The Swagger Sword

by David S. Brody

  “Our farm backs into the Newgrange land,” Roberto explained. Cattle and sheep grazed leisurely on both sides. “This is easier than going out and around on the main road.”

  “It’s still so green,” Cam said, scanning the land.

  “It’ll start to die off in January, but we haven’t even had a frost yet this year.” A large section of the farmland had been mowed and tended. Roberto explained, “I love to golf, so I made myself a six-hole course. Many of our guests enjoy the privacy as well.”

  Cam smiled. “The way I play, the fewer people watching, the better.”

  As they crested a rise, Roberto pointed. “There it is. Newgrange. Atop that next ridge.”

  Cam leaned his head out the window to shout to Astarte. “Look. Over there.”

  She turned and stared. “It looks like a giant moss-covered flying saucer.”

  Cam laughed as he snapped a picture. “That’s a good description.”

  The mound sat atop the next ridge like a nipple atop a breast. It was much larger than Cam expected; the chambers in New England were the size of a baseball dugout. This was more like the size of an entire stadium. “How big is it,” he asked Roberto.

  “Eighty-five meters in diameter. About the size of a soccer pitch. And it rises up as high as a four-story building.”

  “It’s massive,” Amanda said.

  “We call it a burial mound,” Robert replied, “but that really is not an accurate description. Ancient temple would be more fitting. This mound, and others like it, had astrological, spiritual, religious and ceremonial importance. Yes, important people were buried in them, much in the same way dignitaries and royalty are buried in religious cathedrals in modern times. But burial was only an ancillary use.”

  Roberto stopped the truck at the edge of his farm, a couple hundred yards away from the mound. He helped Astarte and Emmy from the back. “I like people to walk around the site for maybe a half hour before going inside. Just to get a feel for it.” The five of them climbed an incline to join a few dozen other visitors, most of them with cameras out, milling around the massive mound. “In the summer, you’d see perhaps a few hundred tourists. But this is the offseason.”

  Emmy seemed to have taken a liking to Astarte, and she hung on Astarte’s hip, a step behind like some kind of maidservant, as the group crossed the open field and circled to the front of the mound. Cam focused on the woman. Though olive-skinned like her brother, there was not much family resemblance. Where he boasted a round face with wide nose and mouth, her features were more classical—high cheekbones, strong chin, slightly upturned nose. But the most striking thing about her was that her eyes were different colors—one a deep blue, the other a dark brown. Not that she looked up often to allow them to be seen. Cam had seen her offer a shy smile to Astarte while they walked. He guessed she was about his own age, mid-forties. Most would describe her as pretty, or perhaps even beautiful, though her social awkwardness and disheveled look made it the kind of beauty that men would not likely find attractive. And some might be scared off by the mismatched eyes.

  Cam drew his attention back to the ancient wonder. “What are those stones that make up the front wall?” he asked Roberto.

  “The façade is controversial, rebuilt in the 1970s. Nobody is sure what the exterior really looked like.”

  A dozen or so standing stones, many taller than Cam, ringed the mound. Amanda asked about them.

  “Originally there were more, perhaps three dozen.” Roberto shrugged. “Probably used to mark various astronomical events.” He smiled. “But, of course, the mound is most famous for marking the winter solstice. Come.”

  Roberto led them toward the entryway, a doorway-sized gap in the facade. In front of the gap rested a massive horizontal boulder with a series of carved spirals covering its face. “The spiral,” Roberto explained, “is an ancient symbol of the Goddess. These decorations tell us this was likely a shrine to her, the Earth Mother.”

  At this, Cam and Amanda both glanced over at Astarte. She had dropped to a knee and was tracing one of the spirals lightly with her forefinger. Emmy watched her for a few seconds before crouching next to her to do the same. “In ancient times,” Astarte explained to her new friend, “all people worshiped the Earth Mother. The female was the giver of life.”

  Emmy nodded. Her hood had fallen back, but a dark blue bonnet covered her head. Astarte took her hand and together they stood.

  “Notice the opening above the entryway,” Roberto said as Cam snapped another picture and studied the opening. It looked like a transom window above an old office door.

  Robert continued. “That aperture turns out to be the most important architectural feature in the entire mound. Come. I will explain.” He rested a hand kindly on his sister’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I promise.”

  Roberto led them inside, through a narrow passageway toward the center of the mound. The passage walls were formed by five-foot high stone slabs, standing upright, most of them decorated with carved shapes—chevrons and lozenges and arcs in addition to more spirals. They moved slowly, the air dank and thick. After about sixty feet the passageway opened into an igloo-like domed chamber.

  “Look. Corbelled,” Amanda said as Cam snapped another picture.

  Cam nodded. They had seen this identical style of construction—in which the stones overlapped each other as they climbed, finally meeting in the center at the dome’s peak with a single capstone—in stone chambers in New England. “If I put you in the Upton Chamber, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” Cam said, referring to a stone chamber near Boston which had been conclusively dated to predate Colonial settlement and which Cam and Amanda believed to have been built by Irish explorers visiting centuries before Columbus.

  “Last week,” Roberto explained, “on the winter solstice, the rising sun entered through the light box above the front door. The sun beam ran down the path of the passageway and illuminated this chamber.” He turned to Astarte. “I bet you know what this signifies.”

  She swallowed and stood taller. “Traditionally the sun was considered a male deity. And the earth was the female. On the winter solstice, when the world was getting darker and everything was dying off, the ancient people needed a way for life to be reborn. That’s what this is. The sun is the man. The passageway is the birth canal. And this chamber is the womb. The sun is fertilizing the womb.”

  “Bellissimo,” Roberto clapped his hands once and beamed. “Life is reborn. I could not have said it better myself.”

  “Is the time exact?” Amanda asked.

  “No.” He shook his head. “The light enters four minutes after sunrise.”

  Cam nodded. “The wobble of the earth.” He and other researchers had documented similar imperfections in the alignments at America’s Stonehenge, an ancient calendar in stone in southern New Hampshire believed to date back approximately 3,500 years, to the time of the Pharaohs and the Exodus from Egypt. The earth wobbled in its rotation, like a child’s top, causing these ancient alignments to become slightly askew.

  “Precisely,” Roberto responded. “Computer calculations show that five thousand years ago, when the chamber was built, the light would have entered the chamber exactly at sunrise.”

  “Are there other alignments, like for the summer solstice?” Amanda asked. Other sites like Stonehenge focused on the summer solstice rather than the winter, celebrating the sun at its most powerful.

  Roberto held up a finger. “Yes, but not here at Newgrange. We are in an area called the Boyne Valley. This small area, only about three square miles, has dozens of mounds, including two other massive ones like Newgrange. Plus standing stones and chambers and other enclosures. The two other large mounds, called Knowth and Dowth, are oriented to mark other astronomical events. Before they collapsed, Dowth marked the winter solstice sunset, and Knowth the equinoxes. My guess is that at one time there were mounds and stone circles all around this valley marking the key occurrences of the year—sunrise and sunset on
the solstices and on both equinoxes. Perhaps also the cross-quarter days.” He paused to make sure they understood that the cross-quarter days marked the halfway point between solstices and equinoxes. Cam nodded for him to continue. “The people would simply move from sacred site to sacred site, depending on the time of year.”

  Astarte responded. “So it’s like instead of having one church, they had a different church for every holiday.”

  Roberto beamed. “Yes.” Clearly he was passionate about these sites and appreciated a captivated audience. He led them back down the passageway toward the entrance. “Now I will give you time to look at the art on the base stones, called kerbstones.” He turned to Cam. “But, before I do so, I will offer you one more piece of knowledge.”

  He waited for Cam to ask for it, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “And what is that?” Cam complied.

  “From our correspondence, you told me you were interested in the Knights Templar. And specifically how they might have been influenced by these ancient megalithic sites.”

  “That’s right,” Cam said. “We are all interested in that.”

  They emerged out of the mound, to the light of day.

  Roberto took a deep breath. “I know that the Templars were closely affiliated with the Cistercian monks, yes?”

  “Yes,” Cam said. “They were sister orders. Bernard de Clair-vaux, who later became Saint Bernard, founded the Cistercians and wrote the charter for the Templars. They were essentially two sides of the same coin—the Cistercians prayed and farmed, while the Templars fought and traded.”

  “You said the Cistercians farmed. What if I told you they farmed here, in the Boyne Valley? Here, amidst these burial mounds?”

  Cam blinked. “Really?”

  “The Cistercians owned all this land, all these mounds, for hundreds of years, beginning in the twelfth century. This was where they built their first abbey in all of Ireland.”

  Amanda made the obvious connection. “They would have known about the alignments, about the ancient religions. Cam, that could be where the Templars came up with the idea for the Newport Tower winter solstice alignment. On the shortest day of the year, the sun—at around nine o’clock, just like here—rises and passes through an aperture to allegorically fertilize an object in the womb, marking the rebirth of the sun.” Her green eyes fired in the sunlight. “It’s the same thing. One’s a tower and one’s a mound, but the allegory is identical. Fertilization. Rebirth. The male and female together giving life.” She exhaled. “It really is quite extraordinary.”

  “And I think it gets even better,” Cam said quietly, trying to hide his excitement. Something in the recesses of his brain called to him. Could it really be? The back of his neck burned. “Roberto, what was the name of the abbey? The one here in the Boyne Valley?”

  “Mellifont. Mellifont Abbey.”

  Amanda gasped. She understood as well. “What?” Astarte asked.

  Cam replied, “I’ve been corresponding with an architect who believes that the Mellifont Abbey lavabo is the architectural model for the Newport Tower. It’s in ruins now, but it matches almost perfectly. Stone construction featuring eight Romanesque arches. Technically it’s an octagon rather than a circle, but the similarities are striking.” He found an image on his phone.

  They stared at the image. Amanda broke the silence. “Cam, that would explain so much. We’ve always thought the Tower inspiration came from Scotland. But perhaps it came from here. From Mellifont Abbey. The Cistercians would have accompanied the Templars on any journey to North America—they would have served as scribes and farmers.”

  Cam smiled. The Tower’s architecture and its winter solstice alignment both could be traced back to Mellifont Abbey. “And, it turns out, maybe the Cistercians served as architects also.”

  Roberto’s wife Kaitlyn had packed them a picnic lunch. Astarte watched as Emmy, her head down, helped her brother spread a blanket in the sun not far from the Newgrange entrance. Acting as if he owned the place, he unpacked sandwiches, chips, fruit and drinks. When he finished handing out the food, Emmy lowered herself slowly to the ground next to Astarte, her poncho billowing around her.

  As impressed as Astarte was by the ancient burial mound, which her mom had explained was at its core a shrine to Mother Earth and the cycles of the seasons, she was equally fascinated by the woman-girl with the different colored eyes. She had once read a book about a six-year-old girl turned into a vampire—her body never grew beyond its childhood size, yet her mind continued to mature, trapping a woman inside a girl’s body. The opposite was true of Emmy. Though fully grown, she viewed the world through a child’s eyes. When Emmy saw a handsome man or a movie with people kissing, did she feel the same things Astarte felt now when Raja’s thigh rubbed against hers? Astarte shuddered. It was hard enough to figure all this out as a teenager. But with the mind of an eight-year-old? No wonder she had run away when they first drove up. And no wonder she always seemed to hide inside the hood of her cloak.

  Emmy’s sandwich had the crusts cut off, and she picked at it the way a child did when she knew she had to finish it to get to dessert. After finishing two-thirds, she looked up at her brother, who sighed and nodded. He handed her a pair of lollipops, one red and one purple. She in turn offered them to Astarte, who chose the red one. Emmy quickly went to work on hers, turning her face away from the others to show Astarte her purple tongue. It was actually pretty gross, sort of like a cow’s, but Astarte swallowed and played along and flashed a red tongue back at her new friend.

  Roberto interrupted their game. “After lunch I will bring you to another burial mound. One that only I know about. This one is oriented toward the winter solstice sunset. We are only a week past the solstice, so the alignment is still mostly, well, in line. Yes?”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Amanda replied.

  They finished lunch, walked back to Roberto’s truck, and bounced their way across his land to the farmhouse, Astarte and Emmy in the back again. Astarte used the time to learn more.

  “So how long have you lived here?”

  Emmy had a habit of looking down whenever she spoke. Perhaps shyness, perhaps embarrassment about her eyes. Either way, combined with the hood, it made it almost impossible to make eye contact. “When I was a little girl we lived in Italy. In Rome. And before that Roberto says we lived in Milan, but I don’t remember Milan.”

  “Do you remember Rome?”

  “Yes. My father was a counter for the Vatican. And Roberto was his assistant.”

  Astarte leaned lower to look up into her face. “Counter? Do you mean accountant?”

  She blinked and nodded. “Yes. Sorry. Accountant.”

  “Don’t worry. You speak very good English.”

  “My brother does not like it when I speak Italian. He says it is not fair to Aunt Kaitlyn.” She swallowed. “Anyway, when my parents died, Roberto and I came to Ireland.”

  It was weird that she called her sister-in-law her aunt. But that was probably a fairer description of their relationship. “Did they die together?”

  “Yes. In a car crash.”

  Astarte decided to show respect and not ask for more details. “How long have you been here?”

  “Since I was twelve. I’m forty-six now.”

  Over thirty years of a little girl not having birthday parties, not going to school, not even having playmates. Growing older but not growing up. Astarte shuddered again. Imprisoned. That’s what she was. “When you moved here, was that after your accident?”

  Emmy nodded again. “Yes. I think I was nine when I hit my head. I fell off the swings at school.” She shifted uncomfortably on the wheel well. “But I don’t remember that.”

  “Well,” Astarte said cheerfully, “I think you’re lucky to live on a farm like this. Do you like the animals?”

  Emmy brightened. “Yes. Especially the sheep. I get to help shear them in the spring. That’s when we do it, so they don’t get too hot in the summer.”

  They pulled
to a stop in front of the Milano Farm.

  “This time we travel on the main roads,” announced Roberto, helping them down, “so we will need to take both cars.”

  Amanda drove the rental car, content to listen as Astarte and Emmy chatted in the back while Cam rode in the pickup with Roberto. Out of the blue, Emmy dropped a bombshell. “Are you friends with the man with the sword? He’s from America also.”

  Amanda’s eyes widened in the front seat, but she swallowed her reaction as Astarte caught her eye. Astarte replied, her voice even, “What man with the sword?”

  “He came yesterday. Last night. It looked like an umbrella, but it was really a sword. He showed my brother some designs on the metal part.”

  “That sounds neat. My father does have a friend with a sword like that. Do you know why he came to your house?”

  Emmy shrugged. “He said something about a treasure. I was in the kitchen listening. But then Aunt Kaitlyn told me it wasn’t polite to bees-drop when people are talking.”

  Amanda swallowed a giggle, but Astarte remained poker-faced. “I love searching for treasure.” She leaned closer conspiratorially. “Does your brother know where some is buried?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But since he used to work in the Vatican, he knows a lot of secrets. I heard them talking about Archbishop Marcinkus.” She pronounced the name wrong, adding a few extra vowels to make it sound Italian, but Amanda understood what she meant. “I remember him. He was my father’s boss.” Emmy turned and looked out the window. “But I didn’t like him. He was mean to my father. He called him ‘Mr. Spaghetti Arms.’ And he used to make him stay at work late.”

  “Why Mr. Spaghetti Arms?”

  “I think because he wasn’t very strong. Not like Archbishop Marcinkus. They called him the Gorilla. They say he saved the pope once from an angry mob all by himself.”

  That seemed to end the conversation, though Amanda’s mind raced as she followed the black pickup truck through the Irish countryside. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was an American, from Chicago. More importantly, Cam had mentioned him as being linked to the Catskills artifacts and the Templar treasure. It could not be a coincidence that Brian was asking about him.