Marcus looked out the back window. The car was nowhere to be seen. “Did you win at Le Mans?”
“I was in the lead at the twenty-fourth hour, and then I crashed at sunrise. A morning like today.”
Marcus glanced out the window. The pink of dawn shimmered over the Seine River. He inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly. Alicia watched the traffic, her face secluded in thought. The driver looked at Alicia in the rearview mirror, and then lowered his eyes to the road. “Many go to Chartres looking for something. Are you two pilgrims?”
“Not in the traditional sense,” Marcus said, his eyes burning.
The driver nodded. “Some people believe the old cathedral is the most holy in the world. My mother took my brother and me there when we were teenagers. She said the cathedral is Mary’s womb on earth. Our time in the womb is the safest. Then we are born. I don’t know why that car was following you, but I hope you will find safety in the womb of Chartres.”
In less than an hour, the taxi driver turned off the main road and drove the back roads toward the town of Chartres. The taxi wound through a small hamlet, the rural road leading across the wheat fields. Marcus looked out the window. Ahead, in the distance, Chartres Cathedral, with its massive spires, seemed to float above the wheat fields like an optical illusion. He touched Alicia and pointed. Her eyes bright, focused.
“Paul, it looks surreal from here — almost like the Emerald City in the land of Oz. I can see a huge church and nothing else around in any direction. I don’t know why, but I feel an unusual connection with it…like it’s somehow calling me.”
SEVENTY-NINE
Marcus and Alicia drank dark coffee and ate warm beignets with apple fillings in a small café near the narrow Eure River. The spires of Chartres Cathedral rose high above the town of Chartres, which was trimmed in landmarks from the Middle Ages. They finished eating and walked across an ancient stone bridge over the Eure. The river flowed quietly through limestone medieval arches that vanished beneath the dark water.
They walked through the town, the scent of baking bread in the air when they passed through an alley by a bakery. Chartres Cathedral stood before them. Alicia stopped and simply stared at the enormous cathedral. “What a breathtaking church! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The word spectacular doesn’t seem to convey what we’re seeing. Let’s walk around the exterior before we go inside.”
As they came closer to Chartres Cathedral, two tourists’ buses pulled into the cobblestone parking lot, doors swinging open and pilgrims from all over the world descending, similar to sports teams anxious to play on a new court. Marcus and Alicia passed by the chattering hordes. Nearby, street vendors hocked religious trinkets.
The cathedral wore a coat of ancient history over the massive spires, flying buttresses and portals carved by hands of master sculptors. The statues and stone effigies inset at the entrances spoke with a universal body language that needed no interpreter: biblical icons carved in stone. The closer Marcus came to the cathedral, the more his heart raced. He looked at how the morning sun fell across the building, poking light into dark crevices, warming granite faces of angels and biblical figures that had witnessed a thousand years of mornings and sunsets clinging to the mortar of the cathedral.
Marcus used the GPS feature on his phone while he studied the engraved history. “Each portal, each entrance, tells a story.”
“What stories?” Alicia asked.
“From Adam and Eve to the great flood, through the time of Christ and the Book of Revelation.”
“It’s the Bible set in stone.” She smiled and touched his arm.
“Apparently, a lot of it’s here, either on the exterior or inside. The stained-glass windows are said to be some of the best remaining on earth. We’re looking at the eastern portals. Let’s move around and see the southern and western entrances.”
Alicia followed Marcus. He walked beneath a weeping willow tree, its leaves pumpkin orange. He stopped and wrote numbers on a pad of paper. “When are you going to tell me what we’re looking for?” she asked.
“I told you that already.”
“I understand — it’s the Spear of Destiny. But this cathedral is the size of Mt. Rushmore. We don’t even have a clue where to begin looking.”
“Maybe we do. If we can figure out a few things, possibly the clues will be more visible…and if the spear is hidden inside, we might have a chance of finding it.”
Marcus wandered slowly around the exterior. He watched a worker using a high-pressure water hose to clean mildew from an exterior wall. The worker stepped down from a painter’s ladder, leaned it against a portico and returned to the pressure washer rattling on the lawn. He shut it off and wound up the hose.
“My apologies for the noise.”
Startled, Marcus and Alicia turned around to face a man who stood on the paved walk with a dozen fresh-cut roses in his hands. He grinned and said, “The upkeep of Chartres is constant. But she wears her years well. I’m Father Davon.”
Marcus guessed that the priest, who spoke with a slight British accent, was in his late sixties. He had a dark beard streaked with white hair, the pattern and contrast looked amusingly as if ice cream had dripped through his whiskers. His blue eyes sparkled in the light. “You’re from America, I assume.”
“How can you tell?” Marcus asked.
“After working as a guide here for thirty years, I can usually tell. Most pilgrims enter through the western portal. I was trimming the late-bloomers in the garden and saw you and the lovely lady wandering about like two lost sheep.” He extended a rose to Alicia. “The bouquet is for the altar. However, this one’s for the lady.”
She reached for the rose. “Thank you! That’s very sweet.” She sniffed the bud. “It smells lovely, and there are no thorns on the stem.”
“It happens, rarely, but it happens.”
Marcus studied the priest for a second. “I suppose a rose without thorns blooms under a new sun…even this late in the season.”
Father Davon nodded, his beard parting in a grin. “Yes, indeed. I’ve heard that. May I ask your names?”
“I’m Paul Marcus. This is my friend, Alicia Quincy.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintances. My old British bones tell me that you two aren’t typical tourists making a religious pilgrimage to Chartres. A million people come here each year. Very few would know the significance of what you just said: a rose without thorns blooms under a new sun. The rose is a metaphor for Mary, and the new sun is Christ. I’m curious. What is it you are seeking?”
“We’re seeking some answers. We’re hoping they might be found at Chartres.”
Father Davon smiled, the breeze tickling his beard, birdsong coming from the trees. “What are the questions?”
“What sacred artifacts are here?”
Father Davenport grinned. “All of Chartres is a sacred artifact. The cathedral was built on high ground, land believed to have magnetic connections with the heavens. I would be honored to show you around Chartres and answer your questions.”
Marcus looked at Alicia for a moment. She smiled and nodded. “Okay,” Marcus said. “A place this large requires a compass or a good guide.”