Solomon's Throne

by Jennings Wright

  His phone rang again, and he hurried towards the main doors of the Cathedral as he punched it on.

  “Yeah?” He whispered.

  “It’s me—what are you doing?” Rei asked.

  “Sorry, hang on…” He got outside to the front steps. “I was in the Cathedral. Go ahead.”

  “Ok, so he is one flipped out guy.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Gideon couldn’t help but smile. His wife was very even keeled. She could hold her own if needed, but she was more likely to kill you with sticky sweet Southern charm than snap your head clean off.

  “OK… So there were a few things in the box. Three different time periods, I guess you’d say. The first was the letter. This is the only significant artifact, both from a historical and a monetary point of view.”

  “The letter from Paul to Jerusalem?”

  “Right. Supposedly, if the translation done by the great great great whatever was accurate, the letter was written by Paul, to the church at Jerusalem. The letter says how pleased Paul is that Peter has been made the bishop of the church at Jerusalem, and further affirms that the church there, in Jerusalem, is the center of the faith.” She paused for a response.

  “Uhhhh… I don’t think I get it.” Gideon slowly strolled along the tree lined street away from the Cathedral, listening.

  “You wouldn’t, since we’re not Catholic. OK, so short version is, the Catholic Church has always claimed that Peter was the first Pope, because Jesus called him the “rock” on which He was building His church. And Peter was traditionally thought to have been the bishop of the Church of Rome, the Roman Empire being the dominant world order of the day. The Church has gained tremendous wealth and power—the Vatican is a country, for heaven’s sake!—by staking its legitimacy on the Peter heritage. So if Peter was actually the bishop of the church in Jerusalem, and if Paul confirms in his letter that the church in Jerusalem is the base for this new religion of The Way, or Christianity…”

  “Then the Roman Catholic Church gets the stilts pulled out from under their beach house.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But would anyone really much care about that these days?”

  “Well, that’s hard to say. The Catholic Church still has a tremendous amount of wealth, and there are millions of Catholics throughout the world who worship not just the Trinity, but the Pope, and Mary and all those saints they have. But the main thing is, when the great great great grandpappy of Mr. Xavier got hold of this letter, the Portuguese Inquisition was still technically in effect, and it would have been considered the greatest heresy. The Pope had issued a five year cease-and-desist in Portugal, to try to regroup and see what was what with those Inquisitors and all, but the five year hiatus had expired, and the whole infrastructure was still intact. And not just in Portugal—in Spain, in India, in all of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial holdings. This was not a safe thing to possess.”

  “Why on earth did he keep it, I wonder?” Gideon was amazed. Most people, he thought, would have burned it or thrown it into the sea.

  “Mr. Xavier says that grandpappy was a Jesuit priest. Yeah, I know your next question—apparently he quit the priesthood a few years after he got this letter. Anyway, he got it from a dying confession, and the guy who died was killed by someone trying to get the letter. To me, that would have been reason number one to get rid of it, but I guess it was an honor thing. Anyway, he had a family friend, a doctor that could read Greek, so that’s who translated the letter onto the pages that are in the pouch with the scroll. Of course, the Jesuit didn’t know what it said til then, and apparently Signor Duotor told him to get out and stay out after they read it. Not long after that the priest was chased out of Lisbon, but he took the letter and a journal the dying man had tucked away. Mr. Xavier says his family never had that journal, but the book that was stolen was the Jesuit’s journal, of his trip, and his life in India, and his return to Portugal as a married businessman.”

  “Wow.” Gideon was trying to think it though from the thieves’ point of view. How could this letter possibly have any significance or value in the twenty-first century? Well, he wasn’t Catholic, so what did he know. But it seemed such an unlikely theft, especially if he was right, and the letter was the intended target.

  “Yeah, wow. And here’s the good part…” She paused for effect. “He wants us to find it.”

  “Us? As in you and me?” Gideon stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, causing an elderly man to nearly bump into him.

  “Yep. You because you are the studly ex-military security genius, and me because I have a smattering of Greek, that expensive PhD, and the preservation knowledge to take care of the artifacts when we find them. And because I can read Portuguese.”

  “What difference does it make if you can read it now? We don’t have it!”

  “Aha! That’s the even better part. When Mr. Xavier paid for that fancy new vault and security system, he also had all the documents digitally copied. Every word, crease, crack, and bit of leather. And those digital files weren’t in the vault—smart man there, anyway. They’re here. In London. He’s hoping we can read them, and maybe figure out who would take the originals, and where they’d go with them. His grandpappy was chased for this letter, and the other guy was killed… Someone’s wanted it for an awful long time.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  London

  Present Day

  Gideon and Rei were leaning into a 30” screen, squinting at the scribbles and drawings shown there. Rei punched a key and the picture changed, but still looked much the same.

  “Jeez, this guy wrote small….” Rei mumbled as she adjusted her glasses. “It’s giving me a headache.”

  “At least you can read it. And what’s this, Latin?” He pointed to a small area of writing, boxed in by calligraphic design.

  “From what I can tell, he wrote out little prayers in Latin. This one here…” She went back to the previous page and pointed to a small rectangle in the corner. “Deus succurro mihi. God help me. Cheerful guy, this Father Eduardo.”

  “So what have we got so far? Anything? I feel like the thieves could be in Timbuktu right now, and we’ve got nothin’.” Gideon flopped back in his chair and ran his hand through his short blonde hair.

  “Well, Greek’s not my best language, but from what I can tell, the doctor translated it right. Those pages are probably dust by now, if they’ve been taken out of that pouch or bounced around, but the vellum was really well made and seems to be holding up pretty well. So we can assume that the bad guys now know what it says, if they didn’t already. What I can’t figure out, though, is why they wanted it.”

  “Maybe we’ll read about some big discovery in the Telegraph tomorrow, and the Catholic Church will start cracking up.” Gideon leaned forward again, putting his face right up to the screen, looking at a drawing on the page.

  “Maybe… I’m wondering about this book, Gid. I can’t be sure, but it looks like the Jesuit transferred a lot of what was in the little journal he found on the dead man into here, and somehow followed in his footsteps. There’s stuff that doesn’t make sense, and a lot of little notes and drawings that seem connected somehow… But honestly, I think he had found something.”

  “Found what? He had the letter all along. I thought that was the important thing here.” Gideon rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t even sure why he was trying so hard with the book—he couldn’t read Portuguese or Latin, and the little drawings didn’t make much sense either.

  “OK, here’s what it looks like. Now, I’ve only skimmed through it—we’ve only had it 12 hours, and I did sleep some in there. Father Eduardo leaves Lisbon in a panic, but thinks he’s escaped whoever is chasing him. He’s on this ship, the Sao Miguel, and he’s following the spice route, so he goes down along the tip of Africa, and up to India. Lots of stops along the way, and he kind of becomes a missionary of sorts, finding local Catholics and having mass and stuff like that. But on the ship, he realizes that the dead guy’
s journal… I think that guy’s name was Sebastian or something like that… Anyway, his journal seems to be leading to some kind of treasure, or at least something important.”

  “Wait, it’s a treasure map?” Gideon stared at her in astonishment.

  Rei nodded, her hazel eyes brimming with excitement. “Well… yeah. I think so. About halfway through this book—Father Eduardo’s journal, I mean—he gets to Goa, India. Goa was basically the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Asia, so it was big and modern. A big Catholic presence there. But it was old, too, a lot older than the Europeans. The Ottomans—the Muslims—had been there, for one thing. Father Eduardo stayed there awhile, but he seemed to do a lot of what we’d call archeological research. And then there’s a gap in the journal of about a year. And when he starts writing again, he’s on a ship called the Santo Antonio de Tanna, heading back to Lisbon the way he came… Only now he’s a business man, not a priest, and he’s got a wife. He doesn’t say it in here, but we know from Mr. Xavier that the priest changed his name from Eduardo Borges Santos to Joao Pastorinho Xavier. He got married, and had several children. He lived out his life as a wealthy trader in Lisbon, and started this company. No one in the family knows where he got the money—Jesuits took a vow of poverty, among other things. And this journal doesn’t say. So… what did he find?”

  “Could he have inherited money?”

  “There’s no indication of that. And why change his name?”

  “Maybe he couldn’t leave the order without, I don’t know, making the Inquisitors mad?”

  Rei shook her head. “This was the 1680’s. There weren’t internet registries and telephones. All he would have had to do was leave Goa and go anywhere he wanted that he’d never been before, and no one would have ever known a thing. I think he found something, Gid. And I think… well, I think he left clues to it on his voyage back. Which means… I think it means the treasure is still out there.”

  Gideon and Rei stood in front of Luis Xavier, shifting a little uncomfortably in the silence as he stared at them with a blank face, black eyes intense.

  “So what you are telling me is that, all this time, my family has thought it was protecting the Catholic Church, but what we were really doing was hiding away a map to a tesouro? A treasure?” His voice rose on his disbelief.

  Rei nodded. “Yes, I think so.” She explained what she had been able to glean from the journal so far. “I do think that the letter, certainly at the time Father Eduardo, or Joao Xavier, had it, was political dynamite, and it was certain that he had been chased halfway across the world and back for it. But I think it’s possible—in fact, I think it’s probable—that the bad guys of his day also suspected that the dead man knew about a treasure. And that he had, or at least might have, passed that information on with his dying confession. And I think your old ancestor found it, Mr. Xavier. I really do.”

  Xavier looked at Gideon. “Can you find it? Can you and your wife find this thing? And my letter… I want the letter back, too.”

  Husband and wife looked at each other and Rei shrugged. “We can try, sir. That’s all I can say. The thieves have this information as well, and if they knew about the journal… well, I think they’re going to be going after it too.”

  “They seemed pretty organized and well funded.” Gideon said. “But maybe now we can pry a little information out of the man the police are holding, see if they knew what they were getting into. I’ll pass the info on to Detective Azenha…”

  “No!” Xavier interrupted. “I do not want anyone else to know what was taken, or about this crazy treasure talk. You will have to speak to the thief yourself.” He started pacing the soft carpet, some color coming back to his olive skin. “You will have whatever you need to find my family’s belongings. Whatever it takes. You talk only to me, and I will arrange it. It is… it is mais importante. Most important. I cannot fail my family. I cannot be the last.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lisbon

  Present Day

  Gideon and Rei sat in an interrogation room alone with the captured thief. The man had experienced a drastic weight loss over the four days of his incarceration, but his concentration on his prayers hadn’t waned. Nothing, in fact, had changed, and the police had given up interviewing him. He had been arraigned by a magistrate, and a solicitor had been appointed to him, but no one was optimistic about a change of heart.

  The man sat, hands folded on the table, muttering in Latin. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum… Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. Ave Maria, gratia plena…”

  “It’s the Hail Mary,” said Rei.

  “That prayer they do after confession? With the beads?”

  “Basically, yeah. Signor?” Rei tried to get the man’s attention. “Signor, we know what you were stealing. We know about the letter from Paul.”

  The man stopped praying, but didn’t look up. His hands clenched together tightly.

  “We know the letter could be very bad for the Catholic Church. That people have been looking for it for a long time. And that maybe they are looking for something else, too…” Gideon let that hang.

  The man looked up, his face showing emotion for the first time since his arrest. He started to speak, and then hung his head.

  “We have a copy of the letter. A digital photograph that was taken a few years ago. The letter can still be released to the public… or not.” Gideon casually sat back in his chair.

  “No!” The man yelled and jumped to his feet, his face a study in anguish. “No! This is not possible. It is not… it is not possible.” He sat back down, weak and distraught.

  “You did not think Mr. Xavier would take advantage of modern technology to safeguard and study the letter? Things happen, buildings catch fire, there are thieves… His family has guarded the letter for many centuries. He would not like the letter to be lost forever.” Gideon watched the man. His dark hair was dank and unwashed, and his skin was loose and sallow from his self imposed starvation. The bones of his face were prominent. His hands were shaking.

  “That’s why you took the letter? To keep the world from finding out? Or is to tell the world, to destroy the Church? The Xavier family has never released the letter; they’ve never even let scholars study in secret. It has been safe for over four hundred years…” Gideon let his words hang, trying to goad the man into a response. A full minute passed before the thief spoke again, softly.

  “We are pledged to search for the letter. We have been searching for the letter for eight hundred years, when it was stolen from our monastery by those soldiers, those knights.” He spat out the word.

  “Knights?” asked Rei.

  “Templars. Thieves. They were killed and disbanded everywhere else, but in Portugal the King wanted them to remain. They were desonroso. Dishonorable. They did bad work for the king, and they amassed much power and fortune in secret by stealing. They brought humilar, shame, to my order. We will regain our honor.”

  Gideon looked at him in amazement. “You’re a monk?”

  The man sat up proudly. “We are a religious order. We have been in existence many, many centuries, nearly since the time of Saint Peter and Saint Paul themselves.” The man, now divulging his secrets, looked inordinately exhausted. “It is all lost if the letter is released…”

  “Mr. Xavier doesn’t want to release the letter. His family has never sought to release it. But he wants it back, and the book that was taken with it.”

  The man looked confused. “I know nothing of a book. Our team was briefed on the security of the building, but my irmao and I did not go inside the building. We were to stay on the outside and arrange the power and video lines. Our abade told us we were recovering what we had sought for so long. We all knew this to be the Achalichus letter.”

  “That’s what he said, ‘what you had sought for so long?’”

  “Sim. Why should he say more
? We are committed to this quest through our vows. It is well known among the brothers.”

  Gideon looked at Rei, unsure whether to tell this man about the journal or not. He would be going to jail, a fate that he seemed to have no interest in fighting. Or he’d starve himself do death. But it certainly seemed that he would be both isolated from his “brothers” and compelled to silence.

  “What’s your name, signor?”

  The man looked at Gideon, and then Rei. He seemed defeated, both by his confession of sorts, and the failure of his sect to contain the information in the letter. Apparently it had never occurred to those in the order that the letter would or could be copied.

  “Petros. I am Brother Petros. That is all. We die to our former lives when we join the order. We are only the brothers.” He rubbed his fingers lovingly over the tattoo on his forearm.

  “What is the name of the order?” Gideon asked.

  Petros shook his head. “No. I cannot say that. We cannot ever say that. No.”

  Gideon looked at Rei. It was worth a shot… She flashed him a small smile.

  Rei had her laptop open on the small table in the internet cafe they’d found a block from the police station. Espresso cups were scattered around, and Gideon was finishing a tortilla. He wiped his mouth and looked at his wife. “Anything?”

  “Well, maybe. I have skipped all the way to Father Eduardo’s conversion to Joao Xavier. What it looks like to me is that he found something in or around Goa, and he was able to cash in for a lot of money. I’m guessing he didn’t expose the whole treasure, whatever it was… He seemed to have enough money to be considered wealthy, and to cover his new identity as a trader. But he didn’t have fabulous wealth.”