Solomon's Throne (7 page)

“That’s what he said, ‘what you had sought for so long?’”

“
Sim.
Why should he say more? We are committed to this quest through our vows. It is well known among the brothers.”

Gideon looked at Rei, unsure whether to tell this man about the journal or not. He would be going to jail, a fate that he seemed to have no interest in fighting. Or he’d starve himself do death. But it certainly seemed that he would be both isolated from his “brothers” and compelled to silence.

“What’s your name, signor?”

The man looked at Gideon, and then Rei. He seemed defeated, both by his confession of sorts, and the failure of his sect to contain the information in the letter. Apparently it had never occurred to those in the order that the letter would or could be copied.

“Petros. I am Brother Petros. That is all. We die to our former lives when we join the order. We are only the brothers.” He rubbed his fingers lovingly over the tattoo on his forearm.

“What is the name of the order?” Gideon asked.

Petros shook his head. “No. I cannot say that. We cannot ever say that. No.”

Gideon looked at Rei. It was worth a shot… She flashed him a small smile.

Rei had her laptop open on the small table in the internet cafe they’d found a block from the police station. Espresso cups were scattered around, and Gideon was finishing a tortilla. He wiped his mouth and looked at his wife. “Anything?”

“Well, maybe. I have skipped all the way to Father Eduardo’s conversion to Joao Xavier. What it looks like to me is that he found something in or around Goa, and he was able to cash in for a lot of money. I’m guessing he didn’t expose the whole treasure, whatever it was… He seemed to have enough money to be considered wealthy, and to cover his new identity as a trader. But he didn’t have fabulous wealth.”

“The Xaviers have pretty fabulous wealth now,” Gideon said.

“Yes, but by all accounts they’ve earned it. Father Eduardo may have been a poor Jesuit, but Joao Xavier had a mind for business. He started out in the spice trade, of course, and was able to purchase an entire shipload of merchandise to transport back to Lisbon with him when he returned. He came back and made a huge profit, and invested more in shipping. He didn’t travel again himself, but he built up clientele, hired a manager, and expanded into wood products from Africa, silks from Asia, ivory, gemstones…Whatever he could sell.”

“Slaves?” Gideon asked.

“No, it doesn’t appear he ever sold slaves. I’m sure Mr. Xavier is glad about that, anyway.” Rei reworked her unruly hair into a messy bun. “So the bottom line is, he had enough money to get started, but he did pretty well for himself after that. And had smart kids, apparently. So the question is, what did he find, and did he leave a way for anyone else to find it?”

“That’s definitely the question… I think we have to assume that Brother Petros’ order, or at least his abbot, is aware that there is more to this than the letter. I guess I can understand single minded obsession, but it’s hard to believe that a secret order has been hunting for this letter, which, for all intents and purposes, had disappeared and posed no threat. Not for eight hundred years… That just doesn’t make sense to me. These guys are like a cult, separated from their families and friends, single mindedly focused on this quest of theirs. The letter… it just doesn’t feel like enough to motivate the people paying the bills.” Gideon had a headache from all the possible permutations.

“Yeah, I agree. Someone knows there’s a treasure. Someone has known all these years, since the Templars stole the letter. One of them must have said something to someone, or maybe bragged about it. Or maybe they just knew enough about the Templars to know there was probably treasure hidden somewhere. Who knows—people are always looking for the Templars’ hidden treasure. But if we’ve managed to figured it out, they certainly have by no… We just have to beat them to it.” Rei grinned.

Gideon smiled back at her. “They don’t have you, the puzzle solver extraordinaire. And even better, they don’t know we have a copy of everything.”

“I think the latter is better for us than my puzzle solving prowess… So I’d better get on it!” She went back to the laptop, scrolling through the pages of the journal once again.

“Gid! I’ve got something!” Rei was yelling from the suite’s living room to the bedroom. It was 2:00 am.

Gideon came out of the dark room in his boxers, hair spiked and eyes screwed up against the light. He staggered to the sofa. “What?”

Rei was hyper, a combination of copious amounts of coffee and the thrill of discovery. “OK, so I realized I had to start backwards. Father Eduardo found the treasure in Goa somewhere, but then he left Goa and came back to Lisbon. It looks like his route was exactly the same on the return as it had been going, only in reverse. The only place he writes about extensively is Cape Town, and he says he stopped there on both trips. See here?” She pointed to the journal page on the screen, “He says, ‘The Cape of Good Hope has, indeed, given me hope that, beginning, our sons shall be blessed.’ The beginning… It must be where the first clue is.”

Still looking sleepy, Gideon nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

“Right. Now, the Templars would have traveled an overland route to India—no one sailed around the tip until Vasco da Gama in the fifteen hundreds. But Father Eduardo was going by sea, and he knew his sons would go by sea because of the business he’d started. So we can assume that he left clues along the spice route, in the places he stopped on the ships. He wanted someone to find the treasure—he’d had to leave it in Goa for whatever reason, but he wouldn’t have wanted it lost. Especially if it had some kind of religious significance. And I think he was still being watched, if not chased.”

“Why? Wouldn’t he have lost them with all that travel and changing his name and all?”

“Well, there are numerous mentions in the second half of the journal about seeing strange men, men who reminded him of the first one that had chased him from Portugal. He seems to elude them at times, but they always seem to be able to find him again, so they had some kind of funding that allowed them to travel, and to send spies, and communicate. Everything was much slower then, of course, but business was being conducted all over the Portuguese Empire and there were many ships and overland convoys traveling these routes all the time.”

“Hang on a sec…” Gideon went over to the small coffee pot and got coffee brewing. “We know he was writing the clues for his future children, who he would have assumed would live in Portugal, so the clues would follow the shipping route that existed in his day. Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and on to the capital in Goa, right?”

Rei nodded. She pointed to a map of the world displayed on her computer screen, and slid her pen from Portugal, down the west coast of Africa, to the very tip. She opened another window, and a satellite view of southernmost Africa appeared. She tapped her pen against the lowest point of land in the image. “There. Cape Town. Whatever he left, if it’s still in existence, is there. Somewhere.”

Excited, Gideon leaned over her and zoomed in on the Cape. “So where is it?”

Rei sighed. “I have no idea.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Malta

AD 96

T
he family had been in
mourning for two weeks. The body had been washed, treated with herbs, wrapped in yards of white cloth, and laid in the tomb carved from the sandy rock. Achalichus’ brother had put all of the dead man’s belongings into a basket, and laid it aside for his children. There wasn’t much, as Achalichus had been chased out of his homeland by the Romans, who were persecuting the followers of the new religion, most often called simply
‘
The Way.’

Eliyas sat on a simple wooden stool, and looked out onto the beach where his sons and grandsons were making a fishing boat. Shipbuilding, fishing, carpentry… These were good respectable professions for a Jew to follow. Following that Pharisee, Paul, around, being a scribe. Well, that was crazy. Achalichus had never been able to return to Israel, and had spent the remainder of his long life here on Malta, praying and teaching and converting people to his Jesus, until he lost even his memory and sat staring out to sea. Eliyas shook his head.

Ah, but he was a good man, even if misguided. Perhaps God had welcomed him, perhaps not. It was not for Eliyas to say. He had missed his brother for many years, long before his physical body had died. He could feel nothing now but relief for his poor soul, which had been trapped for so long. He didn’t know if all the controversial talk about bodies rising from the dead was true. He didn’t spare much time for such thoughts. But he knew that his brother was free now, and that made him glad.

He had sent a letter to his eldest nephew with the news of his father’s death. Residing in Sicilia, Antonius should arrive soon on a ship to reclaim his father’s possessions. He had not seen Antonius since he was a boy, and now the man was a father, a fisherman, a husband. He was a follower of that Jesus, who some said was the Messiah, too. Bah… How can a Messiah die? He shook his head again. Ridiculous.

Three days later Antonius arrived at his uncle’s home. He was welcomed with open arms by all of his family who resided in Malta, and spent a week being feasted and catching up with all of the births and deaths, triumphs and tragedies. Finally his uncle seemed to remember why he had come, and presented him with a large basket.

“These belonged to your father, to my brother. It is all he had, in the end. He gave up everything when he decided to travel with that Paul fellow, and he never seemed to have the heart to start again when Paul died and the Romans destroyed the Temple.”

Antonius took the basket gratefully. He hadn’t seen his father in many years, since before he had fallen ill. He remembered a man of joy, a hearty man with stories to tell and whose whole hearted belief in Yeshua had converted his children and much of their village. He had nothing of his father’s, and was very thankful that his uncle had preserved these few possessions for him.

Much of the basket contained threadbare clothing, along with one pair of sandals. There were the tools of his trade as a scribe, the quill and wood pens wrapped carefully in a soft leather pouch, and tied with a leather strap. Several scrolls were nestled in a wooden box. Antonius removed them and started to read.

The first was a letter Achalichus had started to write to his wife, Antonius’ mother, who was in Israel, still in their village. While he was writing the letter, it appeared that he received word that she had died, and the letter changed from a missive about his journeys with Paul to a sad and bittersweet goodbye to his beloved. He had not seen her in four years, but he still held love in his heart, and it brought tears to Antonius’ eyes to read the heartfelt goodbye. Neither Antonius nor Achalichus knew if she had accepted Yeshua as the Messiah… and that familiar ache returned as he read the letter.

The second was an inventory of sorts, listing what supplies had been purchased, and for what cost, for one of the missionary journeys. He didn’t see a reason his father had saved this scroll, other than as a reminder of those heady days of joys and persecution with Paul and Barnabas and Timothy. He smiled to think of them, traveling and making converts wherever they went. It must have been an amazing time.