The Bunting Quest

by Steven Marcuson

  Jakob could not help himself, ‘you were dreaming. You must know it!’

  ‘It was not a dream,’ responded Bunting. ‘I have experienced many dreams and nightmares in my life, and this was neither.’

  ‘And this is why I am counting? Because of this “appearance” of your messiah?’

  ‘Yes, this is why.’

  Jakob looked at the priest for many seconds without comment, then after letting out a deep sigh, recommenced walking and counting.

  The heat was bearable and the landscape flat, scrubby and unmemorable. With that in mind, they had created markers every five hundred steps, as a guide for the return journey.

  After half a day of walking, they came across a dry riverbed with scraggly trees and bushes on either bank. It made sense to follow the flat dry bed east and take occasional rests in the shade of the trees. With Bunting noting every thousand steps, they had reached fifty by the time the sun dropped below the horizon to their backs.

  ‘Does anything live in this Godforsaken land apart from a few birds? We have seen neither animal nor human,’ exclaimed Jakob.

  ‘I can see why I have been guided to this place. No Christian has ever been here or will in the foreseeable future.’

  ‘Well, that gives me some comfort, to think that a wandering Jew was the first discoverer of this place. I’m sure the history books will make note of it.’ And then as an afterthought, he added, ‘Perhaps they can mark my grave when they arrive and say the Kaddish for me.’

  ‘There will be no need to say the mourners’ prayer for you out here, Jakob. You will return to Magdeburg to your family. I have no doubt about that.’

  ‘The Archbishop warned me that you were an idealist with more heart than sense.’

  ‘Did he really say that, Jakob? He never said anything to me.’

  Jakob, exhausted and frustrated, put his head down and was asleep in seconds.

  They arose at sunrise on the second morning. Bunting changed into his cassock.

  ‘Today the quest will end, Jakob. We will bury the Holy Words in a place where no Christian man has been. I will have fulfilled my promise to Pope Gregory and carried out God’s will.’

  ‘We will probably end up buried with them,’ said Jakob under his breath, as he started walking and counting.

  As the sun rose higher, the heat became noticeably greater than the day before. They continued to follow the riverbed, occasionally coming across small pools of water, the last remnants of the previous winter rains.

  ‘Nine hundred and ninety-eight, nine hundred and ninety-nine, one thousand, STOP!’

  ‘That’s seventy-nine thousand,’ said Bunting, looking up to the sun directly overhead. ‘We should be at our destination by late afternoon.’

  ‘We have no idea where we’re going, Heinrich. We are simply wandering in this vast, awful unknown. I don’t blame you. I blame myself. You at least are driven by a higher calling; a false calling, but at least a calling.’

  Both men sat on the dusty embankment in some dappled shade from overhanging branches.

  ‘Perhaps it is best if I complete this last part by myself. It is true that I am driven by something greater than human desire or instinct and I cannot expect you to be motivated in the same manner. I have been thoughtless. Forgive me.’

  Jakob was silent for a long time before speaking softly, his eyes to the ground. ‘Heinrich, I keep thinking back to the day you visited my home and asked me to help you. The Archbishop had me in his employ due to my reputation and skill as a bookkeeper, despite me being a Jew, and there you were, a young priest wanting my help, specifically because of my religion. I have to admit it threw me. It put me off balance. I agreed to do something that was so far beyond what I had known or expected. The recompense of money was welcome but was not the reason. I still can’t grasp what I’m doing here. This whole journey or “quest” as you call it, has taken me places beyond my imagination. Beyond anyone’s imagination. Maybe you are right and it is to do with God. It is hard to have faith when your whole life has been about survival and trying not to be noticed.’

  Neither man spoke for a while, both deeply overwhelmed by the silence, their isolation and dire predicament.

  Bunting began to speak hesitantly. ‘Jakob, you have never asked me the details of the contents of what we are carrying, even though it has put your life in peril on many occasions. I think that now is the time to tell you. It is the least you deserve.’

  Jakob raised his tired eyes to meet the gaze of his friend. ‘No, I do not need to know the contents of the wooden box, nor do I want to know. I fear that this knowledge would simply confirm all my doubts and my last vestiges of strength would fade away. I have learned to trust you and your instinct … or faith, if you like. I also apologise to you for my suspicious nature. No, you shall not go on alone! There is a reason that we have come this far together that I don’t understand. Let us finish it together.’

  By late afternoon the heat had become truly unbearable. Neither man had experienced such unrelenting intensity. They had come off the riverbed as it turned north with Bunting insisting that east was the correct direction. Now there was no shade at all and both men were burning up.

  ‘A few more steps, Jakob,’ rasped Bunting, ‘then we arrive.’

  Jakob shook his head, which was lolling from side to side, trying to keep his vision straight.

  ‘Nine hundred and eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven.’

  ‘I can’t see straight. It is like I am looking through water and the earth is moving.’

  ‘Nine hundred and eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety. There, over there, can you see it?’

  ‘I can see nothing now. I think I am blind.’

  ‘Look, look, there is an animal with two heads staring at us. What type of place is this?’

  The two men stumbled forward, Bunting staring at the strange apparition and Jakob blinded by heat and exhaustion. Neither noticed the sudden steep decline and tumbled hard down into pools of water.

  ‘The river! We are here.’

  They lay still, as if dead. Amangu, who had been following the spirit men for most of the day, stood silent and watched. He watched as they crawled up the slope and staggered about a hundred paces to the home of Kookaburra. Kookaburra laughed and laughed to see something so funny. He laughed more when the spirit men dug a deep hole below his home and placed the spirit skin inside.

  ‘Under the tree of the laughing bird, Jakob; under this tree.’

  ‘Say some words, Heinrich. You have completed your quest.’

  Bunting fell to his knees on top of the fresh mound. ‘I have no words now. There is nothing to say. It is done.’

  Kookaburra looked down and laughed at the spirit men’s folly. He was still laughing as the spirit men stumbled back the way they had come.

  49

  Billy followed Nick and Verity out of Perth International Airport. The Master knew him well: ‘there but not there’. It was a skill picked up from years of pre-assassination surveillance, shadowing IRA leaders through the streets of London, Catholic-American fundraisers around Chicago and Palestinian arms dealers through the souks of Beirut and Tripoli; following Nick and Verity onto an international flight unseen had been a simple process.

  He kept a good hundred metres behind them as they drove to a small boutique hotel on Terrace Road, overlooking the Swan River. He planted the GPS tracking device under their car and booked into a budget hotel close by. The Master and Conrad would arrive early tomorrow.

  Using the information extracted from the Welshman, Schroeder obtained the same astonishing results from the map: the four-hundred-year secret was revealed. The laboratory also confirmed that the Holy Land sand had no connection to Israel or anywhere in the Middle East, but gave all the geological characteristics of south-western Australia.

  For Schroeder, it was hard to fathom why this Lutheran priest, from landlocked Magdeburg, would go to such extremes to hide ‘The Words’ of Jesus, but confirmed to him that
the twenty-year search was justified: whatever the Holy Words said, they must have been so important and damaging to the Catholic Church, that they were removed to the other side of the world, to a land undiscovered. For his conscience, it also validated the torture and murders that had been a by-product of the search. There had been no option. They would be shown for what they were: power-crazed idolaters, only interested in perpetuating the subjugation of the masses. This would end it once and for all.

  Still, he could not fathom why a Protestant priest would do the bidding of a Pope. Perhaps it was money, or promise of a high appointment in the Vatican, if he returned to the old religion.

  Dom Letizia sat waiting in the Abbey Church on the same simple wooden pew as he had the last two days, staring at the Carrara marble tomb of Dom Salvado. With the harsh glare of the day now gentler as the sun lowered in the west, a refreshing, cooling breeze wafted through the empty building. He knew with absolute certainty that it was only a matter of time.

  The floor to ceiling Albert Moser organ stared down on him and questioned his resolve, while a kookaburra on a gum tree outside seemed to be laughing at his predicament, almost mocking the Benedictine monk’s Oath of Perpetual Assistance. He recalled the words of the Abbot Primate: ‘Many terrible deeds have been perpetrated in the protection of the Sacred Words. You will be tested, Francesco.’

  Salvado, aged eighty-six, had died on a visit to Rome in 1900. Three years later, his body was brought back to the mission where he had spent his life, to be buried according to his wishes. These exacting specifications, hand-written in duplicate, were left with the Abbot Primate of the Monastery at Monte Cassino and the Bishop of Perth, Matthew Gibney. Abbot Primate Bonifacio Maria Krug, a conservative man not known for extroverted activity, left Monte Cassino and accompanied the body back to Australia, this being the only time in his tenure that he left Italy. He personally oversaw the positioning of the tomb according to the instructions left by Salvado.

  A West Australian newspaper commented at the time:

  It is with some surprise that we are honoured to welcome to Western Australia, Abbot Primate Bonifacio Maria Krug, of the famous Monastery at Monte Cassino, Italy. The Abbot, who is accompanying the body of the late Bishop Rosenda Salvado to his final resting place in the Abbey Church at the New Norcia mission, will be residing at the rectory of Bishop Gibney for two nights, before proceeding to New Norcia.

  The Swan and Chittering Valleys surprised both Nick and Verity by the number of vineyards that straddled the highway. ‘I had no idea about this area,’ said Verity, ‘I knew about the Margaret River region south of Perth being famous for wines, but this is stunning.’

  The gently rolling hills in the distance provided the perfect backdrop for the numerous orchards, fields and vineyards, not yet scorched brown by the summer sun. However, the beauty of their surroundings could not hide the anxiety they felt.

  Nick fiddled around with the radio, picking up a classic rock FM station. Shallow Water’s ‘Road to Nowhere’ filled the car. ‘Great track, this!’

  ‘What do we say when we arrive at the monastery, Nick? Hey, could you please lead us to the hidden Words of Jesus Christ? Oh, and by the way, there are men willing to murder for them, who are probably on the way.’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ replied Nick, shaking his head. I have a really bad feeling about this whole thing, Verity. Anyway, how long before we arrive at New Norcia?’

  ‘About forty minutes. This is Bindoon we are passing through.’

  There’s a road to nowhere, a destination you don’t want,

  Pass through the shadows, spare your family,

  Turn back, please turn back.

  Sweet Jesus knows the way.

  Nick clicked the radio off. ‘I am really spooked by this business. It’s all very well that we may have solved a four-hundred-year mystery, but who knows what Pandora’s Box we’ve opened.’

  ‘Also, have you noticed how little there really is out here, and this is now, not when the monks came here in 1846. It really confirms for me that there had to be a reason for them to travel this far out of Perth. Why else would they do it?’

  Verity and Nick, like Dom Letizia a few days previous, were also surprised by the scale and style of the Benedictine town of New Norcia when they arrived at their destination half an hour later.

  ‘Who would have thought this possible?’ said Nick rhetorically, looking around. ‘We’re miles from anywhere!’

  They got out the car, stretched their legs and joined the other tourists wandering around the grounds and buildings in the late afternoon sun, taking in all the history and wonders of the settlement; some in tour groups, some families and even backpackers. Verity could hear a number of different languages being spoken, creating a major tourist-destination atmosphere.

  ‘Let’s walk to the river,’ suggested Verity. ‘The map says one hundred paces from the river and under the tree of the laughing bird!’

  They approached one of the black-robed monks for directions and information before making their way past the Abbey Church and monastery towards the river. Then, at the banks of the Moore, in the dappled shade of a gum tree, with the leaves rustling in the wind, they turned around and stood facing the monastery.

  ‘Did it really happen?’ asked Nick, ‘I mean … did Heinrich Bunting and Jakob de Jode really stand here, in this spot, over four hundred years ago and then walk a hundred paces to bury something?’

  Verity shrugged her shoulders, also questioning the myth-like possibility. By the time they wandered back towards the main buildings, some of the tourist buses were departing the car park. They approached the same monk they had talked to before who pointed in the direction of the Abbey Church.

  Nick and Verity entered the church. Dom Letizia knew immediately who they must be, due to their significant lack of interest in their surroundings. They walked tentatively towards him through the older part of the church, along the narrow aisle between the pine-coloured pews, hardly noticing the white plastered sgraffito wall decorations of Jesus, and the Stations of the Cross or the pressed-metal ceilings. He smiled at the two of them as one would to any tourists. Nick reminded him of somebody he may have met in his past, but couldn’t quite remember. He had a pleasant face, perhaps slightly world-weary. Verity, however, looked alert, intelligent and feisty, with a ‘don’t mess with me’ air about her. They stopped at the transept that divided the older part of the church from the newer part, just before the tomb and statue of Dom Salvado. Dom Letizia was sitting only a couple of paces from them on a pew to their left, and could see that they were troubled and unsure of how to approach him.

  It was Verity who spoke first, and it was direct. ‘Sir, we spoke to one of the monks and he told us that you were temporarily in charge of the monastery. He said you had recently arrived from Italy.’ She hesitated for a few seconds. ‘We are aware of “The Words” of Jesus, hidden by Heinrich Bunting, somewhere in these grounds over four hundred years ago. We assume that you are also aware of them.’

  Dom Letizia remained silent, staring.

  Nick then spoke. ‘There are a group of men who are desperate to find these “Words” and will do anything to get them.’ Dom Letizia could see Nick was struggling to express himself. ‘They killed a young woman I knew, only a few days ago. We have no interest in exposing this secret, but have felt compelled to follow the leads, to bring us to the murderers.’

  Dom Letizia remained seated but gave them a nod of comprehension before speaking in heavily accented English. ‘Yes, I too have heard of this legend. I am surprised that you know about it, because it is nothing but a myth, occasionally talked about in light-hearted moments by some of the Benedictine community. However, I can assure you that there is no truth in it. I am so sorry to hear about your friend, but it has nothing to do with this monastery. That I am sure of.’

  Verity and Nick looked at each other, not knowing how to continue. ‘Look at this map,’ said Nick, flicking his phone to photographs and s
howing him the image taken in David Llewellyn’s workshop two days before. ‘Here is the Heinrich Bunting map depicting his great journey and the directions to where he buried “The Words”. You may not know about it, but they were buried here, on these grounds.’

  Dom Letizia stared long and hard at the map, the very map that he had spent his whole life discovering and protecting. He remembered all the years of research and worry, the eighty-eight Antwerp editions held in the Cave Library, Roberto, the Abbot Primate … and finally he thought of his oath.

  ‘I am sorry. I have no idea what this map is, or what you are talking about.’

  The laugh of the kookaburra heralded the arrival of more strangers. Schroeder, Jaeger and Billy Robertson stormed into the church. It was obvious to Dom Letizia who the leader was, as Schroeder strode purposefully in front with Jaeger following close behind. Billy hung back a few paces, his eyes darting in all directions, first checking there were no other tourists in the church, before closing the main doors behind him. The three men then gathered at the transept and moved to the opposite side of the tomb from Nick, Verity and the seated priest.

  Schroeder looked carefully at the tomb and the sculpted image of Dom Salvado. ‘If only the dead could speak,’ he said to no one in particular. Then, ignoring Verity and Nick, he spoke directly to Dom Letizia. ‘Priest, I assume that my friends here have explained the situation. I have not come this far and spent the last forty years fighting your kind to be thwarted now. One way or another you will tell me where “The Words” are buried.’