Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  Peter shook his head. How come these realisations never turned up when you really needed them at the start of the crisis, not here in the middle of the bush? For all of this day, Wallace would have been like a spider in the centre of its web, having been waiting on his cruiser for his minions to report back. That was a load of horse crap – novelists had a lot to answer for when it came to villain stereotypes! Wallace wasn’t the kind of businessman who’d patiently wait for lowly minions. He’d be pushing every contact. The lust for treasure had him by the throat – that was plain from the night of the dinner on the cruiser. Damn Sid, he’d screwed them over completely. If as was suspected, Wallace had tapped into some kind of GPS rig, then very much like Will Smith in Enemy of the State, they had to watch their every step. If you took the media frenzy and government claims at face value, after the Children Overboard and Tampa affairs, this part of the country probably had a dozen or more satellites giving it the once over every hour. Peter had glimpsed Wallace’s seaborne office while he was stumbling around the cruiser looking for information. To his eye, it looked like enough computing gear to hook up anywhere and a man like Wallace wasn’t going to stint on internet and satellite communication. Gaining specific shots of him and Lampie shouldn’t be that difficult for a man with wealth, connections and a mission.

  If the technological advantage failed to provide answers, there were other hints. Every minute of the day, the view of the twin peeks of Mount Gibraltar and Mount Trafalgar would be working on Wallace’s back brain. Even the slowest thinker was going to remember that knights always placed castles on hills, especially the Order of the Templars! “Lampie, I think we had better get moving right now!”

  “Sure Peter. Where to?”

  “Head towards Mount Trafalgar. I think we will find what we’re after that way.”

  The answer was so easy – Lampie was right, so was Bartleby. All he had to do was think like a ruthless Frank, with an obsession about the here after. Simple really – castle on one mount, tomb and monastery on the other – the prefect symmetry of crusading life!

  Chapter 36 Wrangling the Researcher

  The sun was arcing towards the west, morning a past memory and the afternoon could be said to stretch before them, with all the latent promise of a gold drenched Kimberleys sunset. Lampie tried not glance at the sky while they trekked towards the second mount. Peter had rattled on about how it was shaped like a fortress he’d seen in Israel. Masada he said it had been called and was on a plateau by the Dead Sea. She’d just nodded and let him continue about its origins as a palace and refuge of Herod the Great. She was pretty sure he was the bloke in the Bible who’d ordered the massacre of the innocents when Jesus was born but couldn’t recall the whole story. Firstly it had been a long time since religious studies at school and secondly, she was concentrating on watching for armed goons springing up from the bush. At least Peter’s chatter kept her distracted from thinking about her recent run in with croc bait.

  Mamma would have approved of her efficient action and may have even applauded the style of the event. Mon Papa was not so easy to place in the matter. The Papa she remembered from childhood would have been aghast at what had happened, holding her tight until the monsters had passed. Her most recent memory brought up someone else, a colder sometimes chilling person. That stranger would have criticised her lack of long range planning and wilfulness, berating her for passing up an excellent opportunity, though he probably would have commended her removal of inconvenient witnesses. She didn’t want to know what he would have thought of Peter. That was a step too close to Wallace land.

  As for those two arseholes, who’d tried it on up Prince Regent River, she wasn’t going to waste the milk of human kindness on them. This journey was pushing, as Sid would call them, her social boundaries. She’d been in her share of altercations over the years. Sometimes it didn’t pay to walk away, not if you didn’t want a permanent flashing sign above your head announcing ‘Prime Victim Here’. The Kimberleys was a beautiful place, populated with those who sought refuge from the crap that infested the rest of the country – honest, forthright and quirky, individuals all. With that flood of tourists and the mining industry came a few who didn’t fit in for darker reasons. It wasn’t a refuge or sanctuary they were after, more like a free range hunting preserve. Croc bait one and two reminded her strongly of the latter.

  Peter had shifted on to another phase in the history of Masada. Apparently it was used as the last refuge by a group of Jewish holdouts who opposed the Romans after they stormed Jerusalem. Heroic resistance he called it. She looked up at the plateau. The afternoon light had transformed the vertical cliff face into vivid bands of blood red and orange, broken by dark slashes of shadow where rain and storm had gouged into the surface. An involuntary tremor came over her – in the wash of light the stones appeared to weep blood. A part of her flinched at the ominous portent. Grand- mère would have cursed and called for a Wandijani spirit man to read the omens. For grand-mère Heloise, the omens were always good. She would have looked at this and proclaimed it a sign of vengeance. Their enemies would be washed away in the blood of defeat. From Derby to down past Broome, she was a much respected old lady, and not a little feared by koori and whites alike. Lampie frowned. It was interesting that she thought of grand-mère as Peter spoke of the last assault by the Romans and their mammoth efforts in siege construction, a sloping ramp all the way to the top of the plateau. On the day before the Romans broke down the final wall, all the zealots committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Not a path she would have chosen, but it seemed appropriate for how she felt right now. She wasn’t interested in taking prisoners either.

  It was all to do with Wallace. First he tried to bribe her, then insulted her, and now jilted, he – he was hunting Peter and her. That was a mistake, cos croc bait one and two showed her that Wallace feared them and was prepared to risk it all for the Templar treasure. That’s if it existed, though Pete was right about one thing. Sid or not, Wallace believed it did, and you could accuse Wallace of many flaws but being flaky or naive weren’t among them.

  After Peter had explained the reasoning of castle position, she could see Mount Gibraltar fit the bill for the crusaders. Its view must have taken in twenty or more kilometres up and down the coast – perfect for a pack of predatory religious pirates, as Peter called them. However her Pommie companion was rather vague on his justification for heading towards Mount Trafalgar. Instead Peter began rambling on about some weird kind of philosophical link between medieval concepts of symmetry and religious buildings. Whatever!

  The afternoon was passing fast. By the time they hit the foot of the southern spur, Lampie estimated they’d travel three or four kilometres from the castle site to here. Not in a straight line, that would have been too stupid. Instead she steered them east, along a gully that emptied into a large belt of mangroves, below the eastern flank of Mount Gibraltar. Wallace’s crew had to be here soon. The sound of the tinnie’s outboard roared and echoed around the basin as they patrolled and probed, searching for the fugitives. Lampie frowned and swung to the south east. From the outboard motor’s drone, the goons were pushing up that eastern arm of the inlet. She smiled – that was the worst place to search. A swath of thick mangroves stretched almost six kilometres along the eastern foot of the twin peaks ridge. In places it was two kilometres deep. As any local knew, mangroves were full of three things – mud, mosquitoes and salties. Served them right – not so easy without an electronic trace. Now they had to do it the hard way, slogging it through the tidal swamp and bush by foot. Peter was right on the money for that little trick.

  “Lampie?” She switched her attention to her Pommie companion.

  Peter was frowning and scratching his head. “Yeah Pete?”

  “I think we’re in the right place, but I am not sure how we’re going to find this burial without an excavation. There should be a church or chapel around here somewhere.”

  “Got a shovel Pete?”


  The Englishman stared at her for a moment and then began to systematically pat down his waistcoat pockets. “Well no. For some reason I seem to have left it behind in my other coat. How remiss of me!”

  An attempt at British satire, oh how wounded she felt. Lampie smiled sweetly and pointed towards the basin. “I reckon Wallace’ll lend you one if y’ want. Wait here a few hours and y’ can ask him.”

  Peter shook his head, melodramatically threw up his hand and sighed. “Oh my, I am cut to the quick – Aussie laconic humour. How I missed that biting wit in cold dull damp England.”

  She grinned, amused at the crisp English tones, dripping with sarcasm. He was fun to tease. May be he’d start thinking soon. Perhaps he just needed another push. “I say old chap, how do they send off the old blighter? Wack him in the ground? Have a barbeque maybe or perhaps a little pootling on the river?”

  Lampie thought she did a good impression of a Brit accent and mannerisms. It usually had them howling round the campfire. Peter, however, just glared at her pursing his lips. She reckoned she’d won that round!

  “Not like that Miss Yvette Ginevre du Chesney-Lampierre. Templars believed in the resurrection of the body. As commander and martyr, d’Alene would merit a tomb in a church by the altar. Out here they would automatically be thinking of it as a potential pilgrimage site!”

  That came out slowly, word by grudging word, as if he was grinding rocks between his teeth. There, Lampie bestowed a sweet smile – better and better. She knew he could work that brain of his if given the right boot. “Good pommie expert – that wasn’t so hard was it?”

  If looks could turn a person to stone, she’d be a statue by now. He’d come so far – just a little bit more. “This place has a name doesn’t it?”

  “Well yes!” What an indignant reply! Peter was firing up.

  “Didn’t you tell me earlier, that to the crusaders all names have meaning? So what did they call this place?”

  Peter looked pleasantly surprised at her recollection. Hey, what did he expect? She wasn’t some dumb blonde bimbo.

  “Ahh, Father Joachim used several different names and allusions. He thought he was being clever and showing sophistication like a skilled troubadour.”

  “Well spit them out and we’ll work through them”

  “All right, first is Crac des Moabites du Sud, which means the castle of the Moabites of the South, which I think is Mount Gibraltar. Then he also names this place Neuf Acre du Sud.”

  “Yeah I get that – New Acre of the South, how original!”

  “There’s always my favourite, a real mouth filler, Neuf Kerak du Outre Outremer du Terra Australis du Saraceni Mer. I don’t think I have to translate that one.”

  Not really. The old crusaders seemed to have an aversion to creating new names when old ones could be cobbled together from bits and pieces. For Lampie that one was a classic – what did it translate as? New Castle of Outer Outremer – which according to Peter meant land across the water – of the Southland of the Saracen Sea.

  ‘Jeez, couldn’t they have stuck to a single name? Y’ got anymore?”

  “Yes, when he mentions the burial of d’Alene, he makes a reference to Val d’Kidron and the Templars, while in another passage he calls some place Kerak du Sueth du Sud.”

  “Okay brainiac, what or where do those names refer to?”

  “Well, the first one is easy if you know your bible. Val d’Kidron is the valley of Kidron that lies to the east of Jerusalem.”

  Kind of, it was few years since compulsory religious education classes with the nuns. Those memories were best left to lie under the dust of years along with the chocolate marshmallow favoured Gatorade. “Anything special about it

  “Well nothing especially, except every stone and mite of dust is steeped in history, from the tomb of Absalom across to slopes of the Mount of Olives. It used to be said that if you stood on the eastern wall of the Temple, you could see the tombs of the Sanhedrin across the Vale of Kidron...” Peter had halted in mid spate, a very interesting spectacle. The bush flies really appreciated the open access to his tonsils until he started to sputter, yurrk! “I wouldn’t have believed it was that simple!”

  “What is it Pete?” Damn he was getting weirdly cryptic again

  “Father Joachim – both what he writes and the styles of troubadours and medieval Latinists. They loved to use the Latin idea of allusion, you know like the Roman poet Virgil The roaring flood where watery mountains rose and burst and fell for a storm at sea and the Vale of Kidron crops up for everything! Except, that I forgot Father Joachim would have seen it in the flesh. For him it was a defined geographic space, one he could describe from everyday experience.”

  She was sure this would have been fascinating for someone else in a lecture, but not here, not now, and not for her! “So?”

  At her edged question, hinting of imminent threat, Peter patted the cliff beside him. “Since they loved allusion, think of this as the Temple walls upon which the Templars had their main church and headquarters. If you looked eastwards from there you see across the Val d’Kidron. In biblical times, they set tombs into the rock below those walls. That’s what Father Joachim is saying and I should have thought of this earlier. Castle du Sueth is a border fort, set into a series of caves that used to be an old byzantine monastery.”

  “So if I get this right, we’re looking for caves and tombs for crusaders.”

  “Yes!”

  All right she got it now. They were looking for a crusader tomb in a cave. Jeez, talk about shades of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. She spun around and pointed at Peter. “Just one film allusion and I’ll drop you in a creek full of salties!”

  He smirked and made the sign of a cross over his chest. “Promises, Mlle Yvette. Promises!”

  Chapter 37 D’Alene’s Repose

  Peter unslung the water bottle and took another gurgle. If this was winter he wasn’t sure he wanted to be here in summer. His reality drive gave a nudge – well stupid you wouldn’t have to worry about water then, would you! Coffee was another matter. The craving was biting hard. Four days without, and all he had to go on was a few energy bars and the odd piece of char grilled wildlife. Great, this was just like an exercise with the territorials – lots of stomping across the countryside dodging a relentless foe, and piss poor rations. Flipping hell, he shouldn’t have brought up that image. Those rat packs had chocolate, tea, coffee, biscuits, beef stew and soup. He’d even lovingly devour the corned beef, relishing every spoonful! His taste buds attempted a revolt at the suggestion that they were hungering for a mushy salted meat substitute. That proved how desperate the situation had become, to be longing for the dreadful contents of a ration pack, five thousand calories worth according to the blurb. Peter gave Lampie a covert glance. She was cutting off one more slice of that taipan biltong, and if her face was any judge, loving it. He suppressed a shudder. Deep down he knew it was just meat and his inner Neanderthal was already salivating, though long generations of conditioning insisted that proper meat went baa or moo, bleat or cluck or better still quack, not ‘ssss’. Never ‘ssss’. The more historically inclined part of his brain made unhelpful remarks such as ‘ssss’ was preferable to critters that went squeak, woof or scuttle.

  Pushing past a growing obsession with food, Peter considered their next task, searching the rest of the cliff face. Flipping hell, his arms ached already. They or rather he had scrabbled up to inspect several small niches or caves, plenty of Wandijani figures and a couple of Bradshaws but nothing else. He was beginning to despair. Perhaps he’d made a mistake in the translation. That was possible, the writing was, after all, eight hundred years old and the translation had been pretty rushed. He shook his head. No, that was nervousness and panic talking. This area fitted all the clues as well as the medieval mindset. They just hadn’t come across the right cave. Both nervousness and panic put their heads together and came up with one more point. If it was a subterranean cave then chances were it had been buried.
Peter squashed that, with an emphatic no. Early Christian hermits and byzantine monasteries had all been well above ground – closer to God was one consideration as well as safety from wild animals and raiders, it had to be here!

  “Come on Pete. We don’t have all day!” A cheery reminder from Lampie that the sun was descending – he didn’t need it. His biblical references had to be correct. It was on the eastern side. It was the way they thought. The sunrise would enter the tomb and light it up, perfect for the morning of a vigil. However, maybe it could have been an oblique reference and be on the western side looking back to Jerusalem? No they didn’t have time to play semantics or cryptic clues. The good Father wasn’t deliberately hiding anything. As old Bartleby used to say ‘don’t go looking for complications where none exist my boy. In a time where only the elite were educated cleverness was a matter of audience.’

  Well it was true. Peter had to shake himself to get out of the Da Vinci Code mind set. This wasn’t the site of the Holy Grail! There was no mystical secret society trying to hide a long kept sacred trust. Therefore leave the fiction and films behind. Rely on good old fashion medieval commonsense! Oh flipping hell, that was a worrying concept. Just remember how they found witches or decided the earth was in the centre of the solar system!

  For a start he was looking for the wrong type of cave. Keeping an eye on Lampie he jogged along the cliff face. It had to have been an easy route from the castle and a nice big cleft with a prominent view eastwards. Two hundred yards along, he stopped and got out his compass, sighting it up to large dark crevice. It was almost due east. Were there any other hints? He looked back towards the castle site. The slope of Mount Gibraltar was out of sight, but this was the flattest gradient of the sloping hill. He turned back and waved to Lampie, who left her watch post and loped towards him. Peter gave a deep sigh, distracted by her graceful figure. A man could get used to watching that – lithe limbs moving, ponytail bouncing up and down in time to the sway of her... Oh flipping hell he needed a cold shower.