muster. The boy quickly pulled off his cap to reveal hair so red it looked ready to set fire to the room.

“There you are, Lyle,” Father Rye said and stood up. “Does your da have his ferry ready for our guests?”