Who?“ he said. ”Madame de l’Oradore? Jeanne Giraud?“
“Alice,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 54
Alice arrived in Chartres late in the afternoon. She found a hotel, then bought a map and went straight to the address she’d been given by directory enquiries. Alice looked up in surprise at the elegant town house, with its gleaming brass knocker and letter box and elegant plants in the window boxes, and the tubs framing the steps. Alice couldn’t imagine Shelagh staying here.
2›What the hell are you going to say if someone answers? 2›
Alice took a deep breath, then walked up the steps and rang the bell. There was no answer. She waited, took a pace back and looked up at the windows, then tried again. She dialled the number. Seconds later, she could hear a phone ringing inside.
At least it was the right place.
It was an anticlimax but, if she was honest, a relief also. The confrontation, if that’s what was coming, could wait.
The square in front of the cathedral was thronging with tourists, all clutching cameras, and tour guides holding flags or colourful umbrellas held high. Orderly Germans, self-conscious English, glamorous Italians, quiet Japanese, enthusiastic Americans. All the children looked bored.
At some point during the long drive north, she’d stopped thinking she would learn anything from the labyrinth in Chartres. It seemed so obviously connected – the cave at the Pic de Soularac, to Grace, to her personally – too obvious. Part of her felt like she’d been set up to follow a false trail.
Still, Alice bought a ticket and joined an English-language tour, scheduled to start outside in five minutes. Their guide was an efficient, middle-aged woman with a superior manner and clipped voice.
“To the modern eye, cathedrals are grey, soaring structures of devotion and faith. However, in medieval times, they were very colourful, ratherthan like Hindu shrines in India or Thailand. The statues and tympana that adorned the great portals, in Chartres as elsewhere, were tricked out in polychrome.” The guide pointed up at the outside with her umbrella. “Look closely and you can still see fragments of pink, blue and yellow clinging to the cracks in the statues.”
All around Alice, people were nodding obediently.
“In 1194,” the woman continued, “a fire destroyed most of the city of Chartres as well as the cathedral itself. At first it was believed that the cathedral’s holiest relic, the sancta camisia – the robe supposedly worn by Mary at the birth of Christ – had been destroyed. But after three days the relic was discovered, having been hidden by the monks in the crypt. This was seen as a miracle, a sign that the cathedral should be rebuilt. The current edifice was finished in 1223 and in 1260 consecrated as the Cathedral Church of the Assumption of Our Lady, the first cathedral in France to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary.”
Alice listened with half an ear, until they arrived at the northern side of the cathedral. The guide pointed at the eerie stone procession of Old Testament kings and queens carved above the north portal.
Alice felt a flutter of nervous excitement.
“This is the only significant representation of the Old Testament in the cathedral,” said the guide, beckoning them closer. “On this pillar is a carving which many people believe shows the Ark of the Covenant being carried away from Jerusalem by Menelik, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, despite the fact that historians claim the story of Menelik was not known in Europe until the fifteenth century. And here” – she lowered her arm a little – ‘is another mystery. Those of you with good eyesight might just be able to make out the Latin – HIC AMITITUR ARCHA CEDERIS.“ She looked round the group and smiled smugly. The Latin scholars among you will realise that the inscription does not make sense. Some guidebooks translate ARCHA CEDERIS as: ”You are to work through the Ark“ and translate the entire inscription as: ”Here things take their course: you are to work through the Ark.“ However, if you take CEDERIS to be a corruption of FOEDERIS, as some commentators have suggested, then the inscription might be translated as: ”Here it is let go, the Ark of the Covenant“.”
She looked around the group. “This door, among other things, is one of the reasons for the number of myths and legends that have grown up around the cathedral. Unusually, the names of the master builders of Chartres Cathedral are not known. It is likely that, for some reason, no records were kept and the names were simply forgotten. However, those with more, shall we say, lurid imaginations have interpreted the absence of information differently. The most persistent of the rumours has it that the cathedral was built by descendants of the Poor Knights of Solomon, the Knights Templar, as a codified book in stone, a gigantic puzzle decipherable only by the initiated. Many believed the bones of Mary Magdalene had once been buried beneath the labyrinth. Or even the Holy Grail itself”.“
“Has anybody looked?” Alice said, regretting the words the second they were out of her mouth. Disapproving eyes swivelled to her like a spotlight.
The guide raised her eyebrows. “Certainly. On more than one occasion. But most of you will not be surprised to hear they found nothing. Another myth.” She paused. “Shall we move inside?”
Feeling awkward, Alice followed the group to the West Door and joined the queue to enter the cathedral. Straight away, everybody dropped their voices as the distinctive smell of stone and incense worked their magic. In the side chapels and by the main entrance, flickering rows of devotional candles sparkled in the gloom.
She braced herself for some sort of reaction, visions of the past, as she’d experienced in Toulouse and Carcassonne. She felt nothing and after a while, she relaxed and began to enjoy herself. From her research, she knew Chartres Cathedral was said to have the finest collection of stained glass anywhere in the world, but she was unprepared for the dazzling brilliance of the windows. A kaleidoscope of shimmering colour flooded the cathedral, depicting scenes of everyday and biblical life. The Rose Window and the Blue Virgin Window, the Noah Window showing the Flood and the animals marching two by two into the ark. As she wandered around, Alice tried to imagine what it must have been like when the walls were covered with frescos and decked with richly woven tapestries, the Eastern fabrics and silken banners all embroidered with gold. To medieval eyes, the contrast between the splendours of God’s temple and the world outside the cloister must have been overwhelming. Proof positive, perhaps, of God’s glory on earth.
“And, finally,” the guide said, “we come to the famous eleven-circuit pavement labyrinth. Completed in 1200, it is the largest in Europe. The original centrepiece is long gone, but the rest is intact. For medieval Christians, the labyrinth provided an opportunity to undertake a spiritual.pilgrimage, in place of an actual journey to Jerusalem. Hence the fact that pavement labyrinths – as opposed to those found on the walls of churches land cathedrals – were often known as the chemin de Jerusalem, that is, the road or path to Jerusalem. Pilgrims would walk the circuit towards the centre, sometimes many times, symbolic of a growing understanding or closeness to God. Penitents often completed the journey on their knees, sometimes taking many days over it.”
Alice edged to the front, her heart racing, only now realising subconsciously she’d been putting this moment off.
This is the moment.
She took a deep breath. The symmetry was destroyed by the rows of chairs on either side of the nave facing the altar for evensong. Even so, and despite knowing its dimensions from her research, Alice was taken aback by the size of it. It entirely dominated the cathedral.