The Lazarus Prophecy by F. G. Cottam Read Free Book Online

were narrow but they were thickly glazed with glass and there were several of them, evenly spaced, in a single row across both exterior walls. Between the windows there were crammed bookcases and bookcases lined both interior walls for the whole of their length.
    Most of the volumes were bound in leather with gilt tooled titles glimmering on their spines and the overall impression, in the dry and relative warmth and brightness of the library, was one of scholarly privilege.
    The room had a high ceiling and a wooden ladder on wheels had been constructed to enable readers to climb to reach the books placed on the more remote shelves. Apart from that, the only furniture was a rectangular oak table at the centre of the room equipped with a single straight-backed chair. The floor was smoothly flagged stone, but this was still by far the most comfortable and congenial area of the priory Cantrell had experienced.
    There was a smell he knew was a mingling in there of vellum and parchment and hide. It hinted at the age of the order and the weight of its ancient tradition. He shook his head. He thought of the generations of devout men whose dedications had been squandered on a wicked fallacy.
    Then he noticed the single slender item placed on the table at the centre of the room. He sighed, disappointed, knowing with a sinking plunge in the pit of his stomach that this was what they thought of as their proof. Words inked on pages: rumour, embellishment, speculation and lies. He hardly had the will to go and see what had been left there for him. He strode fromthe door to the table and looked just the same. The cover was stiff and marbled board without a single character, let alone a title, to tell the reader what the volume might contain.
    He took the top corner at the unbound edge and opened it. And he read a copperplate frontispiece that said,
Being an account of the London Mission of Brother Daniel Barry in the Year of Our Lord, 1888.
    He shook his head. He was tempted to read no further. He had wasted more than enough time. What he needed to do was to go and confront the trio of fustian-clad unknowing clowns he had left at the bottom of the spiral of stairs. He needed to spell out to them the specifics of what the Cardinal had ordered they should do. And more pertinently, the blasphemous rituals they should no longer practice.
    He didn’t think he could influence their beliefs. He’d seen the incredulity on their faces when he’d informed them of the contemporary interpretation of what really happened with the miracle of Lazarus and his apparent return from the dead. Father Cantrell didn’t delude himself about what he could achieve with the men he’d left down there. Above all, he liked to think he was a pragmatist.
    He let the cover of the book slip from his fingers and noticed a puff of dust escape the pages when it dropped back down. Whatever Brother Daniel’s mission had been back in the great metropolis of the Victorian era, over recent years, it seemed evident nobody here had bothered to remind themselves about it. That was fine by Cantrell. He had no intention of reading about it either.
    He descended the spiral of steps in darkness. Darkness didn’t intimidate him the way the thought of it had, clutching his taper on the way up. The journey down led to only one destination and the shaft was straight and the steps evenly cut into the stone. He opened the door at their base and rather enjoyed the crestfallen expressions that claimed the faces of the three brethren waiting for him in the room beyond.
    â€˜You haven’t read it,’ Brother Stephen said. His tone was not so much forlorn as abject.
    â€˜I’ve no intention of reading it.’
    â€˜That sounds like the bigotry of which we stand accused,’ Brother Dominic said.
    â€˜Words written on a page are proof of nothing,’ Cantrell said. ‘They amount to conjecture. At best they can be described as an affidavit. They