‘Where are we going, Mr Borg?’ Bethany asked.
Borg jerked his chin ahead, where the rumble of surf warned of savage seas.
Jack shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re going to try Bahar Ahrax, Rugged Bay, in the dark?’
Borg nodded quietly. ‘This is my coast, Mr Tarver.’
‘But Mr Borg …’
Bethany touched Jack’s arm. ‘Do sit still, Jack. I’m sure Mr Borg knows exactly what he is doing.’
Even in the dark, Jack could see the seas surging onto the twin headland of Ras il-Wahx and Ras il-Mignuna, then exploding in a cascade of spray that rose hundreds of feet in the air before falling into the disturbed waters. Between the two sentinel points was the entrance to Bahar Ahrax. There may have been thirty feet of clear water between the back surges, but Jack was not sure. He stared ahead at the furious mass of disturbed water and said nothing.
‘My goodness!’ Bethany fanned her face, for although it was night, the breeze from the south carried a sultry heat that was not pleasant. ‘How do you intend to land, Mr Borg?’
‘The same way that I always do,’ Borg said. He was not smiling, but neither did he seem perturbed.
‘May I close my eyes, please?’ Bethany asked, but rather than cowering from the sight, she moved forward, over the nonchalant George, and knelt right in the bows, leaning with her bottom thrusting backwards, her face as a figurehead and her hair blowing free.
‘What have I married?’ Jack asked himself. Sighing, he eased towards her and put his hands on her waist to hold her secure as the boat thrust through the fragmented seas. ‘Bethany, you’d be safer further back,’ he suggested.
She shook her head. ‘If the boat goes down,’ she said rationally, ‘then it makes no difference where we are. But if she doesn’t, I have the best view. What an experience we are having here, Jack!’ She grinned. ‘Oh, drop your Friday face! Mr Borg knows what he is doing.’
Jack glanced to the stern, where Borg sat impassively. The man was as much a seaman as Nelson, but less lauded and more emotionally stable.
The dghajsa rocked wildly as a side current caught her, but Borg sat solidly at the tiller, his face expressionless as usual. He made one small adjustment, shouting to George, then the boat slithered between the seething points. One minute they were amidst a turmoil of leaping waves, the next the keel was grinding onto a pebbly beach with the great Dingli Cliffs soaring above them and the wind only a memory.
‘These headlands make the entrance difficult,’ he began – although he had to speak loudly above the sound of the surf, Borg sounded as calm as if he had just sailed into a sheltered and sunlit creek – ‘but they also shelter the bay from the worst of the wind. The Knights once kept a galley in this bay in case the Turks attacked on the south coast.’
Jack looked at the cliffs, rising sheer and ugly from the sea, with the track invisible in the dark and the lights of Fiddien guiding the way to heaven.
‘What do you intend now?’ Jack was aware of the pistol pressing hard against his stomach. He felt more secure on land, even if this was Borg’s home territory.
‘I’m going back to Maria,’ Borg said simply. ‘But I think you two have to make a decision.’
Bethany glanced at Jack, her eyes bright with reflected moonlight. ‘We have both keys,’ she said slowly, ‘but we do not know where the lock is.’
Borg nodded. ‘And you never will know, unless I tell you.’ He nodded to the cliff. ‘Now follow me carefully and don’t stray.’
Jack sighed, as his earlier dreams of a life of ease faded into reality. That was not him: he was an engineer by choice and training, and his future lay in hard work and solid achievement. Instinctively, he looked around the bay. There was no trace of the harbour that Mr Egerton was supposed to be creating; there was just this tiny track hacked into the cliff. ‘A goat might make it up there,’ he said.
‘A goat and us too,’ Borg told him quietly.
‘Come on, Joseph,’ George urged. ‘Maria will be worrying.’ He led them onto the track, his walking stick staccato against the hard rock of the track.
With astonishing stamina for a limping man, George led them up, with Borg second and Jack and Bethany lagging behind. Flying spray spattered them for the first fifteen minutes of the ascent, and then Bethany gasped as the wind rose, hot as a blast from a furnace.
‘As you can feel, the xlokk is building up,’ Borg explained. ‘The sea will start to rise now. Your position on St Alfonso’s Tower would have become very uncomfortable in an hour or so.’ He glanced at Bethany, who was surreptitiously trying to wipe the perspiration from her face. ‘Not even the Maltese are comfortable in the xlokk.’
Bethany nodded. ‘It’s certainly hot,’ she allowed. ‘Are you fit to continue, Jacko?’ She looked at Borg and explained. ‘He’s still not quite recovered from the fever, you know.’
‘Of course,’ Borg allowed, ‘but I think we had better carry on.’
They halted at a ledge halfway up the cliff, with half-a-dozen goats grazing, unconcerned at the dizzy fall beneath, and then pushed to the summit, where the full heat of the xlokk struck them.
‘My goodness!’ Bethany clung on to Jack. The heat had redoubled, as it rebounded from the rocks, driving the breath from their lungs. In front of them, clinging to the cusp of the cliff, the tiny settlement of Fiddien seemed more like a military picket than a place where people would choose to live.
Dominated by the brooding tower, flat-roofed houses clustered together as if afraid to face the immensity of the ocean. ‘We are being watched,’ Bethany said softly, and gestured towards the array of latticed windows. ‘I can feel them.’
‘Come into my house for the night,’ Borg invited. ‘You had better get some rest, for tomorrow might be long.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Bethany looked for an explanation.
‘You have the keys,’ Borg said, ‘but I know where they should go.’ He looked at Jack, his face impassive. ‘Of course I could call up enough people to take them from you here and now, but I will not. Instead we shall combine and …’ he shrugged, ‘see what transpires.’ He held Jack’s eyes. ‘I said you must come to a decision, Mr Tarver, but I have made it for you.’
‘Oh?’ Jack slid a hand beneath his cloak and encircled the butt of his pistol, but Borg smiled and leaned closer.
‘You would never use that against me, Mr Tarver. Not without cause.’
‘What makes you think that?’ Jack asked. Am I so weak?
Borg’s smile was nearly patriarchal. ‘I know you better than you think.’
Borg’s house welcomed them, with warm lights in all the windows and a door that gaped open. Maria Borg greeted them like old friends, made no mention of the treasure, fed them quietly and showed them to a room with a view over the sea.
Jack looked out, seeing the flash of silver surf around St Alfonso’s Tower, and realised how easily it had been for Borg to watch him. ‘These are strange people,’ he said. ‘What did he mean, he knew me?’ But Bethany was already sleeping, unwashed and undressed, on top of the broad double bed. On the wall above her, a picture of the Madonna smiled down fondly.
There was a faint taste of sand in the air when Borg organised them in the narrow streets of the village next morning. He had brought a horse for Bethany, and offered Jack his own mare.
‘I’m better on foot,’ Jack said. A gentleman could not ride when his host walked.
‘So am I,’ Borg said, and instead led out a mule. Maria handed him a canvas bag of food, which he tied across its back, then he hefted a lantern and a brace of long pistols. ‘We do not know who or what we will meet,’ he said as he looked down the barrel of a pistol before loading it with powder and ball. ‘It is always best to be prepared.’
‘Where are we going?’ Jack asked. ‘Where is the treasure held?’
‘Somewhere safe,’ Borg promised. ‘It’s not too far. Nowhere is too far in Malta.’ Looking at Bethany, he suddenly relented and nodded forward, where the spi
res of Medina rose above the heat haze that was already forming. ‘We are going to Rabat,’ he said, ‘and that’s all I will tell you just now.’
‘Rabat?’ Jack repeated, but Borg was already moving, stalking along the path with a deceptively casual long-legged stride that ate the distance. Shaking his head, Jack followed, wondering why Mr Borg had chosen to hide a treasure in Rabat. He had imagined some out-of-the-way spot, perhaps buried underground or in one of the more remote of the farms, but never in a thriving town.
‘Come on, Jack!’ Bethany urged and flicked her horse on.
When George lifted himself onto the mule’s back, holding his walking stick like a lance, they began to move faster, following the route of Jack’s intended road, until the great gates of Mdina appeared, with the town of Rabat unfolding around its base. Wind-borne dust blurred the outline of the buildings, and the sky, usually so blue and crisp, was hazed and softened.
Bethany coughed and shook her head. ‘I feel like a long bath,’ she said. ‘I never thought I’d miss English rain.’
‘I’ll remind you of that some November day when the sleet is battering down,’ Jack replied, trying to smile, but he wondered what was ahead, what he should do for the best. Secure in his waistband, the St Alfonso dagger pressed against his stomach, a reminder of his obligations to the Crown, and yet here he was with Mr Borg, who was against any British involvement in his island.
‘Follow me and don’t stray,’ Borg ordered, and for the first time Jack saw that he was tense, with a hard line to his jaw. ‘And Mr Tarver, I don’t want you to signal to any British soldiers.’
The idea had not occurred to Jack, but he nodded anyway, just as George used his stick to urge the mule closer. The knife at his belt was long and subtly curved, so Jack wondered if he was more a guard than a companion.
While Mdina had been a fortress for the Knights, Rabat appeared more like a living town for the indigenous Maltese. There were the same winding streets, with the overhanging balconies; the same ornate stone architecture. But there were more open spaces and a greater bustle of people. Mdina was known as the silent city, but there was nothing silent about Rabat as they moved through. Some of the people moved respectfully aside as they recognised Borg.
‘Here,’ Borg said bluntly, stopping at a small stone doorway in a piece of rough ground on the outskirts of the town. He glanced at Jack. ‘Now we will see if these keys work.’
‘Is there some doubt?’ Jack asked.
‘Of course,’ Borg said. ‘Nobody has ever used them before.’ He pushed open a wooden doorway.
There were seven stone steps leading downwards. A sudden waft of thick air was released from the passageway.
‘Once there were lanterns permanently lighting this place,’ Borg said casually, ‘but with the demise of the Knights, and this war, all our ways are slipping.’
Jack nodded. ‘The war will not last forever.’
‘It has already lasted long enough,’ Borg said. ‘We’ll go down, Mr Tarver, but George will stay here in case anybody tries to interrupt us.’ Lighting his lantern, he lifted it high and descended the steps into another world. They entered a subterranean cavern with a massive column of limestone separating two chambers from which other passages and entrances spread. The lantern light sent strange shadows dancing around the wall, hinting at the mysterious deeper passages that disappeared into the depths beneath Malta.
‘What was this place?’ Bethany asked.
Jack felt her hand slide into his and knew she was remembering the French tunnel under the Channel, as well as earlier and more sinister times. He squeezed his reassurance.
‘St Paul’s Catacombs,’ Borg said quietly. ‘This was where the early Christians buried their dead.’ He looked around, his eyes intense and the lantern creating hard shadows on his cheekbones. ‘I hope you’re not afraid of such things, Mrs Tarver.’
Bethany relaxed her pressure on Jack’s hand and said, ‘Of course not,’ but her laugh was unconvincing.
There was a cold draught from the crypt to the right, where the light barely grazed the shadows, but Borg ignored it and turned to a smaller chamber on the left. There were more steps, taking them deeper underground. A large spider scuttled away from the light, causing Bethany to take a deep breath. She again clung tightly to Jack, but she barely hesitated in following Borg into the next large chamber.
‘You’ve got pluck to the backbone, Bethy,’ Jack breathed, but she did not respond. He could only guess what this descent was costing her in terms of reserves of courage, as her childhood terrors battled her desire to find the treasure.
‘This part was a temple once, so they tell me,’ Borg said. He allowed light from the lantern to play on two small recesses in the wall. ‘They buried children here.’
‘Oh,’ Bethany looked around and shivered. ‘Down here in the dark all alone?’ There was deep pity in her voice.
‘They were never alone,’ Borg said quietly. ‘The mother of Christ was with them, and all the other children. And there were lanterns burning always.’ Borg looked at her, obviously about to explain further, but he shook his head. ‘However, that is not our business here.’
He led on, along a long, low-roofed corridor that twisted deeper into the rock, stopping only at the lowest level.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘is our final destination.’ Placing the lamp on a niche in the rock, he pointed to the blank surface ahead. ‘Can you see that mural?’ His smile was challenging. ‘It is said that only true believers can see it.’
At first Jack saw nothing save the limestone, but when the light of the lamp cast slanted shadows, he realised he was looking at some sort of picture carved into the rock and highlighted by delicately placed stones.
‘It’s beautiful!’ More perceptive, Bethany reached forward. ‘It must be a saint.’
Once Jack had accepted there was a picture, the details became clearer, each one created by a shadow, or the colour of a band of rock, or what he had thought to be a stain. The picture was of a man in a long robe, standing in a clinker-built boat. The background was of a stormy sea, with white pebbles for surf and a curious blue for the sea.
‘Saint Paul,’ Borg said. ‘Although he is said to have lived under the church in Rabat, there is a legend that he once came here. This picture shows the shipwreck in St Paul’s Bay.’
Bethany touched the face of the saint. ‘We were married in the Church of St Paul,’ she said quietly. ‘And now here he is to bless us.’
‘But what about the treasure?’ Jack said. ‘What does this picture have to do with the treasure?’ He glanced at Borg as a terrible suspicion hit him. ‘Are you telling us that this mural is the treasure?’ He felt despair at the thought of Sir Alexander’s hopes crumbling into ruin. With their essential religious character, the Maltese might well have valued a spiritual picture more highly than any earthly riches.
Borg said nothing for a moment, as Bethany stepped back to admire the mural.
‘No,’ he said at length. ‘There certainly is a treasure, of gold and silver and jewels. But perhaps you are right, Mr Tarver. Perhaps this picture is of far more value than any collection of metal and stones.’
‘I would think so,’ Bethany said, as her spiritual side emerged from her practical. ‘If St Paul himself visited this place …’
‘Exactly,’ Borg said. ‘And that is why the two keys were so important, and that is why this site must be kept secure.’ He held Jack’s eye for a long moment. ‘If somebody were to break down the door by other means, the sacrilege would be unthinkable. It would be an affront to the whole of Christianity, not just to Malta.’ He faced Jack. ‘Mr Tarver, if the British were to damage this mural, and Bonaparte heard of it, as he would, he would use the incident to spread lies about your country. He has the ear of the Pope and he might turn all the Catholics of Europe against you, just for the sake of a hatful of gold!’
There were a few minutes’ silence as Jack and Bethany absorbed this intelligence. Jack thought of all
the Roman Catholics rallying against Britain. That would include Spain and the old ally, Portugal, much of Austria and the southern German states, and of course King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies. There was bound to be some fermentation in Ireland, and Britain would be alone again. And he had held the solution in his hand, without even knowing about it.
‘That would be the devil’s own scrape,’ he agreed. He thought of the blood and sacrifice at Maida, and how it would all be wasted if the erstwhile allies turned against Britain.
Borg nodded. ‘You understand,’ he said. ‘So now you see why the mural must not be damaged in any way. It is sacred to not only this island but also every Christian.’
‘Of course.’ Bethany accepted the statement without question.
Lifting the lantern, Jack inspected the face of the rock. ‘I see the picture,’ he said, ‘but for the life of me I cannot see a keyhole, or any other way of opening the wall.’
‘Good,’ Borg nodded. ‘That is how it is supposed to be. That is why we chose this place to hide our treasure from Bonaparte. Look again.’
Jack did so. The wall was naturally uneven, with depressions that the artist had cleverly used as features on his mural, and protuberances that threw distorting shadows. After a few moments he saw that some of the shadows had no cause, and exploration with his fingers found a single small hole.
‘Is this significant?’
‘That is one of the keyholes,’ Borg explained. ‘And you have the keys.’ There was a long silence, as he looked at Bethany, who eventually nodded.
‘We have,’ she said, and placed her dagger on the ground in front of the mural.
Borg looked at it, extended his hand and touched it lightly. ‘So there it is. The hilt of a Knight’s dagger. How simple and how efficient.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘You will have the second, Mr Tarver?’
‘I have.’ Jack produced his dagger and placed it beside Bethany’s. He was not sure how he felt. Was he betraying Sir Alexander by allowing Mr Borg access to these keys, or were his actions saving the country from the wrath of Europe’s Catholics?
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