The Brothers of Glastonbury by Kate Sedley

Author:Kate Sedley [Sedley, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical, rt, blt, _MARKED
ISBN: 9781466873957
Google: qISBAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

I understood at once why Peter Gildersleeve had not wanted the parchment touched by less careful hands than his own, and also why Mark would have been wary about carrying it upon his person. It was very old and extremely fragile, its mottled, yellowing surface overlaid with the patina of age, one corner already beginning to crumble into dust. I could see where Father Boniface had cut the seal, but the hard medallion of wax bore no imprint to indicate where this ancient document might originally have come from, or to whom it had belonged.

Gently and with the utmost care I began to unfold it. When it was finally laid flat upon the bed it proved to be far larger than I had expected: probably some eighteen inches square and chequered with creases, many of which had cracked, leaving rents in the parchment. But its contents were surprisingly clear. The ink, however it was made – with blackthorn bark and gum or with oak galls – had retained its colour despite the passage of time. The writing with which the paper was covered was still readable; if, that is, you knew how to interpret what it said …

And there was the rub. I knew no more than Father Boniface how that could be done. The priest’s description had been a good one, and accurate as far as it went. The parchment was ruled from top to bottom with horizontal lines, and either above, below or aslant them, groups of vertical pen-strokes were arranged, ranging in numbers from one to five. Some of the strokes were longer, some thicker than others, and there were also (which Father Boniface had failed to mention) a saltire cross, a double saltire cross, a small circle, a symbol which resembled a figure six and another like two little dots, placed side by side.

I stared long and hard at the parchment in growing frustration, and at the end of an hour or more, had reached only one conclusion. It was probable, I thought, that each group of lines or symbols represented a single letter, separated from its neighbours by a gap of less than quarter of an inch, and that the longer gaps of double that length indicated the spaces between words. For a moment or two after hitting upon this idea I experienced a wild sense of elation. If, I told myself, I could work out short, regularly repeated words that might very well prove to be ‘the’ and ‘and’, then I should at least be able to recognize specific letters, and from this small beginning it would be possible, eventually, to decipher others. My mood of self-congratulation was however short-lived when cold reality raised its ugly head. This was a very ancient document, and therefore almost certainly not written in English; and even if, by some remote chance, it were, it would be in the old, pre-Conquest form of our language, before the coming of the Normans changed it for ever.

Yet – and

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