The Crusader's gold jh-2

by David Gibbins

  “The Temple of the Warriors,” Jeremy murmured. “That was the most sacred place of the Toltecs, but it sure wasn’t a temple of peace. It was more like Wewelsburg Castle in Bavaria, the headquarters of the SS.”

  “Not exactly what Vespasian had in mind,” Maria said.

  Costas was nodding enthusiastically. “Thinking outside the box. I like it.”

  “See?” Jack grinned. “Not much different from engineering. You have your plodders, and you have your geniuses.”

  “I take it you’re referring to Jeremy.”

  Maria was still deep in thought. “So when the Toltecs die out, the menorah vanishes from history, just as we used to think it did at the end of the Roman Empire,” she said.

  “The trail goes cold,” Jack agreed.

  “Any leads?”

  Jack looked at Jeremy, who gazed back blankly and then suddenly looked distracted. He delved with his free hand into a satchel on the table and pulled out a book. “What you were saying. I’ve just had a brainstorm. It’s something else I found when I was looking for clues in the Maya texts. I couldn’t think of a link when I read it, but it’s suddenly dawned on me. It’s possible, just possible.”

  “Not again.” Costas looked at Jeremy with mock horror. “You’re not going to spring another secret society on us.”

  “Have no fear.” Jeremy finished his bread and wiped his mouth, then took a gulp of water. “Remember how it took the Spanish years to conquer the Yucatan, a lot longer than central Mexico? The Yucatan was the first place Cortes landed, but he didn’t stick around long.”

  “No gold,” Costas offered.

  “Right. But he may have missed his cue there, maybe missed the biggest treasure of them all.”

  “Go on,” Jack said.

  “You won’t believe this, but the last of the Maya kings wasn’t conquered until 1697. That’s 1697,” Jeremy emphasised. “And he was a direct descendant of the kings of this place, of Chichen Itza.”

  Jack looked stunned. “That’s almost two centuries after Cortes!”

  “I thought Chichen Itza was already destroyed, abandoned before the Spanish arrived,” Costas interjected.

  “Several decades before Cortes, in the fifteenth century.” Jeremy nodded. “The Toltecs were already long gone, imploded in some awful bloodbath two centuries before. They were replaced by a more civilized Maya dynasty called the Itza, the people who gave their name to the place. What happened here in the final days is shrouded in mystery, but when the Maya finally abandoned the temples, they left here forever, disappeared into the jungle and wandered around for years like the lost tribes of Israel.”

  “Maybe they had a collective breakdown,” Costas mused. “Centuries living in a horrifying vortex of violence, all that terror and sacrifice taking its toll. They finally cracked.”

  Jeremy laughed. “Well, whatever happened, they eventually made their way to Lake Peten, more than four hundred kilometres south in what’s now Guatemala. Impenetrable jungle, as far away from the Spanish as you could get. They paddled across to a remote island and established a new city, Tah Itza. They lasted there for generations, undisturbed and unknown except to a few missionaries. Tah Itza came to have a mystical reputation among the Spanish. To some it was a terrifying jungle stronghold, a bastion of fierce warriors who practised satanic rituals, a hell on earth. To others it was a place of untold riches that could only be reached after great hardship, a kind of Maya Shangri-La, or Avalon.”

  “Back to King Arthur again,” Costas murmured. “I doubt whether Tennyson would have ever dreamt of putting his Avalon in the Mexican jungle.”

  “They could have had their treasure with them,” Jack murmured. “They may have been a vanquished people, a shadow of their former glory, but they would have salvaged what they could from Chichen Itza. Like the Israelites, they would have kept with them their most sacred possessions, their greatest wealth.”

  “Maybe they associated the menorah with the eagle-god, with the return of the king,” Maria said. “That reference Jeremy found in the Book of Chilam Balam suggests the Maya had some memory of Harald and the Vikings. Remember what Reksnys said about the local Maya today, their reluctance to go down into the cenote below the temple. Maybe Harald was transformed into a kind of mythical saviour god, fighting for the Maya against their Toltec oppressors. Maybe two hundred years after Harald met his end some intrepid Maya salvaged the menorah from the Toltec inferno, and it passed into yet another culture.”

  “If they hadn’t already sacrificed it,” Jack said.

  “Or melted it down.”

  “What we know comes from a manuscript revealed in Mexico only recently, in the late 1980s,” Jeremy continued. “It’s an incredible story, the account of a Franciscan friar, Fray Andres de Avendano y Loyola, who reached Tah Itza in 1695. Avendano was a man of exceptional intellect and physical stamina, with great moral strength and sense of purpose. He became fascinated by the people he was sent to convert, as concerned with their livelihood as with proselytising. The early missionaries get a bad press out here, but without scholars like Avendano we’d know virtually nothing of these people, and whole populations would have become extinct. Father O’Connor was part of that tradition.”

  “I wonder if Patrick knew anything about this,” Maria murmured.

  Jeremy opened the book. “According to his own account, Avendano arrived that year on the shore of Lake Peten accompanied by two Franciscans and ten converted Maya. From the east, across the lake, they saw a spectacular sight.” Jeremy read out a passage. “A great wedge-shaped flotilla of canoes, all of them adorned with many flowers and playing much music with sticks and drums and wooden flutes. And seated in one larger than all was the king of the Itza, who was the Lord Kanek, which means the star twenty serpent.”

  “Sounds awesome,” Costas murmured. “Any gold?”

  “What Avendano saw was every Spaniard’s fantasy about the New World, the kind of thing the conquistadors sold their souls for two centuries before but rarely ever saw. You can tell Avendano was overwhelmed. His instincts as a Jesuit were clouded by that lust that drove the Spaniards to conquest, like a shark smelling blood.”

  Jack smiled. “Go on.”

  “The last of the Maya kings came before them. Listen to this. He wore a crown of gold, and gold discs in his ears from which golden pendants hung down to his shoulders. He had bands of pure gold on his arms and golden finger-rings, and his blue sandals were covered with golden bells.”

  Costas whistled. “He was weighed down with gold.”

  Jeremy shut the book. “Avendano failed to convert the Itza. Two years later the city fell to Spanish arms.”

  “You say they brought their treasure with them from Chichen Itza?” Costas said.

  “That’s the story.”

  “That’s an awful lot of gold, for a vanquished people.”

  “Just a thought.”

  Jack was nodding slowly. “If the Maya were so secretive about their sacred texts, those books of Chilam Balam that prophesised the arrival of bearded men from the east, then they could have concealed untold other treasures. With the Spanish hunting everywhere for gold, an island stronghold on a lake set deep in the jungle sounds about right.”

  “And maybe it was just gold, pure and simple,” Costas said. “All that prestige value, all the meaning the menorah had for the hated Toltecs, had fallen away. Once the Maya reached their hideaway, maybe they melted it down.”

  “And then it comes full circle,” Maria said softly.

  “What do you mean?” Costas said.

  “Think about it. The Spanish conquer the last stronghold of the Itza. They finally get their Maya gold. Only it isn’t Maya gold at all. And what do they do with it? They’re hardly going to sit on their jackpot in the jungle.”

  “They send it home,” Jeremy said.

  “They melt it down again, they coin it, they send it back in the treasure fleets to Cadiz and Seville,” Maria said. “Hundreds of pounds of gol
d, a spectacular bounty. It goes straight into the coffers of the Spanish king. And to the other great power behind the conquistadors.”

  “The Catholic Church,” Jack murmured. “And some of that wealth filters back to the powerhouse of the Church, to the Vatican in Rome.”

  “Hang on,” Costas said. “You’re losing me again.”

  “Don’t you see?” Maria’s eyes were alight. “If we’re correct, the menorah was never lost at all. Three hundred years ago, the gold first cast in sacred form in ancient Israel returned to the lands of its earliest heritage, re-formed as bullion and as holy artefacts for a new world order. Maybe it was staring us in the face all that time, in the gilded splendours of St. Peter’s, in the golden reliquaries of the Vatican treasury, in countless embellishments and artefacts in churches around Christendom that received largesse from the mother Church.”

  “And maybe some of it even found its way back to Jerusalem,” Jeremy said. “Remember the saga of Harald Hardrada, offering gifts of treasure to the Shrine of Christ in Jerusalem? The story that climaxed with the Crusades, of western involvement in the Holy Land, wasn’t all one of plunder and greed. Maybe, just maybe, some of the gold of the Itza found its way back in recent centuries to the shadow of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and is still there today.”

  Costas suddenly looked crestfallen, and glanced at his blueprint on the rock beside the cenote. “My sub-bottom borer. All my plans. Are we saying what I think we’re saying?”

  “All this is just guesswork,” Maria murmured.

  “And we have nothing to prove Harald even got here,” Costas said. “The wall-painting’s gone, the site of Harald’s last stand entombed forever. Nobody would believe us.”

  “We’ve got this.” Maria removed the smooth chip of stone from her shorts pocket, the runestone she had found inside the cenote.

  “It doesn’t actually mention Harald,” Costas said. “And the stone’s not local, it looks like a schist they probably picked up at L’Anse aux Meadows.”

  “But we know,” Maria said.

  “I’ll go with the Maya theory.” Jeremy was still reflecting on the menorah. “Better than trying to work out what to do with the menorah if we found it.”

  Jack got up, walked over to the sacrificial platform and peered down at the impenetrable green of the water. Then he turned his back on the cenote and unclipped a radio receiver from his belt. “The menorah may be in the Well of Sacrifice after all. Or we may have reached the end of the road. But before I even think about another project, I’ve got a small debt to pay to an old friend. Something to do with battle-luck.” He glanced at Maria. “And we need to get out of here.”

  22

  Four days later, Jackwas crouched near the stern of Seaquest II, muffling his ears against the churning of the ship’s wake as he took a call from Maurice Hiebermeyer in Istanbul. After a few moments struggling to hear he got up and walked back to where Costas was standing beside Maria and Jeremy, who were sitting on a bench behind the ship’s helipad.

  “I read you.” Jack pressed the receiver against his ear. “Set it all out and I’ll see you in the Golden Horn tomorrow evening. And thanks for taking over the excavation, Maurice. Great work. I owe you one. Out.”

  Jack snapped shut the radio receiver and weaved his way around the lines that had been laid on the deck to secure the Lynx helicopter after its arrival. Seaquest II was heading back to the Arctic to resume the scientific project at Ilulissat icefjord, and several of the scientists who had disembarked during their diversion to the Caribbean were being flown back on board. The ship was now less than a hundred nautical miles east of Newfoundland, and the final helicopter shuttle was due in later that afternoon. Apart from a deep swell, the sea was settled and the sky was clear, but as they ploughed their way north there was a chill in the air that seemed more pronounced after their days in the fetid jungle of the Yucatan. Maria and Jeremy were both wearing IMU anoraks and were huddled behind the bulwark out of the wind.

  “That was Maurice Hiebermeyer,” Jack said. “It’s great news. They’ve finally got artefacts dumped after the siege of Constantinople in 1204.”

  “Crusader gold?” Costas said hopefully.

  Jack grinned. “A colossal gilt bronze statue of the emperor Vespasian, with a dedicatory inscription showing it had originally been set up in the Forum of Peace in Rome after the Jewish triumph. It’s not exactly what we had in mind, but then archaeology’s like that.”

  “It’s what I wanted to hear.” Costas sighed contentedly. “My sub-bottom borer has come up trumps. Anyway, as I recall there was quite a list of items looted from the Jewish Temple other than the menorah. We’ll find them. Just have faith in IMU technology.”

  “That might have to go on the back burner for a while,” Jack said. “Maurice had been itching to tell me about a find from the Egyptian desert since we came back from Atlantis, and I finally relented. It’s incredible.”

  “Not another papyrus,” Costas said. “The last one got us into enough trouble.”

  “This one’s Roman,” Jack said. “Just a scrap, but it holds a fantastic clue.”

  “Another treasure hunt?”

  “Ever heard of Alexander the Great?”

  Costas saw the familiar gleam in Jack’s eye. “Okay. My kind of archaeology. You can count me in. Just no icebergs.”

  “Deal.” Jack grinned and turned to Maria and Jeremy, but his expression changed as he saw Maria’s downcast face. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Maria,” he said gently. “Your Ukrainian heritage. I know the Jewish population were Ashkenazi, but any hint of anything farther back? I mean, I’m just trying to understand your passion for the Vikings.”

  Maria lightened up and gave Jack a sad smile. “After I put my mother to rest last year, I spent a few days in Kiev, went to the Cathedral of Santa Sofia and studied the famous wall-paintings. The kings and queens who ruled Kiev in the Viking age, traders and warriors who came down the rivers in longships from the north. Blond, bearded, impossibly tall, the very image of Harald Hardrada and his court.”

  “Varangians,” Jack murmured. “The Rus.”

  “Before my mother died, she told me something of her family for the first time. A story of intermarriage far back in our past, of family legend that had us descended from Rus nobility.”

  “Thought so.” Jack smiled.

  “Looks like I’m the only one here who doesn’t have a drop of Viking blood,” Costas said.

  “Don’t count on it. Halfdan’s inscription of Hagia Sofia isn’t the only evidence of Vikings in that neck of the woods. There’s another runic inscription on an ancient sculpture in Athens. It looks like Harald and his boys had some fun in Greece too. They got pretty well everywhere.”

  Costas was looking at a map he had sketched of their adventure. “In the western hemisphere, anyway.”

  Jack was serious again. “I also just spoke to the IMU security chief in the UK,” he said, addressing all three of them. “As a precaution, just before she was taken by Loki, Maria emailed the penultimate draft of the dossier she was helping O’Connor prepare to the IMU security chief. As we speak Interpol are instigating a number of high-profile arrests. Apparently the felag were heavily involved in international crime, money laundering, drugs and arms, the antiquities black market. One of them was even implicated in an audacious robbery at the Roman site of Herculaneum in the Bay of Naples, right under the noses of the Italian authorities. It looks like our friend Reksnys wasn’t the only one using the power of the felag to line his own pockets.”

  “Seems a long way from the heroic ideals of Harald Hardrada,” Costas murmured.

  “The modern felag had nothing to do with that.” Jeremy’s voice had an edge to it. “They were a criminal organisation, pure and simple. They had about as much historical legitimacy as the Nazis.”

  “Apparently the dossier you and O’Connor compiled was crucial, the missing link that allowed Interpol to tie all these characters together,” Jack said to Maria. �
��And now that they’re implicated in murder, I don’t think we’ll be hearing from the felag for a good while.”

  “What about that shadowy character in the Vatican?” Costas said.

  Jack nodded, and a flicker of concern passed over his face. “That’s the one exception, I’m afraid. Reksnys nearly gave it away when he was boasting about his informers back in the chamber, but he stopped himself. O’Connor suspected who it was but wanted to be certain before telling us. His murder cut that short. That was Loki’s one small victory. But whoever it is, you can be assured he’ll be covering his tracks right now, keeping a squeaky-clean profile until the investigation dies down. Meanwhile we might uncover more in O’Connor’s records, some clue to who it is.”

  “I’m going back to Iona to finish the job.” Maria’s eyes had clouded, and she forced a smile through her tears. “At least Father O’Connor kept his honour to the end. You remember what he said about the Vikings? Your fate is predetermined, so what matters is your conduct in life, your uncompromising behaviour. So you can enter Valhalla and stand alongside the gods at the final battle of Ragnarok knowing you have kept your honour and that of your brethren intact.”

  “He was one Hardrada would have been pleased to have had alongside him,” Jeremy said.

  “Such a waste.” Maria looked down again, her voice hoarse with emotion. “All that knowledge, all that humanity.”

  “Scholarship is about continuity,” Jack said gently, putting his hand on her shoulder. “About passing on wisdom to the next generation, knowing it can provide the basis for new discoveries, revelations you can hardly guess at.” He glanced at Jeremy. “I think Father O’Connor did that.”