Tom looked at Laura, remembering the Ladies First policy she had proclaimed at Blackwells. Laura looked back at him, as if she preferred to waive her rights in this instance, but Tom just kept waiting politely. Finally, she looked back at Mr. Williams. “Actually, it’s the war that brought me in this direction,” she explained. “My Aunt Vivian lives here in Oxford. She came over in the Great War as a volunteer nurse and married an Englishman. But he was called up for war work in Scotland, and there are no children, so she’s been alone all winter. My parents thought it would be good if I came over to keep Aunt Viv company, at least until her husband can get reassigned closer to home.”
“That’s a lovely thing to do,” said Williams.
“Oh, I really don’t mind,” said Laura. “I finished college last year, and I’ve been living at home, working part-time at a library. So I was ready for an adventure.” Laura paused a moment, as if deciding whether she’d said enough or not, then continued: “And I also have some personal things I’m looking into. Somehow I feel the answers are over here somewhere.”
Both Williams and Tom kept looking at Laura and listening, as if they were expecting to hear more. “But we can talk about that later,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “Tom, why don’t you tell Mr. Williams what you’re doing over here?”
Tom was gratified that Laura remembered his name, so he acknowledged her cue and took his turn: “Well, I did my master’s thesis on Arthurian romance. I came over to research a book on the historical sites associated with King Arthur. I’m putting together a guidebook.” Tom usually liked to talk about himself and his projects, but he recognized what Laura had been feeling a moment ago. There was something slightly unnerving about Mr. Williams’s earnest gaze, the big eyes behind those shiny glasses that seemed to peer into your soul. Tom thought about volleying the conversation back in Laura’s direction, but then he remembered the question he wanted to ask. “I asked Professor Lewis a question last week and he referred me to you. I was wondering why somebody over here might take exception to my poking around Arthurian sites.”
“Is that what happened?” asked Williams.
“Yes it did. I ran into a couple of ruffians down in Somerset who tried to scare me off. They seemed worried about my finding an underground chamber somewhere.”
“Professional jealousy perhaps,” said Williams. “They may think any important new finds should be reserved for Englishmen. There’s still a lot out there, you know. A few years ago, they were digging around in Cornwall and found the ancient tomb of ‘Drustanus,’ most likely the famous Tristran, lover of Isolt in Arthurian legends. And just last summer, before this Nazi rudeness, they uncovered a buried ship at Sutton Hoo, complete with silver and gold, helmet and shield, everything fit for a great Saxon lord.”
Tom nodded his head and smiled, clearly aware of both discoveries. “And in your novel, War in Heaven, you have the Holy Grail itself turn up in Hertfordshire, of all places! Who would have looked for it just north of London?”
Williams chuckled to himself, as if enjoying his own literary audacity. Then he explained: “If you’ve followed recent theories, the Grail has been turning up everywhere—in Wales and Scotland, even in Eastern Europe. So why shouldn’t humble Hertfordshire put in its claim?” Williams took a sip of his rum and hot water, then continued: “I grew up in Hertfordshire and found the county brimming with Grail legends. Not from Celtic sources, but from the Crusades. In the twelfth century, Hertfordshire was an important hub for the Knights Templar. They had castles and lands in Royston, St. Albans, Baldock, and a half dozen other places within a day’s ride of London. They claimed to have brought back all manner of sacred treasures from Jerusalem—splinters from Christ’s cross, fragments from the crown of thorns, and, of course, the Grail itself.”
“They would have benefited from your lecture,” said Tom. “You seem to say that the Grail is just a literary device, a religious symbol, not an actual relic one might go questing after.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” replied Williams. “I would say that Grail is all the more sacred, all the more worth questing after, because it means so much more than any relic ever could.”
Tom took in these words for a while and then replied. “And yet your novel suggests that the Grail has some sort of stored-up power or supernatural energy, so that it could be used as a vessel of great evil as well as great good.”
“Keep in mind it is a novel,” said Williams, “not one of my books on doctrine. And yet, surely you know, such a notion is not original with me. The whole premise of the Dark Arts—baptisms of blood, the Black Mass, crucifixes turned upside down—is that holy vessels can be put to other uses, that power meant for good can be turned to evil by cunning and depraved minds.”
“I can’t say I’m a believer,” said Tom. “It all seems like wish-fulfillment and hocus-pocus to me.”
Laura winced, but Williams didn’t seem to mind the comment at all. “Fair enough,” he said. “It is only the arrogant or the insecure who claim to know about such things, unless perhaps you are a genuine mystic. For the rest of us, all we can do is choose what to believe.
This sort of topic made Tom uncomfortable, so he quickly returned to their earlier discussion: “The Knights Templar and their relics—I wonder if that is something I should include in my book?”
“I would think so,” answered Williams. “The Templars certainly saw themselves as a company of Galahads, chivalric knights sent out to protect pilgrims and liberate Jerusalem.”
Tom took out a little notebook and jotted down a few words. “Hertfordshire isn’t too far from here. Maybe I’ll go over and have a look around.”
“Yes, it might be worth your while,” said Williams, “if only for the Knights Templar sites. Such treasures they claim to have brought back to England! Be sure to visit their hideaway at Royston Cave and see if you can decipher the writing on its walls.”
Laura had been listening intently and almost motionlessly as the two men talked. But she leaned forward and almost spilled her cup of coffee at the mention of Royston Cave. “A secret cave?” she asked. “With writing on the walls? Is that what you said?”
Williams and Tom were both somewhat taken aback by her sudden outburst. Tom smiled, but Williams looked at her sympathetically. “Yes, that’s correct, Miss Hartman. Royston Cave. It’s right beneath the streets of town. And the walls are covered with arcane symbols that seem to have been etched there by some Templars in hiding.”
“Has anyone ever deciphered the hieroglyphs?” Laura asked.
“There are a number of theories,” said Williams. “Are you a student of the Knights?”
“No, nothing like that,” said Laura, retreating into her habitual reserve. “But that is what I was hoping to talk to you about.”
Williams kept listening, so Laura continued: “I want to ask you about another of your novels, Descent into Hell. You show a young woman in the here and now who has visions of the distant past. She sees one of her ancestors in the sixteenth century being martyred for his faith. And when she prays for this man, who has been dead for five hundred years, he is strengthened in his time of suffering, and goes bravely to his death proclaiming, ‘I have seen the salvation of my God.’”
“Yes, I recall that part of the novel,” said Williams, blinking his eyes several times.
“Do
