The Mask of Troy (41 page)

Schliemann pulled a little white book from his pocket. ‘In Homer, the gods appear to shape destiny, and men are mere pawns. But that is because, before Agamemnon, the world is presented as an unchanging one, and thus one in which men appear to have no power. I believe the truth was very different. Just as it was an individual, Agamemnon, who brought calamitous war, so it was individuals before him, generation after generation of kings, who kept the balance of power, kept the peace. They were not pawns.
It was their free will to shape history
. We know some of their names. Atreus, father of Agamemnon. Minos, King of Knossos. Priam, King of Troy, an old king at the time of the siege, who, let us surmise, had seen Agamemnon as a young prince, had nurtured him perhaps, but then had seen something in his eyes, that smouldering fire that makes a prince an Alexander or a Genghis Khan, that only needs an extra spark to ignite and raze all before it.’ He held up the book. ‘Thomas Carlyle, our great political theorist, on how history is shaped by individuals. I have been reading him this very day. I look to our world, gentlemen, and I see a world where the power of the individual is under threat, with calamitous consequences. It is the individual who has morality, not the crowd.’

Hoar put up his hand. ‘I speak as a citizen of the United States of America, where individual freedom, the rights of the individual, is enshrined in the Constitution. I look to Europe, and I fear greatly for the future. Mass movements,
volk
movements, begin on a high ideal, on ideals of social justice, but they submerge the individual, and thus the voice of common morality.’

Schliemann nodded. ‘We live at a time when the voice of the individual is needed as at no other time in history. We stand, gentlemen, we four, in front of history, able to shape it, able to throw off inevitability, to shake off those who would have us believe that fate is not ours to control, to show that men left to their own devices are not foredoomed to destruction and war.’

‘And we stand at a time of changing technology,’ Gladstone said. ‘That is your point. That is why that iron arrowhead is so important.’

‘The age of bronze ended with Agamemnon. The age of iron is about to end for us. We live in terrifying times. Contemplate the changes in our own lifespans, gentlemen. From muskets to machine guns. From black powder to nitroglycerine. From ships of the line to ironclads. From muzzle-loading cannon to giant breech-loading guns, capable of lobbing a shell fifteen miles. Veritable doomsday weapons. And men will fly, gentlemen. With my own eyes I have seen the “monoplane” of Monsieur Félix du Temple. Powered flight is a certainty.
Men will fly
. There are fearsome possibilities, gentlemen.
Fearsome possibilities
. The modern alchemy of science will produce wonders, but also horrors. Human guile may reawaken the oldest nightmare of them all. I speak of the plague.
The plague
. It may be the black death, or cholera, or a new deadly smallpox, or some frightful dormant virulence. If some necromancer can harness disease as a weapon, then truly, Mr Gladstone, the Christian God will have forsaken us, all of the gods will have forsaken us, and we will find no redemption.’

‘Does anything give you hope?’ Hoar asked.

‘You three give me hope. In the Bronze Age, in the world of Homer, we are to believe it was the champions who were the heroes, Achilles and Hector and the others. But they were not the true heroes. The heroes were the kings, those who came before Agamemnon. Let us be modern-day kings. Let us be modern-day heroes. Let us ride above the tide of history.
Let us prevent another rape of Troy
.’

‘You spoke, Mr Schliemann, of finding a key,’ Hoar said. ‘You spoke metaphorically, I surmise?’

Schliemann let out a shuddering sigh, suddenly exhausted.
He had said it
. He felt an indescribable sense of relief, but also huge urgency. The wheels were now truly in motion. He gave Hoar a tired smile. ‘My dear senator. I am an archaeologist, remember? When I speak of a key, I mean a key.’ He reached into his inside pocket, to the heavy object he had been carrying in the satchel, wrapped up by Sophia. He hesitated, then pointed with his other hand down the passageway. ‘When Sophia and I dug here in secret all those years ago, I found a way through to the end, inside a natural tunnel created where blocks had fallen down from the top of the walls, forming air spaces. I saw inscriptions along the sides of the walls.
Inscriptions
. I could not make them out, but they seemed to be Bronze Age, pictograms, linear symbols unrecognizable to me, even hieroglyphics. And at the end, far ahead of my reach, I shoved my lantern forward and saw it. A great bronze door, the door to the chamber that must lie beyond. In the centre of the door above a metal crossbar was an angular shaped depression in a circle. A keyhole, gentlemen. And this is the key.’

He took out the package, and unwrapped it. They all gasped as he let the cloth fall away. It was a metal cross, about twenty centimetres wide, equilateral, with bars extending at right angles from each arm. It was gold, lustrous and dazzling in the flickering gaslight, with a silvery metal as the core.

Gladstone reached out and touched it. ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘
Of course
. The symbol you write about with such passion in your books. The symbol you found incised on pots at Troy. The symbol, as I recall, you had painted into the decoration of your house in Athens.’

‘Schliemann the treasure-hunter, again,’ Hoar said. ‘Leaving clues for posterity.’

‘This is the shape of the keyhole in the bronze door ahead of us?’ Gladstone asked.

Schliemann nodded, flushed with excitement. ‘I give you the
hakenkreuz
, gentlemen. The hook-cross. What in Sanskrit is called the
swastika
. The symbol of the Aryan peoples, the first Indo-Europeans who came from the east, over the Black Sea, the people I believe were the first settlers at Troy. This was their symbol. The symbol of the first civilization.
The symbol of Troy
. And this metal is not just gold, but meteoritic. Some ancient sacred discovery, shaped in this way for the kings of Troy.’

Bismarck reached out, then let his hand drop. ‘I know this symbol,’ he growled. ‘The
hakenkreuz
has new meaning for the nationalists in Germany, the
volk
-movement. There are secret societies, those who hark back to an Aryan past. It seems,’ he said, looking at it uneasily, ‘to stand for all the possibilities of the past, and all the dangers of the future. Coming events cast their shadows before.’

‘Where did you find this?’ Gladstone asked.

‘It was Sophia, not me,’ Schliemann said. ‘I lifted the mask, but Sophia led me there.’

‘The mask?’ Gladstone said incredulously. ‘You mean the Mask of Agamemnon?
At Mycenae?
’

‘Have no fear, my dear Gladstone,’ Schliemann said, touching the other man’s arm. ‘Your eloquent argument in the preface to my book
Mycenae
still holds truth. I too am convinced that the shaft graves contain Agamemnon and his family. But when I raised the golden mask, it was not a skeleton I saw beneath. In my mind’s eye I saw Agamemnon, yes, a spectral image that flashed before me, so when I told the world I had gazed upon the face of Agamemnon I was telling the truth. But what I found beneath the mask was this. The
hakenkreuz
, the swastika. I give you the most astonishing find I have ever made. I give you the palladion, gentlemen.’

‘The
palladion
?’ Gladstone breathed, staring at the cross. ‘But the palladion was a wooden statue, surely, in the temple at Troy? The statue of the goddess Pallas, stolen by Odysseus?’

‘That story may well have been true. There are those who believe that statue found its way to Rome, and then to Constantinople, where it remains concealed to this day. The story would have suited Agamemnon. To steal the statue of the protecting deity was to steal the soul of a city. It meant Troy was doomed. But it would also have suited him that the story concealed the truth, that the palladion was not a wooden statue but this cross, the key to that chamber ahead of us. It may well have been concealed in the temple, in some underground repository, perhaps, a holy of holies, its whereabouts known only to the great kings who came to convene in that chamber to keep the peace.’

‘Agamemnon had been one of those kings,’ Hoar murmured.

Schliemann nodded. ‘Yet years later, he stood here, at this very spot, that fateful night of fire and death, dripping with other men’s blood, slamming down his great sceptre, his bloody sword hanging from his other hand, staring at that door ahead, remembering. All he wanted was that chamber shut for ever, and this entranceway buried. Shutting the door would close off the chamber of power that had thwarted his own ambitions, had prevented his ascendancy above all the others. He had killed Priam, and now he would seal off the chamber that had counselled peace, not war. Those fallen blocks of masonry ahead of us were not the result of some natural convulsion, but were deliberately caused. And having buried the chamber, he would find the key, take it from this place, and conceal it for all time. He stormed up to the temple ahead of his men, the fires raging around him, the cries of women filling the air, and found the palladion, then took it back with him to his citadel at Mycenae. And where better to conceal it than in the hallowed burial ground of his ancestors, behind a mask that showed his own face, the ultimate act of power. Then, standing over the grave of his forefathers, Agamemnon could feel as mighty as a god, could raise his staff to Mount Olympus and shake it with contempt.
The age of gods had ended. The age of men had begun
. And he is there somewhere, his own burial, I am sure of it. What matters is that we have found the palladion. What matters is that we can turn back history, stand in front of those doors as all those kings before Agamemnon did, and reach up again with this key.’

‘What would we find?’ Hoar asked quietly.

Schliemann paused. ‘I do not know what we will find.
I do not know
. It may be an empty chamber, a place where treasures of metal were once stored, a council chamber with empty seats. But even that could be enough to prove my theory, so that we may go forth with confidence and proclaim it to the world.’

‘What would you have us do?’ Bismarck said.

‘A year from now, a year to the day, we will reconvene at this spot. The arrangements will be made with the utmost secrecy, and we must not speak a word of this until we are agreed to do so, when the time is right. We must have something to show. I must be believed, not mocked. A grand opening. The press gathered, as they were at Mycenae when I revealed the Mask of Agamemnon. God willing, by a year from now Sophia and I will have dug through to that door, and created a passage wide enough to open it. It will be the greatest moment of all our lives. An incalculable treasure, far richer than all the gold in the world. The key, gentlemen, to
the abatement of war
. Proof, somewhere, indeed in the very existence of that chamber, that men could once control the urge to self-destruction.’

‘Do we few, so few, old men all of us, have the strength and morality to rise above the tide of technology, the monster of self-destruction humanity has created?’ Hoar asked.

‘The monster is within ourselves,’ Bismarck murmured, still staring at the swastika.

‘The world needs heroes,’ Schliemann said. ‘Not lords of war, not champions like Achilles, but heroes like Atreus, Minos, Priam of Troy, men willing to stand against the stream.’

‘We need more treaties,’ Gladstone murmured, tapping his fingers against his cane. ‘Treaties, with redoubled effort. I will be prime minster once again. This has convinced me of it. I will stand for re-election.’

‘We need a balance of power,’ Hoar said. ‘We will never prevent nations from having weapons, but if we maintain our strength we may prevent war through deterrence.’

‘Much can be set in motion in a year,’ Gladstone said. ‘And then, if we can show to the world that it has worked in the past, there may be the vigour and strength of purpose to get it done.’ He turned to Bismarck. ‘Chancellor, you have famously said that history is more than mere written words. We are old men, but we need to make history, not write it.’

‘It seems that after all we speak from the same page, Herr Gladstone.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Schliemann said, turning to them. ‘There is an ancient expression of the Hittites.
I give you a tablet of war; I give you a tablet of peace
.’ He held out his hands as he spoke, palm up, left hand then right. ‘Which is it to be?’

Silently the others came up, first Gladstone, then Bismarck, then Hoar, and placed their hands one on top of the other, on his right hand. They remained still for a moment, and then Bismarck and Hoar withdrew, leaving Gladstone alone, staring into Schliemann’s eyes, a look of concern on his face. ‘My dear Heinrich,’ he said softly. ‘You have left your mark upon this age.
An undying name
. A name that I trust will be with us for many a year. You do not need to push so hard as to be injurious to your health, as is your wont.’

Schliemann squeezed his hand. ‘Your solicitation is most gratefully acknowledged. But have no fear. My health is redoubled by this meeting. My energy is undiminished. Great days lie ahead.’

Gladstone withdrew, and stood beside Bismarck in the shadows. Hoar raised his right hand and pulled a golden signet ring off his finger. ‘Gentlemen, I am humbled to be here. I feel a mere mortal among giants. This ring bears the crest of my forefathers, who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, the greatest affirmations of peace and liberty ever devised. Those documents, gentlemen, give us hope that the will of the individual can triumph. I give you this ring in solemn affirmation that I have spent and will spend my days in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness for all mankind, and in observance of our pledge here today.’ He knelt down stiffly and pressed the ring as far as it would go into the earth on the side of the tunnel, then pushed a potsherd over the top of it. He got back up, tottering slightly. ‘And to you, Mr Schliemann, in your great endeavour to finish this excavation, I wish Godspeed.’