Espionage and the Earl

by Win Hollows

  “Might want to sit down,” the fisherman rowing them out commented in French. “These swells won’t get any better until we get close to The Eyes of St. Raphael. It won’t be long now though.”

  Max heeded his advice and sat down across from Elorie on the only other bench the boat had to offer. The rest of the boat was piled with fishing nets that smelled quite a bit worse than the fish Max was used to being served at a family dinner. Those fish were usually swimming in some type of tangy cream sauce with dill and capers, but he really didn’t want to think about eating fish for a good long while after this. He focused on creeping his fingers through Elorie’s and the warm pressure of her capable hand in his as they were both periodically splashed from the waves.

  It was a beautiful day in the south of France, and the water felt wonderful as relief for the sun beating down overhead. Max knew he would soon be submerged in the water and didn’t mind that idea one bit. The fisherman they had convinced to take them on a “tour” to see the Eyes probably thought it rather odd that a couple wanted to spend an afternoon plunking down in the ocean to see the locally famed rocks underwater, but at least this way, they were inconspicuous. They were heading around the tip of a rocky peninsula toward a spit of sand a few hundred yards from the mainland with large, black rocks haphazardly rising up from it, although Max hesitated to call it an island as it was only roughly five-by-five meters in size.

  “There it is,” the fisherman announced. “The Eyes of St. Raphael are directly to the right of that rock.” He pointed to an irregular nub of dark, porous stone sticking up from the water halfway between them and the island. “I’ll stay out here. There are lots of formations just under the surface, and I won’t be sinking my boat today, thank you.”

  The fisherman had been right. The water here in this small cove formed by the angle of the peninsula was quite calm, for which Max was grateful. Truth be told, he hadn’t swum in the ocean for quite some time, and he’d been anxious about his ability to navigate the open water’s currents. It seemed that wouldn’t be an issue, however, the water being as still as a pond in this area. He could see down to the bottom here, the clear water illuminating the sand and occasional rock or coral thirty feet beneath them.

  “Just remember,” the fisherman said. “If you want to enter the caves, you must swim directly through the Eyes of St. Raphael. There is an undercurrent that will drag you down if you try to go any other way. The Knights Templar asked God to put a curse on their hiding place after they discovered it so no one but they could enter. But if you make it inside, you’ll be able to breathe.”

  That made him pause for a moment, but he didn’t have time to delve deeper into that legend. “Understood.” Excitement mounting, Max stood to begin untucking his shirt, pulling it off in one smooth motion to expose his torso to the sun. But when he had regained his vision, he saw that Elorie was standing too, unpinning her skirts beside him. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?” she responded. “I can’t very well swim in these skirts.”

  He watched as she dropped the whole lot of them to the bottom of the boat to reveal knickers that hugged her shapely legs and buttocks like a second skin. A ring of darts strapped to the outside of each thigh was evident, and Max hoped the fisherman didn’t notice them overly much. Dressed as she was now in nothing but a thin blouse tucked into her tight knickers, he gulped, unable to take his eyes off her siren’s form.

  The fisherman laughed. “It seems the lady isn’t going to let you have all the fun!”

  “You can’t possibly—”

  “Englishman, don’t you dare begin telling me what I can and can’t do now.” She glared at him with emerald fire.

  Max sighed and shook his head with a smile, taking off his shoes and socks as well. “After you then, m’lady.”

  Elorie smiled back at him and then turned to execute a perfect dive out of the boat, her body disappearing under the reflective water and then visible again underneath it.

  His splash was much bigger as he landed in the water after her. He had prepared himself for a shock, but the water was much warmer than he’d expected, like tepid bathwater. After resurfacing and taking a deep gulp of air, he dove back under and opened his eyes to look around. It was the clearest water he’d ever been in, but even so, he had to blink to adjust to the stinging salt of it. He saw Elorie’s form ahead of him and began to swim after her, taking a breath at the surface every few strokes until he’d caught up.

  Glorious was the best word he could think of to describe the feeling of stretching his limbs into the water around him, using his muscles to slice through the blue-green water penetrated by rays of sunshine he could feel on his back. He couldn’t help thinking that this distinct sensation was something very few of his peers would ever experience, and it was suddenly a tragedy to him. How could one go their entire life without this feeling of complete weightlessness, the warmth and sensuous movement of it? A tiny yellow fish swam by to nibble at a purple plant growing from one of the many rock formations twisting up from the sand, oblivious to his proximity. He would rather be here with the lithe nymph of a woman swimming beside him than poring over estate ledgers or smoking at White’s.

  Watching Elorie swim was another form of magic altogether. Those poor sods who thought waltzing with a woman the purest form of movement… Her fluid movement with each wave of her limbs was mesmerizing, and it was clear she’d spent a fair amount of time swimming prior to this. Her hair was in a long braid, but it wouldn’t be for long, Max noted, the ribbon holding it at the bottom already beginning to unravel. Good. It would soon be rippling in a silken tangle behind her as she darted through the water like she was born to it. He had no doubts she could keep up with him in this particular exertion.

  Up ahead, a larger mass of rocks could be seen, but it wasn’t until they were close that their depths became evident. As they swam closer, Max began to see the outline of two rings of rock, almost identical in size and shape, jutting up from a more substantial stone mass. On the tops of the man-sized rings were misshapen arches that had broken off over time, giving the appearance of foreboding eyebrows. It was easy to see why the locals had given this place a name, for it was a perfect coincidence of natural shapes that truly seemed ordained. Behind the Eyes, what Max assumed was the wall of the peninsula could be seen and within it, darker holes that comprised what must be the famed cave.

  Max caught Elorie by the ankle and motioned for them to surface. Once he’d wiped the water from his eyes, he said, “Let me go first through the Eyes. I want to make sure the currents are safe.”

  She rolled her eyes, droplets of water shining on her lashes. “I can swim just fine, Max.”

  “I know that.” He touched her cheek and drew her in by the waist. “Just let me do this. Please, Ellie. Wait until I signal you.”

  He felt her breathing quicken as he held her against him, and her visible swallow amused him. “All right.”

  Max kissed her quickly on her pink lips and then forced himself to go under again, not trusting himself to let go if he held her any longer. He dove down and swam toward the left ring, feeling for any changes in the pressure or temperature of the water.

  Nothing.

  As he approached it, he realized how large the rings really were, their height surpassing his own, even with limbs stretched outward. Reaching out, he pressed his hand against the rough sea rock of the ring and let his foot touch another part of it. The Eyes faced directly toward the largest cave’s mouth, which was shaped rather like a triangle with a crooked and elongated top corner. If he was going to make the swim to the caves, he would need to do so quickly so he didn’t need to come up for air within the twenty-five-meter distance.

  He floated through the eye and then pushed off from it, swimming hard for the cave ahead. The water was colder the closer he came toward the wall of rock, but no currents pushed at him that he could perceive. Thank God the old fisherman had been right. Or perhaps he told the tidbit about
the undercurrents to everyone to add more mystique to the place.

  Max cut through the water with long strokes, his lungs beginning to beg for air, but he didn’t let it distract him from his goal. The water became noticeably colder, but not enough to slow his limbs. When he finally reached the cavernous entrance, he debated coming up for air before going inside. What if their guide was wrong? What if there was no opportunity to breathe inside? If he swam too far inside without knowing, he might very well drown before he could retrace and surface again.

  He took a last look behind him, Elorie’s glowing white form small beside the Eyes. She was directly in a shaft of sunlight, and her hair flowed around her like ribbons of gold as she floated. If that was his last sight on this earth, it was a good one.

  Pushing into the darkness, Max stretched his arms in front of him as his sight became useless. His fingers jammed into rock, and he began to feel a touch of panic, running his hands over the surface to either side. When he felt a tinge of warm water to the right, he followed it, grasping along the wall as quickly as he could. For a moment, he embraced the thought:

  I’m going to die down here, where no one will ever know what happened to me.

  Suddenly, he emerged into a pool of sunlight and rose up to break the surface of the water with a desperate gasp for air. Looking around, he saw he had arisen into a large, round chamber about the size of the music room at his Suffolk estate. The water here was warm again, causing his tight muscles to relax a bit. Light from a series of holes in the tall cavern shone on the water, casting moving patterns onto the walls. The rock in the cavern wasn’t black like the surrounding formations, but a pale red hue that was smooth, bearing striations within its layers.

  But that wasn’t the only thing on the walls.

  In white, chalky script were messages all over the cavern, following the layers of the rock in gentle swoops so that it looked like a living document born into the rock itself, moving over its surface in a perfect tattoo. Swimming toward one of the walls, he let his eyes adjust to the lighting in order to examine the fluid words more closely. Some of the words were clearly French, but he couldn’t understand most of it. Though it was possible some was in Haitian Creole dialect, his guess would be that it had been written in a much older version of the language he was familiar with.

  “Thirteenth century, I would say, possibly older,” Elorie said behind him, her words echoing off the walls.

  Max turned to see her floating behind him, head tilted back to look at the cavern’s walls. “You were supposed to wait until I signaled you,” he mumbled.

  She shrugged. “I was bored.”

  Max sighed and turned back to the walls. “Can you understand it?”

  “Not very well,” she replied. “Something about duty to God and hiding the light in one’s heart. But this, I daresay, we can both read.” She had taken off toward the other side of the cave, moving sinuously through the still water with nary a ripple to mark her passage.

  Max followed, catching up just as she reached a protruding rock. Cone-shaped with a caldera much like a volcano’s at its top, it rose up out of the water to about twice Max’s height. Its surface was milky pink and smooth with white writing spiraling up its base. This writing, though Max wasn’t sure how Elorie had seen it from where she’d been, was not in French at all, but plain English. He began to read, treading the water around and around the cone.

  Borne of God, Forged by Man, Transfigured by the Son. Our Lord and Savior has imbued his healing essence to transform what was once the broken and shameful weapon into a vessel for his glory. Never again shall it be used for bloodshed or for the profit of one man. Now here the Lance lies in rest, guarded by the Knights of Old. May it stay hidden until such time as the holy power from within aids the Creator’s servants in their time of need.

  “Do you think…?” Elorie whispered.

  “It’s at the top,” Max stated, looking up to where the words ended, and the cone cradled something at its apex which reflected the light. Max then looked over at Elorie and nodded. “I’ll have to lift you up on my shoulders.”

  “Do you trust me?” she asked him, the question full of much more than what this moment had come to.

  “With my life.” Max had never meant anything more. He dove beneath the surface and swam between her legs, splaying her thighs to rest on his shoulders as he came up. “Are you ready?” he asked, kicking them toward the cone.

  “I have not come this far to be defeated by a rock,” she replied, grim determination in her voice.

  “That’s my girl.” With a surge upward, Max lifted her as far up the cone as he could, where she grabbed onto it, letting him splash back down into the water. Rubbing his hand over his face to clear his eyes, he watched as she grasped for foot- and hand-holds. He winced every time she slipped on the stone’s smooth surface, but little by little, she climbed up. He didn’t mind watching her from this angle at all, the lovely round spheres of her buttocks outlined rather perfectly in her transparent knickers.

  Max called encouragements as she scaled the cone, but he had to clench his hands when she cried out after slipping and scraping her hand. Amidst the water from her long, dripping hair, tiny droplets of blood fell to the water in front of him, and he swished the swirling crimson away as if he could heal her by dissolving the signs of her injury.

  Finally, Elorie crested the top of the caldera with a growl of triumph. She smiled down at him briefly, but then she became distracted, turning her face slowly toward the illumination coming from the top of the stone. Her eyes were wide and glowing with the reflection of whatever lay within the dome of the rock. She reached with shaking fingers into the caldera.

  They had found it. After everything and all the centuries of hiding, it was here, waiting for them.

  The Damarek.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elorie felt it as soon as her fingertips grazed the Lance’s surface.

  Power.

  Millennia of it, nations rising and falling, men of great wealth and prominence vying for it. Even if one didn’t believe in the stories of healing, this object had been sought by many, hoarded by few, and used as leverage over the centuries like a binding secret.

  From where she crouched on the balls of her feet in the small, flat top of the cone puddled with water, she studied it. The six-inch-long spearhead was a dark, molten pewter with areas of blue-green patina overlaying it. From what Elorie had seen of artifacts from the same era, this was not the entire spearhead, but the final tip of such an instrument, broken off at its narrowest point in the friction of use. It had been set in a shallow gold bowl filled with sand, positioned with care to catch the direct sunlight shining from above. There were no soft cloths, jewel-encrusted boxes, or anything else to serve as protection. It simply was, and it needed no adornment.

  Yet Elorie was taking no chances. However legendary the thing was, she wasn’t going to chance its edges digging into her flesh and depositing some ancient sickness beneath her skin. Just as important, there was no way she was going to nick or scratch the Lance while transporting it. So she snatched her hand back from it and ripped off the frill of her knickers where they bunched at the very bottom. Then she carefully slid her fingers through the sand under it, letting the fine, warmed grains sift through her hand as she lifted the Lance from its resting place. Her heart was beating like a hummingbird’s, and she knew then: It would never be enough.

  She could spend her entire life as a pampered duchess, and nothing would ever compare to the feeling flowing through her veins at this moment. No matter what riches she possessed or soirees she hosted, no matter how many children she had or rose gardens to wander, she would never be satisfied with such a life. She would always fantasize about this place, the man swimming down beneath her, and the sensation of raw victory as she beheld the object of her search. She would savor this moment and all that came with it, for she would have to temper a lifetime’s worth of bitterness by the memory of this. Nothing would r
uin the perfection of being here.

  Wrapping the dulled blade in her wet piece of cloth, she called down to Max. “I’ve got it! We did it, Max! We found it!”

  She could see Max’s dazzling white smile below as he treaded water. “Toss it down so you can jump. Let’s see what all the fuss is about. Maybe we’ll keep it and use it to butter our bread.”

  Elorie chuckled and let the spearhead drop into Max’s waiting hands. Then she maneuvered herself around, stood, and jumped off the other side of the stone so she didn’t inadvertently land on Max. The water sent bubbles fizzing through her clothes as she plunged into it once more. This was one thing England would never have: water warm enough to linger in on a summer’s day. It was one thing to brave the waves in a cove in Brighton for a little while, but here, the water embraced her like a lover and begged her to stay in its tempting caress. Her feet didn’t touch the bottom of the cavern’s pool, but she knew it wasn’t too far down, if her eyes could be trusted in the contorted shafts of sunlight piercing through the water. Surfacing in a smooth motion, she slicked her hair back and looked around for Max.

  He wasn’t there.

  “Max?” Elorie looked in all directions but saw nothing except a bubble pop on the water’s surface a few feet from her. Heart pounding, she knew there were only two possibilities, neither of which she liked. He was either under the water, or he had left her here alone.

  She dove under, blinking rapidly as she searched for any sign of him. Though the water was lit with rays of sun, there were corners and crevices in the space she couldn’t see into. What if she couldn’t find him? How could he have left her here?

  But he wasn’t hard to find. And neither was Ruben.

  Ruben’s bright blond hair floated upward from his head as he had Max pinned against the wall of the cavern roughly five feet underneath the surface and was trying to wrestle the Lance from his grasp. Elorie immediately cut through the water toward them, thankful she had always been a good swimmer. Her legs kicked with all her strength as she watched Max shove Ruben away from him and make for the surface. But Max didn’t reach it before Ruben grabbed Max’s ankle and drug him back down.