The Emerald Casket (25 page)

‘Kali!' the bandit woman snapped. ‘Enough.' She sat on a log and muttered about teenagers.

Kali gave Gerald a coy smile then sashayed across to her mother.

Gerald gazed after her as if in a dream
. She likes me
…

He suddenly realised Ruby was standing right in front of him. She smacked him across the forehead with a sharp
thwack
.

‘Oi!' she said. ‘Concentrate.'

‘Yes,' Gerald said. ‘Yes, must concentrate.'

Hoskins glowered at them. ‘Now, Gerald, what have you told the Gupta girl about the fraternity?'

‘Nothing. How could I?' Gerald protested. ‘I don't know anything about it myself.'

‘Think!' Hoskins said. ‘This is important.'

Gerald's mind was awash with too many questions to be coming up with any answers.

‘Alisha knows that the fraternity wants Gerald to join them.' Everyone looked at Sam. He sat staring into the embers.

‘We were talking about it when you two went to get food at the train station,' Sam said. ‘She was fiddling about with her mobile phone and said it was kind of neat that Gerald was going to join a fraternity. Then she asked if I knew much about it. I didn't think anything of it, but—'

‘Of course,' Gerald said. ‘She would have heard Fry talking about it in the shop at Agra.'

Hoskins muttered under his breath. ‘And what exactly did Mr Fry have to say, the great pillock?'

‘He mentioned a phone call he'd overheard between Great Aunt Geraldine and some man. About whether I was ready. Or something.'

Hoskins turned his back and bellowed a ten second curse-laden tirade into the dark. Gerald, Ruby and Sam stared at him with eyes like dinner plates.

‘Trust bleedin' Fry to be listening in,' Hoskins said.

‘That was you on the phone?' Gerald said. ‘You're the one who wanted to know if I was ready.'

Hoskins studied Gerald's face in the firelight. Over near the tents, one of the horses whinnied. ‘Well? Are you?'

Gerald couldn't believe his frustration. ‘Ready for
what
?'

Hoskins squatted and picked up a stick. He prodded the base of the fire. Sparks arced into the air. He laid another log across the top.

‘You've got this far on your own,' he said at last. ‘You're ready enough.'

Gerald bounced to his feet. ‘Ready for WHAT?'

Hoskins retrieved a beaten rectangular tin from his pocket. He popped the lid and tossed a peppermint into his mouth. All the time, he didn't take his eyes from Gerald's face.

‘Ready to keep a promise,' he said at last.

Gerald looked like he was ready to explode.

Hoskins held up a hand. ‘I'll tell you what I know. Then, if you want, you can scream at me till your tonsils pop.'

He settled on the third log in the triangle and stared into the flames.

‘We're part of a promise,' he said. ‘A promise that was made a long time ago. Your great aunt. You. Even your rotten cousins—you're all part of a family pledge that has stretched across sixteen centuries.'

Gerald thought about the cousins he'd met for the first time after his great aunt's funeral—Zebedee and Octavia. He shuddered to think he shared any DNA with them.

‘The story my father told me is the one that his father told him,' Hoskins said. ‘And the one that I will tell you now.'

‘Does that mean we're related?' Gerald interrupted. Trying to keep track of his family was becoming increasingly difficult.

‘Very distant cousins,' Hoskins said. ‘There's some happy news for you.'

Sam snuffled and grinned. ‘Think you can contain yourself, Gerald?'

Hoskins transferred his glare to Sam. ‘The question is can you contain yourself? Or do I have to find a container for you?'

Sam swallowed and huddled back onto the log.

Hoskins' face glowed red in the firelight. Shadows danced in the pouches under his eyes and his voice dropped to a ghost-story whisper.

‘The tale my father told me has enough holes in it to sink a supertanker. Most of it is probably wrong and the rest highly inaccurate. But it's all we've got.'

The fire crackled and spat. All eyes were focused on Mr Hoskins.

Ruby spoke. ‘Is this the story about Quintus Antonius and his sons? And how they escaped Rome with three caskets after some secret mission for the emperor went wrong?'

Hoskins jolted in his spot. ‘How did you know about that?'

Ruby tried to keep a straight face. ‘Professor McElderry told us. He and some friend at the Vatican library figured it out.'

Even in the firelight, Gerald could tell that Hoskins' face had gone white.

‘You know about the three caskets?'

‘Yep. And how one of them came to India and is now buried in a lost city on the coast,' Gerald said.

‘Your great aunt knew the legends better than me,' Mr Hoskins said. ‘For some reason she saw fit not to share that knowledge. And now a lot of the story has gone with her to the grave.'

Gerald sensed Hoskins wasn't entirely happy with Great Aunt Geraldine.

‘The fraternity was forged by the three sons of Quintus,' Hoskins continued, ‘Gaius, Lucius and Marcus. Three brothers, three arms. It was Marcus who came to India, about 400AD, on a Roman trading ship. He was on the run. He jumped ship when he found a quiet fishing village in southern India. All he had with him were the clothes on his back and a casket.'

‘An emerald casket,' Gerald said. ‘At least one that's opened with an emerald.'

‘He hid it with great care,' Hoskins said. ‘Marcus wanted to lie low—you don't cross a Roman emperor and expect to live for long. He became a stonemason, married and had a family. But even so, the story of the Roman visitor was well known in the region. For many years they lived in peace. But then another boat came to the village. And this time no one on board looked like a merchant. The moment Marcus heard of its arrival he called his children together and told them the family secret.'

Gerald interrupted. ‘Family secret? Mason Green said something about a family secret in the chamber under Beaconsfield.'

Hoskins' face darkened. ‘Sir Mason Green is remarkably well informed.'

‘So what is it?' Gerald asked. ‘What's the big secret?'

Hoskins again prodded at the fire, seemingly mesmerised by the bend and twist of the flames.

‘I don't know,' he said.

‘What!' Sam said. ‘Why not?'

‘Because it's a secret, bonehead. That's the point. Marcus told his children about the casket, about how he'd smuggled it to India and hidden it. He made them swear never to reveal its location. And they never did. The only thing the fraternity members needed to know was that the contents of the casket had to be protected.'

‘That boatload of Romans,' Ruby said. ‘They were after the casket, weren't they?'

Hoskins nodded. ‘And after Marcus. On the orders of the emperor himself, the story goes. Something must have gone wrong back in Rome. That's why the brothers left in a hurry. The emperor sent a band of assassins to hunt them down.'

‘What's in the casket?' Gerald asked.

‘No one knows,' Hoskins said.

The bandit woman spoke up from her place by the fire. ‘It's the mantra. All the myths point to it.'

‘Rubbish,' Hoskins said. ‘You listen to too much gossip.'

‘What mantra is that?' Ruby asked.

‘The Sanjivini mantra,' the woman said in a hushed voice. ‘Once recited, it has the power to—'

‘Bring the dead back to life!' Ruby said. ‘Remember, Gerald? It was in my travel guide.'

‘Is that what Green's after?' Gerald said. ‘The secret to eternal life?'

‘Well, you thought the Holy Grail was hidden in the diamond casket,' Ruby said.

‘And I was wrong, wasn't I. Be serious—a mantra that brings the dead back to life! What's Green going to do? Raise a zombie army to take over the world?'

Sam's eyes widened. ‘That would be so cool!'

Gerald and Ruby stared at him. His smile faded. ‘Sorry,' he mumbled.

Gerald turned to Hoskins. ‘The fraternity was formed to protect the secret. Okay, I get it. But what have you got against the Guptas?'

‘Plenty,' Hoskins said. ‘Before the assassins arrived in the village, their leader visited the palace of the Indian king, as an emissary from Rome. That king was Chandra-Gupta II.'

‘Alisha's relative?' Sam said.

‘He'd heard the stories of the Roman who settled in one of the southern villages. When he was told that Marcus had some great treasure, Chandra-Gupta led the assassins straight to him on the promise of a share of the spoils. Marcus was captured and tortured. But he never revealed the location of the casket.'

The bandit woman spoke from the other side of the fire. ‘The leader of the assassins was the emperor's favourite killer. A man named Octavius Viridian. By all accounts, he was a heartless beast. He slaughtered Marcus and went after his children. But they escaped and the location of the casket became lost in the centuries.' She spat onto the dirt in disgust. ‘The Guptas are no friends of the fraternity.'

‘I don't understand,' Ruby said. ‘What could be so valuable that you'd die rather than give it up?'

Gerald thought of the golden rod that had been hidden in the diamond casket.

‘I've got something to say…'

For the next five minutes the only thing to be heard around the campfire was Gerald's voice as he described in quiet detail the brain-splintering vision that he'd experienced when Green touched the rod to his forehead. He tried to give a sense of the sub-atomic annihilation, of his very core being atomised and sprayed throughout the universe. He maintained eye contact with a spot thirty centimetres in front of his boots for the duration of the story.

When he finished there was silence.

Gerald looked to Hoskins. ‘I'm a direct descendant of one of the original fraternity members, of Gaius. The visions I've been having, the effect the golden rod had on me, you asking whether I'm ready or not—does this mean I'm some sort of chosen one?'

Hoskins looked Gerald long and hard in the eye. Then he burst into laughter.

‘Chosen one!' he howled with glee. ‘Bit full of yourself, aren't you, sunshine?
Chosen one
…pffft!'

‘I just thought that, you know, since you wanted to know if I was ready, and you didn't ask my cousins to do it, that I might be—you know—special?'

Hoskins pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. His belly still heaved.

‘Special? We didn't ask Zebedee because he's as slow as a fat woman in the biscuit aisle. And we didn't ask Octavia because she couldn't find her own bum using two hands.'

‘What? So I was last man standing?'

‘Basically, yes.' Hoskins saw the hurt in Gerald's eyes. ‘Oh, get over yourself. I'm a descendant of Marcus Antonius and you don't see me jabbering on about special powers. Your great aunt thought you were destined for great things, that the gods had plans for you. That's why she paid for you and your parents to migrate to Australia just after you were born—to keep you out of harm's way. But I don't hold truck with all that nonsense.'

‘Why didn't you tell me this before?' Gerald asked. ‘What's with all the riddles and mystery? Where's the trust?'

‘Don't talk to me about trust!' Hoskins bellowed. ‘Your flamin' great aunt wasn't a big one for trusting anyone, excepting herself. And look where it got her. I guarantee Geraldine knew the location of the lost city, but she wasn't telling. Wouldn't pass on the family secret. We could be there now, protecting the casket from the marauding hands of Mason Green. Sixteen hundred years it's been hidden and now we're going to lose it. Thanks to her.' Hoskins glared at Gerald. ‘That is, unless you've got some amazing insight you'd like to share with us, chosen one.'

There was a shocked silence around the campfire. Ruby moved to put an arm round Gerald's shoulders. ‘I believe you, Gerald. We've seen you go into a trance. You are kind of special.'

‘I think he's very special,' Kali purred from behind a curtain of flame and sparks.

Gerald looked at the bandit girl smiling at him with controlling eyes, then across at Hoskins still seething in the smoke. He had a growing sense of being used. It was time to take the lead.

‘So the fraternity doesn't know where the casket is hidden?' Gerald said.

‘It could be anywhere in southern India,' Hoskins said.

Gerald turned to Kali. ‘And you've been trying to find out how much the Guptas know about it.'

She raised a finger to her chest, all innocence. ‘Who? Me?'

‘It was you who broke into Constable Lethbridge's house and stole his notebook. You wanted to know what Mr Gupta told the police after the
Noor Jehan
diamond was stolen—whether he gave any hint about another casket. And you found something, didn't you?'

The smile vanished from Kali's eyes, but she said nothing.

‘Something in that notebook convinced you the Guptas must know about the emerald casket. But you needed to find out more. So you decided to kidnap Alisha. Maybe ransom her in exchange for some information from her father. But you didn't count on Interpol following us. And when Agent Leclerc helped free Alisha, you dropped this.' Gerald unzipped his pocket and pulled out the dagger.

Kali gasped. Her face lit up. She took a step towards Gerald.

But Gerald wasn't handing anything over.

‘Then you thought you better have another crack at Alisha at the Taj Mahal. Where you also thought it was okay to shoot at me.'

Kali was unrepentant. ‘Did I hit you?' she asked.

‘No.'

‘Then you've got nothing to complain about.'

Gerald stared at the girl across the fire. ‘But we escaped. So finally you hijacked the train. And here we all are. One big happy family.'