Hawk Quest

on a stone ball entwined with snakes — Mithras, the Persian sun god adopted by the Romans.

Vallon struck a flint. Light pooled in the well below.

‘I’ve found the stone.’

‘Good. Grab the documents and let’s get out of here. This place gives me the willies.’

The stone wasn’t part of the original construction. Walter had pushed it into the wall without mortar, leaving gaps wide enough for Hero to insert his fingers. It slid out easily, revealing a deep cavity. He reached in and contacted something smooth and cold that made him gasp and pull back his hand as if it had been burned.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Something in the hole … I have a nasty feeling …’

He pushed the lamp up to the aperture and laid his head to the paving so that he could look in. Dull black eyes stared back at him.

‘Hero, what’s going on?’

‘There’s a snake inside.’

‘Christ!’

‘It’s curled up on a package.’

‘What kind of snake?’

‘A rock viper. Venomous. I think it’s asleep.’

‘Kill it and get yourself down here. Now.’

Hero studied the viper. Its head rested on its coiled body, slitted eyes regarding him with a cold and lidless stare. He drew his knife and extended it. The snake didn’t move. Hero didn’t trust himself to kill it. He touched it with the blade and it gave a torpid stir. Placing the point behind it, he drew the snake towards him. Its tongue flickered and the coils began to unwind. He flicked it out of the hole and it hissed. With an indrawn cry, he scooped it off the step with his foot. It hit the floor with a flaccid smack.

‘I’ve dealt with it.’

‘The damn thing nearly landed on me.’

Hero was reaching into the aperture when it occurred to him that where one snake had gone to hibernate, others might be nesting. His lamp made faint popping sounds and the flame drew down the wick. Before it went out, he grabbed the packet, held it to his chest and clamped his eyes shut.

‘Hero?’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘Thank God. Careful how you descend.’

Hero tucked the package inside his tunic. Not trusting his feet in the dark, he eased down the staircase on his rump, step by step — like a baby. Vallon held up his own lamp, his shadow enormous on the walls. Hero reached the top edge of the collapsed section and pawed at the rubble. Infill spilled away.

‘You’ll have to take it at a run,’ Vallon said.

Hero launched himself down the slope, felt his feet skid from under him and toppled into space. A long moment of weightlessness before a jarring collision that filled his head with starbursts of disconnected memory.

‘Hero, are you hurt?’

He sat up groaning and gingerly flexed his limbs. ‘I don’t think so. The fall’s scattered my wits. I can recall something that happened to me when I was about three as if it were yesterday. Two of my sisters rolled me down the stairs.’

‘If you have any wits left, use them to get out.’

Hero felt the package. He picked himself up and stumbled towards the doorway. Vallon grasped his wrist and yanked him out. ‘Have you still got it?’

Hero’s head cleared. The shores of the lake lay blanched by moon-

light. Sparks whirled up from the Seljuks’ fire. He patted his chest and nodded.

They staggered towards their campsite, Vallon peg-legging on his crutch. He sank down with a groan and Hero muffled him in a blanket before lighting a fire. Flames crackled through the scrub. They pulled themselves close to the heat and Hero placed a pot of rice on the flames. Vallon blew through puckered lips and hunched his shoulders. ‘God, it’s cold.’

Hero kept feeling the package under his tunic.

Vallon gestured. ‘Aren’t you going to look at it?’

‘Don’t you think we should wait until we’re out of Seljuk territory?’

Vallon glanced towards their escorts’ camp. ‘Boke can’t read or write. It won’t mean a thing to him. Let’s see what we’ve got.’

Hero took out the package and undid the wrapping. Inside were two documents, one a letter, the other a book in codex form. He took out the letter first. ‘It’s the same writing material as Prester John’s letter, the same script.’

‘What does it say?’

Hero squinted. ‘Here’s a description of a desert that travellers must cross before they reach his realm. There is a waterless sea and its billows are of sand that surge in waves and never rest. In this desert dwell many imps and demons. Three days’ journey from the sea of sand you must ascend a waterless river of stones … ’

‘What about the gospel? That’s what interests me.’

Hero hid the letter in the casket’s secret compartment and opened the book. ‘It’s written in old Greek on papyrus.’

‘Read it.’

‘The ink’s faded. I need more light.’

Vallon heaped the fire with what remained of the scrub. Flames flared four feet high. Hero held the pages towards them. ‘The beginning is just as Cosmas transcribed it, and then it says: These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Judas Thomas called Didymus wrote them and said, “Whoever finds the interpretations of these words shall not taste death”.’

He turned the page, tracing the text with his fingers. ‘This is interesting. It’s a section describing Jesus’s boyhood and education. None of the other gospels does that.’

‘A rare prize indeed.’

The fire was already beginning to die down. Hero held the book closer to the light and selected a page at random. He peered at the script, his lips moving.

Vallon shuffled closer. ‘Don’t keep it to yourself.’

Hero spoke softly, almost tentatively. ‘Jesus said to his disciples: “Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.”

‘Simon Peter answered, “You are like a righteous angel.”

‘Matthew replied, “You are like a wise philosopher.”

‘Thomas was troubled and said, “Master, my mouth is incapable of saying whom you are like.”

‘Then Jesus took Thomas aside and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas replied, “If I told you even one of the things which he told me, you will gather stones and throw them at me. A fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”’

Vallon leaned forward, intent. ‘What was it that Jesus told him?’

Hero had been moving the book closer and closer to the waning light. ‘It’s no good. I can’t see.’

‘I’ll light a lamp,’ said Vallon. He pulled a glowing stub from the fire and got a lamp burning. He handed it to Hero. ‘Go on from where you stopped. What secrets did Jesus tell Thomas?’

Hero illuminated the page and peered at it. His eyes rose wide with wonder and his mouth opened.

Vallon laughed. ‘What? Are the secrets so profound that you can’t share them with a hell-bound sinner?’

But Hero wasn’t looking at Vallon. His hand rose trembling. ‘Sir.’

Vallon whirled. Black against the stars a dozen mounted figures advanced. ‘Holy God!’

Faruq rode up at the centre of the Seljuk line. ‘Did you really think you could outwit his Excellency?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Give it to me.’