The Holy Lance - Chapter 4

Long after Wednesday turned into Thursday, Simon tossed in his bed on the edge of sleep, his duvet doing the minimum necessary to stop the cold seeping into him. The electric fire on the opposite wall was on full, that is both bars were lit, but it seemed to have all the impact of a match on a glacier.

Although the physical pain had subsided, the trauma remained, the pure fear etched, as if by laser into his brain. There was also the shame, rescued by a nineteen year old rugger bugger who had got into the college purely on his ability to catch a ball. Humiliation would be multiplied tomorrow no doubt on the publication of Isis, the student newspaper, which was guaranteed to lead with the story. No chance with the fair Arabella now, unless, just maybe, a sympathy shag was on offer. Shaking his head, he got up. Arabella was not that kind of girl.

His mind turned, as it often had over the past days, to the letter and the riddle which ended it. Getting up, he wandered through to his study and turned on the computer. Calling up google, he carried on the desultory search he had been conducting. There were several pubs called the Golden Bottle, one of them in Oxfordshire, so that seemed reasonable, but what was he looking for when he got there? “My third Caesarian hero”. That made no sense. Jonathan’s hero had been Polybius, and he had died about a century before Caesar.

An ancient Greek politician and soldier, Polybius had been sent as a hostage to Rome, where, mixing with the leaders of the Senate, he observed first hand his captors’ increasing involvement in Greek affairs until they eventually annexed his homeland. Using his experiences, Polybius had written a history of Rome’s increasing power and its relations with its neighbours, a book which remains one of the most important sources for the period. One thing his captivity did not give him, however, was much regard for Roman imperialism.

So what could Caesarian mean then? There was no record that Polybius had been born in anything but the natural way, and the chances of him meeting one of Caesar’s ancestors were relatively slight, the family being noble but undistinguished in those times. What else could Caesarian mean? Looking across his book-shelves, Simon scanned the titles, looking for some sort of clue. The ancient texts offered little help, nor the books of inscriptions from ancient sites. Turning to the more personal and less academic shelves, he saw volumes of thrillers, worthy novels and books on photography, his hobby and real passion. Nothing which sparked his imagination though.

And yet, and yet, and yet. There it was. He knew now, not just a penny, but a whole pound coin having dropped. The Da Vinci Code. That was it, that was the answer. Jonathan’s third Caesarian hero was a code. That was what he meant. The answer was not Polybius, that was an encryption. All he had to do was decipher it.