The Cortés Enigma

by John Paul Davis

  He opened the diary to about a third of the way in, the Cortés coat of arms. For the first time he was satisfied by the meaning of the double-headed eagle: the symbol of the Hapsburgs, the then rulers of Spain. Equally Spanish was the lion.

  Without doubt the Spanish symbol could be of relevance to Cortés.

  He studied the images in detail. The three crowns that filled the top right quarter of the coat of arms were used to symbolise the lost Aztec emperors, Cuauhtémoc, Cuitláhuac, and, alas, Montezuma. The castle on the waves in the bottom right quarter needed no explanation: it was the famous city of Tenochtitlan, the city of Montezuma. The heart of the empire.

  Modern day Mexico City.

  To Ben they definitely linked with the three standing stones on St Lide’s and the Queen’s Castle.

  The strange decoration that marked the outside of the Cortés coat of arms only made sense to someone who understood what they were looking for: there were eight human faces joined together by chains, including a lock at the bottom that needed to be opened with an iron key.

  Apparently its inclusion symbolised the Aztec lords Cortés had slain.

  Ben sat down at the table and immediately jumped to his feet again, struggling to keep still. The lost coat of arms of Cortés was legendary; until its discovery twenty years ago, most had simply dismissed it. A fallacy, a fabrication, an invention.

  He now had proof to the contrary. Judging by the image, TF had drawn an engraving of the original coat of arms.

  He couldn’t think for the world where TF could have seen it.

  He studied it again, taking in every detail, his eyes now focused solely on the outsides. The Latin motto adorned both top and bottom, reading:

  jvdicivm domini aprehendit eos et fortitvdo ejvs corroboravit brachivm mevm

  Literally translated:

  The judgement of the Lord took hold of them; his valour strengthened my arm.

  A second gold lion, this one possessing wings, was present on the outer part of the coat of arms, above the helmet of a knight whose sightless eyes were staring somewhere right of centre. Surrounding his armoured head, gold and red feathers draped the emblem from top to bottom like the elegant plumage of a peacock standing proudly. The feathers, though separate in every way, seemed at one with the image, as if the helmet belonged not to a man but a bird, or failing that a feathered serpent, like the god Quetzalcoatl.

  Ben removed his android phone from his pocket and searched through his recently taken photos. He found the ones of the Spanish graves on St Lide’s and then the Godolphin Mausoleum. The Godolphin coat of arms was also of a knight’s helmet, its exterior surrounded by feathers. Further down, the double-headed eagle was also a spitting image of the Hapsburg symbol. While that alone he knew was probably incidental – the symbol was famous worldwide – it was the other similarities that were starting to make him excited.

  The coat of arms was also on the mausoleum. It appeared on the wall by the front door and then again somewhere inside. He hadn’t noticed it inside, but TF clearly had; equally clearly he had entered the mausoleum.

  Ben could barely contain his excitement. Cortés’s initial return to Spain had been shrouded in controversy. Despite the great gains he had achieved for the Spanish Crown, his achievements were largely met with indifference. Distrust was prevalent; accusations were pointed.

  Was Cortés working for the Crown or himself?

  Ben compared the Godolphin coat of arms to the Cortés one again, satisfied there were enough similarities for a connection.

  Then he compared the shape of the Cortés coat of arms to the map. Was the established view of the coat of arms wrong? Was it meant for St Lide’s, not Mexico?

  Either way, he believed he knew what TF had been looking for.

  Colts joined him, rubbing his hands together to help keep out the cold. “Where to, captain?”

  Ben looked up, his expression stern. “Hell’s Bay. Near as possible.”

  32

  Eureka! The final bricks at last came free, bringing debris and dust tumbling down.

  The wall revealed a cavity about three feet in depth and at least double that in height and width. It was smaller than she had expected.

  But large enough for a person to fit inside.

  There was nothing there. If there had been, it had been removed long ago. A strange smell pervaded the air, and not just that of debris. It was stronger, more rustic. It smelt like tobacco, but not the kind she was used to.

  Her gut reaction was that it smelled of the lighthouse. And its keeper.

  During its five-hundred-year history, the Old Man’s Foot had known numerous keepers of the light. While the early ones were known in name only, the more recent had made a more tangible mark on the island’s history. From the 1800s onward, all had been required to keep a diary, all of which were currently kept in an office on St Mary’s.

  Valeria had read them herself, more than once.

  While the careers of most had passed without note or incident, there was one name that stood out to her above all the others – Samuel Smethick, the final light keeper:

  1889–1948

  The official report on his tenure was nothing but exemplary, but there are some things that history fails to record. The man had another claim to fame, more distant.

  Dating back to when he was a child.

  She got down on one knee, moving the rubble with her bare hands. The bricks had fallen evenly, good news considering the location. Dust permeated her nose and throat, though fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. After over one hundred years closed up, she’d expected something far worse, something unbreathable.

  There were two things to consider – at least that was how the story went. If the book was correct, Smethick had acquired something of great relevance on a rainy night in 1926, following the advice of others, and re-hid it in the same place several years later.

  A place known only to him and the man who had told him where to look.

  Valeria entered the cavity and began feeling the walls for loose stones. They were large, grey and heavy, joined together with mortar. The wall dated from the 1700s.

  Patiently she searched, paying particular attention to where the walls joined.

  After two minutes, she struck gold. A single stone came away easily, light though it had appeared heavy. Behind it was another cavity, double the size of the stone. She looked into it, seeing nothing but darkness, then shone the torch and placed her hand inside.

  She removed something large, rectangular, made of metal.

  The box was old, corroded and padlocked.

  Blowing away the excess debris, she left the small enclosure and returned to the basement of the house. There she placed the box down on the desk before crossing the room to her toolbox to find a pair of metal cutters.

  She took a deep breath, moving her head from side to side. Her heart was thumping, a consistent rising thud. It felt so strong she thought it was going to leave her chest.

  Composing herself, she focused on the box and lined up the cutters with the lock.

  It opened with a snapping sound. With the lock gone, she pulled at the lid, failing to make any progress. She tried again, this time harder.

  “Ow!” she shouted, feeling pain all the way up her middle finger. A large crack appeared in the middle of her red nail, continuing all the way to the end.

  Gritting her teeth, she tried again, her resolve strengthening.

  Another snapping sound filled the room. The lid had broken, falling off at the hinges. On closer examination, she could see that the box had once been navy blue, the original colour still visible beneath a thick green crust where the metal had corroded.

  She looked inside, again blowing away dust. There was something there, stone, coated by a shroud. Taking every precaution, she gently lifted the article and opened it across the table. The first thing she saw was a pattern, she guessed three hundred years old.

  After seven years of searching, she
had finally found what she was looking for.

  33

  5:15pm

  Colts pulled up in the same place as Kernow had the day before, allowing Ben an easy jump onto the island.

  Ben sprinted up the slope, not daring to lose a moment, and stopped on reaching the summit of a nearby hill to compare the location to the map.

  The area that made up the north-east quarter of the island had been nicknamed the Giants’ Table. Unlike the west side of the island – a quaint but dynamic stretch of pebble beach, a redundant harbour, and countless former fishermen’s cottages that dated back to the 1700s – the east side was lonely, its geography largely unchanged for over two thousand years.

  Three man-made ruins marked the landscape: the castle, situated at the heart of Hell’s Bay; the church on top of the hill at the centre of the island; and another stone ruin that had apparently been Roman before the Cavaliers turned it into a gun battery. A series of foundation stones, now rising to little more than ankle height, dotted the greenery on a small hill near the coast, an outline of what once was.

  These days the wall offered little protection.

  The area referred to as the Giants’ Table was thickly covered with greenery, a combination of the flat and the hilly. A muddy pathway followed the wall of the former gun battery before winding its way inland. On summer days, the dry path was a tourist’s dream, a photographer’s gateway to the natural scenery, but today it was damp and deserted, puddles prevalent. The hills seemed to be a magnet for water, particularly toward the centre of the island.

  Yet among the barren, the wet, and the ruined stood something slightly bizarre. Located on three small mounts on the north-east side of the island, three identical large standing stones rose impressively into the air. For Ben, the description was apt: it really was like looking at a collection of giants’ heads. In the sunlight, each cast a long straight shadow that moved around the mounts like a sundial. From a certain angle, it was said that the upper sections possessed the appearance of a crown. While the shape of the modern-day stone was rugged, in the past the cuts had been smoother. Five jagged points stuck out like teeth, each razor sharp. In a bygone era the legend had been particularly apt. It was the shape of a lower jaw, a mouth forever hungry.

  Without the power of suggestion, the shape would be difficult to make out in the modern day.

  Yet what exactly they were remained a mystery. If the tales of old were to be believed, the Trinity of the Giants’ Table was the work of giants themselves. It was because of that the traditions had arisen. Each stone rose to a height of over twenty feet, its thick body a diameter of fifteen. According to official statistics, their weight was between fourteen and fifteen tons. Moving such weight in the distant past was considered impossible. Even in the modern day, such a feat would be fraught with difficulties.

  Yet here they stood. Each stone sitting perfectly in the middle of a mount, together forming a perfect triangle when viewed from above. Accident or coincidence, like those of Easter Island, the stones had achieved immortality. A secret known only to the dead of long ago.

  Be they man or giant.

  Colts joined Ben on the nearby hill, his eyes focused on the standing stones. He adjusted his hat and gave Ben what Ben interpreted as the evil eye.

  “You like to tell me what this is all about, cowboy?”

  Ben smiled, for the first time with humour. “You ever seen the Cortés coat of arms?”

  “I’m in no mood for trick questions, Ben.”

  “Just answer the damn question.”

  Colts took a breath. “Of course I have. What about it?”

  Ben showed Colts the relevant page in TF’s diary, emphasising the shape of the horseshoe. “The coat of arms dates from 1590. After Cortés died.”

  Colts wasn’t seeing it. “And?”

  “And,” Ben gestured his finger along the symbol, “after they buried the treasure.”

  Ben pointed to the coat of arms, then after that the locality. The standing stones, located less than three hundred metres away, looked like crowns.

  Colts finally saw the resemblance.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Ben was the first to reach them, sprinting while Colts languished behind. Standing so close up, he was at last able to make out features. The stones were made of granite, just like most other things on the island. Also like most on the island, they were dark grey, particularly the upper portions, which had been recently darkened by the weather.

  At face value, there was nothing particularly outstanding about them, apart from their size. From reading the diary, Ben had expected inscriptions or drawings, some kind of evidence of Aztec influence. As an expert on the Aztecs, the inclusion of the three crowns on the Cortés coat of arms was no major surprise. Records suggested Cortés and Montezuma had befriended one another – at least in the early days.

  That said, Ben knew there could be another reason for the inclusion. Like the nine Aztec lords, they were men of importance who Cortés had conquered.

  Ben looked at the stones, trying to determine their exact importance.

  Shrines to the respectable dead? A spoil of war?

  Each side was smooth and well balanced. Various plant life grew profusely nearby, the most common being the daffodil.

  Hardly a plant from Aztec history.

  Ben looked along the sides, studying every detail. There were markings cut into the stone, precise and incredibly smooth. There were four identical cuts, appearing like miniature stairways. Sure enough, all four sides were the same, perfectly symmetrical.

  He laughed to himself, almost in disbelief.

  “Something funny?” Colts asked.

  “Yes, actually. Among their many customs, the Aztecs built shrines dedicated to their gods, most notably Quetzalcoatl. To honour the gods, temple stones were engraved into the shrines, most commonly simple large boulders, as a mark of homage.”

  He showed Colts what he meant, and immediately Colts understood. It was like looking at a small Aztec pyramid.

  Buoyed, Ben circled the Montezuma stone impatiently. Finding nothing new, he examined the second stone.

  “There were three crowns on the coat of arms,” Ben began. “Dedicated to Montezuma, Cuauhtémoc and Cuitláhuac.”

  Despite the difficult pronunciations, Colts knew the names: Cuauhtémoc, cousin of Montezuma and successor of Cuitláhuac, Montezuma’s younger brother. Like the Montezuma stone, there was evidence of four stairways, though these appeared more weathered.

  Ben ended with the Cuitláhuac stone and noticed something else, something unmissable. There was a marking on the east side, the side facing the sea. It was four sided, like a flower, its petals pointing to every part of the compass. If his memory served him correctly, the symbol was revered in Aztec culture, as they believed that the coming of Cortés marked the end of their fourth age.

  And the start of a fifth.

  Again Ben found himself feeling agitated. The inclusion of Aztec symbolism almost suggested a general acceptance of Aztec beliefs by whoever carved them. Cortés was no Aztec; despite his respect for the cities, he was the man who brought about their downfall.

  Could they be shrines? Had Cortés – or his granddaughter – brought home the ashes of the slain Aztec emperors and buried them here?

  Colts was practically speechless. Though he coveted Ben’s expertise, he knew enough to validate what he saw. “Where to now, captain?”

  Ben sought answers, but for now had none. Slowly he was becoming dejected. A magnificent find awaited, but one he knew he was unable to figure out alone.

  He wished TF was here.

  Valeria returned to the heart of the house, first the kitchen and, second, the shower. Four hours in the depths of the former cellar had left her delicate skin with cuts and bruises and dirt all down her face and hair.

  Worse still, she’d broken a nail!

  She left the shower after fifteen minutes and changed into the first clean clothes she could find, jeans
, blouse and a sweatshirt. Disregarding her appearance, she returned to the lighthouse, and entered the old light room about midway up the main stairway.

  The room had changed in fifty years; now almost a museum. There were things there, things that had been salvaged.

  Things others knew nothing about.

  The view through the windows was the most extensive on the island. North-east, the outlines of Tresco and St Mary’s were visible, the wider communities hidden by a ghostly haze.

  To her left, there was an object by the window, large and antique. According to its history, it had once belonged on St Lide’s. A hundred years had passed, but it was still standing, every last detail visible.