Vallon winced as his left foot jarred against his horse’s flank. ‘Are you saying that Thomas was a liar and his gospel a fake?’
‘No. In fact, I think his version is more convincing than the others. Remember Luke’s story of how, when Jesus was twelve, his parents lost him in Jerusalem? After five days they discovered him in the Temple, astonishing the scholars with his knowledge of religious matters. The elders would have recruited such a prodigy into their schools, singling him out as a future leader. Elsewhere in the gospels, he’s frequently described as “Rabbi” or “Doctor of Law”. Respected Jewish scholars come to hear him preach. They wouldn’t do that with a carpenter.’
‘I don’t see why the Church would reject the gospel because Thomas claims that Jesus was a great scholar and teacher. The opposite, I would have thought.’
‘That’s not the only way in which it differs from the Biblical accounts. Thomas calls Jesus “the Son of Man” rather than the “Son of God”. That’s an important distinction, one that challenges the belief that Jesus was truly divine. Another thing. Thomas refers to Jesus as
chrêstos
, spelled with an
ê
, rather than
christos
, with an
i
. The two words are pronounced the same but mean different things.
Christos
with an
i
means the “anointed one” – the Messiah sent by God to proclaim the Second Coming.
Chrêstos
with an
ê
simply means “good”.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘One of my uncles is a priest. For a time I was destined for the Church.’
‘Well, I’m no book scholar, but it seems to me that you’re splitting hairs.’
‘That’s what theologians do. They’ve been doing it for a thousand years and the result is the faith as practised today, down to the last liturgical detail. Anything that doesn’t fit the official version has no place in the canon. The schism between Rome and Constantinople is a good example. Do you know what caused it?’
Vallon thought. ‘I have no idea.’
‘The main doctrinal issue concerns a single word,
filioque
, which the Roman Church added to the Nicene Creed. It means “and the son” and appears in the affirmation “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” What it does is emphasise that Jesus, the Son, is of equal divinity with
God, the Father. The Eastern Church won’t accept the addition, concentrating on the supremacy of God the Father. For five hundred years they’ve been arguing about that word.’
‘So the Church only hears what it wants to hear.’
‘Precisely. It would take an enormous weight of evidence for the authorities to alter the accepted gospel story by so much as a jot. One book discovered by adventurers in Anatolia wouldn’t be enough.’
‘Not for Rome perhaps. The Greek Church might be more receptive.’
Hero shook his head. ‘Whatever their other differences, both Churches would treat any book that emphasised Christ’s human nature as a loathsome heresy.’
‘So if we still had the gospel and tried to sell it, we might be burned as heretics.’
‘I don’t think they’d go that far. They’d probably burn the gospel, though.’
Vallon plodded on in silence for a while. ‘Hero, if that was meant to console me, it hasn’t worked.’
‘I thought you’d want to know.’
‘You only read a few passages. Cosmas had the opportunity to study the entire book. He was a learned man. He must have noticed the same problems as you, yet it didn’t quench his desire to get his hands on it.’
‘He sought the truth above all things. Perhaps he found in Thomas some revelation that would shake Christendom to its foundations.’
‘Such as the secrets that Thomas said would strike fire from the rocks.’
‘Possibly. Or it might have been something else, some revelation concerning Jesus’s death and resurrection.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m not sure I dare speak it aloud. It’s blasphemous.’
‘Don’t worry about the fate of my soul. Come on, spit it out.’
‘Very well.’ Hero composed his thoughts. ‘Several sources say that Thomas evangelised in India and made many converts on the coast. Cosmas met some of the communities and he visited Thomas’s shrine near a city called Madras. These Christians call themselves “the Christians of St Thomas”, but Cosmas told me that they belong to the Nestorian sect.’
‘I know little about them except that the Latin Church denounces them as heretics.’
‘Of the most damnable kind. Nestorius lived four centuries later than Thomas, and like him had doubts about Jesus’s divinity. Even though he was the Patriarch of Constantinople, he preached that Christ had two distinct natures, one divine, one human, and that mankind would find redemption not in Christ’s divinity, but in Jesus’s human life of temptation and suffering. The Orthodox Church found Nestorius’s humanisation of Jesus scandalous and at a council called by the pope they stripped him of his office. His teachings spread, though, east into Persia and on into India. I think the Christian communities there embraced them so readily because they were very similar to the doctrine taught in the Gospel of Thomas.’
Vallon turned it over in his mind. ‘But that wouldn’t shake Christendom. Where’s the revelation?’
‘I really don’t think I should speculate any further.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
‘What could it have been that made Thomas doubt Jesus’s divinity?’
‘Don’t ask me. I know my creed and paternoster and that’s the limit of my learning.’
‘There’s a clue in the Bible, in the Gospel of St John, where he describes how the resurrected Christ showed himself to all the disciples except Thomas. Remember?’
‘Of course! Doubting Thomas. He refused to believe that Christ had risen from the dead until he saw Him in the flesh and felt his wounds with his hands.’ Vallon gave Hero a sharp look. ‘He doubted, and then Jesus banished his doubts. We’re no further forward.’
Hero didn’t answer.
Vallon glanced at the sky as though he suspected a heavenly eavesdropper. He leaned slightly towards Hero and dropped his voice. ‘Are you saying that Thomas didn’t see the risen Christ?’
‘I’m saying that if he witnessed the resurrection, he could have had no reason to doubt Jesus’s divinity.’
Vallon dropped his voice further still. ‘You mean Thomas says that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? That he was mortal like any man?’
‘It’s speculation, nothing more.’
Vallon leaned back and crossed himself. ‘Dark waters. Well, we’ll never have a chance to go deeper. By now the gospel will be ashes.’
‘I’m not so sure. I think the Seljuks will hide it away in a library. A
thousand years have passed since it was written. Who knows? A thousand years from now, it might surface again.’
The end of the lake came in sight. Vallon heard Hero sigh, saw him shake his head.
‘What’s troubling you now?’
Hero grimaced. ‘I loved Richard, feared and hated Drogo and for Walter felt nothing but contempt. But I can’t help being distressed at the thought of their parents waiting in Northumberland for the return of their sons, not knowing that none of them will come home again. As much as I hate the prospect, I feel it’s my duty to write and bring their futile waiting to a close.’
Vallon had nothing to add on the matter. ‘I was recalling Aaron’s pre -diction that our enterprise was doomed to failure. He was right.’ Vallon frowned. ‘Nearly right. We’re no worse off than when we started out.’
Hero snapped out of his musings. ‘We’re better off by far. We have enough silver to take us to Constantinople, and we still have Prester John’s letter.’
Vallon’s own spirits lifted. ‘Do you really believe that he dines at a gold and amethyst table and sleeps in a sapphire bed and rides into battle perched on a golden castle borne by an elephant?’
Hero laughed. ‘I suspect that his royal sublimity has stretched the truth a little.’
‘The priest-king’s a weaver of fantasies, peddling dreams to feed our craving for the unknown. He probably dwells in a mud fort and eats porridge off bare boards.’
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
Vallon eyed him asquint. ‘I would have thought that you’d done enough travelling. Haven’t you followed enough wilderness rivers and crossed enough deserts?’
‘If only a tenth of Prester John’s claims are true, it would be a journey worth making.’
‘You look as if you’re already planning it.’
Hero shook his head. ‘One day, perhaps.’
‘Don’t ask me to join you. This expedition has cured any lingering wanderlust I might have had.’
Hero smiled. ‘The day we met, you said that a journey is just a tiresome passage between one place and another.’
‘I wasn’t wrong, was I? You can’t deny that the last year has been the most uncomfortable, the most painful, the most unprofitable of your life.’
‘Also the most instructive and exciting. Admit it, sir. There’s satisfaction in having completed a journey no other man has made.’
Vallon nodded reluctantly. ‘There is that. We both have a stock of tales to last us until we turn old and grey.’
They rode on, Vallon scanning the empty ridgelines with a soldier’s caution. ‘Not all rivers end in the sea.’
Hero had been miles away. He blinked. Vallon was pointing at the lake.
‘We talked one night in England of how men’s lives follow a course like a river, finally ending weak and tired in the sea.’
‘I remember.’
‘This lake has no outlet. The rivers that enter it will never reach the sea.’
Hero saw Richard’s shrouded corpse drifting out of the Dnieper estuary. ‘Richard’s journey ended in the sea. He was only seventeen. His journey had hardly begun.’
‘Every journey, no matter how short or long, has a beginning and an end. Some travellers stride out on a journey and die happy, having failed to reach their destination. Others spend years striving to attain some blissful goal only to realise when they’ve reached it that it wasn’t the place they were looking for.’
Hero’s eyes flooded. ‘I wish they were all here. I wish the journey wasn’t over.’
Vallon took his arm gently. ‘Come on. You and I still have a long way to go.’
They reached the northern shore of Salt Lake and turned west over a fly-specked plateau, following their shadows across the empty highland. Looking back, Vallon saw the summits of the twin peaks shining with the soft lustre of a fire opal, the same colours as his gem. Far back down their trail a column of dust had appeared. He reined in, his mouth dry with hope and dread.
Miles before it reached them, the dust cloud turned north, gradually dispersing. Unknown travellers following their own path.
Vallon turned back to the west.
Hero remained where he was. ‘You hoped it was her.’
‘It wasn’t. Let’s go.’
‘You still have time to return. Tomorrow will be too late for anything but regrets.’
Vallon’s face twitched. ‘What do you know about affairs of the heart?’
Hero’s features set. ‘I know about love.’
Vallon lifted a hand in apology. ‘Forgive me. Of course you do.’
‘Sir, you mustn’t wait on her to follow you. It’s not gallant. If you love her, go back.’
‘The day we met you said I was suffering from lovesickness.’
‘I wasn’t wrong then. I’m not wrong now. If you don’t find her, you’ll never be happy.’
Vallon sat his horse, tortured with indecision. ‘I can’t leave you to travel to Constantinople on your own.’
‘I’m not the one who needs care. You can’t even mount or dismount without my help.’
Vallon looked up. ‘You don’t mind retracing our steps all that weary way?’
Hero rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve been trying to persuade you to do nothing else.’
Vallon eyed the sun, excitement rising. ‘If we press hard, we should be back at the tower before dark. With luck, we’ll reach Konya in three days.’
They were back in sight of Salt Lake’s north shore when Vallon spotted a smudge of dust approaching from the south. He watched it draw closer. ‘Two riders moving fast.’
Hero screwed up his eyes. ‘Is it Caitlin?’
‘Too far to tell.’
Vallon watched the riders approach, his heart beating with painful thuds. The riders took on shape, then form resolved into features. He covered his eyes, overcome by faintness. ‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘Caitlin and Wayland.’
Hero whooped. ‘Aren’t you glad you turned back? Now you can meet her with your honour intact.’
‘She’ll probably take one look at me and ride on with her nose in the air, just as she did the day I first saw her.’ Vallon glared at Hero. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Two days ago you fought a contest with a broken arm and a torn tendon. Yet watching your beloved approach, you quake like a timorous youth.’
‘Fighting’s easy. Giving your heart to another isn’t – not for someone with my bloody history.’
Hero sobered. They waited. Wayland and Caitlin galloped up in a breathless hurry, faces pale with dust. Caitlin wore plain garments and no jewellery. No one spoke at first.
Hero broke the silence. ‘We’re sorry you had to travel so far to catch up.’
Caitlin guided her horse alongside Vallon and stared hard into his face. ‘Wayland told me that whatever you were looking for was hidden in the tower we passed half a day since. You were riding away, weren’t you? You weren’t going to come back for me.’
Vallon contemplated the ground. ‘I was sure you’d reject me.’ He looked up. ‘But in the end I had to hear it from your own lips.’
Caitlin’s features rippled in exasperation. ‘I gave you my decision. How many times more do I have to tell you?’ She looked around. ‘I take it you didn’t find what you were looking for.’
Vallon shrugged. ‘Found it, lost it.’
‘What was it?’
‘A book. Even if we’d kept it, it turns out to be less valuable than we’d hoped. All our wealth is contained in the silver Wayland won with his hawk.’
‘That’s more silver than most folk see in a lifetime.’
‘What happened to the jewels Suleyman lavished on you?’
‘The eunuch who rules his harem took them back.’ Caitlin gave an enigmatic smile and laid a hand on Vallon’s wrist. ‘All except the gold and jade girdle,’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t letting
that
go.’