The Sacred Scroll by Anton Gill Page B

casket again and saw that there was an inscription of some sort on it, and another on the shank of the key, but he couldn’t make them out.
    Friar Thomas grew tense as the tablet emerged, and Dandolo noticed that the monk’s eyes grew keen with – what? – something like craving? Desire?
    He had noted the reluctance of the Templars to part with this unimpressive-looking piece of baked mud. As he glanced at Odo’s eyes, fixed on the tablet, he saw something there too. Regret? Indecision? Second thoughts? But then the eyes lifted to meet his own.
    Dandolo didn’t want to meet those eyes – yet. He looked at the writing – for that was all he could think of it as – on the rough piece of terracotta. As he did so, he flinched. He couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t imagining it, but it seemed to him, fleetingly, that the letters, which looked as much as anything like the footprints of tiny birds – seemed momentarily to glow dark red, like blood.
    He glanced at Leporo to see if he had noticed anything, but Leporo’s face was impassive. Dandolo pulled himself together. Odo, he realized, had been watching him.
    ‘An interesting piece,’ he said.
    ‘Isn’t it?’ replied Odo.
    ‘Not much to look at,’ remarked Leporo.
    Odo ignored the comment, while Thomas shot thunderbolts at Leporo with his eyes. But the monk collected himself, and said: ‘I agree with Brother Leporo. It is, indeed, a small thing. Perhaps not worth your attention. We can only apologize.’
    Dandolo raised a hand to silence him. He kept his eyeson Odo. ‘Tell me about this … thing. I have to say, it is not quite what we expected.’
    Odo gave him another thin smile. ‘I know. You are disappointed in its size. Or you thought at least the box might contain the head of the spear which pierced Our Lord’s side at Golgotha, or the jewelled fingerbones of the apostle who touched the wound made by that spear – Doubting Thomas.’
    ‘Those would be great and Holy Relics indeed.’
    ‘This thing is older than either of them.’
    Dandolo looked again at the tablet. He could see, without being an expert, that it was old, very old indeed. It seemed as old as Time itself.
    ‘May I touch it?’
    Odo spread his hands. ‘Of course. But be careful. There are things about this tablet of which we are not entirely sure.’
    Dandolo stretched out a tentative hand.
    The clay felt as cold as death, so cold it burned; and hard, hard as adamant. He did not dare pick it up, but withdrew his hand instead. He wanted it, that much he knew. But at what price? He thought of his bodyguard outside, and the heavy casket of Venetian florins borne by one of the packhorses in their charge. He would pay anything … but then it was better not to show himself too avid for it. He would start the bargaining at half the amount he had with him – already a far higher sum than he’d intended.
    He remained silent.
    ‘It was made a time long before the arrival of Our Lord Christ on this sorry earth,’ Odo continued. ‘No one knows exactly when. Nor where.’
    ‘How did it come to be in your care?’
    Odo stole a look at Thomas. It was strange, but it seemed as if he were asking permission to answer. ‘It has been in the possession of our Order for many years. It was bequeathed to us by the heirs of Bishop Adhemar of le Puy. They say he discovered and acquired it in Alexandria shortly before his death, after the success of the very first crusade against the Fatimids and the Seljuks, when we drove them back out of the Holy Places. The tablet is referred to in Adhemar’s letters. He calls it the Sacred Scroll. Perhaps he thought it was a printing-block, and tried to use it to print its meaning out on parchment. But we do not know.’
    Dandolo knew of Adhemar. The bishop had been one of the main instigators of the crusade which had ended so successfully at the close of the previous century. A man of extraordinary power and influence. It was said that, had he come earlier