The Vivero Letter

I

It was an astonishing, incredible and quite preposterous story, and, if I did not have a queer and inexplicable photograph up in the darkroom, I would have rejected it out of hand. And yet Fallon was no fool and he believed it — and so did Halstead, although I wouldn’t have bet on the adequacy of his mental processes.

I ruled the proceedings firmly while the story was being told. Occasionally there were outbursts of temper, mostly from Halstead but with a couple of bitter attacks from Fallon, and I had to crack down hard. It was quite apparent that, while none of them liked what I was doing, they had no alternative but to comply. My possession of the tray was a trump card in this curious and involved game, and neither Fallon nor Halstead was prepared to let the other get away with it.

Fallon seemed to be the more sensible and objective of the two men so I let him open the account, asking him to begin. He pulled his ear gently, and said, ‘It’s hard to know where to start.’

I said, ‘Begin at the beginning. Where did you come into it?’

He gave his ear a final tug, then folded one thin hand on top of the other. ‘I’m an archeologist, working in Mexico mostly. Do you know anything about the Mayas?’

I shook my head.

‘That’s a great help,’ he said acidly. ‘But I don’t suppose it matters at this stage because the preliminaries had nothing to do with the Mayas at all — superficially. I came across several references in my work to the de Vivero family of Mexico. The de Viveros were an old Spanish family — Jaime de Vivero, the founder, staked his claim in Mexico just after the time of Cortes; he grabbed a lot of land, and his descendants made it pay very well. They became big landowners, ranchers, owners of mines and, towards the end, industrialists. They were one of the big Mexican families that really ruled the roost. They weren’t what you’d call a very public-spirited crowd and most of their money came from squeezing the peasants. They supported Maximilian in that damn-fool effort of the Hapsburgs to establish a kingdom in Mexico in the eighteen-sixties.

‘That was their first mistake because Maximilian couldn’t stand the pace and he went down. Still, that wasn’t enough to break the de Viveros, but Mexico was in upheaval; dictator followed dictator, revolution followed revolution, and every time the de Viveros backed the wrong horse. It seems they lost their powers of judgement. Over a period of a hundred years the de Vivero family was smashed; if there are any of them still around they’re lying mighty low because I haven’t come across any of them.’ He cocked an eye at Halstead. ‘Have you come across a live de Vivero?’

‘No,’ said Halstead shortly.

Fallon nodded in satisfaction. ‘Now, this was a very wealthy family in its time, even for Mexico, and a wealthy Mexican family was really something. They had a lot of possessions which were dispersed during the break-up, and one of these items was a golden tray something like yours, Wheale.’ He picked up his briefcase and opened it. ‘Let me read you something about it’

He pulled out a sheaf of papers. ‘The tray was something of a family heirloom and the de Viveros looked after it; they didn’t use it except at formal banquets and most of the time it was locked away. Here’s a bit of gossip from the eighteenth century; a Frenchman called Murville visited Mexico and wrote a book about it. He stayed on one of the de Vivero estates when they threw a party for the governor of the province — this is the relevant bit.’

He cleared his throat. ‘“Never have I seen such a splendid table even in our French Court. The grandees of Mexico live like princes and eat off gold plate of which there was a profusion here. As a centrepiece to the table there was a magnificent array of the fruits of the country on golden trays, the most magnificent of which was curiously wrought in a pattern of vine leaves of exquisite design. I was informed by one of the sons of the family that this tray had a legend — that it was reputed to have been made by an ancestor of the de Viveros. This is unlikely since it is well known that the de Viveros have a noble lineage extending far back into the history of Old Spain and could not possibly have indulged in work of this nature, no matter how artful. I was told also that the tray is supposed to hold a secret, the discovery of which will make the recipient wealthy beyond measure. My informant smiled as he communicated this to me and added that as the de Viveros were already rich beyond computation the discovery of such a secret could not possibly make them effectively wealthier.”’

Fallon dropped the papers back into the briefcase. That didn’t mean much to me at the time, but I’m always interested in any secrets concerning Mexico so I copied it out as a matter of routine and filed it away. Incidentally, that bit about the noble lineage in Old Spain is phoney, the de Viveros were social climbers, men on the make — but we’ll come to that later.

‘Pretty soon after that I seemed to run into the de Viveros no matter which way I turned. You know how it is — you come across a strange word in a book, one which you’ve never seen before, and then you come across it again twice in the same week. It was like that with the de Viveros and their tray. Coming across references to the de Viveros is no trick in Mexico — they were a powerful family — but, in the next year I came across no less than seven references to the de Vivero tray, three of which mentioned this supposed secret. It appeared that the tray was important to the de Viveros. I just filed the stuff away; it was a minor problem of marginal interest and not really in my field.’

‘Which is?’ I asked.

‘The pre-Columbian civilizations of Central America,’ he answered. ‘A sixteenth-century Spanish tray didn’t mean much to me at the time. I was busy working on a dig in south Campeche. Halstead was with me then, among others. When the dig was finished for the season and we’d got back to civilization he picked a quarrel with me and left. With him went my de Vivero file.’

Halstead’s voice was like a lash. ‘That’s a lie!’

Fallon shrugged. ‘That’s the way it was.’

So far we hadn’t reached any point at which the tray was important, but here was the first mention of the deep-rooted quarrel between these two men, and that might be of consequence so I decided to probe. ‘What was the quarrel about?’

‘He stole my work,’ said Halstead flatly.

‘The hell I did!’ Fallon turned to me. ‘This is one of the things that crop up in academic circles, I’m sorry to say. It happens like this; young men just out of college work in the field with older and more experienced workers — I did the same myself with Murray many years ago. Papers get written and sometimes the younger fellow reckons he’s not given due credit. It happens all the time.’

‘Was it true in this case?’

Halstead was about to speak up but his wife put her hand on his knee and motioned him to silence. Fallon said, ‘Most certainly not. Oh, I admit I wrote a paper on some aspects of the Quetzaecoatl legend which Halstead said I stole from him, but it wasn’t like that at all.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘You’ve got to get the picture. You’re on a dig and you work hard all day and at night you tend to relax and, maybe, drink a bit Now, if there’s half a dozen of you then you might have a bull session — what you English call “talking shop”. Ideas fly around thick and fast and nobody is ever certain who said what or when; these ideas tend to be regarded as common property. Now, it may be that the origin of the paper I wrote happened in such a way, and it may be that it was Halstead’s suggestion, but I can’t prove it and, by God, neither can he.’

Halstead said, ‘You know damn well that I suggested the central idea of that paper.’

Fallon spread his hands and appealed to me. ‘You see how it is. It might have gone for nothing if this young fool hadn’t written to the journals and publicly accused me of theft. I could have sued the pants off him — but I didn’t. I wrote to him privately and suggested that he refrain from entering into public controversy because I certainly wasn’t going to enter into an argument of that nature in the professional prints. But he continued and finally the editors wouldn’t print his letters any more.’

Halstead’s voice was malevolent. ‘You mean you bought the goddamn editors, don’t you?’

‘Think what you like,’ said Fallon in disgust. ‘At any rate, I found my de Vivero file had vanished when Halstead left. It didn’t mean much at the time, and when it did start to mean something it wasn’t much trouble to go back to the original sources. But when I started to bump into the Halsteads around every corner I put two and two together.’

‘But you don’t know he took your file,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t prove it in a law court.’

‘I don’t suppose I could,’ agreed Fallon.

‘Then the less said about it the better.’ Halstead looked pleased at that, so I added, ‘You both seem free and easy in throwing accusations about. This isn’t my idea of professional dignity.’

‘You haven’t heard the whole story yet, Mr. Wheale,’ said Mr.s Halstead.

‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ I said. ‘Go ahead, Professor Fallon — or do you have anything to say, Dr. Halstead?’

Halstead gloomed at me. ‘Not yet.’ He said it with an air of foreboding and I knew there were some more fireworks ahead.

‘Nothing much happened after that for quite a while,’ said Fallon. ‘Then when I was in New York, I received a letter from Mark Gerryson suggesting I see him. Gerryson is a dealer whom I have used from time to time, and he said he had some Mayan chocolate jugs — not the ordinary pottery jugs, but made of gold. They must have come from a noble house. He also said he had part of a feather cloak and a few other things.’

Halstead snorted and muttered audibly, ‘A goddamn feather cloak!’

‘I know it was a fake,’ said Fallon. ‘And I didn’t buy it. But the chocolate jugs were genuine. Gerryson knew I’d be interested — the ordinary Mayan specialist doesn’t interest Gerryson because he hasn’t the money that Gerryson asks; he usually sells to museums and rich collectors. Well, I run a museum myself — among other things — and I’ve had some good stuff from Gerryson in the past.

‘We dickered for a bit and I told him what I thought of his feather cloak; he laughed about that and said he was pulling my leg. The chocolate jugs were genuine enough and I bought those. Then he said he wanted my opinion on something that had just come in — it was a manuscript account by a Spaniard who had lived among the Mayas in the early sixteenth century and he wanted to know if it was genuine.’

‘He was consulting you as an expert in the field?’ I said. I saw Katherine Halstead lean forward intently.

Fallon nodded. ‘That’s right. The name of the Spaniard was de Vivero, and the manuscript was a letter to his sons.’ He fell silent.

Halstead said, ‘Don’t stop now, Fallon — just when it’s getting interesting.’

Fallon looked at me. ‘Do you know anything about the conquest of Mexico?’

‘Not much,’ I said. ‘I learned a bit about it at school — Cortes and all that — but I’ve forgotten the details, if I ever knew them.’

‘Just like most people. Have you got a map of Mexico?’

I walked across the room and picked an atlas from the shelf. I drew up the coffee table and laid down the atlas turned to the correct page. Fallon hovered over it, and said, ‘I’ll have to give you some background detail or else the letter won’t make sense.’ He brought down his finger on to the map of Mexico close to the coast near Tampico. ‘In the first couple of decades of the fifteen-hundreds the Spaniards had their eyes on what we now know as Mexico. There were rumours about the place — stories of unimaginable wealth — and they were poising themselves to go in and get it.’

His finger swept in an arc around the Gulf of Mexico. ‘Hernandez de Cordoba explored the coast in 1517 and Juan de Grijalva followed in 1518. In 1519 Hernan Cortes took the plunge and mounted an expedition into the interior and we know what happened. He came up against the Aztecs and by a masterly mixture of force, statesmanship, superstition and pure confidence trickery he licked them — one of the most amazing feats any man has ever done.

‘But having done it he found there were other worlds to conquer. To the south, covering what is now Yucatán, Guatemala and Honduras was another Amerind empire — that of the Mayas. He hadn’t got as much gold from the Aztecs as he expected, but the Mayas were dripping with it if the reports that came up from the south were true. So in 1525 he marched against the Mayas. He left Tenochtitlan — now Mexico City — and hit the coast here, at Coatzacualco, and then struck along the spine of the isthmus to Lake Petén and thus to Cobán. He didn’t get much for his pains because the main strength, of the Mayas wasn’t on the Anahuac plateau at all but in the Yucatán Peninsula.’

I leaned over his shoulder and followed his exposition alertly. Fallon said, ‘Cortes gave up personal direction at that point — he was pulled back to Spain — and the next expedition was led by Francisco de Montejo, who had already explored the coast of Yucatán from the sea. He had quite a respectable force but he found the Mayas a different proposition from the Aztecs. They fought back, and fought back hard, and Montejo was no Cortes — the Spaniards were trounced in the first few battles.

‘With Montejo was Manuel de Vivero. I don’t suppose Vivero was much more than a common foot soldier, but something funny happened to him. He was captured by the Mayas and they didn’t kill him; they kept him alive as a sort of slave and as a mascot. Now, Montejo never did pacify Yucatán — he never got on top of the Mayas. Come to that, nobody ever did; they were weakened and absorbed to some extent, but they were never defeated in battle. In 1549, twenty-two years after he started out, Montejo was in control of barely half of the Yucatán Peninsula — and all this time Vivero was a captive in the interior.

‘This was a rather curious time in the history of the Mayas and something happened which puzzled archeologists for a long time. They found that the Spaniards and the Mayas were living and working together side by side, each in his own culture; they found a Mayan temple and a Spanish church built next to each other and, what is more, contemporaneous — built at the same time. This was puzzling until the sequence of events had been sorted out as I’ve just described.

‘In any event, there the Mayas and the Spaniards were, living cheek by jowl. They fought each other, but not continuously. The Spaniards controlled eastern Yucatán where the great Mayan cities of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal are, but western Yucatán, the modern province of Quintana Roo, was a closed book to them. It’s still pretty much of a closed book even now. However, there must have been quite a bit of trade going on between the two halves and Vivero, captive though he was, managed to write a letter to his sons and smuggle it out. That’s the Vivero letter.’

He dug into his briefcase again. ‘I have a transcription of it here if you want to read it.’

I flipped open the file he gave me — there was quite a lot of it. I said, ‘Do you want me to read this now?’

‘It would be better if you did,’ he said. ‘We’d be able to get on with the rest of our business a little faster. You can’t understand anything until you read that letter.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But I’ll take it into my study. Can I trust you two not to kill each other in my absence?’

Katherine Halstead said coolly, ‘There will be no trouble.’

I grinned at her cheerfully. ‘I’ll have Mr.s Edgecombe bring you tea; that ought to keep the temperature down — no one kills over the teacups, it would be downright uncivilized.’

II

To my sons, Jaime and Juan, greetings from Manuel de Vivero y Castuera, your father.

For many years my sons, I have been seeking ways by which I could speak to you to assure you of my safety in this heathen land. Many times have I sought escape and as many times I have been defeated and I know now that escape from my captivity cannot be, for I am watched continually. But by secret stratagems and the friendship of two men of the Mayas I am able to send you this missive in the hope that your hearts will be lightened and you will not grieve for me as for a dead man. But you must know, my sons, that I will never come out of this land of the Mayas nor out of this city called Uaxuanoc; like the Children of Israel I shall be captive for as long as it pleases the Lord, our God, to keep me alive.

In this letter I shall relate how I came to be here, how God preserved my life when so many of my comrades were slain, and tell of my life among those people, the Mayas. Twelve years have I been here and have seen many marvels, for this is the Great City of the Mayas, the prize we have all sought in the Americas. Uaxuanoc is to Tenochtitlán which Hernán Cortes conquered as Madrid is to the meanest village in Huelva, the province of our family. I was with Cortes in the taking of Tenochtitlan and saw the puissant Montezuma and his downfall, but that mighty king was as a mere peasant, a man poor in wealth, when put against even the ordinary nobility of Uaxuanoc.

You must know that in the Year of Christ One Thousand, Five Hundred and Twenty Seven I marched with Francisco de Montejo into the Yucatán against the Mayas. My position in the company was high and I led a band of our Spanish soldiers. I had a voice with Cortes when I was with that subtle soldier and I was high in the councils of Francisco de Montejo, and so I know the inner reasons for the many stratagems of the campaign. Since I have lived with the Mayas I have come to know them, to speak their words and to think their thoughts, and so I know also why those stratagems came to naught.

Francisco de Montejo was — and, I hope, still is — my friend. But friendship cannot blind me to his shortcomings as a soldier and as a statesman. Brave he undoubtedly is, but his is the bravery of the wild boar or of the bull of the Basque country which charges straight without deceit or evasion and so is easily defeated. Bravery is not enough for a soldier, my sons: he must be wily and dishonest, telling lies when appearing to speak truth, even to his men when he finds this necessary, he must retreat to gain an advantage, ignoring the ignorant pleadings of braver but lesser soldiers; he must lay traps to ensnare the enemy and he must use the strength of the enemy against himself as Cortes did when he allied, himself with the Tlascalans against the men of Mexico.

Hernán Cortes knew this most well. He spoke pleasantly to all and of all, but kept his counsel and went his own way. It may be that this use of lies and chicanes, the inventions of the Devil, is against the teachings of Holy Church and, indeed, would be reprehensible when fighting fellow Christians; but here we are fighting the Children of the Devil himself and turn his own weapons against him in the assurance that our cause is just and that with the help of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we can bring these ignorant savages to the One and True Faith.

Be that as it may, Francisco de Montejo was — and is — lacking in the qualities I have named and his efforts to subdue the Maya came to naught. Even now, twelve years after we marched so gaily on our Holy Crusade, the Maya is as strong as ever, though some of his cities are lost. Yet I would not lay all blame on Francisco, for this is as strange a land as any I have seen in all my journeyings in the Americas, where many strange and wondrous things are to be seen daily.

This I will tell you: the land of Yucatán is not like any other. When Hernán Cortes defeated the army of the Mayas on his journey to El Petén and the Honduras he was fighting on the uplands of Anahuac where the land is open and where all the noble resources of the art of war in which we are so advanced can be used. When we marched into Yucatán with de Montejo on the central strongholds of the enemy we found a green wilderness, a forest of trees so vast that it would cover all of Old Spain.

In this place, our horses, which so affright the ignorant savages, could not be used in battle; but we were not cast down, thinking to use them as pack animals. To our sore disappointment they were afflicted by disease and began to die, more each day. And those that survived were of little value, for the trees grew thickly and a man can go where a horse cannot, and from being the most valued of our possessions, they stooped to become a hindrance to our expedition.

Another misfortune of this land is the lack of water, which is very strange, for consider: how is it that there can be a growth of strong trees and bushes of divers kind where there is no water? But it is indeed so. When the rain comes, which it does infrequently but more often at certain times of year, then it is soaked direct into the solid earth so that there are no streams and rivers in this land; but sometimes there is a pool or well which the Maya calls cenote and here the water is fresh and good although it is fed not by running streams but rather issues forth from the bowels of the earth.

Because these places are few in the forest they are sacred to the Mayas who set up their temples here and give praise to their idolatrous gods for the good water. Here also they set up their castles and strong places, and so when we marched with de Montejo we had to fight for the very water for our bellies to give us strength to fight more.

The Mayas are a stubborn people who close their ears to the Word of Christ. They would not listen to Francisco de Montejo, nor to any of his captains, myself included, nor even to the good priests of God in our train who pleaded with them in the Name of our Saviour. They rejected the Word of the Lamb of God and resisted us with weapons although, in truth, since my captivity I have found them a peaceful people, very slow to wrath but in their anger terrible.

Although their weapons are poor, being wooden swords with stone edges and spears with stone tips, they resisted us mightily for their numbers were great and they knew the secret paths of the land and laid snares for us, in which ambuscades many of my comrades were slain and in one of these affrays I, your father, was taken prisoner, to my shame.

I could not fight more for my sword was knocked from my hand, nor could I run on their swords and die for I was bound with ropes and helpless. I was carried, slung on a pole, along many devious paths in the forest and so came to the encampment of their army where I was questioned to some lengths by a great Cacique. The tongue of these people is not so different from the Toltec tongue that I could not understand but I dissimulated and gave no knowledge of my understanding and so by this means was I able to keep bidden from them the place of our main force, nor could they wring it from me by means of torture because of the confusion of tongues.

I think they were going to kill me but a priest among them pointed to my hair which, as you know, is the colour of ripe grain in summer, a strange thing for a Spaniard and more natural in northern lands. And so I was taken from that camp and sent under guard to the great city of Chichén Itzá. In this city there is a great cenote and chichén in the Mayan tongue means the mouth of a well. In this great pool are maidens thrown who go down to the underworld and return to tell of the mysteries they have seen in Hades. Surely these are the Devil’s spawn!

In Chichén Itzá I saw a Cacique even greater than the first, a noble finely dressed in an embroidered kilt and feather cloak and surrounded by papas or the priests of these people. I was again questioned but to no avail and much was made of my hair and a great cry arose among the papas that surely I was Kukulkán, he whom you will know in the Toltec tongue as Quetzaecoatl, the white god who is to come from the West, a belief among the heathen that has served us well.

In Chichén Itzá I spent one month closely guarded in a stone cell but other than that I was not harmed, being served regularly with the corn of these people and some meat, together with that bitter drink called chocolatl. After one month I was sent again under guard to their main city which is Uaxuanoc and where I now am. But the guards were young nobles finely dressed in embroidered cotton armour and with good weapons of their kind. I do not think their armour as good as our iron armour, but no doubt it suffices well enough when they fight among themselves. I was fettered loosely but other than that no harm was offered and the chains were heavy, being of gold.

Uaxuanoc is a large city and there are many temples and big buildings the greatest of which is the temple to Kukulkán, decorated with the Feathered Serpent in his honour. Thither was I taken so that the papas of the temple could behold me and pass judgement whether I was indeed Kukulkán, their chief god. There was much argument among the papas: some said I was not Kukulkán because why would their chief god fight against them? Others among them asked why should not Kukulkán bring his warriors to chastise them with magical weapons if they had transgressed against the law of the gods; rather should they seek in their hearts where the transgression lay. Again, some said that this could not be Kukulkán because he spoke not their tongue, and others asked: why should the gods speak an earthly tongue when they undoubtedly spoke among themselves of things that could not be uttered by human lips?

I trembled before them but kept an outward calm, for was I not in evil straits? If I were not Kukulkán they would sacrifice me in the temple in the manner of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlán and tear the living heart from my body. But if they believed I was their god they would bow down before me and worship and I would be an abomination before Christ and damned thereafter to the pains of hell, for no mortal man is worthy of worship before God.

They resolved their disputation by taking me before their king for him to pass judgement between the divers parties in the manner of their law, he being the sole arbitrator in matters of high state and religion among them. He passed for a tall man among the Mayas though not as tall as would seem so in our eyes; he had a noble countenance and was dressed finely in a cloak of the bright feathers of humming birds and wore much gold about his person. He sat on a golden throne and above his head was a representation of the Feathered Serpent in gold and precious stones and fine enamels.

And he judged in this manner: that I should not be sacrificed but should be taken aside and taught the tongue of the Mayas so that I should be able to utter from my own lips and with their understanding what and who I was.

I was so overjoyed at the judgement of this Solomon that I nearly went on my knees before him but I caught myself up with the thought that indeed I did not know their tongue — or so they thought — and to learn it would take me many months or even years. By this stratagem I saved my life and my soul.

I was taken aside and put into the care of the eldest of the papas, who led me to the great temple where I was given lodging in the quarters of the papas. Soon I found I was free to come and go in the city as I wished although always accompanied by two noble guards and still clinking my golden fetters. Many years afterwards I discovered that the papas gave me this freedom for fear I was indeed Kukulkán and would exact vengeance at a later time if imprisoned. As for the golden chains: was not gold the metal of the gods? Perhaps Kukulkán would not be dishonoured by gold — if indeed this was Kukulkán. The king himself wore golden chains though they did not fetter him. Thus the papas reasoned in fear of disgrace should they be proved wrong in any way.

They taught me their tongue and I was slow to learn, my voice unready and my speech stumbling, and by this means passed many months to the great disappointment of the papas. During this time I saw many abominations in the great temple; young men sacrificed to Kukulkán, their bodies oiled and their heads garlanded with flowers going willingly to the bloodstained altar to have their hearts torn out by the papas and held in their sight before vision faded from their eyes. I was forced to attend these blasphemous ceremonies before the idol of the Feathered Serpent, my guards holding my arms so that I could not leave. Every time I closed my eyes and prayed to Christ and the Virgin for succour from the awful fate to which I found myself condemned.

There were other sacrifices at the great cenote in the midst of the city. A ridge of land splits the city from east to west and on the top of the ridge is the temple of Yum Chac, the god of rain, whose palace these foolish people believe to be at the bottom of the cenote. At ceremonies in honour of Yum Chac maidens are cast from the temple to the deep pool at the bottom of the cliff and disappear into the dark waters. These infidel wickednesses I did not attend.

It was during this time that I found my salvation from the terrible dilemma under which I laboured. You must know that the Mayas are great workers in stone and gold, although much of their labour is directed to making their heathen idols, a task unfitting for Christian hands. My sons, your grandfather and my father was a goldsmith in the city of Sevilla and when I was young I learned the trade at his knee. I observed that the Mayas were ignorant of the way of using wax which is common in Spain so I pleaded with the papas to give me gold and beeswax and to let me use a furnace to melt the gold.

They consulted among themselves and let me have the gold and beeswax and watched me closely to see what I did. There was a maiden, not above fourteen, who attended me in my lodging and saw to my wants, and I made a little model of her in the wax while the papas looked on and frowned, for they were afraid of some bewitchment. The Mayas have none of the Parisian plaster so I was constrained to use well watered clay to put about the statue and to make the funnel on the top for the pouring of the gold.

I was allowed to use the temple smithy and the papas cried in wonder as the gold was poured into the funnel and the hot wax spurted from the vent hole, the while I sweated for fear that the clay mould would break, but it did not and I was well satisfied with my little statue which the papas took before the king and told him of its making. Thereafter I made many objects in gold but would not make idols for the temple nor any of the golden implements used therein. The king commanded I teach the royal smiths this new art of working in gold, which I did, and many of the great Caciques of the land came and had me make jewellery for them.

The day came when I could no longer hide my knowledge of the Mayan tongue and the papas took me to the king for judgement and he asked me to speak from my mouth who or what I was. I spake plainly that indeed I was not Kukulkán but a nobleman from lands to the east and a faithful subject of the great Emperor Charles V of Spain who had commanded me to come to the Mayas and spread the Word of Christ among them.

The papas murmured among themselves and prevailed upon the king, saying that the gods of the Mayas were strong and they needed none other and that I should be sacrificed in the temple of Kukulkán for blasphemy. I spake boldly straight to the king, asking him would he kill such a one as I who could teach his smiths many wonders so that his kingdom should be ornamented beyond all others?

The king smiled on me and gave orders that indeed I should not be sacrificed but should be given a house and servants and should teach my arts to all the smiths of the land to the benefit of the kingdom but that I should not teach the Word of Christ on pain of death. This last he said to please the papas of Kukulkán. And I was given a house with a smithy and many serving-maids and the smiths of the land came and sat at my feet and my chains were struck from me.

Twice thereafter I escaped and was lost in the great forest and the king’s soldiers found me and took me back to Uaxuanoc and the king was lenient and punished me not. But the third time I escaped and was brought back again into the city he frowned like thunder and spoke to me, saying his patience was at an end and that if I escaped but once more I would be sacrificed in the temple of Kukulkán, so I perforce desisted and stayed in the city.

Here I have been for twelve long years, my sons, and am indeed counted now as one of their own save for the guards about my house and those that follow me when I go to the market place. I do not go to the temples but instead have made a chapel to Jesus and the Virgin in my house where I pray daily and am not hindered, for the king said: Let every man pray to the gods of his heart. But he will not let me preach the Word of Christ in the city and I do not for fear of death and am ashamed thereat.

Uaxuanoc is a great and fine city with much gold. Even the gutters which lead the rainwater from the temple roofs to the cisterns are gold and I myself use golden spoons in my kitchen, in which manner I am greater than any king in Christendom. I believe these people to have sprung from the loins of those Egyptians who kept the Israelites in captivity, for their temples are pyramids in the Egyptian manner as were described to me by a traveller who had been in those parts. But the king’s palace is a square building, very great and plated with sheets of gold within and without even to the floors so that one walks on gold. And these people have the art of enamel such as I have never seen, but use the art in blasphemy to make their idols, although much fine jewellery is also made, even the common people wearing gold and enamel.

My life is easy, for I am held in much respect for my work in the smithy and because I have the friendship of the king who gives me many gifts when I please him with my work. But often in the nights I weep and wish I were back again in Spain even in a common tavern in Cadiz where there is music and singing, for these Mayas have but poor music, knowing only the pipe and drum and I have no knowledge of the musical art to teach them other.

But I say to you, my sons, God has touched this land with His Finger and surely intends it to be brought into the Fold of Christ for I have seen wonder upon wonder here and an even greater marvel which is a sign for all to behold that the gentle Hand of Christ encompasses the whole world and there is no corner which escapes Him. I have seen this sign written in burning gold upon a mountain of gold which lies not a step from the centre of the city and which shines in imperishable glory more brightly than the golden palace of the king of the Mayas; and surely this sign means that Christians shall possess this land for their own and the heathen shall be cast down and that men of Christ shall overturn the idols in the temples and shall strip the gold from the temple roofs and from the palace of the king and shall take possession of the golden mountain and the burning sign thereon which is a wonder for all eyes to see.

Therefore, my sons, Jaime and Juan, read carefully this letter for it is my wish that this glory shall come to the family of de Vivero which shall be exalted thereby. You know the de Viveros are of ancient lineage but were put upon in past time by the Moors in Spain so that the fortunes of the family were lost and the heads of the family were forced into common trade. My father was a goldsmith which, praise be to God, has been the saving of my soul in this land. When the infidel Moors were driven from Spain our family fortunes changed and by inheritance from my father I was able to buy land in the province of Huelva and became Alcalde. But I looked afar to the new lands in the West and thought that a man might hew a greater inheritance to pass to his sons, who then might become governors of provinces under the king in these new lands. So I came to Mexico with Hernan Cortes.

Whoever takes this city of Uaxuanoc shall also possess that mountain of gold of which I have written and his name shall sound throughout all Christendom and he shall sit on the right hand of Christian kings and be honoured above all other men and it is my wish that this man should be called de Vivero. But it has grieved me that my sons should be quarrelsome as was Cain unto Abel, fighting the one with the other for little reason and bringing shame upon the name of de Vivero instead of uniting for the good of the family. Therefore I charge you under God to make your peace. You, Jaime, shall beg the forgiveness of your brother for the sins you have committed against him, and you, Juan, shall do likewise, and both shall live in amity and work towards the same end and that is to take this city and the mountain of gold with its wondrous sign.

So with this letter I send you gifts, one for each, made in that marvellous manner which my father learned of that stranger from the East which the Moors brought to Córdoba many years ago and of which I have spoken to you. Let the scales of enmity fall from your eyes and look upon these gifts with proper vision which shall join you together with strong bonds so that the name of de Vivero shall echo in Christendom for all time to come.

The men who shall bring you these gifts are Mayas whom I have secretly baptized in Christ against the wishes of the king and taught our Spanish tongue for their greater aid and safety in seeking you. Look upon them well and honour them, for they are brave men and true Christians and deserve much reward for their service.

Go with God, my sons, and fear not the snares laid in this forest land by your enemies. Remember what I have told you of the qualities of the true soldier, so that you shall prosper in battle and overcome the wickedness of the heathen to possess this land and the great wonder contained therein. So the name of de Vivero will be exalted for evermore.

It may be that when this is brought to pass I will be dead, for the king of the Mayas becomes old and he who will be king looks not upon me with favour, being corrupted by the papas of Kukulkán. But pray for me and for my soul, for I fear I shall spend long in purgatory for my pusillanimity in hesitating to convert this people to Christ for fear of my life. I am but a mortal man and much afraid, so pray for your father, my sons, and offer masses for his soul.

Written in the month of April in the year of Christ, One, Thousand, Five Hundred and Thirty Nine.

Manuel de Vivero y Castuera,

Alcalde in Spain,

Friend of Hernando Cortes and Francisco de Montejo.

III

I put the transcription of the Vivero letter back into the file and sat for a moment thinking of that long-dead man who had lived out his life in captivity. What had happened to him? Had he been sacrificed when the king died? Or had he managed to whip up a little more ingenuity and double-talk the Mayas into letting him live?

What a mixed-up man he was — according to our modern way of thinking. He regarded the Mayas as the man regarded the lion: ‘This animal is dangerous; it defends itself when attacked.’ That smacked of hypocrisy but de Vivero was educated in a different tradition; there was no dichotomy involved in converting the heathen and looting them of their gold simultaneously — to him it was as natural as breathing.

He was undoubtedly a brave and steadfast man and I hoped he had gone to his death unperturbed by the mental agonies of purgatory and hell.

There was an air of tension in the living-room and it was evident that the birdies in their little nest had not been agreeing. I tossed down the file, and said, ‘All right; I’ve read it.’

Fallon said, ‘What did you think of it?’

‘He was a good man.’

‘Is that all?’

‘You know damn well that isn’t all,’ I said without heat. ‘I see the point very well. Would I be correct if I said that this city of... Uax... Uaxua...’ I stumbled.

‘Wash-wan-ok,’ said Fallon unexpectedly. ‘That’s how it’s pronounced.’

‘...Anyway, that this city hasn’t been uncovered by you people?’

‘Score one for you,’ said Fallon. He tapped the file and said with intensity, ‘On Vivero’s evidence Uaxuanoc was bigger than Chichén Itzá, bigger than Uxmal — and those places are pretty big. It was the central city of the Mayan civilization and the man who finds it will make a hell of a name for himself; he’s going to be able to answer a lot of questions that are now unanswerable.’

I turned to Halstead. ‘Do you agree?’

He looked at me with smouldering eyes. ‘Don’t ask damnfool questions. Of course I agree; it’s about the only thing Fallon and I agree about.’

I sat down. ‘And you’re racing each other — splitting your guts to get there first. My God, what a commentary on science!’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Fallon sharply. ‘That’s not entirely true. All right; I agree that I’m trying to get in ahead of Halstead, but that’s only because I don’t trust him on something as important as this. He’s too impatient, too thrusting for an important dig. He’ll want to make a quick reputation — I know him of old — and that’s the way evidence gets destroyed.’

Halstead didn’t rise to the argument as I expected. Instead, he looked at me sardonically. ‘There you have a fine example of professional ethics,’ he said mockingly. ‘Fallon is ready to run anyone’s reputation into the ground if he can get what he wants.’ He leaned forward and addressed Fallon directly. ‘I don’t suppose you want to add to your own reputation by the discovery of Uaxuanoc?’

‘My reputation is already made,’ said Fallon softly. ‘I’m at the top already.’

‘And you don’t want anybody passing you,’ said Halstead cuttingly.

I’d just about had enough of this bickering and was about to say so when Katherine Halstead interjected, ‘And Professor Fallon has peculiar means of making sure he isn’t passed.’

I raised my eyebrows and said, ‘Could you explain that?’

She smiled. ‘Well, he did steal the original of the Vivero letter.’

‘So we’re back at that again,’ said Fallon disgustedly. ‘I tell you I bought it from Gerryson in New York — and I can prove it.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ I said. ‘We’ve had enough of these counter-accusations. Let’s stick to the point. From what I can gather old de Vivero sent the letter and gifts to his sons. You think that the gifts were two golden trays and that there is something about those trays that has a bearing on Uaxuanoc. Is that right?’

Fallon nodded and picked up the file. ‘There was a hell of a lot of gold in Uaxuanoc — he mentions it time and again — and he made it quite clear that he wanted his sons to be leaders in sharing the loot. The one thing he didn’t do that he might logically have been expected to do was to tell them where to find the city. Instead, he sent them gifts.’

Halstead broke in. ‘I’m sure that I can figure this out just as well as Fallon. Vivero’s family life wasn’t too happy — it seems that his sons hated each other’s guts, and Vivero didn’t like that. It seems logical to me that he’d give each of them a piece of information, and the two pieces would have to be joined to make sense. The brothers would have to work together.’ He spread his hands. ‘The information wasn’t in the letter so it must have been in the gifts — in the trays.’

‘That’s how I figured it, too,’ said Fallon. ‘So I went hunting for the trays. I knew the Mexican de Vivero tray was still in existence in 1782 because that’s when Murville wrote about it, and I started to track it down from there.’

Halstead sniggered and Fallon said irascibly, ‘All right; I made a goddamn fool of myself.’ He turned to me and said with a weak grin, ‘I chased all over Mexico and finally found it in my own museum — I’d owned it all the time!’

Halstead laughed loudly. ‘And I’d beaten you to it; I knew it was there before you did.’ The smile left his face. ‘Then you withdrew it from public exhibition.’

I shook my head irritably. ‘How the devil can you own something like that and not know about it?’ I demanded.

‘Your family did,’ pointed out Fallon reasonably. ‘But my case was a bit different. I established a trust, and, among other things, the trust runs a museum. I’m not responsible personally for everything the museum buys, and I don’t know every item in stock. Anyway, the museum had the tray.’

‘That’s one tray. What about the other?’

‘That was a bit more difficult, wasn’t it, Paul?’ He smiled across the room at Halstead. ‘Manuel de Vivero had two sons, Jaime and Juan. Jaime stayed in Mexico and founded the Mexican branch of the de Viveros — you know about them already — but Juan had a bellyful of America and went back to Spain. He took quite a bit of loot with him and became an Alcalde like his father — that’s a sort of country squire and magistrate. He had a son, Miguel, who prospered even more and became a wealthy shipowner.

‘Came the time when trouble rubbed up between Spain and England and Philip II of Spain decided to end it once and for all and began to build the Armada. Miguel de Vivero contributed a ship, the San Juan de Huelva, and skippered her himself. She sailed with the Armada and never came back — neither did Miguel. His shipping business didn’t die with Miguel, a son took over, and it lasted quite a long time — until the end of the eighteenth century. Fortunately they had a habit of keeping records and I dug out a juicy bit of information; Miguel wrote a letter to his wife asking her to send him “the tray which my grandfather had made in Mexico”. It was with him on the ship when the Armada sailed for England. I thought then that the whole thing was finished.’

‘I got to that letter before you did,’ said Halstead with satisfaction.

‘This sounds like a cross between a jigsaw puzzle and a detective story,’ I said. ‘What did you do then?’

‘I came to England,’ said Fallon. ‘Not to look for the tray — I thought that was at the bottom of the sea — but just for a holiday. I was staying in Oxford at one of the colleges and I happened to mention my searches in Spain. One of the dons — a dry-as-dust literary character — said he vaguely remembered something about it in the correspondence of Herrick.’

I stared at Fallon. ‘The poet?’

‘That’s right. He was rector of Dean Prior — that’s not far from here. A man called Goosan had written a letter to him; Goosan was a local merchant, a nobody, his letter wouldn’t have been preserved if it hadn’t have been written to Herrick.’

Halstead was alert. ‘I didn’t know about this. Go on.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Fallon tiredly. ‘We know where the tray is now.’

‘I’m interested,’ I said.

Fallon shrugged. ‘Herrick was bored to death with country life but he was stuck at Dean Prior. There wasn’t much to do so I suppose he took more interest in his parishioners than the usual dull clod of a country priest He certainly took an interest in Goosan and asked him to put on paper what he had previously said verbally. To cut a long story short, Goosan’s family name had originally been Guzman, and his grandfather had been a seaman on the San Juan. They’d had a hell of a time of it during the attack on England and, after one thing and another, the ship had gone down in a storm off Start Point. The captain, Miguel de Vivero, had died previously of ship fever — that’s typhus — and when Guzman came ashore he carried that goddamn tray as part of his personal loot. Guzman’s grandson — that’s the Goosan who wrote to Herrick — even showed Herrick the tray. How your family got hold of it I don’t know.’

I smiled as I said. ‘That’s why you laughed when I told you to see Dave Goosan.’

‘It gave me something of a shock,’ admitted Fallon.

‘I didn’t know anything about Herrick,’ said Halstead. ‘I was just following up on the Armada and trying to discover where the San Juan had sunk. I happened to be in Plymouth when I saw a photograph of the tray in the newspaper.’

Fallon raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Sheer luck!’ he commented.

Halstead grinned. ‘But I was here before you.’

‘Yes, you were,’ I said slowly. ‘And then my brother was murdered.’

He blew up. ‘What the hell do you mean by that crack?’

‘Just making a true observation. Did you know Victor Niscemi?’

‘I’d never heard of him until the inquest. I don’t know that I like the trend of your thinking, Wheale.’

‘Neither do I,’ I said sourly. ‘Let’s skip it — for the moment. Professor Fallon: I presume you’ve given your tray a thorough examination. What did you find?’

He grunted. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss that in front of Halstead. I’ve been pushed far enough.’ He was silent for a moment, then he sighed, ‘All right; effectively, I found nothing. I assume that whatever it is will only come to light when the trays are examined as a pair.’ He stood up. ‘Now, I’ve had just about enough of this. A little while ago you told Halstead to put up or shut up — now I’m putting the same proposition to you. How much money will you take for the tray? Name your price and I’ll write you a cheque right now.’

‘You haven’t enough money to pay my price,’ I said, and he blinked in surprise. ‘I told you my price might not necessarily be in cash. Sit down and listen to what I’ve got to say.’

Slowly Fallon lowered himself into his chair, not taking his eyes from me. I looked across at Halstead and at his wife who was almost hidden in the gathering shadows of evening. I said, ‘I have three conditions for parting with the tray. All those conditions must be met before I do so. Is that clear?’

Fallon grunted and I accepted that as agreement. Halstead looked tense and then inclined his head stiffly.

‘Professor Fallon has a lot of money which will come in useful. He will therefore finance whatever expedition is to be made to find this city of Uaxuanoc. You can’t object to that, Fallon; it is something you would do in any event. But I will be a part of the expedition. Agreed?’

Fallon looked at me speculatively. ‘I don’t know if you could take it,’ he said a little scornfully. ‘It’s not like a stroll on Dartmoor.’

‘I’m not giving you a choice,’ I said. ‘I’m giving you an ultimatum.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But it’s your skin.’

‘The second condition is that you help me as much as possible to find out why my brother was killed.’

‘Won’t that interfere with your jaunt in Yucatán?’ he queried.

‘I’m not so certain it will,’ I said. ‘I think that whoever wanted the tray enough to send a man armed with a sawn-off shotgun also knew that the tray had a secret. Possibly we’ll meet him in Yucatán — who knows?’

‘I think you’re nuts,’ he said. ‘But I’ll play along with you. I agree.’

‘Good,’ I said pleasantly, and prepared to harpoon him. ‘The third condition is that Halstead comes with us.’

Fallon sat bolt upright and roared, I’ll be damned if I’ll take the son of a bitch.’

Halstead jumped from his chair. ‘That’s twice today you’ve called me that. I ought to knock your—’

‘Belt up!’ I yelled. Into the sudden silence that followed I said, ‘You two make me sick. All afternoon you’ve been sniping at each other. You’ve both done very well in your investigations so far — you’ve arrived at the same point at the same time and honours ought to be even. And you’ve both made identical accusations about each other, so you’re square there, too.’

Fallon looked stubborn, so I said, ‘Look at it this way. If we two join forces, you know what will happen: Halstead will be hanging around anyway. He’s as tenacious as you are and he’ll follow the trail wherever we lead him. But the point doesn’t arise, does it? I said that all three of my conditions must be met and, by God, if you don’t agree to this I’ll give my tray to Halstead. That way you’ll have one each and be on an even footing for the next round of this academic dog-fight. Now, do you agree or don’t you?’

His face worked and he shook his head sadly. ‘I agree,’ he said in a whisper.

‘Halstead?’

‘I agree.’

Then they both said simultaneously, ‘Where’s the tray?’