The Cortés Enigma (29 page)

“A blank wall is a fool’s writing paper.”

Valeria was confused. “Ben?”

“I need you to take me to Old Town on St Mary’s.”

“Why?”

Ben smiled. “Because I think I know where to start looking.”

38

7:15pm

Ben was first through the lichgate of the churchyard. He’d sprinted all the way from the harbour and neglected to hold the gate open for his companion.

Valeria was unimpressed on both counts.

The churchyard was deserted as usual. It wasn’t yet dark, but the rain had been falling heavily for over an hour. Thick black clouds had settled menacingly in the sky, still threatening a thunderstorm. According to the forecast, it wasn’t likely to improve before dawn.

The Godolphin Mausoleum was in exactly the same state as before, the large crack still unrepaired. Fresh water had pooled around the base on the west side, pouring inside or running onto the nearby grass.

Ben stopped to examine it before entering the mausoleum. He knew from the night before that getting inside without becoming soaked and dirty would be completely unavoidable.

Valeria followed him inside and groaned as she got up from a crouching position to her feet, sneezing immediately.

“Bless you.”

She looked at Ben, again unimpressed. He had already switched on his torch and was shining it on the walls.

Valeria did the same, allowing herself an opportunity to examine the interior before concentrating on the same thing as Ben. There was writing on the far wall, in English and written clearly.

“A blank wall is a fool’s writing paper,” she said, looking at Ben. “How? How did you know?”

He looked at her, adjusted his woolly hat and sighed. “You want the long story or the short?”

Ignoring him, she approached the wall and touched the writing with her fingers. The grooves were deep and even, suggesting they were made with a precise instrument.

“Why is it written in English?”

“Because the Godolphins were English.”

She laughed, realising her own mistake. “But it was Cortés who said the words.”

Ben didn’t respond, but the thought had already occurred to him. Cortés’s soldier and later biographer, Díaz, wrote that while Cortés was staying in Coyoacán in Mexico, he lodged at a palace with whitewashed walls, and every morning they would wake up to find messages written in either charcoal or ink. One of the messages was said to have criticized Cortés, complaining he had secreted away gold otherwise meant for the King of Spain. Priding himself as being something of a poet, he was once recorded as having replied with the words that Ben and Valeria now saw in front of them.

“What does it mean?” Valeria asked.

Ben shook his head; he had been trying to figure out the same thing. There was dust and debris everywhere, small flakes floating in the light, making it harder to see or breathe. He tried pushing the wall, but it didn’t budge. Using torchlight, he read the photocopied diary; even compared to the original, the writing was almost impossible to read.

TF never mentioned the wall’s significance.

Ben walked along the nearest row of tombs. At the centre of the room he noticed a large circle marked out across the floor, surrounded by an even larger one. There were patterns on it, animals, serpents…it was like looking at an Aztec hieroglyph.

Valeria moved towards him, noticing what Ben had seen.

“Stop,” Ben yelled, edging away from the circle. “Don’t stand on it.”

Valeria froze, stopping less than a foot away, preparing to walk toward the centre. “What is it?”

In truth Ben was not sure; it was something he had missed on the first occasion. The outer circle was at least ten feet in diameter. The smaller one appeared like a sun, but with markings on the inside, like a human face.

He associated it with the Aztec sun god.

He looked to his right and saw something on the end of one of the tombs. A small container was attached to the stone, wide enough for him to insert his hand. He reached in slowly, wary of getting bitten. The large circle had brought back memories of the first time he had seen
Raiders of the Lost Ark
, whereas now thoughts had turned to the
Temple of Doom
.

He withdrew his fingers, all of which were still intact. There were small pellets in his hand, each less than a centimetre in length.

“What are they?”

Ben studied them, one by one. He gestured Valeria to come nearer, shining the torchlight on the pellets.

“They look like gold,” she said, taking one and holding it up, studying every angle in the light.

Suddenly Ben realised the significance. “It’s totoloque,” he said. “Don’t lose that.”

Valeria moved her hand nervously; surprised by the urgency of Ben’s outburst, she nearly dropped it. She passed the pellet back to him. “What is it?”

“It was a game played by the Aztecs. It’s called totoloque. The objective was to throw the five pellets at that circle.” He pointed to the inner circle. “If we step on the outer circle, the floor will collapse.”

Valeria was horrified. “You have to throw? Why?”

Ben didn’t know, but he was sure it was somehow connected to the lost replica emeralds.

“Give me as much light as you can.”

Valeria made her way to the other side of the circle, shining the torch on the ground. Directly opposite, Ben did the same, holding one pellet in his right hand and the torch in his left.

He threw the first pellet, missing the inner circle by over a foot. Composing himself, he tried again, this time he was slightly nearer.

He heard movement coming from behind him. It sounded like a dull creak.

Valeria was starting to panic. “Ben?”

Ben felt himself rooted to the spot. Looking over his shoulder, he saw dust moving, debris falling. For the moment he was unsure whether it was new or not.

“Ben?”

Ben took a deep breath, attempting to remain calm. “It’s booby-trapped,” he said, feeling sweat fall down his brow. “If we don’t hit the circle, we’re trapped.”

Valeria was furious. “We’re what?”

“Don’t come any closer,” he yelled, seeing her move. No sooner had he said it, she lost her balance, falling onto the nearest tomb.

“Valeria.”

Valeria had grabbed hold of the tomb. Her right foot was dangling over the side, the rest of her body on the lid.

One slip and she would fall onto the circle.

Ben took a deep breath and removed another pellet from his pocket. “Shine the torch.”

Valeria did her best, adjusting the light with her dirty fingers, giving Ben the best possible chance. He took a deep breath and threw the third pellet, again narrowly missing the circle. For the first time he realised the outer circle was padded with something, causing the pellets to come to a standstill as opposed to skidding on.

He took a deep breath, preparing for the next throw, knowing it had to be perfect. If it were short, it would come to a dead stop.

He raised his arm and then followed through. He saw the pellet flying through the light and disappearing, coming down somewhere on the floor. He moved the light, aiming at the centre circle.

He’d made it with one throw to spare.

Cortés was the first to enter the hotel room. He sat down on the bed, his fingers moving quickly through the pages of the diary. He scanned the first page, then the next.

Then he placed the book down on the bed.

“You read,” he barked at Pizarro. “You read the English better.”

Pizarro picked up the diary and started on page one. The writing was faint; even for an Englishman, reading it was difficult. He turned the pages and saw diagrams, recognising the churchyard on St Lide’s.

“Get me a magnifying glass.”

Ben held his breath as the familiar noise reoccurred, only this time much louder than before. A heavy scraping sound was coming from his right. The wall that contained the sentence ‘a blank wall is a fool’s writing paper’ was vibrating, wobbling; he feared it was about to collapse.

Ben looked at it, almost in disbelief. In his career, he had seen similar things, but never in this part of the world.

The wall opened as if it was a door.

Valeria stepped forward.

“Stop. Stay where you are,” Ben said, moving quickly toward her. On this occasion she obeyed, waiting for him to approach. He placed his hands on her shoulders and guided her toward the door. Even in the torchlight, making out specific details was difficult. All he could see was a long square-shaped void.

For all he knew, it continued indefinitely.

He edged closer to where the wall opened up. The floor behind seemed firm; he felt it with his hands and found a nice solid foundation. There was a second wall less than a metre away in front of him and space on either side. To his right he could vaguely make out an object on a stone ledge.

Valeria was waiting behind him, shining the torch directly at his face. Seconds later he returned, carrying a small chest, almost identical to the one Valeria had found not three hours earlier.

“Oh my,” she said, coughing on inhaling dust. The lid was covered in cobwebs, and the lock badly corroded.

“Here, hold this,” he asked of Valeria, who took the box in her hands. Ben removed a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and selected the largest blade.

Immediately it broke.

“We must take it back home,” Valeria said. “I have tools back at the lighthouse.”

Standing less than twenty metres away, Colts watched from partial shelter as Ben and the Spanish waitress squeezed out of the gap in the mausoleum wall and ran towards the lichgate. Though it was getting dark, rain pounding down all the more heavily, their carrying of the metal chest was impossible to disguise.

Colts considered following them but stopped, thinking things over.

If Ben and the waitress were working together, technically they were now on opposite sides.

39

Twenty minutes later they were back at the lighthouse, cold and soaked to the bone. Ben accepted Valeria’s offer of a shower while she dried his clothes on the radiator, making do for the time being with a T-shirt and a woman’s dressing gown.

Valeria was standing by the table, holding the same pair of metal cutters she had used on the box containing the trumpet. She opened the jaws, lined them up with the hinges and snapped through them one at a time.

Eureka.

Ben did his best to lift the lid, succeeding after a long battle with the corroded seal. A puff of dust rose from the interior as the lid came free, catching Ben square in the eyes. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, he placed the lid down on the table and inspected the interior of the box.

As with the box that contained the bell, there was an object within, wrapped in a white shroud.

Acting more quickly than Ben, Valeria removed the item and carefully unfolded the shroud. What she saw amazed her.

The object was made of stone, in the shape of a fish.

She held it up, taking note of every characteristic. Like the lost trumpet, it was painted white, cut into shape with a precision instrument, and weighed about 9kg. There were engravings everywhere, each bringing out the features of the fish: the eyes, the teeth, the gills, the mouth…

Standing alongside her, Ben inspected the object. Under no circumstances was he going to miss this opportunity.

“Is there writing on it?”

Valeria turned it over, searching for evidence of writing on both sides. She saw something engraved into the left side.

“It says O L P.” She looked at Ben. “What does it mean?”

“You said together they spell out where the treasure was taken. And the letters on the trumpet were H I N. It must spell Godolphin.”

Valeria was thoroughly confused. “What’s this mean?”

Ben shook his head, still trying to control his ever growing sense of frustration. Somewhere out there other people, a black archaeologist in the employ of the Duchy of Cornwall and at least four Spaniards, were looking for the same things. The thought made Ben nervous.

Every second that passed, Chris remained in jeopardy.

“You said together they spell out a name. The clues must lie in the others. What were they? A rose–”

“A bell and a cup,” she interrupted, picking up the photocopied diary and turning pages at speed. “It’s all useless. Your ancestor knew nothing.”

Ben bit his lip, again deciding against mentioning the bell. Suddenly Ben remembered the window. “There were diagrams,” he said, taking the diary and quickly flipping through the pages. “A window.”

“A window?”

“That’s right, a window. Made of stained glass. Apparently it was once housed in the church of St Lide’s.”

Ben had reached the page he wanted. He looked at the diagram, searching in particular for the rose and cup.

“Here.” He showed her the five items in the window.

She followed his finger, her eyes bright. “How did he see this?”

“He drew it. When he was there, visiting the church, he drew what he saw in the church.”

Valeria’s heart was thumping. Seeing the image there on the page in front of her just didn’t seem real. “It is not correct. The diagram is wrong.”

That piqued Ben’s interest. “How can you know? You’ve seen it?”

She looked Ben in the eye. “When the island of St Lide’s was ruined, everything that could be salvaged was taken away. Many things arrived here on St Agnes. Including that window.”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “It still exists?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Come. I show you.”