Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  Sam glanced at Maggie, as a shiver crawled its way up her spine. “What now?” she asked.

  Maggie’s raised eyebrow and half smile spoke volumes.

  “You’re kidding?” Sam said. “You’re not kidding,” she added.

  Peru, Friday September 25, 1998

  Sam still couldn’t believe it. One moment she was trying to get her head around the fact that she was in northern Africa, and the next she found herself on a whole other continent altogether. She couldn’t believe that five days after unexpectedly leaving home for Egypt she was suddenly in South America. She couldn’t believe she was travelling in a country she’d never actually considered visiting and that she was within spitting distance of Maccu Picchu. But mostly she couldn’t believe that she was going to die on her second day in Peru because Maggie had entrusted their lives to a questionably-qualified pilot who insisted on flying his antiquated cargo plane way too close to the ground. The ‘ground’ in this case being the Andes, over which they were flying en route from Lima to Cuzco.

  As the plane lurched through an air pocket caused, she had no doubt, by sucking air currents from the sickeningly deep ravine below them, Sam tried to will her thoughts back to the spa bath at the luxury hotel in Lima where they’d spent the previous night. It didn’t work. Nothing could take her mind off the truth she’d just discovered: Sam Diamond was scared of flying, at least in anything smaller than a 747. When she glanced at Maggie it dawned on her she was travelling with a lunatic. Good grief! Here they were flying towards certain death, in an aircraft held together by bailing twine and wishful thinking, and Maggie was checking out the scenery and smiling.

  Sam needed something to take her mind off the fear and nausea so, as an in-flight movie was not an option, she tapped her companion on the arm. “Maggie, at what point does grave robbing become archaeology?” she shouted over the engine noise.

  Maggie looked momentarily flummoxed by the question, but she recognised the white-knuckles, wide-eyed stare and rigid body of the classic ‘we’re about to crash’ passenger.

  “I suppose it’s a fine line when you think about it,” she replied obligingly. “But archaeologists are scientists or, more poetically, we are historical detectives. We’re looking for the truth in history, the facts about past civilisations and the connections between what was and what is. I suppose the main distinction between a grave robber and an archaeologist is motive. If you dig for personal profit you’re the former; if you excavate to add to the body of human knowledge you’re the latter.”

  “Have you ever thought the person whose grave or tomb you’re excavating might not recognise the difference.”

  “I doubt they’d notice, Sam.”

  “I guess so, but we don’t know for sure do we? What if Tutankhamun’s ka was dragged into a void because all his stuff for the next life was ripped off by some archaeologist for our benefit?”

  “I imagine he’d be quite upset,” Maggie acknowledged. “Tell me about his mask again, Sam.”

  “Oh, it was the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen,” Sam raved, then gulped and grabbed Maggie’s hand as the plane plummeted what seemed like a thousand miles in two seconds before levelling out again. “We’re gonna die,” Sam moaned.

  “No we’re not,” Maggie reassured her. “Getting back to Tutankhamun’s mask. Its rightful place is covering the mummified remains of a comparatively insignificant Pharaoh. By rights it should still be in his sarcophagus, locked in his dark tomb in the Valley of the Kings. But if that were the case most of what we know about ancient Egypt would be unknown, because so much of it was recorded on the walls of tombs like his. A whole civilisation would be lost to us.”

  “Well, is there a statute of limitations or something to guarantee a body has a bit of peace and quiet before some archaeologist digs it up again in the name of historical research? I mean how would you feel if one of your colleagues decided to have a close look at your mother?”

  “I’d be upset, naturally,” Maggie smiled, “but I think my mother would have a thing or two to say about it herself seeing she’s alive and well and living in Carlton.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Sam said.

  “Perhaps a cemetery becomes part of history when there are no descendants left to take out lawsuits or complain to the newspapers,” Maggie suggested. “But unless civilisation as we know it takes a complete nose dive into obscurity and all the records we’ve been keeping for several hundred years get chucked into a giant shredder, I think we and our ancestors are pretty safe.”

  “Well I think we should conjure up a few curses, just in case,” Sam suggested. She knew she was babbling, but couldn’t help it. The plane had jumped left for no apparent reason.

  “I mean those old Pharaohs laid curses against grave robbers didn’t they, and just look what happened to Howard Carter and what’s-his-name,” she said, stabbing the air with her finger.

  “Ah, curses. Pavel could have told you all about curses. He was an expert on them.”

  “Anthropo-things and the Supernat���oh god,” Sam clutched her stomach. “Maggie are you sure the pilot’s awake?”

  “I’m sure. You know Pavel was a genius, unequalled in his field, but he was also something of a fruitcake; mostly due, I must admit, to an overindulgence of exotic plants. He not only studied and wrote about superstitions and the supernatural but he believed in all of it. Especially curses.”

  “And you don’t, I take it?” Sam asked.

  “I do and I don’t. I believe in the power that a curse can have on a gullible or paranoid individual. If you believe you’re cursed then you will fall into the hole that everyone else has managed to avoid. But I doubt the curse on Tutankhamun’s front door inspired the encephalitic mosquito that caused Lord Carnarvon’s death; or that Carter, who lived another 17 years by the way, would still be around if he’d heeded the warning and not opened the tomb.”

  Sam, who’d been concentrating on Maggie’s face, screwed her eyes shut as the plane dropped, lurched, bounced and then screamed as if its wings had been ripped off. “We are going to die. We’re going to die. Yes. No question. We’re dead.”

  “We’ve landed, Sam.”

  “We have? I knew that. Let me out of this thing.”

  Cuzco, Peru, Friday September 25, 1998

  Sam paced the lobby of the quaint Hostal La Casona while Maggie conversed with the desk clerk in Spanish. The only words Sam had understood were ‘Schliemann’ and ‘archaeologist’, both of which appeared to get a negative response. She wandered over to the front door and took another look at the amazingly baroque church of La Compa����a and the Cathedral next to it on the other side of the huge Plaza de Armas. Sam was feeling almost human again after spending the entire taxi ride from the airport with her head between her knees trying not to throw up. Maggie kept pointing out interesting landmarks and Inca walls while Sam just kept saying she’d look at them later.

  When Sam stepped back inside, to let two bearded backpackers enter the hostal, she noticed a noticeboard on the wall by the front door. ‘Seek me on the board’ Schliemann’s note had said; so Sam went seeking. There were pamphlets about bus tours, business cards from trekking companies, a very old note from Sven telling Helga to meet him at Quillabamba, and another from Helga telling Sven to get stuffed. Under a breakfast menu for the El Ayllu Cafe was a small blue card which read:

  Noel, visit me at Mamakuna VII

  H. Schliemann esq.

  “Maggie, I’ve found him,” Sam called out.

  “Oh, well that’s useless,” Maggie complained, peering over Sam’s shoulder. “I’ve no idea what that means, Sam. Mamakuna is not a place, it’s an Inca word for a class of chosen celibate women who served the Inca state. The Spanish called them ‘Virgins of the Sun’.

  “They taught the women who were chosen to be wives of the Inca king or his nobles, they performed a host of religious functions related to sun worship, and as spinners, weavers and brewers they were very important to the Inca
economy but you can’t visit them. Come on, let’s go check into our hotel.”

  “Aren’t we staying here?” Sam asked grabbing her pack and following Maggie across the plaza.

  “Not unless you want basic accommodation, communal showers and only a slim chance of hot water. It’s clean and cheap there, but I think the Hotel Royal Inca is more our style. And after we’ve settled in I’m going to call a friend at the Museum of Natural History in New York to see if she can track down anything on this Henri Schliemann.”

  “Why didn’t you think to do that before we came all this way for nothing?” Sam asked.

  “What? And miss that wonderful flight from Lima?”

  “I am walking back to Lima, you know that don’t you,” Sam stated, memorising landmarks in case Maggie decided to abandon her because she was complaining too much.

  The Hotel Royal Inca was just what the doctor ordered and while Sam devoured her share of the lunch they’d requested from room service, Maggie put in a call to New York.

  “I may have something here,” Maggie announced hanging up the phone. “My friend Ruth hasn’t heard of Schliemann but she tells me that there are several internationally-funded excavations going on here at the moment. She thinks one or two of the sites are believed to have been special ceremonial centres for the mamakuna. It was originally thought that Maccu Picchu was such a city but that theory was discounted. Anyway Ruth is going to fax me a list of sites and anything else she can come up with that might help.”

  Twenty minutes later, just as Maggie emerged from the shower, there was a knock at the door. Sam bounded off the bed to answer it and returned with a wad of fax paper.

  “My god there’s a lot of foreigners ferreting around down here,” she exclaimed, flicking through the pages. “Names, maps, pictures, grid references; boy, your friend sure is thorough. Whoa, pictures.” Sam’s mouth was open in amazement.

  “What? What have you found, Sam?”

  “Huayna Picchu, North-East Seven!” Sam announced, turning the picture around to show Maggie. “Guess where we’re going?”

  “Where?” Maggie asked squinting at the bad fax copy of a photograph.

  “Manco City,” Sam declared. “Where else?”

  Chapter Eight

  Aguas Calientes, Peru, Sunday September 27, 1998

  Sam swatted at a buzzing insect and stretched her legs out in the hot springs that gave the village of Aguas Calientes its name. The presence of a group of rowdy trekkers had almost put her off this indulgence until she remembered this would be the last time she’d see hot water for a week. The trekkers, mostly American students, had been full of ‘amazing’, ‘incredible’, ‘next time I’m taking the train’ stories of their four-day trek along the Inca Trail from Kilometre 88 to Machu Picchu.

  ‘Just wait till you see it,’ they’d all said and Sam had said ‘yeah she couldn’t wait’, because she wasn’t about to admit that she was within eight kilometres of Peru’s most famous Inca ruins and was going to bypass them altogether.

  While Sam had spent most of the previous day in Cuzco sleeping off the accumulative effects of a Turkish thrashing, jet lag and a marked increase in elevation, Maggie had gone on an equipment shopping spree and secured the services of a guide to take them to Manco City.

  The guide was an old acquaintance, who had accompanied her on previous treks to archaeological sites buried deep in the Andean wilderness, and the equipment had included sleeping bags, mats, a tent, a stove, cooking pots, a compass, maps, torches and warm jackets. Sam didn’t think they’d get further than the front door of the hotel with all that stuff but Maggie reassured her that by the time they reached Richarte’s home in Ollantaytambo, he would have organised the rest of their supplies and porters who would carry everything.

  The first part of the trip from Cuzco had been uneventful, if travelling in the back of a truck through incredible mountain scenery can be labelled with such an understatement. Their journey had taken them north from Cuzco to the town of Pisac, where a bustling and colourful Sunday market had attracted crowds of locals and quite a few tourists. From there the truck headed northwest into the Sacred Valley, taking the only road that followed the course of the spectacular Urubamba River, and on to Ollantaytambo, a village built on Inca foundations.

  Richarte, a jovial and friendly middle-aged man with a huge moustache, had greeted Maggie affectionately and conveyed them and their gear to his house where he provided a hearty late breakfast. Three hours later he bundled them, three of his sons, and what looked to Sam like enough supplies for a year on to a local train bound for Machu Picchu. The railway was the only way to get to the ruins, apart from the four-day Inca pedestrian Trail, and the trip to Aguas Calientes had taken nearly two hours.

  While Sam had enjoyed the scenery, Maggie and Richarte had poured over maps and charts trying to work out just where it was they going and how best to get there. The information provided by Maggie’s friend Ruth, indicated that archaeological teams had been investigating nine small ceremonial centres scattered around the area north of Huayna Picchu. Of these centres only two, Huayna Picchu NorthWest Three and North-East Seven, were currently funded and had teams carrying out excavation work. Site Number Seven, which they assumed was ‘Manco City’, lay about 17 kilometres north-east of Huayna Picchu, the solitary peak that looked like it had sidestepped out of the mountains to act as sentinel over the ruins of Machu Picchu.

  Richarte had finally determined that the best option was to strike out into the jungle from Aguas Calientes, rather than from Machu Picchu where the terrain for the first part of the trek would be too hard going, so they had disembarked from the train to set up camp for the night.

  After the trekkers had left the hot springs, Sam gave herself 10 minutes alone before packing up and heading back to the campsite. Maggie was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of their tent and Richarte and his sons were busy doing something with a large pot and a small stove.

  “A good cup of coffee is the only thing in life worth dying for,” Maggie sighed.

  “Does that mean that’s good or bad coffee?” Sam asked, nodding at Maggie’s mug.

  “This one,” she declared, and then called out to Richarte in Quechuan before turning back to Sam, “is worth killing for.”

  Sam draped her towel over the tent and then ducked inside to get something out of her pack. When she emerged Richarte’s oldest son Victor handed her a mug of coffee and announced that food would be soon ready.

  “I’ve been thinking about Henri Schliemann,” Maggie said.

  “So have I,” Sam said, sitting next to Maggie and handing her Lloyd’s photo of ‘Manco City 1962’. “It’s not going to help much, but it’s possible he’s in this picture. Tell me who you know.”

  Maggie pointed to each figure as she named them. “Pavel, Lloyd, Noel, Alistair and Jean. The woman next to Jean is Sarah Croydon, she’s with the University in Wellington, and beside her is Louis Ducruet, who’s a French Canadian anthropologist. That’s it.”

  “That leaves,” Sam counted the heads, “five people who are obviously guides or porters, one unknown woman and these three blokes.”

  “There must have been at least one other person,” Maggie said, pointing to the shadow in the foreground. “If he was there at all, Schliemann may have been the one who took the photo.”

  “Five out of the seven team members you can identify are dead. That leaves four or five members we don’t know anything about, plus a Kiwi and a Canadian.” Sam noted. “Oh, no. Marcus’s show goes to Wellington next, before finishing its world tour in Montreal.”

  “I had already thought of that, Sam,” Maggie said. “And I did try getting in touch with Sarah and Louis while we were still in Melbourne, to see if they knew anything.”

  “I thought you said you’d told me everything,” Sam said.

  “I did, I have. That slipped my mind because I didn’t actually speak to either of them. Sarah was on a fishing trip with her husband, and Louis is
somewhere in Turkey,” Maggie explained. “Ah dinner,” she added, in response to the sound of Richarte banging the side of the cooking pot with a spoon.

  “It smells great,” Sam commented, accepting the bowl of noodle something from Richarte.

  “Sopa a la criolla,” Richarte said. “Spicy soup, with meat and vegetables. Would you like a Cuzquena?”

  “Um, probably,” Sam said hesitantly.

  “It’s beer,” Maggie explained.

  “In that case, definitely,” Sam said.

  Peru, north-east of Huayna Picchu, Tuesday September 29, 1998

  Nursing a mug of coffee, Sam leant back against the tree and closed her eyes. Her ribs ached, her shins and knees were bruised, her arms were scratched, she was filthy, exhausted and completely invigorated. It had taken nearly two days to travel only 15 kilometres. They had followed overgrown trails of Inca stone, slashed through vegetation so dense they could see nothing but the plants that brushed against them on all sides, and traversed rocky promontories where the view of the surrounding mountains was utterly breathtaking.

  Richarte assured them they were following a trail the whole way, but half the time it was beyond Sam how he could tell the difference between path and jungle, or trail and rocky incline. They had crossed two high passes on an Inca roadway barely six feet wide, climbing to well over 4000 metres before descending a thousand to traverse a valley floor or follow the trail over a lower pass.

  The ruins of a round and roofless stone building which Maggie said would have been an Inca tambo, or roadside shelter for royal couriers to rest and corral their llamas, had been their camp site the previous night. And two hours into their trek this morning they had rounded a rocky outcrop to find themselves at the top of a flight of ancient agricultural terraces that swept around the hillside and disappeared down into the jungle which had overgrown the lower levels. The four upper terraces were about three metres high, five wide and a hundred long. The Inca had constructed them in the same type of cut stone blocks they used for their buildings and had filled them with rich valley soil fertilised with guano. The uppermost terrace had been reclaimed by a local Indian family who were tending their crops of potatoes and maize.