‘Hero?’
‘I can’t see it. The light’s terrible.’
‘In the morning I’ll tell Boke I’m too sick to travel. That will give you enough time to search by daylight.’
‘I’m not sure I can summon the courage to make another attempt.’
Hero worked his way back to the head of the stairway without finding the carving. He sat on the topmost step, placed the lamp beside him and hissed through his teeth. The gospel must be here, probably within touching distance. Walter had been in no state to invent the details about the bastillion and the carved stone.
The lamp spluttered and the flame dwindled. Hero watched it, darkness closing in. Very carefully he tilted the lamp, holding his breath until the flame waxed bright again. He looked up with a sigh of relief and in the same moment some belated impression registered. Frowning, he slid down to the next step and ran his hand over a stone inset into the wall at knee level. He angled the lamp to pick out the chiselled relief of a lion-headed figure standing on a stone ball entwined with snakes – Mithras, the Persian sun god adopted by the Romans.
Vallon struck a flint. Light pooled in the well below.
‘I’ve found the stone.’
‘Good. Grab the documents and let’s get out of here. This place gives me the willies.’
The stone wasn’t part of the original construction. Walter had pushed it into the wall without mortar, leaving gaps wide enough for Hero to insert his fingers. It slid out easily, revealing a deep cavity. He reached in and contacted something smooth and cold that made him gasp and pull back his hand as if it had been burned.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Something in the hole … I have a nasty feeling …’
He pushed the lamp up to the aperture and laid his head to the paving so that he could look in. Dull black eyes stared back at him.
‘Hero, what’s going on?’
‘There’s a snake inside.’
‘Christ!’
‘It’s curled up on a package.’
‘What kind of snake?’
‘A rock viper. Venomous. I think it’s asleep.’
‘Kill it and get yourself down here. Now.’
Hero studied the viper. Its head rested on its coiled body, slitted eyes regarding him with a cold and lidless stare. He drew his knife and extended it. The snake didn’t move. Hero didn’t trust himself to kill it. He touched it with the blade and it gave a torpid stir. Placing the point behind it, he drew the snake towards him. Its tongue flickered and the coils began to unwind. He flicked it out of the hole and it hissed. With an indrawn cry, he scooped it off the step with his foot. It hit the floor with a flaccid smack.
‘I’ve dealt with it.’
‘The damn thing nearly landed on me.’
Hero was reaching into the aperture when it occurred to him that where one snake had gone to hibernate, others might be nesting. His lamp made faint popping sounds and the flame drew down the wick. Before it went out, he grabbed the packet, held it to his chest and clamped his eyes shut.
‘Hero?’
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Thank God. Careful how you descend.’
Hero tucked the package inside his tunic. Not trusting his feet in the dark, he eased down the staircase on his rump, step by step – like a baby. Vallon held up his own lamp, his shadow enormous on the walls. Hero reached the top edge of the collapsed section and pawed at the rubble. Infill spilled away.
‘You’ll have to take it at a run,’ Vallon said.
Hero launched himself down the slope, felt his feet skid from under him and toppled into space. A long moment of weightlessness before a jarring collision that filled his head with starbursts of disconnected memory.
‘Hero, are you hurt?’
He sat up groaning and gingerly flexed his limbs. ‘I don’t think so. The fall’s scattered my wits. I can recall something that happened to me when I was about three as if it were yesterday. Two of my sisters rolled me down the stairs.’
‘If you have any wits left, use them to get out.’
Hero felt the package. He picked himself up and stumbled towards the doorway. Vallon grasped his wrist and yanked him out. ‘Have you still got it?’
Hero’s head cleared. The shores of the lake lay blanched by moon-
light. Sparks whirled up from the Seljuks’ fire. He patted his chest and nodded.
They staggered towards their campsite, Vallon peg-legging on his crutch. He sank down with a groan and Hero muffled him in a blanket before lighting a fire. Flames crackled through the scrub. They pulled themselves close to the heat and Hero placed a pot of rice on the flames. Vallon blew through puckered lips and hunched his shoulders. ‘God, it’s cold.’
Hero kept feeling the package under his tunic.
Vallon gestured. ‘Aren’t you going to look at it?’
‘Don’t you think we should wait until we’re out of Seljuk territory?’
Vallon glanced towards their escorts’ camp. ‘Boke can’t read or write. It won’t mean a thing to him. Let’s see what we’ve got.’
Hero took out the package and undid the wrapping. Inside were two documents, one a letter, the other a book in codex form. He took out the letter first. ‘It’s the same writing material as Prester John’s letter, the same script.’
‘What does it say?’
Hero squinted. ‘Here’s a description of a desert that travellers must cross before they reach his realm.
There is a waterless sea and its billows are of sand that surge in waves and never rest. In this desert dwell many imps and demons. Three days’ journey from the sea of sand you must ascend a waterless river of stones … ’
‘What about the gospel? That’s what interests me.’
Hero hid the letter in the casket’s secret compartment and opened the book. ‘It’s written in old Greek on papyrus.’
‘Read it.’
‘The ink’s faded. I need more light.’
Vallon heaped the fire with what remained of the scrub. Flames flared four feet high. Hero held the pages towards them. ‘The beginning is just as Cosmas transcribed it, and then it says:
These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Judas Thomas called Didymus wrote them and said, “Whoever finds the interpretations of these words shall not taste death”.
’
He turned the page, tracing the text with his fingers. ‘This is interesting. It’s a section describing Jesus’s boyhood and education. None of the other gospels does that.’
‘A rare prize indeed.’
The fire was already beginning to die down. Hero held the book closer to the light and selected a page at random. He peered at the script, his lips moving.
Vallon shuffled closer. ‘Don’t keep it to yourself.’
Hero spoke softly, almost tentatively. ‘
Jesus said to his disciples: “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”
‘Simon Peter answered, “You are like a righteous angel.”
‘Matthew replied, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
‘Thomas was troubled and said, “Master, my mouth is incapable of saying whom you are like.”
‘Then Jesus took Thomas aside and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas replied, “If I told you even one of the things which he told me, you will gather stones and throw them at me. A fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.
”’
Vallon leaned forward, intent. ‘What was it that Jesus told him?’
Hero had been moving the book closer and closer to the waning light. ‘It’s no good. I can’t see.’
‘I’ll light a lamp,’ said Vallon. He pulled a glowing stub from the fire and got a lamp burning. He handed it to Hero. ‘Go on from where you stopped. What secrets did Jesus tell Thomas?’
Hero illuminated the page and peered at it. His eyes rose wide with wonder and his mouth opened.
Vallon laughed. ‘What? Are the secrets so profound that you can’t share them with a hell-bound sinner?’
But Hero wasn’t looking at Vallon. His hand rose trembling. ‘Sir.’
Vallon whirled. Black against the stars a dozen mounted figures advanced. ‘Holy God!’
Faruq rode up at the centre of the Seljuk line. ‘Did you really think you could outwit his Excellency?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Give it to me.’
‘It’s only an old book that Hero reads to me at night to pass the time.’
‘Give it to me.’
Hero handed it over. Faruq flicked through the pages. ‘What is it?’
‘I told you – a book of stories that help while away the hours of darkness.’
Chinua assisted Faruq off his horse. The Chief Secretary held the
gospel over the embers. ‘Then you won’t lose anything more than idle entertainment if I burn it.’
Hero and Vallon didn’t speak.
Faruq dropped the gospel onto the embers. Hero flung himself forward, grabbed the book and brushed away the sparks. Chinua aimed his sword at his throat and tore the gospel from his grasp.
‘Stories,’ said Faruq. ‘His Excellency knew that you hadn’t told him the whole story.’ He slapped the book against his hand. ‘I ask you for the last time – what is it? Why is it so important?’
Vallon met Hero’s eyes, conceding surrender. ‘It’s a lost gospel. The Gospel of Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples. Walter came by it in Armenia and agreed to give it to Cosmas if he raised the ransom.’
Faruq held the book up to the stars. ‘You came into his Excellency’s realm to steal a Christian book.’ He shook his head. ‘That is a very serious crime. Very serious.’
Hero lunged to his feet. ‘Vallon knew nothing about the gospel when he set out on this mission. Cosmas told me about it but I didn’t share the secret until well into our journey. If anyone should suffer, let it be me.’
Faruq regarded them. ‘What else did you take from the tower?’
Vallon sat with his back to him, staring into the embers. ‘Nothing.’
Faruq nodded at Chinua. ‘Search them.’
Chinua took Hero’s chest and passed it to Faruq. He explored its contents, stroked its carved lid, tapped the sides. Hero watched with bated breath, certain that a man of Faruq’s sophistication would suspect it contained a secret compartment. Faruq looked at him. ‘You took nothing else?’
‘Only the gospel.’
Faruq laid down the chest. His men hoisted him back into the saddle. He raised a finger. ‘His Excellency will be disappointed that you lied to him.’
Hero and Vallon waited for the pronouncement of punishment. The moon stood high above the centre of the lake, its mottled face mirrored on the still waters.
Vallon shrugged. ‘His Excellency will be delighted to be proved right.’
Faruq smiled. ‘It would be too much trouble to take you to the Emir to stand trial.’ He tucked the gospel under one arm. ‘I will keep
this and you can go on to Constantinople.’ He began turning his horse, pulled it back. ‘I almost forgot. My ruby ring. It was a gift from the Emir. It means a lot to me.’
Vallon dug it out and held it up without speaking. Faruq slipped it on and gave an order. The Seljuks swung round and rode towards Boke’s camp.
Vallon huddled over their own miserable fire, right hand trying to tug the blanket over his left shoulder. An owl shrieked from the top of the tower and jackals yipped out on the plain.
Hero rose and arranged the blanket. Vallon lifted his eyes and saw his devastated hopes mirrored in Hero’s blasted stare. He cupped his hands over his face and shook his head. ‘Don’t say anything. Let’s just sit in silence.’
In the morning they woke to find themselves alone, the Seljuk camp deserted and the road empty in both directions. They ate breakfast in a continuation of last night’s despondent silence, then Vallon went through the laborious business of getting into the saddle.
Hero mounted his own horse. ‘Which way?’
Vallon turned his horse north.
‘What about Caitlin? She’ll be waiting for you.’
Vallon kept going. ‘Waiting for what? Look at me. A helpless cripple. Even my plans to join the Varangians lie in tatters. No one would employ a soldier in my condition.’
Hero caught up. ‘She knows what condition you’re in. She still wants to be with you. I heard her declaration of devotion.’
‘A declaration made in the heat of passion. By now she’ll have had time to reflect and her head will rule that she can make a far better match.’
Hero pranced ahead so that he could look into Vallon’s eyes. ‘You don’t know that for sure. At least give her the chance to make her wishes known.’
Vallon’s dull stare remained fixed straight ahead. ‘We made an
agreement. If we found the gospel, I would return. We haven’t got it and so I go on.’
‘She might not want to remain in Suleyman’s court.’
‘She has enough silver to reach Constantinople in comfort.’ Vallon waved his good hand. ‘Forget Caitlin.’
Hero dropped back alongside Vallon. Another fine day, a cloudless porcelain sky over the blinding white salt flats. Flamingos flocked across Salt Lake in lines of bright crimson script. Vallon plodded on, aware that Hero kept glancing at him. ‘I told you I don’t want to hear another word.’
‘It’s not Caitlin I’m thinking about.’
‘What then?’
‘I’ve been thinking about the gospel.’
Vallon uttered a hollow laugh. ‘So have I.’
‘Not like that.’ Hero hesitated. ‘I’m not sure you’ll want to hear my thoughts.’
‘You can’t make its loss any more painful.’
Hero drew breath, held it, then released it all at once. ‘I don’t think we would have been able to sell it. That is, nobody in the Church would buy it.’
Vallon stared at him. ‘You told me that it’s one of the most important books ever written.’
‘Important for the wrong reason. If someone did buy it, they would do so only to suppress it. Destroy it.’
‘Suppress the testament of one of the apostles? Destroy a piece of the Bible?’
‘The Bible is the word of God, but the Church decides what words it wants the world to hear. After reflecting on the sections of the Thomas gospel I was able to read, I’ve concluded that the ecclesiastical authorities wouldn’t want to share them with their flock.’
‘Explain.’
‘First, all four canonical gospels state that Jesus was the son of a humble carpenter and Luke says he practised the trade himself. None of them discuss his boyhood or upbringing. They must have had some knowledge of his early life, yet they chose to draw a veil over it. Not Thomas, though. He says that Jesus was the son of a
tekton
, a master mason or architect who was also a teacher of the Torah, and that Jesus was educated in Jewish law, becoming an eminent rabbi.’