by K. T. Tomb
A heavier rattle sounded to their right. It came carried in on the noise of a chopper. The helicopter swept in and the gunner fired at the road block. The men scattered. The pilot turned his craft around and swept over them again before landing on the beach beside the car. The pilot jumped from the helicopter, leaving the co-pilot with his hand on the stick and ran to them.
“Cash Cassidy and Makeda Iyashu?” the soldier asked, with a posh English accent.
Both Cash and Makeda got out of the car.
Cash shouted, “Yeah.”
They automatically picked up their bags from the backseat and ran towards the helicopter. “Captain Edward Ford, 84th Squadron, Royal Air Force. Tim asked me to pick you up!”
He helped them both into the helicopter and took his seat again as the co-pilot raised the chopper into the air. They were safe.
Chapter Nine
They flew to RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus. Captain Ford had been stationed there for the past three years. He told them that Tim and he had been classmates at Eton; they had formed a great top order partnership on their cricket team. Tim had called him that afternoon and told him his wife, an Australian, and her friend, a British national, were stuck in Syria and having found safety in Tartus, would head South on the first opportunity. They had patrolled that area for half an hour, constantly flying back out to sea so as not to interfere with the Russians in the port.
The helicopter landed at RAF Akrotiri in the dark and Cash and Makeda were each given a room at the base. Both women fell asleep the moment they lay down on their beds. Cash woke up late in the morning and took a shower before walking down to the mess. She took her laptop with her so she could check some things while having breakfast. Typically there was a full English breakfast available, and she took full advantage of the menu of pork. While eating she looked up a list of the Grand Masters of the Order of Saint John, or the Knights Hospitaller.
Makeda came to breakfast as well and sat down at her table with a cup of tea.
“Can you give me that picture?” Cash greeted Makeda.
“And good morning to you too.” Makeda replied.
She took her phone and emailed the picture to Cash.
“Morning,” Cash said, swallowing a mouthful of toast and bacon.
She downloaded the picture and opened it, then zoomed in on the shield of the knight. There was something familiar in his arms. She looked over the list and suddenly she knew what she was looking for. She shut her laptop and drained her tea, patted Makeda on the shoulder and rushed out.
She called Tim and told him she needed him to leave San Francisco and come meet her. She would fly on from Cyprus as soon as she could. She went into Limassol that day with Makeda and bought some new clothes. It was not like she needed new clothes, but could not be bothered washing the clothes she had stuffed in her bag. They had dinner in the city and spent the night at the base.
In the morning Cash hugged Makeda, thanking her over and over again for everything and promised her she would be in touch as soon as possible. She had a hard time saying good bye, but they were certain they would see each other again. Cash should offer to replace Makeda’s car or something. They had been through too much together not to.
Then Cash got on board a transport detail to the base at Dhekelia. The truck dropped her off in front of the airport at Larnaca.
***
Cash flew to Lisbon via Zürich and touched down late in the evening at Portela, in the middle of the sprawling clutter of the city. She ran to the car rental desk, which was just about to close. Much to her chagrin, the only car she could get was a pink Nissan Micra. She did not like the color, or the car; but she drove off in it anyway.
It was forty-five minutes to the town of Santarém. She had spent her layover in Zürich reserving a room in a bed and breakfast in the center of town, right in the shade of the church. When she arrived, the owner was still awake to let her check in and after that she went out to find a restaurant.
Returning to her room and her computer, she found an email from Tim. He had just left SFO and would be in Lisbon late the next afternoon. She knew where the final clue to finding the Holy Grail could be found and she wanted him to be there with her. What she had realized was that there was nobody she would rather share that moment with. There was nobody she wanted in her life more. The move to San Francisco had pushed those feelings back, and Tim’s attitude after the move had driven her to hate him. She had found out the hard way that it was true that love and hate lay very close together. It was love that had made her hate him. It had hurt her that he had not treated her as an equal and she hated him for taking her affection for granted.
In the morning she saw the sun rise over the hills. It reflected off the clear waters of the river Tagus and lit up the whole of sleepy Santarém. Slowly the streets below her window came to life. The sun bounced off the white and cream colored walls of the town and she relished the tranquility of the place. Wrapping a sheet around her, she opened the window and leaned out, breathing in the clean air. The smell of farms, orchards, vineyards and the river drifted in on the soft breeze and filled her nostrils.
After breakfast she strolled around the town and she found the signs of the economic crisis everywhere. Heaps of people sat around in cafes drinking coffee, having nothing to do. Young and old alike were sailing in that proverbial boat. Buildings had suffered and were in a state of disrepair. She even saw people drunk on the steps of a magnificent church before midday.
Cash shook her head at that and walked up the steps to the door, reading the name of the building as she stepped in. She had not planned on doing anything without Tim, but upon reading the name of the church she couldn’t stop herself going to look for the final piece of the puzzle. The church was called the Igreja de São João de Alporão.
She had found the name of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Order of St John, when cross checking the timeline of Al-Zahir and the list of Grand Masters. There were a few men who could have taken the cup, but the shield in the painting had looked somehow familiar. And that morning in Cyprus she had recalled why it did. The shield was the arms of the order quartered with the royal arms of Portugal.
Inside the church was a crypt. She found the priest and asked him in her sweetest voice whether she could look around the crypt. He unlocked it and she went down. It was dark in there and she used the torch on her phone to see by. Several sarcophagi were arranged along the walls and in the centre. She looked at the ones nearest her and tried to make out the names and coats of arms. It was not what she was looking for. Cash’s heart rate went up as she looked again. It had a vague coat of arms on it. It was quartered, she could see, and cross marks were in all quarters, but the markings were too vague to make out. She ran her slender fingertips over the shield and her heart sank. It was not that one either. She continued searching.
Her eyes fell on a sarcophagus with an ornate effigy of a knight on it. Black paint still showed on the top, and the traces of a white cross could still be seen on his chest. A coat of arms stood out in the middle of each of the four sides of the sarcophagus. She ran her fingers over this one too and her breath almost stopped. It was what she had been looking for. This was where the body of Fernando Afonso lay, bastard son of Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal. He had been the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John; the man who had been given the charge of keeping the Holy Grail. She looked all over the grave and traced her fingers over every part of the detailing that could give her a clue about the Grail. She found nothing.
“It’s not here,” a man said behind her.
His voice was gentle and had a hint of a Northern English accent. Cash turned around and shined the small torchlight at the man. He shone his own torch at her. It blinded her. She saw nothing of him apart from one thing. There was a medal on his jacket. It was a large, flared white cross, hung from a black and red ribbon.
“It’s not here. He never kept it here,” the man said.
&
nbsp; Cash tried to get closer to him, to avoid the light of the torch and make out who this man was. He pushed back his jacket and laid his hand on a gun at his hip.
“Believe me, I know how to use this old Browning.”
Cash stepped back. His voice sounded old and kind, but there was a hardness there which reinforced the threat of using the weapon.
“The thing you are looking for is not here.”
“Who are you?” Cash asked uncertainly.
“That doesn’t matter. And if it matters to you, you will probably find out anyway,” he sighed. “I know you are not looking for it to use it, but to let it go. You have come far, but here is where your search ends. You’ve done a remarkable job; certainly better than anyone before you ever did.”
“Why? Tell me why I should believe you when you say it’s not here?”
She sounded defiant.
“Because we have kept it safe for centuries. It is not here.”
He turned around and was gone.
Cash checked every nook and cranny of the sarcophagus, but she could not find a single clue as to where the Grail might be. There was nothing there. She walked up the steps completely disheartened. Staring at her shoes, she walked back to the bed and breakfast, went to her room and sank onto the bed.
***
Cash had fallen asleep and when she woke up she saw Tim sitting in the window sill, smoking a cigarette. He rarely did these days, but she had always thought he looked sexy when he did; a little like Sean Connery’s 1960’s rendition of James Bond. The daylight was fading behind him. “What’s happening?” he asked her.
She yawned and stretched, then rubbed her eyes as she sat up and looked at her husband.
“I found his tomb. It’s not there.”
Tim put the cigarette out and got up from the windowsill, sitting down next to her on the bed. He laid his hand on her knee, unsure whether it was too soon to hug her close to him. Cash patted his hand and sighed.
“An old bugger with a gun came in and told me it wasn’t there. And I checked, I really did, but it wasn’t there.”
“I really don’t care,” Tim muttered, receiving a scowl from his wife the moment he said it. “I’m just glad to see you safe and well.”
Cash stroked his fingers with her hand and then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before rising from the bed.
“I need a feed,” she said.
She grabbed her jacket and marched from the room. Tim smiled at the ‘Australian-ism’ and got up as well.
They found a small restaurant in the town and sat down. They each ordered their own dish and Tim left Cash to choose the wine. Then they talked. They hadn’t talked like that since Tim had announced they would move to San Francisco, and Cash felt as though a weight was being lifted from her shoulders as she calmly told Tim how she had felt throughout it all. Tim made his apologies for his behavior again and told her “again” they would work something out. He could not give up his job in San Francisco just like that, but there was nothing to stop her moving back into the house in Barry. The money was not an issue.
They held hands across the table and after their meal they sat down outside to drink coffee, finally content to hold each other again. They made a plan to get some bikes and cycle around in the hills, making the most of the time they would have together in this beautiful part of the world. Cash proposed they go and visit the Lines of Torres Vedras, but Tim refused. They could come back for history. Now was the time to just be together.
The morning found Cash lying content in her husband’s arms. They went to a bicycle shop and rented a couple of bikes, then picked up something to eat from a bakery and headed into the hills.
The views were stunning. Before them the Portuguese countryside sprawled and it looked serene. Both of them knew this had been the country where Wellington’s forces had fought the Marshalls of France. This was the country of the Reconquista and the wars between the Spanish kingdoms and Portugal. It was also a country of stunning beauty. There were forests, orchards and vineyards, fields full of crops and meadows laden with cattle. There were the red-tiled roofs of little villages, with their church steeples rising high above the town. They sat down by the side of the road far above Santarém to eat and then cycled back down.
Cash could never contain herself when cycling down. She was good on a bike, though normally she rode a road bike. She picked up speed and went past her husband, poking her tongue at him as she changed gears and went faster down the hill. A tractor showed up in front of her, coming round a bend where a small shrine stood pushed against the side of the hill. A big white, flared cross was above the door to the shrine. The farmer was not paying attention and drove out into the road, coming over to Cash’s side of the road.
She had no choice. She squeezed the brakes as hard as she could, but she could not avoid the tractor. There was no room to swerve, but Cash tried. Her front wheel hit the railing and she fell. She went over the edge and fell straight down. The slope was almost a sheer drop. She fell twenty meters and hit a patch of shrubs where she came to rest.
“Cash!” Tim screamed from the road.
His brakes screamed as he braked hard. The farmer had stopped too and both men looked down. She was moving.
“Stay still! We’ll get help!”
Cash swore and slowly looked around, completely dazed. She moved her feet and then her arms. She felt her collarbone and found it unbroken. Gently she moved her hips and her back, simply wanting to check whether she was hurt or not. But the only thing wrong seemed to be a number of scrapes.
“I managed to get out of a warzone only to get thrown from a bike by a stupid tractor!” she shouted up.
The farmer did not have a rope, nor did he have a phone on him.
“Stay there! Stay still, I’ll go and find someone who can get you out of there safely!” Tim shouted down, panic in his voice.
He jumped on his bike and rode down to Santarém. Cash lay still, but she could feel the roots of the bush letting go of the hillside. It would go very slowly, but it would go. She looked around and then saw a hole just above her. She sat up very carefully and, groaning, clawed up to the small opening. With a great effort, she pulled herself up into the cave and there she lay panting.
It was roomier than she had thought. Once she got through the opening she could even stand. The walls were solid granite and had patterns carved into them. One pattern was repeated all over the entrance. Carved into the black stone were white, flared crosses. She looked to the end of the cave and there was a statue there. It was the exact likeness of the effigy on the sarcophagus. Next to the statue stood a stone altar, and on the altar stood a simple silver cup.
Cash crawled to the altar and looked at the cup in a daze. She felt then what the Swedish knight had tried to describe. The cup held a peculiar magic. It felt as though she had met her greatest idol and was completely at ease with that person. She reached out to take hold of it, wanting to take up the item she had been looking for in all those places.
“Don’t touch it.”
Cash looked to her right and saw an old woman. The woman sat on a stone there, unmoving. She looked old; very old and grey. She was almost as grey as the dust covered granite of the cave wall.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Cash stood up, grimacing, and gazed at the woman. “This is the Holy Grail. The Cup of Christ.”
The woman nodded. “You are the first person to find it since it was hidden.”
She beckoned Cash to sit down.
“Your name is Patricia Julia Cassidy, but you are called Cash. You are the first one to connect the dots and trace this holy relic to its final resting place. It came to rest here a very long time ago and here it must stay. Do you understand?”
Cash wanted to protest. She wanted to say how this was a treasure of the world, but she found herself incapable of saying it. She knew the world could not deal with this.
“I came here by accident.” she mumbled. “I came to Santarém to find it, but I only
found it by chance.”
“Did you?” The old woman looked at her sharply. “Or did something lead you here? Did something happen that made you come here? The Lord moves in mysterious ways they sometimes say.”
Cash said nothing.
“You know why it was hidden?”
Cash nodded. “I think I do.”
“Emir Al-Zahir asked Fra’ Fernando Afonso for his help. Both men agreed the Holy Grail was dangerous. Jesus was a prophet to both the Christians and the Muslims. Nothing but the Qur’an survives of Mohammed, but this survives of Jesus. This is the cup he used for the first Eucharist and it is the cup that held his innocent blood when it was spilled. It is sacred to both those great religions and therefore it is dangerous. Not because it holds power in itself, but it is given too much power by men, and over them.”
Cash gazed at the cup.
“It has power because people will fight over it.”
“Yes. People will fight over it, and they will fight for it. They will kill for it and they will follow whoever has possession of it. Fra’ Fernando Afonso and Emir Al-Zahir understood this, like Saladin before them. They understood that neither the Templars nor the Hashashins could hold it, or they would destroy all the world around them. Their descendants still would. There are Free Masons who follow in the footsteps of the Templars and would like nothing more than to have the Holy Grail, which would allow them to control the Church and the Christian world. The Assassins are still underground and are everywhere. They are political leaders, business leaders everywhere, like the Free Masons. The Church too wants it, as it would inspire the entire world to join their side.
