Solomon's Throne (37 page)

They gathered in the Quinns’ bedroom at the guest house to open the letter. Rei would have to translate it, but Gideon and Mac were hoping there was also a map of some kind that they could start trying to match up to modern maps of Goa. While it was one of the smaller Indian states, the population had moved steadily inland from the coast and from Old Goa. However, when Rei pulled the vellum scroll out of the tube, there was only one sheet, containing a letter.

“Damn,” said Gideon. “Nothing so simple as a map…”

“A map might not have helped much anyway. Mapping coastlines was one thing, but inland maps from the 1600s are notoriously wrong. I’ll figure out what it says—he said there would be instructions, so we have to trust that we can still follow them after all this time. Y’all go get some tea or something—you’re making me nervous,” Rei said.

She set to work with her battered notebook, and finished quickly. She reread it, and shook her head a bit. The man certainly had a flair for mystery. Of course, a lot of things had changed since he wrote the letter, and it would be up to them once again to decipher what might have been a commonly known location in his day. She closed the notebook and went in search of Gideon.

The men were sitting on the veranda, a laden tea tray on the table before them. Mrs. Pandey had brought them a true British tea, with scones, cream, and cookies, along with hot tea, sugar and milk. Rei sat down and helped herself to a cup and plate.

“So?” asked Gideon.

“I’ve got it. I don’t know what “it” is, but I’ve got it written down. We’ll just have to do what we’ve been doing, and decipher the name.”

“Well, let’s hear it…” Gideon said.

My dear son,

You have arrived in Goa, and seen what a lovely city and countryside I have lived in for these last years. I continue to pray that you have not arrived with the great rains, as you will not be able to complete your journey until they have subsided for the season. But I am sure that, if this is so, you can take your ease with the society here, and enjoy the many delicacies and forms of culture that our Eastern capital city can provide.

While I spent many a week in search of the old Templar’s treasure, following his journal and his wanderings, trying to make sense of his abbreviated prose, I will not require that you follow quite so closely in my footsteps as I in his. You must go to the Sea of Milk, and there, if the rains are not upon you, is the resting place of the Throne of King Solomon, the wealthiest king to ever live.

You will need to reach the top of the Sea of Milk, and search behind it. There is a great rock, appearing in shape as a bishop’s mitre. If you start at that place, and head west to the sea, you must part the curtain at the midway point. There I have left you my mark.

Behind the mark, you will enter a large catacomb. You must be very careful not to lose your way. I have left signs, as I myself did, indeed, lose my way upon my first investigation, and was brought to the doorway only by the grace of God and His mercy. You will need torches to break up the interminable darkness. And you will be in there as Jonah was in the great fish. But you will come, in the end, to the greatest sight your eyes will behold until our Lord Jesus returns to this earth: the Throne of King Solomon himself.

I know not how you will remove this treasure from its long resting place. But if you find it, I trust that our Lord will give you what is needed to complete the quest. I will pray every day of my life for you, my son, and give thanks for the Templar whom Providence used to give me a life of freedom.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, blessings.

Joao Xavier

X

In the year of our Lord 1687

“So that’s it. We just have to find a Sea of Milk, part the curtain, go behind the X, camp out in a catacomb, and figure out how to haul our treasure out of an enormous cave. No worries.” Rei said glumly.

“Uh huh. Any ideas on any of that?” Gideon asked.

“Nope. I’m hoping the internet will at least give us the Sea of Milk. I’d say the Jonah reference means we’re going to be underground for three days, which I don’t find a hugely appealing prospect personally… And if we find the treasure, I’m leaving it to Mr. Xavier to get it out.”

“I can get the camping gear, flashlights, all that.” Mac said. “This is a pretty tourist-driven place, and there is apparently a big national park to the east somewhere, so surely there’s somewhere that caters to adventure seekers.”

“We’d better not ask Mrs. Pandey,” Gideon said. “I don’t want her to know more than is good for her…”

“We’ve passed about a dozen coffee shops that said ‘internet cafe’ in the last two days, so Mac, why don’t you drop Gid and me off at one of those, then get directions from someone for the supplies. Hopefully we’ll figure it out while you’re gone. And maybe get a map of the whole state of Goa, not just this city area?”

Mac nodded and stood up. “I’ll get the keys, you get your laptop. Let’s do it!”

Gideon and Rei were sitting in the back of a smoky coffee shop, drinking tiny cups of espresso and surfing the web. There were a half dozen other patrons, all Indians. Still dressed in their local garb, they didn’t feel too conspicuous, and, in fact, no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. They were only a couple of miles from the Basilica of Born Jesus, in Old Goa, and the cafe seemed to be surrounded by a good number of eco-tourist and adventure-tourist stores and tour companies.

“I think I’ve got something…” Rei said, not looking up.

“You found the Sea of Milk?” Gideon asked.

“I think so. There is a waterfall called Dudhsager Falls, on the border of the state of Goa, and the neighboring one, Karnataka… In Marathi and Konkani, the languages spoken around here, it means ‘the mihir and Chandiveera Sea of Milk.’ It comes from a legend about a naked princess pouring a jug of milk over herself so a prince can’t see her body, and apparently when the water comes down during monsoon season it looks white and makes white foam in the pool at the bottom.”

“Her nakedness?” Gideon asked.

“That was not exactly the most important part of what I just told you!” she teased.

“To you maybe…”

“
Anyway…
as I was saying,” she said, making a face at him, “since we’re not here in monsoon season, the waterfall is not very impressive. That’s great for us, and must be what Father Eduardo meant by praying we weren’t here in rainy season. The falls are naturally divided into four tiers, and it looks like we need to go to the top. That’s going to be a bit of an issue, since there’s not a trail up there. The two ways to see the falls are by a train that goes over the lowest tier, and by being driven in on jeeps from a nearby town, and then hiking the last kilometer. But that puts you down low, too.”

“So we need to drive, find somewhere to leave a rented car, and hike through what, woods? To the top. Find a rock that looks like… what was that again?” Gideon rubbed his forehead.

“A bishop’s mitre. That’s the big pointy hat with the two tails that bishops wear in fancy services,” Rei said.

“Right. A pointy hat. Then ‘part the curtain’… I assume that’s actually get behind the waterfall somehow. I’m sure that’s safe. And then find the X and get behind that. Which might be a passage, or we might have to bust through some rocks. That sound about right?”

“Yep, and all while carrying enough supplies to be in the cave for a week.” Rei smiled at him.

“A week? You said like Jonah, three days!” Gideon was liking this less by the minute.

“My interpretation is three days in, then three days back out again.”

“That’s a lot of food and water to haul…” Gideon pondered.

“I know. We’ll have to take the minimum of each. You were in the Army—what’s the minimum water consumption for an adult per day?”

“I think three to four liters is the minimum. A liter is… jeez, about 4 cups, give or take. I don’t know exactly. So that’s about 2 regular bottles of water per day per person, which means we have to hump in at least 42 bottles of water. And that doesn’t leave any for bathing, washing hands, brushing teeth…” Gideon turned Rei’s notebook around, turned to a new page, and started making a list.

“Holy cow…” Rei said. After a silent minute, she said, “Let’s think this through. Father Eduardo didn’t have plastic water bottles. He might have had a clay or leather canteen. When he first went into the cave, he wouldn’t have known it would take that long… and he got lost once, too, he said. So there’s no way he carried his own water in there. There must be fissures from the waterfall, or springs or something. There’s got to be! It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

Gideon nodded slowly. “That makes sense. But Rei, that was four hundred and fifty years ago! Can we count on the conditions being the same now? That seems like a pretty big risk.”

“What if we hedge our bets? We get a couple of cases of water, and we leave them in the car. We carry, say, five or six each. maybe 10. If we find the cave, and are able to get inside, we can certainly go back for the water if there’s none along the way, right? And if there is, we’ll have the bottles to refill, and we wouldn’t have to do that too many times to make it.”

“That should work. But where does the water for the waterfall come from? Is it clean? In the States we could get tablets to put in water to make it reasonably safe to drink… maybe Mac needs to see if he can find some of those while he’s out. I’ll text him.” Gideon tapped out a text message while Rei searched the web.

“The water is from the Mandovi River. It provides water for Goa and Karnataka. I can’t find anything that says it’s polluted… But there could be parasites or things in it. So if he can find those tablets, that would be great. I don’t suppose we can boil it, so if we don’t find the tablets, I guess we just pray!”

They returned to the guest house, the back of the SUV laden with bags. On the way, Gideon had placed a call to Mr. Xavier. Their boss had been thrilled with their progress, but not very excited about their being out of contact for a week or more.

“If you don’t hear from us in eight days, call the local authorities and tell them where we went. We will go to the closest town, Kulem, and stay tonight, and head to the Falls first thing in the morning. That gives us a week to get in, find it, and get out. It’s going to take more than the three of us to get out whatever’s in there, so we won’t do more than take some pictures, maybe make a map, before we head back.”

“Gideon, you and your wife are doing a great thing for my
familia.
I can’t thank you enough…” Mr. Xavier said, his voice heavy with emotion.

“No problem, boss. It’s been kind of fun.” Gideon disconnected and smiled at his wife, who was looking at him with her mouth open.