The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation

by John Paul Davis

“No. But I’d feel a lot happier if I knew you had a plan.”

  Ben felt the same way. “Just relax.”

  Ignoring the extended sound of Juliet’s breathing, he shone the light down on to his feet and then to his left to examine the features of the wall. It was brighter up ahead: smooth, like moonlight filtering in through a skylight.

  He stopped outside a ruined archway. Like those that led to the chapels in Seville Cathedral, it comprised two thick pillars that curved in towards one another and joined together at the highest point.

  Entering the room beyond it, he shone the torch in all directions, the light revealing a scene almost identical to the previous room. Statues of people from long-forgotten families lined the walls, their saintly expressions looking down in contemplation at the floor. He noticed a large gulf where an altarpiece would once have been, alongside a tomb whose lid included an effigy of what appeared to be a sailor.

  Ben felt his heart miss a beat.

  Juliet caught him up. She huffed as she patted a coating of dust and debris from her jacket and hair and shone her torch on the nearby surroundings, astounded by what she was seeing.

  “This is incredible.” She looked at Ben. “You’re sure this is the place?”

  Ben nodded. “I think so.” He focused on the far tomb, remembering what Colts had said.

  A pilgrimage to the admiral’s original grave. Paying homage at the tomb of the unknown sailor.

  Ben walked around the tomb that had the effigy, the light of his torch illuminating its features. The figure was clearly of a man, carved out of stone, and covering a curiously large tomb – Ben estimated it to be at least half a metre by two, and three quarters of a metre in height. Illustrations of a great voyage decorated the west side, a medieval galleon sailing between two epic churches; Ben reasoned it represented the journey of Christianity to the New World. Cherubs and trumpeters heralding the return of a spirit were etched into the north and south sides, the tarnished figures displaying various shades of colouring, some of which had been prone to flaking.

  Juliet joined him at the north side before concentrating on the verge. The same thought that had recently entered her mind had already entered Ben’s.

  “There’s no name on the tomb. Who was he?”

  “Exactly.” Ben remembered what Colts had told him. “The translation referred to paying homage at the tomb of the unknown sailor.”

  Juliet circled the tomb a second time, avoiding Ben as he moved quickly from place to place. Close to the foot of the effigy, she noticed a strange article on the floor, a spherical item decorated with waves over which a statue of Hope ruled. It reminded her of the famous statue of Columbus located near Valladolid’s train station.

  Immediately her heart began to flutter. “Ben.”

  Ben joined her, kneeling by the mysterious ornament. Seeing the sphere reminded him of the rest of the quote.

  “By Hope’s great roundel at the sailor’s foot, it lies beneath the sphere.”

  “What?” Juliet asked.

  “Columbus.” He felt the stonework with his hands. The exterior was smooth, cold. Flakes of plaster came off in his hands. “This is it.”

  Juliet held the light over his shoulder, still unsure what they were looking for. The tomb was of an unknown sailor, the sphere separate.

  “I don’t understand. This is not a roundel.”

  Ben looked at her, smiling. “Depends exactly what you’re looking for. A roundel can also refer to a circular emblem in heraldry. The wave design is called the fountain. Similar things would have been seen throughout the Middle Ages.”

  Juliet decided to allow him his triumph. “So, we’ve found the chapel; we’ve found the tomb. What exactly are we looking for?”

  Ben shook his head, concentrating on the spherical ornament. There was no doubt in his mind it was somehow the key.

  The question was, what did it do?

  The sphere had been placed above a stone slab, consistent with the others that made up the floor. On closer inspection, he noticed a clear line midway up, indicating the slab had become broken.

  He lifted the sphere. It came free. A sound accompanied it, as though a tile had dropped, breaking on hitting the floor. He assumed his removal of the object had caused something to become loose and fall inside a small opening.

  Ben placed the sphere down on the nearby slabs, careful not to upset it. Despite sitting in isolation for over a century, the last thing he wanted was to break it. Satisfied it was in no danger, he shone his light into the void, blowing away dust.

  “Give me your light.”

  Juliet joined him to his left, shining her light down below. With both of their phone torches aimed into the dark void, they had a clear view of what was inside. The hole measured no more than a foot in depth, less still in width and length. The bottom was covered with broken tiles, cobwebs and dust. Judging by its layout and condition, it appeared to have been dug for a specific purpose. In Ben’s view, to house or conceal something.

  Whatever it was, it had now gone.

  Frustrated, he replaced the sphere above the void and prepared to leave the room.

  Ben’s quick movements caught Juliet flat-footed. “Hey, wait.” She jumped to her feet, attempting to keep up. “What is it?”

  Ben had already passed through the doorway, heading along the debris-infested corridor back towards the ladder. “Colts said Cortés buried one of the emeralds at Columbus’s original burial site. The translation said something about paying homage to an unknown sailor. The sphere represented Columbus’s discovery. The void was the perfect size to hide an emerald.”

  Juliet remained sceptical. “You don’t know that.”

  “Cortés has been here, probably recently. It’s a pretty safe bet he now has at least three of the stones. We have to find the last. There’s no time to lose.”

  “Ben!”

  Ben re-entered the Chapel of Santa Catalina and immediately began to climb up the ladder, pausing at the top as Juliet made her way up behind him, once again put out by his quick movement.

  “Ben!”

  “Help me with this.” He began to pull up the ladder. “We need to cover it up. Quickly.”

  Juliet helped him replace the ladder on the wall and, following that, reposition the rug. They moved the boxes quickly, hoping the makeshift job would go unnoticed.

  Ben brushed his jacket down, wary that dust on his clothing would attract attention from the staff. Moving towards the nearby door, he was greeted by the sounds of loud chatter.

  He turned to Juliet. “Come on.”

  They made their way rapidly up the stairs, doing their best to be as inconspicuous as possible. Crowds were leaving the theatre from the main stairway, heading for the exits. It was 10:30. The nearby theatre was quiet.

  Clearly the concert was over.

  Ben led the way towards the door, paying no attention to the staff. The usher with the moustache was one of four on duty. He saw Juliet.

  “Your tickets are ready for you.”

  Juliet placed her hands to her face. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry I couldn’t wait. I just loved that song. Turns out we have to leave in the morning. Work emergency.”

  Juliet turned, getting caught up in the onrushing crowd as they exited into the outside air. Nearby, the sound of traffic, voices and street music created a lively atmosphere.

  Turning right, they rejoined the pedestrian section of Calle Constitución before heading right again, Calle Santiago. Eventually it brought them back to the Plaza Mayor.

  “Right, enough running,” Juliet said, finally fed up of having to match Ben’s busy pace. “It’s time to sit down and think.”

  Ben came to a halt, agreeing. “There was another clue for the third stone. Something about the house of the rising sun. Geographers and poor counsel.”

  Juliet stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes on the nearby surroundings. Despite the late hour, the square was still teeming with life, the appealing aromas of foods whettin
g her appetite.

  “Well, we can discuss all this when we’re sitting down. After everything we’ve been through, the least you can do is buy me supper.”

  *

  Alone in the cluttered filing room in Colts’s Cornish manor, Chris closed another drawer of the little-used cabinet and started on a new file.

  The papers had been well organised, despite the subject matter being largely miscellaneous. Everything had been arranged by date, the content written up using a typewriter. The copied transcripts had been useful.

  Thanks to that, he had been able to read everything easily.

  Visually, the latest was similar to those he had already seen. The time period was potentially relevant, the dates matching well with TF’s visits. If any evidence existed to reveal who he had worked for, Chris knew it would be there.

  Sipping his coffee, he started work on the latest document.

  *

  On the floor below, Colts brushed his hand against his bearded face as he attempted to translate the final two pages of the codex.

  Something had changed. The style of the wording was clearly different than before. It was as though the author had suddenly changed his approach and gone off at a tangent. Colts sensed that the purpose of the cipher had changed. The evidence pointed to only one possible explanation.

  The final section had been written by a different author.

  Turning to a fresh page in his notebook, he returned to the previous page of the original script and started to translate it from scratch.

  The Tenth Day

  31

  Isles of Scilly, 7:30 a.m.

  Juan Cortés looked down at the windswept coastline, showing nothing but indifference to the cold spray from the incoming tide as it gently moistened his face. Since reaching the cliff edge, his gaze had been fixed solely on the rocky cove that had once been a lagoon, remodelled on the great city his ancestor had once referred to as paradise. Like the fables of the great Aztec city, the walls of the castle seemed to sparkle in the sunlight as it filtered down through the receding cloud.

  Dawn had come to the island of St Lide’s.

  Standing with his arms folded, Juan seemed totally oblivious to the presence of the young man alongside him, whose attention remained glued on the former army helicopter currently parked close to the ruined church above. With the wind picking up, he feared one steady gust could tip the heavy piece of machinery off balance.

  The loss of the chopper would be a nightmare.

  Juan pressed his fingers firmly into his temples and massaged them vigorously. His stomach ached from the long flight without sufficient sustenance, while his bladder was painful from the need to urinate. He had passed the flight eating a box of Claude’s bourbon biscuits, the only thing he could think of to combat his recent alcohol intake. It was a Cortés trait never to get hangovers. These days, sangria made him more tired than drunk. Recently, the tiredness seemed to have become permanent.

  Constant thoughts of conquest had become as great a drain as the conquest itself.

  But even with the sangria, his concerns refused to go away. There were obvious gaps in his knowledge that he knew could only be filled through the discovery of new leads. His great-great-grandfather, in his wisdom, had uncovered what would very likely be the most important of the lot and used it as well as his abilities had allowed. His father and uncle, be it by similar wisdom, luck or fear-driven caution, had preserved written evidence of that very lead. The facts behind its meaning still escaped him; only one other had ever been capable of understanding it. That man was also now long gone, discovered in a boat, a musket ball lodged in his skull. He had died longer ago than Carlos.

  But just as with Carlos, the man’s descendants had succeeded him.

  Juan continued to focus on Hell’s Bay, eyeing the cave that had recently revealed the existence of a nineteenth-century schooner buried in obscurity, cocooned in silt. He had personally seen the Englishman’s diary, read his prose first-hand. The knowledge contained within its pages had been rare, a lost treasure miraculously rediscovered. Whatever the answer to the riddle of Hernán’s treasure, he knew the man had discovered it. The knowledge had once existed within the pages.

  Pages that had been missing from the diary he had read.

  Exactly what the man had been doing in his final days remained unknown; the reasons for the explorer’s demise were also uncertain.

  Only that it had happened in a cave.

  Standing less than a few metres away, Eduardo was shivering, both from the chill in the air and with apprehension. Though he was aware of his uncle’s ability to drink heavily without becoming incapacitated in any way, he feared getting too close to the cliff edge was more than his sense of balance could presently cope with.

  “We should leave.”

  “No. It is here that still holds the answers.” Juan turned to face him. “Perhaps you would assist me by collecting my kit from the helicopter.”

  “You sure you want to enter it now? Why not eat breakfast first?”

  “There are certain things one should never do on an empty stomach. However, in my experience, a swim is not one of these things.”

  Feeling in no position to argue, Eduardo walked away up the grassy incline and headed for the helicopter.

  32

  Ben woke up with sleep in his eyes. Light was coming in through the nearby window, an uncurtained, white-framed, double-glazed arrangement that he had no memory of seeing before. The white-walled, modern-furniture set-up was also new to him, as though he had just been teleported to a faraway place or woken up hungover in a strange bed. His memory of the night before was equally hazy, disturbingly in keeping with the stiff, fatigued feeling that enveloped his legs and upper body.

  He turned slowly, his vision blurred, his mouth dry. To his right, he could see a basic white-walled room with a walk-in wardrobe and a slick modern door that led to a stylish en suite shower room. A large desk was fixed to the floor and wall opposite the bed, below a mirror and several wall lamps. Further along on the right side, a small flat-screen television confirmed the time, 7:53.

  Though a solitary red LED confirmed the machine was set to standby, there were images moving on the screen, grainy, faint, like a black and white film. Some of the pictures moved in tandem with his, as did those in the mirror. Suddenly he noticed other movement in the bed.

  He was not alone.

  “Don’t look so excited,” Juliet said, clearly unimpressed by the thoughts she knew he was thinking. “Do you honestly think I’m the type of woman who would be foolish enough to let something like that happen?”

  Ben jumped instinctively. The sight had taken him completely off guard, stirring his defences into action. Taking refuge beneath the covers, the tight sheets sticking to his sweaty body, he noticed he was naked except for his black boxer shorts that he realised, ruefully, would have to last him until he got back to England. Juliet, meanwhile, was semi naked, her nicely toned body and strong chest emphasised by a white linen nightgown. Her hair was slightly dishevelled on her right side as a result of lying on it, with loose hairs sticking to her rosy cheeks that were minus any make-up. She looked cute, despite the low maintenance.

  Almost too cute.

  “Where are we?” Ben asked, glancing again at the digital clock on the television, the time finally registering. He guessed they still had at least an hour before checking out.

  “The Zenit Imperial, Valladolid. Gosh, I didn’t think you had that much to drink last night.”

  Ben sorrowfully rubbed his hands against his head and collapsed down hard against the pillow. He knew it was only a matter of time before the drowsiness wore off, replaced, no doubt, by the lingering spectre of fatigue. The flight across the Atlantic had been thankfully straightforward; the comfortable seats had helped him relax, despite choosing to spend much of it awake reading. The flights that followed had been shorter but more taxing, the small twin-engine plane crossing the thermals like an off-road bike on a mountain
track. Since leaving Hanover, he had been sustained by adrenaline. Anticipation was the only motivation he needed.

  Sleep, when it happened, had been heavy.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed them, quietly reflecting on recent movements. The trip to Seville had been made largely on a hunch. The same was true of Valladolid, more recently backed up by some firm evidence. The link was Columbus. The meaning of the codex was now clear. Unfortunately, one other thing was also clear.

  Whatever they sought was now gone.

  He glanced again at Juliet. She stared back hard.

  “You can cut that out, for a start.”

  “Did I say anything?”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  He grinned, memories of the night before slowly returning. The concert had been more useful than entertaining; despite what Juliet had told him, he couldn’t shake the feeling she had enjoyed it simply to annoy him. Colts’s translation of the codex had been easy to figure out. Discovery of the chapels had also been straightforward with Colts’s knowledge.

  He couldn’t believe something so elaborate still existed beneath ground, under a theatre.

  They had ended the night on the Plaza Mayor after joining the mass exodus of concertgoers when leaving the theatre. Ben recalled being amused as Juliet unleashed her charm on the unsuspecting usher, and acquiescing to her wish to enjoy a proper meal before leaving the city. They had picked a quiet alfresco setting overlooking the historic buildings, and enjoyed wine and tapas. There would have been no point in returning to England before morning.

  At least one riddle still needed solving.

  Ben removed the bedcovers from his legs and headed for the en suite. The large wound that had scarred his thigh since his first trip to Godolphin had reddened slightly; he put the damage down to the excess running.

  “I hope you’re not planning on using all the hot water.”

  “Relax, I only need to lather my hair three times.” He grinned at her. “Remind me. What were the words of that other translation?”