Chapter Twenty-One
JAKE PAUSED at the scrolled iron gate that marked the entrance to the archive.
“Good to see some things don’t change.”
“I still can’t believe we’re here,” Brick murmured behind them.
“In Rome?” Seth asked.
“No—in this freakin’ place. Didn’t you see the movie Angels and Demons ? They filmed in here. Tom Hanks was here , goddammit.”
Jake frowned. “The actor who was in Big ? Splash ? Dragnet ?”
Brick snorted. “Those are some of his early stuff.”
Seth touched his arm. “But not for my dad. Where he’s been, there were no movie theaters, remember?”
He flushed. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Jake smiled. “It’s okay, Brick. I can see I have some catching up to do.”
“I have made some changes since your last visit.” Orsini opened the gate and led them to the door Jake remembered. Once inside, however, he realized the only air in the room came from vents. There were no windows.
“You weren’t kidding.” He walked over to the panels on which were painted the shifter family trees.
“You’ve added some names too.” He scowled when he saw Theron’s.
“Would it count as wishful thinking if I drew a big red cross through his name?” Then he saw the caskets at the end of the long room, and the sight provided him with a burst of energy—and excitement—despite the fact that he was tired.
Bone tired.
He’d resisted the urge to touch them during the flight to Rome. Instinct told him that once he gave in to that impulse, he’d have been unable to tear himself away.
And why didn’t Theron want anyone to learn their secrets?
Jake approached them, still not daring to touch the stone caskets.
Orsini stood beside him. “Before we examine their contents, I would like you to do something for me.” His eyes shone.
“Remember your first visit here when you held that artifact and you told me it felt wrong? You knew it wasn’t the age it purported to be.
So before we examine whatever lies within them in any great detail, I want you to touch what we find—without the protection of gloves.
Tell me what you feel.” He glanced at Seth.
“Do you possess the same gift as your father?”
Seth shook his head. “Psychometry isn’t one of my skills. But Dad is amazing.”
Orsini smiled. “He was amazing when he was your age. I long to see what he is capable of now.”
Jake pointed to the carving of a bear holding a spear on the side of the nearest casket. “That’s on three of them.”
“It would be. Those would have been taken from the tomb of Berengar, an ancient shifter. His name means bear and spear .”
“When was he alive?” Jake loved Seth’s tone of awe.
“According to records, he lived in Germany in the mid twelve hundreds.” Orsini’s hand trembled as he stroked the lid.
Jake didn’t want to wait a second longer.
“Help me move this, carefully,” he asked Brick.
Together they lifted the lid, then set it down on the rug.
Jake peered into the shallow casket, his breath catching in his throat at the sight.
Nestled in layers of cloth was a sheaf of thick, fluffy sheets of paper, a deep cream in color, almost yellow in places.
A woven strand had been tied around them.
“Is that paper?” Brick asked.
“Yes. Probably the oldest form of paper we have,” Orsini told him.
“Why does it look like that?”
“If it’s the same as the paper on which the Missal of Godwin was recorded, it’s made from flax and a small amount of straw. The paper appears thick and fluffy because the fibers had been chewed and beaten.”
Jake touched the top sheet, and an electric shock zapped through him.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. He focused his senses, concentrating on the image that filled his mind.
“What? What do you see? What do you feel?” Orsini’s rapid breathing betrayed his own excitement.
“I see a man. He… he’s huge. Even bigger than Brick, and that’s saying something. He’s wearing a robe with a fur collar.” The light that fell on him came from torches and shallow metal bowls suspended on chains, in which flames flickered.
“You could be seeing Berengar himself. Where is he? ”
Jake fought to control his elation. “He’s in a room. The walls and floor are stone. The three caskets with the carvings are there too.” He shivered. “So old….”
“The sheets of paper?”
“Not just them. Everything.” All he saw had to have taken place long, long ago. The robes the guy wore, the swords on the wall, arranged in a semicircle, the decorations…. Jake swallowed. “I think you’re right. This could be Berengar.”
“ Ohhh .” Orsini gasped. “What I would give to see with your eyes.”
“Can we open another casket?” Seth was like a little kid on Christmas morning.
“I was about to ask the same thing,” Brick added. “The hairs are standing up on the back of my neck.”
Jake totally got that. He was bubbling inside.
They removed another lid to find another sheaf of papers, nestled in several layers of fabric.
Jake laid his hands on them, and the emotions that washed over and through him were intoxicating.
“These were written a long time ago.” Then he paused.
“Wait.” Something tugged at his mind, and he closed his eyes to focus.
“What is it?” Seth demanded.
“It’s Berengar again… but this time he’s focused on a document. Whatever is on it has really shaken him.”
“Can you see what it is?” Brick asked.
Jake shook his head. “Not clearly. All I can make out is a painting. He isn’t looking at text.” He opened his eyes, his heart pounding. “Let’s open the last two. Then we can get started.”
What drew him, however, was the casket with no carving.
What are you hiding?
When they opened it, Jake recognized the writing immediately. “This resembles the Missal of Godwin ,” he told Orsini, who joined him, staring at the top sheet.
Orsini’s breathing caught. “That’s because it was probably written by him.” He grabbed a tablet from the table and scrolled. “Look. This is what we have.” He showed them an image of a similar yellowed sheet of paper, covered in writing.
Jake peered at it. “That’s what you showed me, isn’t it?
The one that’s real.” When Orsini nodded, Jake turned to Seth.
“The Missal of Godwin tells us that Ansfrid…. Wait, let me see if I can remember this right.” He closed his eyes, and in his head, he heard Orsini’s voice from more than thirty years ago, translating the document from Latin into English.
“‘ My Lord Ansfrid is beloved of his people, counting among those he loves both humankind and versipelli. ’ That’s Latin for shifters, by the way. Then it went on, ‘ But Lord Ansger shows his countenance to versipelli alone, shunning the company of humans .’”
Orsini beamed. “Your memory is phenomenal. Now look here at the number in the top corner. One. But this new sheet has the number two. This one came after the page we already have from the Missal . So whoever originally got their hands on the Missal of Godwin , they only took the first page.”
“What does it say?” Jake demanded.
Orsini took the sheet in his trembling gloved hand and read in silence. His mouth fell open, and goose bumps erupted on Jake’s arms. At last Orsini lowered the sheet, his eyes wide. He gazed at Seth and Brick.
“All those years ago, I showed Jake a document purporting to be Ansger’s condemnation of his brother’s belief that shifters and humans were equal.
The basis for the rift between shifters, in fact.
The very act that caused the Gerans and Fridans to exist. Jake said it didn’t feel old enough to have been written in the time of the brothers, and when we dated it, he was proved right.
It had been produced in the early twentieth century.
But this …. This proves that document was a forgery.
” Orsini’s voice rang with triumph. He peered once more at the ancient paper.
“This tells of an accident that befell Ansger. Godwin writes that Ansger went out riding and did not return. They searched for him, but to no avail. Then after seven days, he was brought to the home he shared with his brother.” Orsini’s eyes gleamed.
“A human brought him, the same human who had found him when Ansger’s horse threw him.
He’d tended to Ansger’s wounds, taken great care of him, and nursed him back to health.
Godwin writes that Ansger was extremely grateful.
” He paused and read further. “The physician who treated Ansger on his return said that without a doubt, Ansger would have died if not for the human.”
“Ansger being so grateful doesn’t mesh with the idea of a guy who’d think all humans were the lowest of the low,” Seth observed.
“I would agree.” Orsini smiled. “Especially since Godwin goes on to say Ansger and this human—Elric, that was his name—grew to be the best of friends.” His face flushed as he continued to read. “Oh. I stand corrected. They were so much more than friends.”
“They were lovers?” Jake stared at Orsini. “So not as averse to humans as that forgery would have us believe.”
Orsini nodded. “It doesn’t say how long they were together.
Maybe that’s something we’ll find in the rest of this, or else in the other caskets.
But it does relate a conversation between Ansger and Ansfrid.
Listen to this.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, I’m paraphrasing, because Godwin uses fifty words to say what could be said in about ten.
Ansger admitted he was wrong to shun the company of humankind and that Ansfrid had the right idea all along.
Humans and shifters were meant to dwell side by side with each other, and that when the prophecy came to pass, shifters would be free to step into the light and show themselves, and there would be peace in our world.
And by ‘our’ I mean shifter society, not the world at large.
At least, I think that’s what it means.”
“Prophecy? What prophecy?” Jake gaped. “Do you know what Godwin was talking about?”
“This is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.” Orsini frowned. “It sounds as though he’s talking about humans learning of the existence of shifters.”
“So something’s supposed to happen that will bring this about?” Seth gazed at the sheet in Orsini’s hand. “Does it say what’s in the prophecy?”
“Has anyone else still got goose bumps?” Brick rubbed his arms briskly.
Jake chuckled. “That makes two of us. I’ve had them ever since we opened the first casket.”
Orsini perused the sheet, then read the next, and the next, until he’d gone through all the sheets in the casket. He sighed. “It goes on about feasting, the weather, riding…. Boring accounts of Godwin’s stay with the brothers. There’s nothing else in these documents that mentions a prophecy.”
Jake glanced at the three caskets whose contents they had yet to examine in any great detail. “Maybe what we’re searching for is in those.”
Seth grinned. “Then let’s start looking.”
JAKE WAS beginning to feel as though he was on a wild goose chase.
They’d gone through two of the three remaining caskets, whose documents appeared to have been written in the thirteenth century.
Thus far there was no mention of the brothers, a prophecy…
in fact anything that was of any interest. Orsini was delighted, however, and told them even one of the caskets represented a lifetime of research to keep shifter historians and scholars busy.
But none of it helps us get any nearer to knowing what Godwin was talking about.
Jake could understand why Theron had kept the rest of the Missal a secret.
Peace? Humans and shifters living side by side?
That didn’t fit the Geran agenda. Instead, they’d manufactured an artifact to show just the opposite, a reason for the split, the beginnings of a chasm between Fridans and Gerans that they sought to widen.
So why did Theron hide the Berengar caskets?
“Only one more casket left,” Brick commented. “If it’s like the first two, it might contain recipes, or something equally unimportant.”
“Hey, some people might want to know what shifters ate back then,” Jake teased. His humor served to mask his own frustration. What they’d discovered in that first casket was groundbreaking, and if they could share their knowledge, it would rock the shifter world to its foundations.
He and Brick removed the final lid to reveal yet another tied sheaf of papers, not as thick as the first bundle. Orsini unraveled the knot with care, then read the first sheet.
Jake noticed the change in his breathing instantly.
“What is it? What have you found?”
“This is not like the other caskets,” he said breathlessly.
“What makes it different?”
Orsini swallowed and pointed to the first line, where the initial letter of each word was written in red ink. “This says, The Chronicles of Ansger .”
Jake caught his breath. “Ansger wrote this?”
“Unless it’s another forgery.”
“Can… can I touch it?” Orsini nodded, and Jake laid his hands on the sheet of thick paper. He closed his eyes, opening himself up once more.
“Well?” Seth demanded. “Is it real?”
Jake took several deep breaths in an effort to calm his racing heartbeat. “It feels as old as the Missal , if that helps.” In his head he saw the same sheet, and he concentrated on the hands holding it but couldn’t see more of the owner of those hands. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong? ”
“Nothing. I just wanted to see what Ansger looked like, that’s all.” He opened his eyes. “But it was him. I feel it.”
“There are no records of the brothers’ physical appearance,” Orsini told him. “Please, try again.”
Jake closed his eyes and focused on the feel of the paper beneath his fingertips. He prayed to whoever was listening.
Let me see them. Just this once.
Dizziness overcame him, and he took several deep breaths. He could see the hands again, only now he could make out a gold ring on the left hand. Jake concentrated, mentally taking a step back in an effort to see more.
Only to find the owner of those hands was staring right at him.