by Nick Hawkes
Felicity gave the smallest of nods.
Gabrielle smiled. “The Melting Moments are crap, the apple muffin is the best, and the coffee is excellent. I make it.”
Felicity laughed. “Hi Gabs.” She leaned forward and gave Gabrielle a kiss. Then she stepped back and said, “This, is Benjamin…Benjamin, meet Gabrielle. She’s a friend in need and a very talented artist. She does modern sculptures.”
“And you’re a wood-turner, I understand?” Gabrielle stepped forward to kiss Benjamin on the cheek.
Gabs, No! He’ll know we’ve been talking about him! Felicity was about to say something crass to change the subject but Benjamin got in first.
“Thanks for being Felicity’s friend-in-need.” If he was unused to being kissed on the cheek by a stranger, he did well to conceal it. Benjamin smiled. “May we have two apple muffins, one long black, and a white coffee…” He turned to Felicity with a questioning eye. “Cappuccino?” On seeing her nod, he continued. “Cappuccino. And neither of us take sugar.”
Felicity found that she was hanging on to Benjamin’s arm. She had taken it whilst making the introduction and forgotten to let it go. No sugar. He remembered! She gave his arm a squeeze.
Once they were seated at an outside table, Felicity wondered where on earth she should begin. There was so much to share.
Benjamin was watching her under his long eyelashes. He looked calm. She felt far from calm. Taking a deep breath, she began. “I had a wonderful time the other night…and I was busting to share something with you but Marcus was there and, well…”
“He’s a nosy journalist who can be a little careless with other people’s sensibilities and confidences,” prompted Benjamin.
Felicity nodded and leaned forward. “The thing I really wanted to share with you is that we’ve had a fabulously significant historical breakthrough.”
“We?”
She looked down shyly. “We. It’s your Atlantis stone…which I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for you.”
He nodded. “What about it?”
“It’s Portuguese. It’s part of a carved stone, the other half of which is in South Africa. It categorically proves that the Portuguese were here well before white settlement.” She looked up at him. “Don’t you see? It all ties in with the mahogany ship.”
“I’ve heard of the ship.” Benjamin smiled. “Well, everyone around here has. How does your discovery tie in with it?”
“The best theory is that the ship was one of three in a flotilla led by Cristóvão de Mendonça to look for new lands in which they might find gold. It had to be a secret expedition because they were technically infringing the Treaty of Tordesillas, which Portugal had signed. It reserved discoveries in this part of the world for Spain.” She pulled her chair closer to the table. Most people believe it likely that the mahogany ship was one of Mendonça’s ships that was wrecked here.”
Benjamin nodded. “But where does our stone fit in?”
“I can’t be sure of the exact scenario, but it must have been something like this.” She cleared her throat. “A sailor had been carving a picture of his own ship, and another picture of the whole flotilla, on a flat stone. Under his own ship, he’d etched the words Ilhas do ouro—land of gold; and under the flotilla, he’d etched Mendonça’s name. But the trouble was, the carving was proof that Portugal was infringing the treaty. My guess is that someone in authority ordered the stone to be broken in two so that the connection couldn’t be made. The sailor kept one half and gave the other to a friend on another ship. When one ship struck the rocks off Warrnambool, some sailors must have made it into a rowing boat. Our luckless sailor managed to take his ditty bag with him, but the boat foundered and everything sank, including his stone.” She paused to make sure Benjamin had taken it all in.
“Go on.”
“The other sailor, with his piece of rock, took two years to get to South Africa on his way back to Portugal. While he was there, he finished carving the rock. He etched the date, 1524, under the picture of Mendonça’s flotilla.” Felicity reached her hand half way across the table. “That piece of rock is still in South Africa. I learned about it from a book written by a science journalist when I was doing my thesis.” She looked at Benjamin anxiously. “Do you think it’s plausible?”
Benjamin took an eternity to answer. Eventually, he cleared his throat. “Felicity, the exact story of how the two pieces of stone came to be at opposite ends of the Indian Ocean will probably never be known but your hypothesis is certainly reasonable.” He smiled. “What is not in doubt is that because of your tenacity and hard work, you have positive proof that Mendonça’s Portuguese flotilla was here.” He leaned back. “I think that’s amazing. At the very least, it’s got to be the subject of your first book.”
Felicity laughed with relief. “You believe me?”
Benjamin nodded, but his face turned serious. “But may I ask a question that’s been concerning me?”
Felicity frowned.
“You were undecided the other night about whether you should get involved with the Khayef Group. Why? What’s troubling you?”
Felicity swallowed. “Yes, um…they said they wanted to be philanthropic and help research Australian heritage, but their line of questioning suggested they had an agenda.” She shrugged. “I’m nervous of committing until I know what it is.”
Benjamin nodded. “Instincts are powerful. Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.” He leaned back and stretched his legs. “I…um, took the liberty of ringing Marcus yesterday and asked if he could dig around a bit and find some information about them.” He gave a lopsided grin. “If anyone can, it’ll be him. He’s tenacious.”
“Here you are ladies and gentlemen.” Gabrielle placed a tray with coffee and muffins on the table. She turned to Benjamin. “You are a gentleman, I take it?”
“No, I am completely unused to civilized surroundings, and I eat with my mouth open.”
Gabrielle straightened up and sighed. “You’re a gentleman. Most of my customers wouldn’t even know that eating with your mouth open is bad manners.” She turned on her heels and went into the café, calling back to Felicity over her shoulder, “He’ll do.”
Felicity closed her eyes and wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
Benjamin appeared not to hear.
She watched him eat…and wondered how much to tell him…how much he would believe. Would he understand? Would he even want to know?
She was brought up with a start when he spoke. “Felicity, I’m part blackfella…and we…” Benjamin swallowed. “We blackfellas have all the time in the world.” He looked up at her. “So, take your time.”
“Oh! Um…” How does he do that? How does he know? She rubbed her forehead and tried to marshal her thoughts. With some diffidence, she began. “I’ve been away for the last two days…” She paused. “No, let me go back a bit.” She put down her fork, put her hands together, and said, “How much do you know about Sardinia?”
Benjamin raised his eyebrows. “Sardinia! As in the island in the Mediterranean?”
“Yes.”
“Assume complete ignorance. Tell me everything that it would be helpful for me to know.”
“Er, right.” Felicity swallowed.
“Sardinia’s history has been politically messy for almost all of its history. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Italians, and Spanish all controlled it at various times—when it wasn’t being pillaged by Vandal raiders and Arab corsairs. It’s now under the rule of Italy, although there’s no great enthusiasm from either Italy or Sardinia regarding the arrangement.”
Benjamin nodded. “I’m guessing that somehow Sardinia’s politics were significant when Portugal was signing treaties with everyone to decide who would own what parts of the world?”
Felicity nodded. “Sardinia became a Spanish territory after the unification of the Spanish kingdoms in 1479, so they owned it—sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Yes. The
‘sort of’ is actually very important.”
“Why?”
“Well, the locals were fairly resentful of the Spanish. So much so, that it was the perfect place for John II of Portugal and Henry VII of England to send their emissaries to sign a treaty.” Felicity shrugged. “What better place to sign it? It was well away from spies in their royal courts…and right under the noses of the Spanish. It was the last place the Spanish would have been watching closely.”
“Cheeky.”
“Very.”
“A local dignitary in the southern Sardinian city of Cagliari was chosen to be a witness to the treaty. He was considered ideal because his nationalistic pride had been hurt by being forced by the Spanish to conscript local labor to renovate Cagliari’s city walls.”
“Was that a problem?”
“His main project was to turn one of the towers in the wall into a prison…largely to hold dissenting Sards.”
Benjamin pulled a face. “Yeah, I suppose that would do it.”
“The next to invade Cagliari were the English. A naval fleet under Sir John Leake bombarded the city into submission in 1708 and ransacked the place. The thing is, a student researching for a PhD has recently been looking at the documents seized on that occasion which hadn’t previously attracted much attention. I’ve just read his thesis.” She caught herself jiggling up and down with excitement…and forced herself to sit still. “It makes mention of the treaty that Portugal and England signed concerning who would own what if countries east of Africa were discovered.”
Felicity lowered her gaze. “I needed to get away for a bit to do some thinking, so when a colleague at Melbourne museum, who knew I’d done a thesis in this area, alerted me to this new research, I had to check it out.” She returned her gaze to Benjamin. “That’s why I went to Melbourne.”
Benjamin said nothing and looked at her for a long while before nodding. “Find anything interesting?”
Yes, Benjamin. I found that I love you. Felicity sniffed. She forced her thoughts back to the subject in hand and continued. “Yes. Some very interesting stuff.” Mercifully, she felt her excitement start to flood back. “It mentions a rough draft text of what was in the treaty.” She reached down to her shoulder bag, pulled out a piece of paper, and smoothed it out on the table. “I’ve got a translation of it. Here, listen to this.”
The bearer of this document has the right to collect and mine for gold in any great lands in the South Seas east of the lands of Africa.
To encourage development in new lands and earnest endeavor, no tax of any kind will be levied on gold that does not leave the lands in which it is found.
To encourage exploration, and notwithstanding who holds this document, the one who discovers any great land or isles east of Africa will have rightful claim on any gold found within sixty leagues of their point of landing. This right shall extend to the descendants of those who discover the land—if they can prove lineage.
This should prevent murder and war…and preserve good order.
“But no one’s actually got the treaty?”
“There’s one copy. It is potentially dangerous, legally, so it’s kept safe in the British National Archive at Kew. Its existence has been kept quiet, but a little bit of information leaked out a few years back. One of their curators became too loquacious when giving a lecture on the National Archive.” Felicity grinned. “Evidently, he was pulled off PR work pretty quickly.”
“Just one copy?”
“Well…” She drew in a breath. “Three copies were made originally. One was kept in Lisbon but it was destroyed in the great fire of 1755. The other was kept in Cagliari somewhere but no one has managed to find it. Most people think it was lost…” She trailed off.
She glanced up and caught Benjamin watching her closely. He nodded and said slowly. “But you’re not so sure.”
Felicity dropped her head. “No…well…sort of.” She began chewing her lips. “It’s just that the PhD I’ve read mentions something that could be a clue as to where the mutinous Sard hid his witnessed copy of the treaty.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“He talks about keeping it in a place ‘which could never forget.’”
Benjamin looked at her quizzically.
Felicity lifted her chin and stared at him defiantly. “I think it’s in an elephant.”
“What!”
“Seriously.” She grabbed his arm, willing him to believe her. “The Sard had been asked to keep the treaty safe, so he organized for it to be kept in a place which could never forget. At first, I thought this was a grammatical error—everyone did.” She shook Benjamin’s arm. “But then I learned about a tower in Cagliari.”
“A tower.”
“Yes.” She leaned forward. “It’s called the elephant tower. It was the prison tower the Sard nobleman was conscripting labor for.”
“Aah.” Benjamin nodded. “An elephant never forgets.”
“Precisely.”
“But where on earth would you begin to find something as small as a piece of parchment in something as massive as a medieval stone tower?”
Felicity searched his face, wanting him to understand her excitement. “Because the tower has a small elephant statue above its gate. It’s the craziest thing, which no one has ever been able to make sense of.” She banged a finger on the table. “If a copy of the treaty was hidden inside, it would make perfect sense of everything.”
After a long pause, Benjamin smiled. “Felicity, you might be on to something.”
She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, ostensibly to allow the sun to play fully on her face. In reality, she sought to hide tears of relief that Benjamin had understood her. After a moment, she opened her eyes and watched some gulls wheel through the air above her searching for abandoned food scraps.
Benjamin cleared his throat. “I’ve left something in my car that I’d like to give you.” He rushed on, as if embarrassed. “And then I’d like to take the opportunity of making a few more measurements for the bull-nose. I want a firm picture of it in my mind before I start turning your veranda posts.”
“Sure.” Felicity forced her thoughts back to her building project, glad of the opportunity to share some of her recent ideas with Benjamin.
“Benjamin…”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking. Cladding the house is routine builder’s work—which I can now pay a builder to do, thanks to you. Would it be a better use of your talents to ask you to turn matching posts for the bull-nose on the first floor balcony at the rear of the house? It’s in the plans…but I wasn’t going to build it because of costs.” She smiled. “I can afford it now.”
“I think you should build it.”
“Oh, really?”
“Hmm. Have you noticed that the building behind yours has a Sold sticker across its sale board—and has had for some time?”
“What…the old fish co-op shed?”
Benjamin nodded.
“No,” Felicity admitted. “I’ve been pretty distracted recently.”
“Unless you go down to the riverfront, you probably won’t see it. I only saw it because I walk along there sometimes to look at the boats.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to remember the last time she’d done the same. She’d always appreciated that the banks of the river had been beautifully developed. Luxury houses ran down to a boardwalk running along the water’s edge. Boats, including her brother’s Shark Cat, were moored alongside it. However, she preferred to walk along the coast where it was wild and desolate.
“Why don’t I show you?”
They walked together along the river foreshore until they came to a rusted, corrugated iron shed. There were no fences, so they walked around the back. Felicity could see the top of her new house behind the back fence. The gable under the new roof hadn’t been filled in because the builders were awaiting her final decision on whether to put in French doors to a balcony. She could see inside to where the light from the
new dormer windows shone against the raked ceiling. The prospect of looking from a balcony at an industrial shed wall scarred by drainpipes hadn’t excited her. She looked at it glumly.
“Felicity, I think you should see the display board that’s been put up in front of the property.”
Benjamin walked Felicity around to the road in front of the shed to a display board that the developers had erected. It showed the plans of four luxury townhouses and an artist’s impression of the finished development.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the plans. “There’s a gap between the second and third townhouses. You’ll have a narrow but clear view of the river.” He smiled his quiet smile. “A balcony with a picture window would add two hundred thousand dollars to the value of your property.”
Felicity was in shock at the realization, and her head began to spin. Extraordinary. Her fortunes, which had recently been so desperate, had completely turned around. She glanced at Benjamin. And it had all happened since…then her phone rang. Damn!
She recognized her brother’s voice immediately. “Flick, sorry to spoil your day. But we’ve been burgled—or, more particularly, you’ve been burgled. Can you come home? The police are around here.” He paused. “It must have happened while we were shopping in Warrnambool. And Flick, I’d better warn you; things are pretty messy. Everything in the filing cabinet is on the floor and your computer’s gone. I don’t know what else.”
Once the shock of hearing the news had subsided sufficiently for Felicity to think, she blurted, “What about the Atlantis stone? Is that gone?”
“What the hell are you talking about, Flick?”
Felicity pinched the top of her nose. “Sorry. Forget it. I’ll come straight around.”
Chapter 11
Archie leaned on the broom as Benjamin told him about the burglary of Felicity’s room at the back of her brother’s house. Archie had been sweeping the wood shavings to an open trapdoor in the floor, where they were allowed to fall into a bin four feet below.