The Fourth Nail: An Historical Novel

by Paul Argentini

  Andreyovich nodded emphatically. “Stella’s research put you in this area. That was good piece of detective work. In this area only is this site best possibility. Lamaserys supported by government back to old days. Government records by my research show there were collectives, but nothing so definite to state this was one of them. Receptive to strangers? How would anyone know except to be familiar with hospitality of such places? You are an uncertain guest, and you asking me to give assurances you cannot give yourself. Me? I say this is best bet.”

  “How long would it take to get there and back?” Diura asked.

  “I do not count as expedition. Alone from here I could do in five day at most. Maybe that is good plan? I go first, see what is there, come back to report?” He looked from one to the other. “Yes?”

  What had been scuttling around in the back of his mind suddenly was thrust before Roberto. How much of a temptation would it be for someone to steal The Marius Diary for selfish reasons? Would anyone with the secret of the fourth nail in hand turn it over to the world, or keep it to gain a million—ten million!—dollars or even sainthood? Then he knew. Not because the diary could be stolen, but he knew he was going to be in on the discovery of the diary if only for the personal satisfaction and acknowledgement of his father’s vision. “No, Andreyovich, we don’t want you to do that. The fact is we don’t know exactly how limited our time is. We don’t know how many sites we would be able to explore, although that’s really not a problem is it? This seems to be the one and only possibility. You say there is no other within striking distance, and we must believe in Stella’s research and your confirmation. How soon can we get started?”

  “First we learn each other’s mountain climbing techniques to make easy go,” Andreyovich said.

  “I’ve had no mountain climbing experience at all, although I can shinny up a sailboat’s mainmast pretty well,” Roberto said with a smile.

  “I can’t wait to try it!” Diura said.

  “I imagined you would wait here for us as a matter of concern for your safety!” Roberto said to her. “Certainly, I wasn’t trying to put you down.”

  “No offense taken as long as it means I’m going,” Diura said.

  “Perhaps we should think about...” Roberto started.

  “...is up to you, course, “Andreyovich started, “but is 7,400 meters height to peak, but site of lamasery to be at lower level, I put at 3,500 meters. I would have to throw myself off it is so easy a trek. We will not confront such things as deep rift valley. I think headache from height may be biggest pain!” He burst into laughter at his own joke. He took a long pull of vodka. “So? We are committed to commit? We leave in morning!”

  Roberto found it difficult to sleep and was unable to eat breakfast despite Andreyovich’s urging the need for sustenance in the rugged terrain. He paced steadily in long, hard strides his arms folded tightly across his chest as the jeep and truck was readied. He stared hard at the ground intermittently breaking off in mid-thought to cast sharp glances about him. In his mind he was doing “what if’s,” and “how about’s,” and “suppose’s.” When he opened the jeep door for Diura, he knew there was no alternative; they had to do this. It was just past sunrise when Roberto, Diura, Andreyovich, two porters, and the camp cook started the trek to the Tzndrl lamasery.

  After some three hours traveling south and east, the vehicles left the road at a point Andreyovich had determined by dead reckoning would be below the Tzndrl Lamasary. The caravan picked its way slowly up the side of a gorge for more than two hours. Finally, Andreyovich decided to park the vehicles and make their way a little further up the mountain on foot before they made camp.

  Even though he was heavily burdened, Andreyovich led the way choosing and marking the trail with the agility of a mountain goat. At times, he would walk down to meet Roberto or Diura, both also laden with knapsacks and gear, and chat with them as they tried to keep up gasping for breath. Waving the flask of vodka as he spoke, he extolled the wonders and grandeur of the majestic scenery. He pointed out various white protrusions, gave them names, heights, and spoke of the expeditions he led to their peaks.

  It was far past noontime when the trekking became very difficult as they made it up to an icy ledge. Andreyovich thought they would just stop for lunch, and then continue on a little further before they stopped to make camp. Roberto knew even though he and Diura were physically fit and ordinarily would have been able to go on, he was sure she was suffering from the same type of headache he was. He would not utter a word of complaint, and he knew, neither would she. He felt the smart thing would be to make camp where they were, and told Andreyovich. Stolli was unusually receptive to the idea and ordered camp be made.

  Although Roberto and Diura forced themselves to eat the thick barley soup, they both gulped the heavy O-olong tea. “I’m sorry you have a headache,” Roberto said.

  “I know exactly how you can make it go away,” she replied.

  “Do I really want to hear it?” he asked.

  “Want or not, talk to me about our wedding plans at my uncle and aunt’s at Lake Como when we return,” she said quite seriously.

  “You’re wishing us luck with this Marius thing, right?” he asked removing his sunglasses.

  “Right,” she said taking off her sunglasses.

  “First, we ask Stella to fly over...”

  She reached over to hold him by the back of his neck as she pulled him to her for a long, hard kiss. When they broke, she saw the porters who were setting up the tents were looking away but smiling. Andreyovich was striding toward the camp from his scouting trip.

  “Is fun walk tomorrow!” he said smiling. “There is unusual glass-clear glacial torrent we must cross. Beyond that is perhaps 40 to 60 meter blue ice wall to get to top of crest from which we see Tzndrl, I think, if it is there. It would be sort of climb I use to teach novices. Before we go, we must understand how to use harness, tie on with rope, use of the belay plate to stop and to belay, and use of ice axe, piton, carabineer, and crampon. If we do now, we go early in morning?” He looked questioningly at each one of them, nodding. Both nodded back.

  Roberto and Diura immediately felt confident in Andreyovich’s mountaineering capabilities the moment they started across the ice. Because of the early start, the Russian, leading, held them back to move much slower than they thought they should. It worked to their advantage. It served as a crash course in discovering what they should not do without serious consequences. Stolli was as much at ease moving over the ice with two neophytes attached to him, as they would be walking the streets of New York.

  By the time they reached the ice wall they had adjusted their breathing rhythm to a slow and easy pace that allowed them the exertion without the need to gasp for air. The ice wall seemed formidable to Roberto and Diura until they watched Andreyovich steadily climb the vertical, taking in toe bites, driving in pitons, using the ice axe to make step pockets. He made it look so easy they felt he was going to send down an elevator for their trip to the top.

  Andreyovich stopped at a ledge some distance up the wall, and indicated they should start up, Roberto next. Diura patted him on the shoulder as he started up. He was tenuous at first, but relying on his skill acquired climbing up sailing boat masts to deal with fouled sheets, he understood it was a matter of technique and that was what he relied upon. It took him three times the amount of time it took Stolli to get there, and almost four times as long for Diura to reach the same place. She found her litheness as a ballet dance gave her a leg up in working the ice wall. By the time she got to the first ledge, Roberto was about a third of the way from the top, and Andreyovich was waving the flask of vodka to them from the arête. To him, it was a casual walk in the park.

  Gradually, Roberto worked his way upwards. He was slow and methodical, and concentrated on each step. Then, he looked up to find Andreyovich’s hand before his face, which he had extended to help him to the top. Roberto smiled broadly as he sat down next to Stolli, who was chipping
away ice with his ice axe.

  “What’s that?” Roberto asked.

  “For purchase! For footstep to hold while others rappel to bottom. Faster to go down than to come up.” He looked down at Diura. “No! Lovely lady! Do not get crossed. Use the clip above your head first...”

  Diura’s foot slipped out of the toehold as she tried to re-clip the rope to hold her steady. She lost her balance and fell, the rope free from the carabineer in the piton. She went down almost six feet before the rope caught leaving her swinging loosely. The air in her whooshed!-out as she slammed against the wall.

  Andreyovich had quickly read what was happening. He planted himself in the step he had cut in the ice, and grabbed the rope. Diura’s fall initially pulled the line through his hands, but he managed to squeeze it tightly and stopped her descent.

  Her mind spinning, Diura was disoriented. The slip and crash was so unexpected that when she looked down she thought she was still falling. “Roberto! Catch us! Catch us!” she shouted as she swung horizontally over the open space.

  “Diura!” Roberto called to her.

  “Don’t let us fall, Roberto!” she screamed, her voice edging on terror.

  With Roberto assisting, the Russian was able to look over the edge and down at Diura. “Take deep breath! Collect yourself! You are fine! We are holding! Start again at the step where you are!”

  Diura, flat against the ice, could feel the beats of her heart thumping her out and back from the ice. Andreyovich’s words calmed her. She looked for a handhold and toe step. They were both there before her. She took a deep breath, regained her balance as she went from horizontal back to vertical. Once she was reattached to the wall, she settled down to the business of climbing, and started upwards.

  Shaking uncontrollably in Roberto’s arms, she said, “Say something clever for God’s sakes!”

  “I wish you would save this kind of excitement for the bedroom!” Roberto said.

  With relief from the strain, Diura broke into riotous laughter. Andreyovich joined in even though he did not understand the reason they were having such a good time.

  Andreyovich took a long time to look around. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have made climb for exercise only. There is no edifice of any kind. I see no structure of landmark change to show people have live here.”

  “You were so positive!” Diura said.

  “Sometimes I can feel presence of hermit cave with no cave near. Who knows how it came lost? I feel nothing here of any doing.” His face registered the disappointment. “Maybe it could be some meters that way,” he said pointing, “or that way,” he said indicating another direction. “I’m sorry. We have lunch and go back to try another way.”

  Roberto was crestfallen. His face grew dark. It was a disappointment too hard to take. Stolli had to be wrong. “Your overlays were very definite, Andreyovich. If you take it out, I’d like to see what it reads in that direction,” he said pointing off to his right, “where the land falls off.” Roberto suddenly got the sensation that there was something very strange in Andreyovich’s attitude. A change had come over him that Roberto felt had less to do with climbing and getting his party back safely and more to do with Clavus Quartus. What caution did the Russian incite to make him think of that?

  “I didn’t bring overlay! For what use?” Andreyovich said.

  “Well, I have the topographical,” Roberto said searching in his knapsack. When he pulled it out, he flattened it out, and indicated where they were standing. “See? This indicates a depression or gorge of some kind just on the other side of that rise. Let’s take a look!” Roberto headed off toward the rise solely out of desperation.

  Andreyovich started to protest, but when Diura followed Roberto, he was compelled to follow them.

  As the three of them reached the mound, they looked across a gorge at an orange-red brick building that rose on three levels with a balcony in the center.

  Each stared at it silently. Roberto caught at his breath. Diura brought her hands up to her face. Andreyovich was slack-jawed.

  “What an incredible sight,” Roberto finally said.

  “It is so beautiful,” Diura said.

  “I think we are first western foreigners to look upon this magnificence,” Andreyovich said.

  “Even though that building doesn’t look as if it’s been used in a thousand years, this is the moment made for optimum optimism!” Roberto declared.

  The enthusiasm spilled from one to another as they made the easy traverse across the ravine to the door of the lamasery.

  XXV

  Sicilia

  Marius awoke with a sliver of light edging into his awareness.

  Gentle hands brushed across his shoulder and down his arm. His fingers were held and stroked lightly.

  “You stare.”

  “You are lovely.”

  “No. I am Giuseppina, and to return the compliment, you are handsome.

  “No, I am Marius.”

  “Marius from Rome. You said so.”

  “Where am I?”

  “In my mother and father’s home on Sicilia, a distance from Rome.”

  Marius thought to himself, “So, my guess was correct to leave the ship!” Then to her, “How?”

  “How did you come to be here?”

  Marius nodded.

  Giuseppina told him while she resumed massaging his arms and legs, that her father, Claudio, a fisherman, had saved his life.

  Claudio took his boat out just until the rising sun broke the horizon. He stowed all his gear. He was about to cut up bait. His custom was to scan the sea carefully in all directions.

  In the far distance, playing in the light of the sunrise, were unusual splashes. He set the oars in the oarlocks, and rowed toward the disturbance. Every so often, he turned to check his direction. He had closed some of the distance, but the splashing was still some distance. Very quickly, he checked again. It seemed the movements had slowed.

  Claudio sensed the urgency, and rowed harder.

  After he had checked his course three more times he was close enough to see that it was a swimmer. The strokes were very slow. “Unus, duo, tres, quattor, quinque,” he counted in between strokes. By the time he reached six boat lengths from the swimmer, the strokes had just about stopped.

  Claudio rowed desperately. When he got close to where he thought he last saw the swimmer, he stripped off his shirt, and dove into the water.

  As a youngster, he dove for jugs in which octopus were caught. He could still hold his breath underwater for a long time. He spotted the figure floating downwards.

  Claudio caught the man under his jaw, and pulled him upwards.

  On the surface, in a few strokes he was at the boat. Holding the man by the arm, Claudio climbed into the boat. He hauled him into the boat face down. He put the man’s belly on the freeboard over the side, and pushed down on his back.

  The man spewed water, coughed, and breathed on his own.

  Claudio headed for home.

  Marius was brought into the house where he lay unconscious for more than a day. The spasms in his muscles made them as hard as stone. Giuseppina and her mother, Clemina, spoon fed him goat’s milk and together massaged his muscles to undo the painful spasms.

  “I am indebted to all of you. Thank you.”

  “My father says your body makes you to be a soldier. Why were you swimming?”

  “I was concerned the ship I was on would not take me to Rome, where I want to go.”

  “You escaped?”

  “In a manner, but not as a criminal. I am a free man. I am a tired, free man.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “I was with the Roman army in a faraway foreign land. I am glad I am no longer there.”

  “Your spasms are mostly gone. I will return with my mother to get you up and walking.”

  Marius resisted their effort to get him out of bed. Once up, his arms and legs seemed not to belong to him. In the following days he grew stronger quickly, and co
uld walk without pain. He was able to take longer and longer walks with Giuseppina. In great detail he told her everything he could recall from his life in Rome until he swam into her life.

  On a walk, in a secluded spot where they stopped to rest, Marius told Giuseppina he had to think of leaving their enchanting company to continue his journey to Rome.

  “I want to be yours, Marius.”

  “You are a child. I owe your father my life; I owe your parents much. I care for them. They are such sweet people. I will not disrespect them in the slightest.”

  “Yes, that is you. I will get their permission to go with you. Do you care for me enough?”

  “You are like the morning dew on the Nespoli and olive trees. You are sunshine on the unfolding flower. You are song of the early birds. You make my heavy heart joyous. But, no, I will not take you. Please understand. It is not because of you, but because I don’t know what I will find when I get home, or how I will be received. Also, there is one I love. Teresa. She stole my heart. We are promised to each other. It seems of another lifetime. I don’t know. Will I find her? She spoke of her father returning to Rome. Times and certainties are non-existant. Will I find her again? Will I have news of her? Besides, there may be so much else going on, I may not have time for you. The best I can say is that I will return, if you want this tired, beat up old man!”

  They both laughed.

  “Yes, Marius, promise you will come back, or I will throw myself off the cliff!”

  “I find a peace here. I would like to come back.”

  “Then I will wait for you to come to get me. I will tell my parents.”

  “How do I make sure I don’t keep you waiting for a ghost?”

  “Just come back.”

  That night Marius awoke to find Giuseppina astride him. He was deep inside her.