Hawk Quest

LIII

Vallon’s injuries forced him to ride no faster than a plodding walk and it was well after dark when they reached the caravanserai. A pain-racked night and they were on their way again before dawn. They reached Salt Lake as the sun rose like a blood-filled blister on the far shore and jogged north. Vallon rode one-handed, his left foot stirrupless, unable to find any position that didn’t cause spasms of pain. The Seljuks marked time, disgusted at being put in charge of such troublesome passengers. Vallon told Boke that they could find their own way, but the man had his orders and wasn’t going to break them.

The journey along the lake was far longer than they remembered and the light was already leaching from the sky when the bastillion came in sight. Boke detoured past it. Hero caught up and told him that Vallon couldn’t travel any further. They had to make camp now. With ill grace, the Seljuks agreed to call a halt, pointing out a stream half a mile beyond the tower.

‘We’ll stop here,’ Hero called. Boke said they could camp with the devil for all he cared, and led his men away.

‘They probably think the tower’s haunted,’ said Hero.

‘It probably is.’

They studied the bastillion. A round tower about sixty feet high, tapering to its crenellated turret, surrounded by the crumbling walls of a derelict barracks.

‘What was it for?’ Hero asked.

Vallon looked both ways along the lonely road. ‘It must have been a relay station and signal tower.’

‘The light’s going. We don’t have much time.’

The Seljuks had hobbled their horses and were beginning to pitch a tent. ‘They’ll be suspicious if we go into the tower before making camp,’ Vallon said. ‘Collect the makings of a fire.’

He remained mounted while Hero foraged for wood. The sun was touching the horizon when Hero returned and led him to the tower. Hero helped him out of the saddle and he flopped to the ground, his face hollow with pain. Hero felt his forehead and reached to take his pulse. ‘I knew the exertion would be too much for you.’

‘Never mind me. Get the gospel.’

Hero peered in through the arched doorway. Pigeons flapped through the broken roof on clapping wings. The atmosphere was musty with their droppings. Something scurried away over the heaps of masonry covering the floor. Much of the debris had fallen from the staircase spiralling up the ancient walls.

Vallon dragged himself in, holding on to the wall with his right hand. His gaze probed up through the gloom. ‘It’s too dim to see properly. Wait until morning.’

… until morning, said a weak echo.

‘This is our only opportunity,’ Hero said. ‘The Seljuks will leave before dawn.’

He lit an oil lamp and picked his way over the spoil towards the staircase.

‘I can’t help you,’ said Vallon. ‘Are you sure you can manage?’

Hero turned a wan smile. ‘Stay here and warn me if the Seljuks come.’

Vallon glanced at the campfire burning in the gathering dusk. ‘They think it’s a tomb. Wild horses couldn’t drag them in here.’

Hero raised the lamp and followed its shadow up the stairway, stepping with many mutters and hesitations across the gaps. Some of the paving rocked under his weight and he dropped to a crawl. He came to a section where a dozen treads had collapsed, leaving a steep glacis of rubble. He took a shuddering breath and stepped onto the lip of the slope with his back to the drop. He shuffled up it, sliding his hands along the wall. He’d almost reached the next step when the surface rolled under his feet. He threw himself at the step and clung on. Stones cascaded onto the floor. His lamp had gone out.

‘Are you all right? Where are you?’

Hero pulled himself to safety. ‘I’m about halfway up. Part of the stairs gave way.’

‘If you break your neck, I’ll never forgive you.’

Hero laughed. ‘Wait until I light my lamp.’ He struck another flame and saw that he’d spilled most of the oil. He peered up. ‘That was the worst bit. The stairs above don’t look too bad.’

Clammy with fear, he made his way upwards. A flicker of movement made him flinch. Only a bat cutting erratic paths through his light. He reached the top of the staircase and found himself on the remains of a gallery. The first bright stars of evening winked through the holes overhead. He shuffled around the gallery, moving his lamp up and down the wall. A stone carved with a lion, Drogo had said. The flame was too puny to illuminate any detail beyond a radius of two feet. He came to a gap in the gallery and held out the lamp as far as he dared. A stone bounded away into the dark.

‘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.’