“They’re all praying for his recovery?”
The doctor nodded. “We all are.”
“But you don’t even know him.”
“It doesn’t matter. The sea brought him here to us, and it’s our duty to nurse him back to health so he can go on with his life.” He climbed into the car. “Now I really must go.” And with a small wave and a parting glance, he drove off through pools of muddy rainwater and disappeared down the hill.
For a moment, Tess watched him go. She turned to walk back into the house, then hesitated. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had been inside any chapel or church or religious building of any kind, except for her work and, of course, during the brief episode in the burned-out remains of the church in Manhattan. Splashing her way across the soaked road, she crossed the small pebble courtyard, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
The small chapel was half full with people huddled in earnest prayer on pews that were old and worn smooth through many years of use. Tess stood at the back, looking around. The chapel was simple, its whitewashed walls covered in eighteenth-century frescoes and lit by the glow of scores of candles. Moving around the chapel, she noticed an alcove that held silver icons of Saint Gabriel and Saint Michael, which were adorned in precious stones. Swept away by the flickering candlelight and the hushed tones of prayer, a strange sensation came over her. She suddenly felt like she wanted to pray. She felt uncomfortable with the notion and shook the unsettling thought away, convinced that to do so would be hypocritical.
She was turning to leave when she spotted the two women who had brought over the food and clothing the day before. They had two men with them. The women saw her and hastened over, fussing all over her with unabashed delight at her recovery. They kept repeating the same phrase, “Doxa to Theo,” and although she couldn’t understand what they were saying, she smiled back and nodded, moved by their genuine concern. Tess understood that the men were their husbands, the fishermen who had also escaped the storm’s wrath. They greeted her warmly. One of the women pointed at a small cluster of candles in a niche at the rear of the chapel and said something Tess didn’t catch at first, but gradually became clear. She was telling Tess that both women had lit candles for Reilly.
Tess thanked them and glanced down the nave of the chapel at the clusters of townspeople who were sitting there, joined in prayer in the dimming candlelight. She stood there quietly for a moment before turning and heading back to the house.
TESS SPENT THE REST of the morning at Reilly’s bedside and, after a hesitant start, she found that she was able to talk to him after all. She avoided talking about the recent events and, knowing so little about his life, she decided to stick to her own past, telling him stories about her adventures in the field, her successes and her embarrassments, anecdotes about Kim, whatever crossed her mind.
Eleni came into the room around midday, inviting Tess downstairs to have lunch. The timing couldn’t have been better, as Tess was running out of things to say and was headed ever more perilously toward having to actually face and talk about what she and Reilly had lived through together. She still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of discussing anything meaty with him while he was still unconscious.
Mavromaras had returned from his consultation, and Tess informed him that she had thought about the idea of moving Reilly to Rhodes but preferred to keep him where he was, as long as the doctor and his wife were still happy to have them there. Her decision seemed to please them, and she was relieved to hear, in no uncertain terms, that she and Reilly could stay until such a time when a major decision regarding his condition needed to be taken.
MUCH OF THE EVENING and most of the next morning saw Tess continuing her vigil in Reilly’s room, but, after lunch, she felt she needed to get some air. Noticing how much the storm had abated, she decided to venture out a little further.
The wind was now nothing more than a strong breeze and at long last the rain had completely died out. Despite the dark-bellied clouds still crowding the skies over the island, she decided she rather liked the town. It wasn’t blighted by the slightest modern development and had kept the charm of its simple past intact. She found the narrow lanes and the picturesque houses calming, the smiles from passing strangers comforting. Mavromaras had told her that hard times had befallen Symi after World War II, when a large part of the population had packed up and left after the island was bombed by both the Allied and Axis powers, which had traded roles as occupiers. Happily, the recent years had seen a marked improvement in the island’s fortunes. It was thriving again now that Athenians and foreigners were catching on to its appeal, buying up the old houses and caringly bringing them back to their former glory.
She climbed up the stone steps of the Kali Strata past the old museum and reached the remains of a castle, which had been built by the Knights of Saint John in the early fifteenth century on the site of a much older fortification, only to be blown up while housing a Nazi munitions dump during the war. Tess meandered through the ancient site, stopping at a plaque commemorating Filibert de Niallac, the knights’ French grand master. More knights, even here in this lost little corner of the world, she mused as she thought back to the Templars and stared out at the spectacular views over the harbor and the whitecapped sea beyond. She watched as swallows darted in and out of the trees by the old windmills and saw a lone ship, a trawler, venturing out from the sleepy port. Seeing the wide blue expanse that surrounded the island triggered an unsettling feeling in her. Smothering her discomfort, she felt an urge to see the beach where she and Reilly had been found.
She headed for the main square where she found a driver who was headed for the monastery at Panormitis, beyond the small settlement at Marathounda. A short, bumpy ride later, he dropped her off at the entrance of the town. As she made her way through the small cluster of houses, she ran into the two fishermen who had found her and Reilly. Their faces lit up at seeing her, and they insisted on having her join them for a cup of coffee at the small local taverna, and Tess happily agreed.
Although the conversation was severely limited due to the language barrier between them, Tess understood that more debris from the dive boat had been found. They led her to a small dump just beyond the taverna, and showed her the bits and pieces of timber and fiberglass that had been picked up from the beaches on either side of the bay. The storm and the sinking came rushing back to Tess, and she felt saddened at the thought of the men who had lost their lives on the Savarona and whose bodies would never be recovered.
She thanked the fishermen and was soon walking on the deserted, windswept beach. The breeze carried the fresh smell of the churned sea, and she was relieved to see that the sun was hinting through the clouds, prying its way through them after a long absence. She moved slowly along the edge of the tide line, scuffing her feet in the sand, the hazy images of that fateful morning flooding her consciousness.
At the far end of the beach, well out of sight of the small settlement at the mouth of the bay, she reached an outcropping of black rocks. She climbed onto it, found a flat patch, and sat down, hugging her knees and staring out at the sea. A long way out, a large rock jutted out from the water, small white-topped breakers surging around it. It looked menacing, yet another danger she and Reilly had escaped. She became aware of the wails of the seagulls, and looking up she saw two of them swooping down playfully and tussling over a dead fish.
All at once she realized that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She wasn’t sobbing, or even crying, really. They were just tears, welling up out of nowhere. And just as suddenly as they had started, they dried up, and she realized that she was shivering, but not with cold. It was something more primal, rising up from deep inside her. Feeling a need to shake it off, she rose to her feet and continued her walk, climbing across the rocks and finding a small pathway that snaked its way along the shore.
She followed it, past three more rocky inlets, and reached another, more remote, bay at the southern tip of the island. Ther
e didn’t seem to be any roads leading down to it. A crescent of virgin sand arced away from her, ending with another headland that rose into a towering, jagged overhang.
She looked down the beach in the diffused twilight, and an odd shape attracted her attention. It lay on the far end of the bay at the edge of the rocks. She squinted, willing her eyes to pull it into focus, and she was aware that her breathing was quickening, her mouth suddenly dry. Her heartbeat raced ahead.
It can’t be, she thought. It isn’t possible.
And then she was running along the sand until, gasping for breath, she came to within a few feet of it and stopped, her mind reeling at the possibility.
It was the falcon figurehead, all tangled up in the harness of its rig, the orange floaters wrapped, half-deflated, around it.
It looked intact.
Chapter 82
Tentatively, Tess reached out and touched it. She ran her hands over it, her eyes ratcheted wide, her imagination propelling her back through time to the days of the Knights Templar, to Aimard and his men and their final, fateful voyage on the Falcon Temple.
A tangle of images flooded her mind as she tried to remember Aimard’s words. What had he said exactly? The chest was placed into a cavity that had been carved out of the back of the falcon’s head. The remaining void had been filled with resin, then covered with a matching piece of wood that was hammered into place with pegs. That, too, had been sealed with resin.
She examined the back of the falcon’s head closely. She could just about discern the marks of where resin had been packed in, and, feeling around carefully with trained fingers, she found the edges of the lid and the pegs that had held it in place. The seals all looked unscathed, and no water seemed to have seeped into the resin-covered cavities. From what she could see, it was highly likely that whatever had been locked away inside the chest was still safe and undamaged.
Looking around, she found two chunks of rock and used them as a hammer and chisel to break into the cavity. The first few layers of wood flaked off easily, but the rest proved to be stubbornly solid. Searching around the beach, she came across a piece of rusted steel rebar and used its sharp, broken edge to scrape through the resin. Working feverishly and with total disregard for any concerns of conservation the archaeologist in her would have insisted upon only weeks ago, she was able to claw her way under the timber lid and into the cavity. She could now see the edge of the chest, small and ornate. Wiping her sweaty brow, she scraped off enough of the resin from around the chest and used the rod to dislodge it. Sinking her fingers around it, she finally managed to lift the small box out.
All of her excitement came surging back and she tried to control it, but it was next to impossible. She actually had it in her hands. Although the chest was intricately decorated with silver carvings, it was surprisingly light. She carried it into the lee of a large rock where she could examine it closely. There was an iron hasp with, not a lock, but a wrought-iron ring. She used the rock to hammer at the hasp until, finally, it came away from the wood and she was able to lift the lid of the chest and peer inside.
Carefully, she lifted out the chest’s contents. It was a package, wrapped in what appeared to be an oiled animal skin much like the one Aimard had used to protect the astrolabe, and tied with leather thongs. Very slowly, she unfolded the skin. Nestling in it was a book, a leather-bound codex.
The instant she saw it, she knew what it was.
It was inexplicably familiar, its humble simplicity belying its prodigious contents. With trembling fingers, she lifted up the cover slightly and peered at the writing on the first sheet of parchment inside it. The lettering on it was faded but readable, and, as far as she could tell, the codex’s contents were undamaged. She knew, with absolute certainty, that she was the first person to see it, the mythical treasure of the Knights Templar, ever since it was put into the chest seven hundred years ago by William of Beaujeu and entrusted to Aimard of Villiers.
Except that it was no longer a myth.
It was real.
Cautiously, aware that this should be done in a laboratory or, at the very least, indoors but unable to resist the urge to get a better look, Tess opened the codex a bit wider and lifted up a sheet of parchment. She recognized the familiar, brownish tint of the ink used at the time made from a mixture of carbon soot, resin, wine dregs, and cuttlefish ink. The handwriting was difficult to decipher, but she recognized a couple of words, enough to know that it was written in Aramaic. She had encountered it occasionally in the past, enough to be able to identify it.
She paused, her eyes riveted on the simple manuscript in her hands.
Aramaic.
The language spoken by Jesus.
Her heart pounding noisily in her ears, she stared at the parchment, recognizing more words here and there.
Very slowly, almost unwillingly, she began to fathom just what she held in her hands. And to realize who had first touched these sheets of parchment, whose hand had written these words.
They were the writings of Jeshua of Nazareth.
The writings of the man the entire world knew as Jesus Christ.
Chapter 83
Gripping the leathery skin that held the codex, Tess walked back slowly along the beach. The sun was setting, the last glimmer of light poking through the gray wall of cloud that lingered on the horizon.
She had decided against carrying the chest back, choosing to hide it behind a large rock instead, in order not to attract unwanted attention. She would come back for it later. Her mind was still floundering with the implications of what she believed she held in her hands. This wasn’t a shard of pottery, it wasn’t Troy or Tutankhamen. This was something that could change the world. It had to be handled, to say the least, with extreme care.
As she approached the small cluster of houses at Marathounda, she took off her cardigan and wrapped it around the small pouch. The two fishermen had already left the taverna, but she got one of the men there who recognized her from earlier that day to drive her back to the doctor’s house.
As she stepped inside, Mavromaras greeted her with a big smile. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you.” Before she could rattle off some lie, he was herding her deeper into the house, toward the bedrooms. “Come, quickly. Someone wants to see you.”
REILLY WAS LOOKING AT HER, his breathing mask gone, a valiant attempt at a smile on his dried lips. He was sitting up at a slight angle, propped up against three large pillows. She felt something shift inside her.
“Hey,” Reilly said, weakly.
“Hey yourself,” she answered, relief breaking across her face. She felt uplifted in a way she’d never experienced before. She turned and, trying not to attract Eleni or the doctor’s attention to it, laid the bundled cardigan casually on a small cabinet facing the bed, before approaching Reilly and stroking his forehead softly. Her eyes moved over his bruised face and she caught her lower lip with her teeth, feeling some tears welling up.
“It’s great to have you back,” she managed in a small voice.
He shrugged, his face brightening slowly. “From now on, I choose where we go on vacation, all right?”
Her face lit up, and she was unable to stop a tear from trickling down. “You got it.” She turned, her moist eyes beaming at the doctor and his wife. “Thank you,” she mouthed. They just smiled and nodded. “I—we both owe you our lives. How can I ever repay you?”
“Nonsense,” Mavromaras replied. “We have a saying in Greek. Den hriazete euharisto, kathikon mou. It means there’s no thanks necessary for what is a duty.” He glanced at Eleni, exchanging an unspoken signal. “We’ll leave you,” he said softly. “I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”
Tess watched them turn to leave, then hurried up to the doctor and gave him a hug, kissing him on both cheeks. Blushing through his tan, Mavromaras smiled modestly and stepped out of the room, leaving them alone.
As she turned to move back to Reilly’s bedside, she spotted the bundled cardigan t
hat sat there on the cabinet like an unexploded bomb. She felt awful at being deceitful, both to the generous couple who had saved her life and to Reilly. She desperately wanted to tell him about it, but she knew the timing wasn’t right.
Soon, though.
With a heavy heart, she summoned up a smile and joined him at his bedside.
REILLY FELT LIKE HE’D been away for weeks. He felt an odd, stinging numbness in his muscles, and there was a dizziness in his head that just hung there. One of his eyelids was still partially shut, and the uneven depth perception wasn’t helping either.
He didn’t remember much, beyond shooting De Angelis and hurling himself into the sea. He’d asked Mavromaras how he’d gotten there, and the doctor could only give him the sketchy details he had heard from Tess. Still, waking up and finding out that she was there, and in one piece, was a huge relief.
He tried raising himself carefully into a sitting position, and it brought a slight wince of pain onto his face. He settled back against the pillows.
“So how did we end up here?” he asked.
He listened as Tess told him what she remembered. She also had a black hole in her memory from the freak wave to waking up on the beach. She told him about the hit he took to the head, how she’d strapped their life jackets together, and about the wave. She told him about the hatch cover and showed him the deep cut on her arm. She wanted to know why the Coast Guard vessel fired on them, and Reilly told her about his journey from the moment De Angelis had stepped out of the helicopter in Turkey.
The Last Templar Page 39
