The Tavernier Stones (39 page)

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Authors: Stephen Parrish

BOOK: The Tavernier Stones
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John knelt at the foot of the altar, with David to his right, and waited for the priest to make his way over. He bent forward to look down the line of kneeling people. The barrel-shaped man was dead center in the line, his head bowed and his eyes closed. He was either taking communion very seriously or was spiritually far away. Beyond him, the witch and her companion had occupied places as far to the left side of the altar as they could get—and as close as they could be to the apparent destination of the cross.
O sü-ßer Bronn des Le-bens, fließ nicht für uns ver-ge-bens,
du un-sers Hei-lands Blut!
 
The priest worked his way down the line of kneeling people until he reached the person to John’s immediate left. John muttered a quick prayer: Lord, may I receive this gift in purity of heart—despite what I intend to do immediately afterwards.
The priest took one step over and held a round piece of host in front of John’s face.
“
Der Leib Christi,
” he said.
John looked into his eyes and answered, “
Amen.
” He opened his mouth, and the priest laid the host on his tongue.
O lösch den Durst der See-len, so wird uns nichts mehr feh-len, du un-ser al-ler-höch-stes Gut
!
 
John waited for David to receive his host, then they both stood up. But instead of returning to their seats, they crossed the nave, weaving through people still approaching or leaving the altar.
The image of the skewed cross was so clear, it almost looked like it had been painted onto the wall.
John glanced at his watch; it was just minutes before noon. He turned to check the stained glass window and observed that the sun was rising past the upper pane, about to disappear from view.
In front of him was a long row of sarcophagi, all packed closely together and extending lengthwise away from the wall. He had taken note of them during his first visit to the church but had not thought them significant. Each one was carved from a solid block of sandstone and covered with a precisely fitted rectangular lid. The sarcophagi were not sealed in any discernable way; the weight of their massive lids had apparently been deemed sufficient to secure their contents.
John and David were not the only ones standing before the north wall. The witch and yuppie were also present. The two teams exchanged knowing and suspicious looks.
Mit Glau-ben und Ver-trau-en wir dich ver-deckt hier schau-en in dei-ner Nie-drig-keit.
 
Above the sarcophagi, portraits of the apostles Judas, Matthäus, Marcus, Johannes, and Simon peered down from the balustrade. As John and the others watched, captivated, the cross seemed to pause for a second, then it faded as the sun rose out of sight.
The point of greatest clarity, just before fading, was a place on the wall immediately above one of the sandstone sarcophagi—the one beneath the portrait of the apostle Johannes.
John looked at David, who raised his eyebrows in response. Together they stepped closer and examined the tomb. Engraved on its lid was a cipher:
 
The last people receiving communion were just then leaving the altar. John decided that if he and David didn’t want to look like tourists disrupting a mass, they needed to return to their seats right away.
Ach, laß es, Herr, ge-sche-hen, daß wir im Him-mel se-hen dich einst in dein-er Herr-lich-keit!
 
Only the concluding rites remained to complete the service. The organ piped up one last time as the priest and his two altar boys wrapped up the ceremony and led a procession out of the church. The congregation bunched up behind them, eager for fresh air.
 
Outside in the tunnel, in the commotion of the crowd, Sarah became separated from John and David. As she twisted around looking for them, she bumped into the scary-looking lady who had sat at the end of her pew.
“Excuse me,” the lady said in heavily accented English.
“Don’t mention it.”
“My, but you
are
a pretty thing, aren’t you?”
Startled and repulsed, Sarah muttered a quick thank you.
“And that’s a very interesting signet ring you’re wearing.”
Sarah turned and hurried down the steps to the tunnel exit. She looked over her shoulder once on the way down; the lady was still watching her, smiling. Passing through the tunnel gate onto the platform overlooking the town, she caught up to John and David and found them already arguing.
“You weren’t supposed to eat the host,” John said.
“Everyone else ate it.”
“But you’re not … eligible.”
“What was I supposed to do, toss it like a Frisbee?”
Sarah recognized something in the crowd. The back of a head. Someone trying to conceal himself in the dispersing congregation.
“Don’t talk now,” she said to John and David. “Just walk.”
THIRTY-TWO
 
BACK AT THE HOTEL, David and Sarah joined John in his room. John looked uncomfortably at the bed, then at David, but his concerns were unnecessary; promise of treasure governed the mood.
“It all makes sense now,” John said. “By ‘extend in the ultimate prone position,’ Cellarius didn’t mean lie down on the floor and measure your height from something. What is the ultimate prone position, anyway? Death, of course. He was referring to the sarcophagus.”
“You mean the stones are inside the sarcophagus?” Sarah asked.
John shook his head.
“Underneath it? But the thing’s made of solid rock. We’d never budge it.”
John turned to David. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“The stones are neither in nor under the sarcophagus,” David said. “The sarcophagus is the entrance to the chambers beneath the church. The sarcophagus lid is the door. That’s why historians and other researchers have never found the chambers. The idea to look there wouldn’t have occurred to them. They wouldn’t have disturbed something so sacred.”
“Like we’re going to,” John muttered.
David said, “Hard as it may be for you to believe, I don’t want to defile a church anymore than you do. But if it’s merely an entrance, then there’s no one buried there, and it’s not sacred. Look, what’s it going to take to find out? We merely lift the lid; at the very worst, we find some dusty bones inside, in which case we apologize profusely and close the lid again.”
John looked out his window at the street below. Tourists wandered in and out of shops, oblivious to the ancient mystery being solved just a few feet away. “And if we do?” he asked. “If we only find bones? Then what?”
“Then…I guess we might as well go home.” He paused. “Any more problems?”
“Just one,” Sarah said. “There are several sarcophagi resting along the north wall, where the painting once hung. The
south
wall, the one containing the stained glass windows, came tumbling down a couple of hundred years ago. They’ve rebuilt it, but how do we know the image of the cross landed in the same place today as it did back then?”
“Everything we have tells us the restoration was true to original design. We have no choice but to trust the restorers. Besides, the windows would have to be way off for the image to center on a different sarcophagus altogether. And even if it did, if we open one and find nothing, then we open another.”
“Right,” John said. “Let’s open them all up. Let’s have a disco with the dead. We’ve already broken and entered, we’ve vandalized a church, and now we’re going to rob a grave. That ought to get us a thousand years in purgatory, if not jail. What more could they do to us if we just kept going and tore the whole place apart?” He picked up a tattered copy of the deciphered code from his nightstand and studied it for a moment.
Extend in the vltimate prone po
ƒ
ition
From the foote of the elevation …
… ba
ƒ
keth in fairie lighte
Of Apollo’s re
ƒ
plendent apogee
On the fe
ƒ
tivall of his highe
ƒ
t aproche
Then drink from the Sieve of Erato
ƒ
thenes
Sing more songes than Solomon
And de
ƒ
cend to trea
ƒ
vre
For the gates of Hell
ƒ
hall not prevayle
 
“Well, at least now we’ve confirmed what ‘Apollo’s resplendent apogee’ means. And it’s pretty obvious what Cellarius meant by ‘fairy light.’”
“I should have known that one to begin with,” David confessed. “There’s a mineral called staurolite, an iron aluminum silicate, that commonly occurs as X-shaped twin crystals—as skewed crosses. The more common name for the mineral is ‘fairy cross.’”
“And we know why the treasure hunter in 1858 failed,” Sarah said. “The sky was overcast during solstice; it had been drizzling for nearly a month. He never saw the image of the cross descend on the wall.”
“That leaves us with the Sieve of Eratosthenes and the songs of Solomon,” John said. He looked out the window again. “Any ideas about those?”
“The sieve means the solution has something to do with prime numbers.” David stood up and walked to the door. “That we already know.”
“And the songs of Solomon?”
David opened the door and motioned for Sarah to follow him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“It appears we have competition.”
“Right. Which is why we have to go tonight—as soon as it gets dark.”
“Don’t we want to wait until after midnight?” John suggested. “Until as late as possible?”
“No,” David said, “by then it’ll be rush hour in the church.” He turned to Sarah. “Are you sure it was Zimmerman you saw in the crowd? Absolutely sure?”
“Absolutely. Bad hair and all.”
“Just who is this Zimmerman person?” John asked.
David ushered Sarah out and reached for the doorknob.
“Trouble.”
 
Gerd Pfeffer waited in his pension for the cover of night, playing with prime numbers. The phone had not rung. Not once. His boss might have thought to call, but then again, Pfeffer was on leave and his boss might have been sparing him the nuisance. A subordinate might have wanted to get in touch, but surely Pfeffer’s gruff telephone etiquette would have daunted him. Who else? His mother? Perhaps, if she weren’t already dead.

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