The Mask of Troy
( Jack Howard - 5 )
David Gibbins
The Mask of Troy
David Gibbins
I give you a tablet of war; I give you a tablet of peace.
After a letter from King Tudhaliyas IV of the Hittites to the Assyrian king, late thirteenth century BC
His sharpen’d spear let every Grecian wield,
And every Grecian fix his brazen shield;
Let all excite the fiery steeds of war,
And all for combat fit the rattling car.
This day, this dreadful day, let each contend;
No rest, no respite, till the shades descend;
Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all:
Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall.
Homer, The Iliad, Book II, lines 382-94, eighth century BC or earlier, translated by Alexander Pope, 1715-20
Prologue
Mycenae, Greece, 28 November 1876
T he man stepped off the upper rung of the ladder on to the edge of the excavation pit, his shoes crunching on a pile of ancient potsherds the workmen had shovelled aside a few days before. In the moonlight the rough-hewn masonry around him glistened, as if the great citadel of the Bronze Age were new again. He swept his hand over his thinning hair, and pushed his pince-nez spectacles up his nose. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his fob watch. Four a.m. He and Sophia had been here almost three hours, and it was now less than an hour before first light. Before the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn. He closed his eyes, thrilling at the epithet. Homer was never far from his thoughts here, when he was alone among the shadowy ruins with his wife, astonished at what they had found. Well-built Mycenae, rich in gold. It had been his dream since discovering Troy five years before, since he and Sophia had secretly made the find that would one day astonish the world, to come here to this other great bastion of the Bronze Age, this citadel of the king of kings, to find the key that would allow him to stand in front of the world and reveal the truth. Only then would people know it was not treasure that had driven him to search for the reality of the Trojan War, but the salvation of humanity. The key that could save the world from Armageddon.
He shoved the watch back in his pocket, and saw that he was streaked with mud. He would get Sophia to brush him down thoroughly before they returned, to remove all evidence that they had been up here. He was still wearing his dinner clothes from the evening before. They had planned to resume digging the following day, in a final effort before the excavation was closed down for the season. They had invited the Greek inspector to join them for a lavish celebratory meal, and had plied him with the most expensive wines and brandy until he had collapsed in a stupor. They had stolen up here afterwards, with nothing more than a spluttering oil lamp and a trowel. He had been waiting for this chance. Sophia had seen something in the first royal shaft grave several weeks before, in the final hours before the storm broke and halted the excavation of that tomb. He had made sure one of them had been there always, in the grave circle, personally taking the excavation deep into the bedrock below the citadel, at the place where all his instincts told him they would find what he had come here for, the final ingredient in the revelation that would soon astound humankind.
For now, what they found would be their secret. The world would know only that he, Heinrich Schliemann, maverick millionaire, genius linguist, myth-lover, had come here after discovering Troy, on his relentless quest for the king who set the war in motion, the war that so many had dismissed as legend. He smiled wryly to himself. He would give them what they wanted. He peered cautiously around. In front of him were the upright slabs that formed the grave circle, enclosed by the massive ruined walls of the citadel that rose behind him in the cleft between the mountains. Walls built not by men but by Cyclopes, one-eyed monsters the men of Mycenae had yoked like slaves to create their rock-girt fortress. He half believed the myth himself, marvelling at the colossal size of the stones that lay where they had been placed more than three thousand years before. Yet it was not gods and giants he sought, but the deeds of men, real men, flesh and blood: what men could do, how high they could rise, how far they could fall. And the men he sought were not the heroes of myth. They were the shapers of history.
‘Heinrich! You must come at once!’ Sophia’s voice came from the darkness below. Schliemann turned and stared into the excavation trench, his heart pounding. Could this be it? They had found treasure already, unimaginable quantities of it, revealed to gasping onlookers over the weeks of the excavation: gold diadems, jewellery, weapons, a golden goblet he had loudly proclaimed to be the cup of Nestor, the very cup Homer said had been brought before the Greeks on the plain of Troy. But it was not treasure they were looking for now. They were looking for the deed of a king; for what a king had hidden. He peered again, and saw only a faint golden glow at the base of the ladder, where Sophia was working at the bottom of the rock-cut shaft. He tried to control his excitement. ‘Keep your voice down,’ he whispered sharply in German. ‘And keep anything you’ve found concealed. I need to be sure we’re alone.’
His eyes swept from right to left. For a second he thought he saw a shadowy form, then it was gone, a trick of the moonlight. He saw the rocky path they had come up three hours before, through the gateway with its triangular capstone carved in the shape of two lions holding a pillar. The Lion Gate of Mycenae, wall-girt fortress of Agamemnon, lord of men, wide-ruling one, noble son of Atreus. The lions were decapitated now, but still exerted extraordinary power, and seeing them for the first time had strengthened his resolve that this place was more than just the stage set of myth. He turned away from the gate and gazed out as the great king once had from his mountain fastness over the plain towards the sea, to the place where he had set forth for Troy. Troy. Schliemann still shuddered at the name. They had been there, just like this, three years before, he and Sophia. They had found the treasure of King Priam. And they had found more. More than he could possibly have dreamed of. More than the world yet knew.
He saw the twinkling lights of their camp on the edge of the plain. He looked for flitting shadows in the gloom, for lights moving on the rocky path, but there was nothing. The Greek inspector would still be sleeping off the drink. The Greek authorities had heard rumours from Troy, and mistrusted Schliemann. There were some who thought he and Sophia were little more than tomb-robbers. Yet the Greeks were covetous enough of their place in history to want a part in the drama, to give him permission to excavate. And he was grateful to them. If the academics of the world had had their way, he would never have been allowed here. They had derided him for being self-taught, for having more money than sense, too used to getting his own way, too used to certainty. They thought he was absurd, a fantasist. But they were wrong.
He had not come in search of myth.
He had come in search of truth.
He had come in search of the real heroes.
He turned back to the trench and took a deep breath. The air had been cleansed by the rain, but the smells were rising again: rosemary, thyme, the sweet ether that seemed to float above these ancient sites, an exhalation from history too powerful to be washed away by a transient act of nature. He smelled the earth, the richness of it, the soil that had buried this place for millennia. He glanced up. The moonlit clouds were moving with speed, and for a second he fancied he saw the ghostly galleys of the Greeks heading east, drawn towards their nemesis at Troy. He swung his leg over the ladder, and moments later was at the bottom of the trench, encased in the smooth square walls where the tomb chamber had been hacked out of the rock. The lamp glowed in one corner. Sophia was there, raven-haired, bedecked in jewellery copied from their finds at Troy, streaked in grime like
him. She was his Mycenaean queen, hunched over the grave as if she were preparing to join the dead king in the afterlife. ‘Heinrich,’ she whispered, pointing. He stared at the ground. He stopped breathing. He felt his knees buckle under him, and fell forward. It was not lamplight he had seen from the surface. It was gold. A mask of gold. He reached out and touched the metal. It was cold, pristine, untarnished. His heart was pounding. The fine, aristocratic features, the beard and moustache, the high cheekbones, the thin, hard lips. And those eyes, almond-shaped with a line across the middle, at once open and closed. A face just like the others they had seen below Troy, the discovery he and Sophia had kept secret, a discovery too precious, too momentous, to squander in the game to put facts behind myth. He stared again. They had found it.
The face of a king. The mightiest earth-shaker of them all. The king of kings.
‘Shall we take it now?’ Sophia whispered.
He stared hard at the mask, then shook his head. ‘No. We need to give our supporters what they want. What I said I believed in, all my life. Heinrich Schliemann will be vindicated. We will rebury this, and find it again with the workmen tomorrow. This image, this mask, will be etched for ever in the history of archaeology, for ever be associated with my name, with yours.’
‘What will you tell them?’
He carefully pushed the tips of his fingers under the edges of the mask. ‘I will tell them,’ he said slowly, ‘that I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.’
‘But we must see what lies beneath,’ she said. ‘ Now.’
He gazed at her, his eyes suddenly moist with emotion. ‘What we find here will be my gift to you. To the children we will have. To the children of the world.’ He dug his fingers in further. He stared at the face on the mask again, those eyes at once open and closed. He held his breath. It was what he told the world he would find. A herrscherbild. The image of a lord of men, a warrior king. He continued staring. For the first time he felt a pang of doubt. Was this truly the face of a hero, a face that could bring back a golden age? Or was it another face, the face of a man who had unleashed a war that destroyed the world’s first great civilization? He remembered the myths again. The curse of the House of Atreus. He thought of the wars he had known, wars in his own lifetime, wars that had ravaged Europe, America, the East. Millions killed, whole countries devastated. Wars where there were no longer heroes. Wars fought with weapons forged in the fires of hell itself. He thought of the wars that could come. Total war. He and Sophia, their secret circle of friends, the powerful and good from around the world, had dreamed of a world where war was vanquished, where heroes once again would rule supreme, champions willing to sacrifice themselves for their people, for peace, a creed that he, Heinrich Schliemann, would reawaken by his determination to find the truth of what lay buried in this land of legends.
He stared into the eyes of the mask. He thought of those who had wielded power in his own world. Of those who might come. A kaiser. A fuhrer.
He thought of what he might unleash.
Sophia nudged him. ‘You must do it, Heinrich. You must. It’s nearly dawn.’
He swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. He smelled the earth again, the deep metallic odour. The exhalation of history. The smell of blood.
He lifted the mask.
PART 1
1
Off the island of Tenedos, the Aegean Sea, present day
T he diver stared at the sea bed in astonishment. He had never seen treasure like this before in his life. He reached down and touched it, closing his fingers round the hilt, drawing the blade out of the sand to its full length. It was a magnificent sword, a weapon fit for a king, perfectly preserved as if it had been dropped this day, not lost thousands of years ago in the time of legends. He lifted it up, dazzled by the studded jewels of the hilt, by the gleaming bronze blade inlaid with gold and with red niello, images of warriors, spear-girt with figure-of-eight shields, following a great lion lunging at the front. He raised it towards the sunlight that streamed down from the surface, for a moment imagining he was passing it back up to the great king himself, war-bent, eyes locked on Troy, his galley riding the waves above. But as the blade reflected the sunlight it blinded him, and when he looked again it had disintegrated into sand, showering down through his fingers on to the sea bed below. His breathing quickened, and he began desperately digging for it again, reaching into the hole he had made, pushing hard with his fingers. How could he tell the others? How could he tell them he had found the treasure that had brought them all so far, and then lost it?
Jack Howard woke with a start as a Turkish air force F-16 shrieked low overhead, the roar dropping to a deep rumble as the jet hurtled over the coastline to the east. He shut his eyes, then rubbed them, trying to calm his breathing. The dream was always the same, and ended the same way. Maybe today reality would take over. He checked his dive watch, shading his eyes against the glare of the sun. In forty-five minutes he was due at the briefing, and twenty minutes after that he would be kitting up to dive on the shipwreck in the depths below them. He took a deep breath, sprang to his feet, then rolled up his sleeping mat and stashed it in its usual place beside the bow railing. It was his favourite spot to take a siesta, where he felt close to the elements – the intense Aegean sky, the noise and smell of the sea – yet within hailing distance of the bridge should he be needed.
He glanced back at the bridge windows, waving at the watch officer, and then looked down the sleek lines of the ship. Seaquest II had emerged from a refit only two weeks previously, and the white paint on her superstructure was still gleaming. Beyond the Lynx helicopter at the stern he could see the flag of the International Maritime University, bearing the anchor from his own family coat of arms, and above that a red flag with a white crescent moon and a star, their courtesy flag in Turkish waters. He shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon, picking out the lines of sight he had spotted before lying down, mentally triangulating their position. To the south-west lay the island of Bozcaada, ancient Tenedos, less than two nautical miles off the port bow. To the north-east he could just make out the low cliffs of Gallipoli, the long peninsula that jutted out from the European shore and flanked the Dardanelles, the narrow strait that divided Europe from Asia. He glanced at the GPS receiver he had left propped by the railing, confirming his fix. His pulse quickened. Captain Macalister was returning to the sonar contact they had made just before noon. The sea was rougher now, but the decision had clearly been made. Jack coursed with excitement. He remembered the extraordinary shape he had seen on the sea bed earlier that morning. The dive was still on.
He gripped the railing. The dream had left him jumpy, unable to relax. He remembered what he had come up here planning to do, when he had thought he would not sleep. He picked up the makeshift wooden target, three pieces of plank nailed into a crude triangle, and tossed it overboard, feeding out the line and tying it to the railing. He looked back to the bridge and put his hand up, and a moment later heard the triple warning blast on the tannoy indicating that a live firing exercise was about to take place. He put on the ear protectors and unholstered the heavy revolver he had put on the deck beside him. He slipped the lanyard over his neck, then pressed the thumb catch to break open the revolver and load six. 455 calibre cartridges from the pouch on the belt. He snapped the gun shut and took aim, his right arm locked straight out, his left hand supporting the grip. He cocked the hammer with his left thumb and curled his right index finger round the trigger. The target was thirty, maybe thirty-five metres away, a challenge at the best of times, but compounded by the rise of the swell and the heave of the ship’s bow. He pulled the trigger and the revolver jumped back, its dull subsonic report almost lost in the noise of the wind. He fired again, and saw a stab of bubbles just short of the target. He pursed his lips. The powder load was right, but the bullets needed to be lighter. He fired off the remaining four chambers double-action, squeezing the trigger each time the revolver returned from the recoil, aiming high. The final bullet
hit the target and sent it spinning crazily above the waves. He lowered his arms, pressed the thumb catch and broke the gun open, ejecting the spent cartridges into a bucket at his feet. He pulled off the ear protectors and hung them round his neck, raised his arm again and listened for the tannoy blasts to signal the end of firing. As he waited, he stared at the horizon, at the line of open sea to the south between the island and the Turkish mainland.
He braced his tall frame against the roll and pitch of the ship, and swallowed hard. The sea swell was making him feel uncomfortable, though he hated to acknowledge it. Captain Macalister had deactivated Seaquest II ’s stabilizer system as he reacquired their position over the site. The sea had been calm that morning, but the wind had picked up as usual in the early afternoon and the waves were now racing over the crests of the swell, sending occasional swirls of spindrift above the whitecaps like horses’ manes as the sea drove towards the shore. Jack concentrated on the low coastline where the F-16 had disappeared. For a moment he wished he was over there with the other team, on dry land, excavating the most fabled archaeological site in history, the ruins of an ancient citadel once thought to be no more than a figment in the imagination of a blind poet. Then he remembered what he had seen that morning, almost a hundred metres deep on the sea bed, a shape barely discernible on the edge of the darkness. He still did not know if it was a hallucination, the fulfilment of a dream that had obsessed him, the dream that had drawn so many to this place and left them yearning for more, for one more discovery to transform the legend into rock-solid reality. He thought of Heinrich Schliemann, almost a century and a half before. Schliemann had come here chasing a dream. And he had found Troy.
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