Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

Its brass bindings seemed to blaze, throwing reflected sunlight in his face, and he was conscious of the weight of the key to it, hanging from a chain about his neck. It was a slim key, but solid iron, and no one but he knew that the chest it was meant to open contained more keys, one for each of the three large containers that held the bulk of the Temple Treasure, now ranged along the wall at the rear of the desk, and two more for the padlocks on the fourth, smaller and very different from the others. He straightened up and looked at them again, craning his neck to see over the plane of the desk’s surface, highly aware that his would be among the few eyes to look at them before they disappeared into obscurity again, for they were to be reburied the next day, far from sight, in the domed cavern beneath the lands of Roslin. He sighed again, then grimaced and tapped a fingernail against his teeth. The chests were his responsibility now, and for the past half hour he had been sitting staring at them, fighting a growing urge to open them up and look at their contents.

He knew he had the right, for the keys were in his trust, but had he the will? Despite knowing, or perhaps because of knowing, what was in them, he found himself afraid of violating their sanctity, of transgressing upon their sacred antiquity. But it was his responsibility, as he had told himself yet again, mere minutes earlier, to make sure that they were undisturbed; that their contents were intact; that they were, in fact, there at all. His was the name that would be attached to them from tomorrow onwards, from the moment of their concealment in their new hiding place, and his was the honor that would be impugned were they to be opened at a later date and found to contain nothing but rubble, their original treasures stolen.

He cursed, and rose to his feet, crossing directly to the door at his back. Outside, at the top of the stairs, Tam Sinclair turned towards him as the door swung wide.

“Are you done?”

“No, not even started. All’s well?”

Tam shrugged. “Well enough. What’s keeping you?” “Nothing … Nerves … Right, I’ll do it now. If anyone approaches, anyone at all, sing out, then stall them here for long enough for me to close the locks.”

Tam’s eyebrows twitched. “Who would come up here in daylight? Your father’s out and away and there’s nobody else in the house except the two o’ us. Just do what ye have to do, and let’s away.”

“Fine. I will.” He stepped back into the bedchamber and pulled the door closed behind him, then went immediately to open the brass-bound chest. He removed the keys it held and hefted them in one hand, surprised at the solid weight of them and at the difficulty of grasping all of them at once. Then he looked at the one chest that was different from all the others, the Prime Chest, as he thought of it. He laid the keys on the desktop, then selected the proper pair from the pile, one for each of the two padlocks, before moving towards the Prime Chest. It was the only one of the chests that had iron rings mounted on its sides, for ease of carrying, and a pair of long, thick poles lay on the floor behind it. The poles were threaded through the rings whenever the chest was to be moved, but Will knew, too, because he had been told, that they would fit a second set of rings fixed to the sides of the device inside the chest.

The thought of what that device could be unnerved him slightly, and even as he reached out to grasp the first padlock the hackles rose on his neck and he had to stop. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was suddenly dry and he had to work his tongue before he could open it. He licked his lips and took a firmer grip on himself, then inserted the key, only to find that he had chosen the wrong padlock. Moments later the second lock opened with an oiled click and he reached for the key to the first. The metal hinges of the hasps grated gently as he raised them, and he paused again, drawing a great breath before pulling upwards, gently at first but then much harder than he had anticipated, to lift the heavy, lead-lined lid.

The contents of the chest were covered by a voluminous quilted blanket that he lifted out easily with both hands, dropping it on the floor by his feet as he gazed, open mouthed, at the astonishing object that now lay revealed. It fitted the interior closely, filling almost the entire space, and its ends and corners were wrapped and padded against abrasion by the sides of the chest. The golden glow it emitted seemed to radiate outwards, spilling over the edges of the container, although he knew that was no more than an illusion caused by the brightness of the shaft of sunlight striking the metal-coated surface of the artifact. From the way his skin reacted, though, causing him to shiver and stirring the short hairs at his nape, he had no doubt in his mind that he was looking down at the most compelling object in creation, the single most precious relic on earth: the gold-sheathed coffer made to contain the Covenant between God and His chosen people; the Ark of the Covenant from the Holy of Holies in the Temple of King Solomon.

He lost awareness of how long he had stood there, gazing down at the thing, his senses awash in its beauty, but at one point he found himself reaching out to touch it, his hand coming within inches of the beaten gold surface of the lid before his fingers closed spastically and he jerked his elbow back, holding his forearm out unnaturally in front of him. According to the legends of this thing and the lore of his own Order of Sion, only priests were permitted to touch it. Anyone else who did so died violently, and the ancient scriptures cited examples of such transgressions. He released a shuddering breath and lowered his arm, pushing his hand behind his back, where it might no longer be tempted. And then he allowed himself to look more closely at the two towering golden figures that surmounted the lid of the Ark. They were angels, he knew, Seraphim, but there was little angelic or serene about them. The figures were filled with menace and exuded vigilance and tension, the upper tips of their spread wings almost touching one another as the angels leaned forward, appearing to hover over the lid of the Ark, sheltering the sacred area between them from which the voice of God Himself was said to have spoken to the priests.

Graven images , he thought, and was surprised by the vehemence with which the anomaly thrust its way into his consciousness. The Jews abhorred graven images, believing them idolatrous, and yet here, atop the very repository made to store the stone tablets bearing God’s own Law, was an absolute and categorical defiance of their first commandment, for these two images were graven in pure gold. And Aaron’s Rod was in there, too, if the ancient lore were true: the sacred rod that turned into a serpent and devoured the serpents set upon it by Pharaoh’s priests and sorcerers. Will found himself frowning, for he had always imagined that Aaron’s Rod would be at least as long as its bearer’s height, but the Ark itself was less than four feet in length and just over half that much in width, and thus, if the Rod was really in there, it must be far less imposing in appearance than his imaginings had led him to believe. But then he had a sudden memory of the heavy rod of state the King of France had carried on the only occasion when Will had seen him; it had been a twoinch-thick, intricately carved baton of ebony wood, ornate and solid and imposing, the embodiment of regal authority. The image in his mind of Capet’s Rod, as he thought of it, satisfied him, and he immediately stopped wondering about the size of Aaron’s Rod. But still he stood gazing at the golden box, one detached segment of his mind yet playing with the need to reach out and touch the thing with his bare hands.