THE MESSIAH
SECRET
James Becker
Copyright © James Becker 2010
To Sally, as always, and for everything
James Becker spent over twenty years in the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm and served during the Falklands War. Throughout his career he has been involved in covert operations in many of the world’s hotspots; places like Yemen, Northern Ireland and Russia. He is an accomplished combat pistol shot and has an abiding interest in ancient and medieval history. His previous novels,
THE FIRST APOSTLE
THE MOSES STONE
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to a very talented duo – Selina Walker and Jessica Broughton – a pair of ‘slash-and-burn’ editors who together took the bones and flesh of this book and imbued it with real life. And they, of course, are just a part of the experienced, dedicated and gifted team at Transworld who all worked to ensure that the book was as good as we could possibly make it.
And, as always, my thanks to Luigi Bonomi, the best literary agent an author could have, a good friend and real inspiration to me.
Prologue
AD 72 Ldumra
The nine men had made slow progress ever since they’d left the last village and started the final stage of their long climb. Now, the simple stone houses were a distant ghostly monochrome in the grey light of pre- dawn.
There was no road, barely even a track, leading to where they were going, though they knew exactly the route they needed to follow, a route that would take them high into the mountains and finish in a blind-ended valley. Each of them – bar one – also knew that they were making the last journey of their lives. Only one man in the group would ever leave the valley, or would want to. That journey or, to be exact, the reason for that journey, was the culmination of everything they’d worked for throughout their adult lives.
They were well-armed, each man carrying a dagger and a sword, and all but two of them also had a bow and a quiver of arrows over their shoulders. The whole area, and especially Ldumra, was a well-known haunt of bandits and thieves. Their principal prey were the laden caravans travelling along what would later become known as the Silk Road, but they would show no compunction in attacking any group of travellers, especially if they believed those people were carrying valuables. And the nine men were accompanying a treasure that every member of the armed escort was fully prepared to die to protect. Only when they reached their destination would they be able to relax, when the treasure would at last be safe, safe – they hoped – for all eternity.
Two of the men rode slowly at the head of the group, each mounted on a woolly two-humped Bactrian camel, an animal surprisingly well-adapted to the harsh terrain. Following them, two yaks were hitched to a small and sturdy wooden cart, one man sitting on the bench at the front, whip in hand. Two other yaks followed, tied with short ropes to the rear of the cart, then half a dozen donkeys, each bearing a single rider and with heavy packs on their rumps.
In the flat loading area of the cart was a heavy wooden box, perhaps eight feet in length, four feet wide and two feet high. The box was hidden from view, covered in piles of furs and other garments, baskets of food and pitchers of water and wine. The men hoped they looked like a group of simple travellers, transporting nothing of value, and would be of no interest to bandits.
And their appearance was unremarkable. With one exception, they all looked – and indeed were – indigenous to the area. Their skin was brown and heavily wrinkled from a lifetime’s exposure to the sun in the thin air at high altitude, their eyes Mongoloid, their faces broad and flat, their hair black and worn long.
The youngest man was the odd one out, riding one of the donkeys near the centre of the group. Perhaps twenty years old, less than half the age of the youngest of his companions, he had fair skin and almost a ruddy complexion. His eyes were a bright and startling blue and his hair – hidden under his hooded cloak – was reddish- brown. He was known to his companions as ‘Sonam’, the word translating as ‘the fortunate one’, though that was not his given name.
The track from the village ran for less than a mile, and then crossed a mountain stream. The small caravan stopped by the bank and the travellers took the opportunity to drink and refill all their water containers. It would be the last stream they would cross before the steepest part of the ascent began and, although the valley was cold, with blankets of snow covering the peaks that surrounded them, an adequate supply of drinking water was essential.
The two men riding the camels remained mounted, alert for any signs of danger lurking behind the hills and within the scrubby vegetation that bordered the tumbling waters, but saw nothing. In a few minutes all the
