Many Words

“This is not a strict truth,” the abbot admitted. “He gained the cross from Ethiopia in 1915, and was returning to us when he fell out of contact. Friends of the Church have scoured the Sudan and Egypt for signs of his passing ever since. At last, we have found something, evidence of a detour irresistible to an Egyptologist of van der Hoek’s dedication, and perhaps a witness to his final days.”

“And you want me to nose around, find the cross, and bring it back.”

“Yes, captain, that is so.”

Cannon scratched at his chin. “We had a run-in with the British on the way here. They’ll be on the lookout for us. Where in Egypt are we headed?”

Lasalvatore hesitated. “The situation is complex,” he said, eventually. “I cannot yet reveal the place exactly. Your eventual destination will be in Upper Egypt, but you will also need to stop in Alexandria to meet Brother Masaracchia.”

Di Giacomo blinked. “What is my cousin doing in Egpyt?”

“He has been there since we learned of van der Hoek’s last whereabouts, coordinating our search for the cross.”

“Getting into Alexandria won’t be easy,” Cannon said. “How are you planning to pay us back for the trouble?”

Calmly, the abbot said, “Three thousand seven hundred ounces of gold.”

Cannon paused. The monks hadn’t been lying when they said they could make it worth his while. He suspected they had left some wiggle room, too. “Seventy-five large will barely even cover gasoline,” he said. “Seven thousand ounces.”

“Your engines use blaugas, captain, and I know more than you might think about the cost of a zeppelin,” the monk rejoined gently. Cannon held his gaze for a moment. His smile seemed genuine enough. “Four thousand three hundred ounces.”

“Forty-five hundred,” Cannon said, after a long moment had passed. “And we can take any artifacts of historic value for sale to the Lourve.”

“I cannot condone that, but except in the case of items of significance to the Church, I will not stop you,” Lasalvatore said. “Your price is acceptable.”

“Then it sounds to me, abate, like we have a deal.”

“Ah, Pietro.” The abbot took di Giacomo’s hand in both of his and said, “Brother Masaracchia often speaks of you. I am sorry he could not be here today.”

“Couldn’t be here?” Cannon prompted.

Lasalvatore shrugged. “We are God’s servants, captain, and we go when the Father calls us. You may see him yet before the end of this matter.”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Like I told you in the telegram, if I don’t like the smell of this, I’m dropping it like a barrel of bad moonshine.”

The abbot merely smiled. They walked across the courtyard, winding along narrow paths through garden plots, surprisingly fertile given the dry, brown landscape outside the walls. Cannon kept his eyes moving, and although the monks tending to the gardens looked honest enough, he saw why Choufeng had been suspicious. Behind their dilapidated facade, the walls were in pristine shape, showing signs of recent repair. The monks walking atop them did so with all the martial watchfulness of a sentry who knew the enemy had him surrounded.

They came to a door in the keep, and the abbot ushered them inside. They went down a flight of stairs. The air became cooler, and they came to a barred wooden door. A monk stood before it. Lasalvatore said a few words to him in Italian, and he stepped aside. Lasalvatore lifted the bar and pushed the door open. It swung slowly and quietly, giving Cannon the impression of great weight, and the abbot beckoned him in. Choufeng and di Giacomo followed.

It was not a large room, only thirty feet by twenty, but it held a staggering display of wealth. Candlelit gold glittered from every corner—jeweled scepters, crowns, goblets—draped in silk woven with threads of silver. Something of Cannon’s shock must have shown on his face.

“So you see, captain, signori, we are not so poor as we seem. These artifacts, entrusted to us by Roma, make us wealthy, perhaps, but in our catacombs there are holy relics of much greater value than this collection of worldly trifles. It is one of these relics, captain, we ask you to recover.”

Cannon straightened. The engraving on the chalice in front of him could only be the work of a master of the Italian Renaissance, one of only two or three. He would look them up when he went back aboard. The abbot watched him expectantly. “Well, what is it, Father?” said Cannon.

“A cross, forged of bronze,” the abbot replied. He walked to the door and held an upturned palm out toward it. Cannon took the hint and stepped out into the hallway, with one final glance at the riches over his shoulder. The abbot started walking, and Cannon fell in with him. “It was made in the ninth or tenth century, it is said, and was rediscovered twenty years ago in a reliquary of the Coptic church. The decision was made to recover it, but the Ethiopians were unwilling to part with it.”

Lasalvatore led them back into the courtyard, and the four of them settled on a pair of stone benches shaded by the wall. “This was unacceptable. We employed a Dutchman of some fame, Martijn van der Hoek—”

“Van der Hoek?” Cannon interrupted, leaning forward and furrowing his brow. “He vanished in late ’14, and nobody knows what happened to him.”

Boards, shingles, and canvas, awkwardly secured to the stone, covered the wounds where the other three had fallen. The wall, jagged though it was, still looked solid enough, and the monks peering curiously down at Cannon and his men suggested the wall-top remained intact enough to stroll upon.

Cannon stepped up to the gate. It looked newer, to his eyes, timber that was neither rotted nor green wrapped by iron bands free of rust. A heavy knocker had been fitted to it. Cannon hefted it back and let it fall against the gate, yielding a thud that echoed down the valley.

“Captain Cannon,” Choufeng said. Cannon raised his eyebrows, and Choufeng endeavored to point out a few things by gesture and expression. The monks atop the wall, walking in pairs at regular intervals. Choufeng tilted his head. Coincidence, or patrols? He looked up at the walls and gate, and leveled a meaningful look at Cannon. They looked ill-kept, but they were solid enough walk on, and the gate could easily stop a bullet. “Be wary,” he said.

Cannon took a thoughtful look around. He was armed, of course, his trusty Mauser Broomhandle pistol hanging at his hip, and both of the others carried their preferred pieces. If these monks were more than they seemed, they might stand a chance of getting out alive, especially if they could put a flare up for those aboard Inconstant to see, but Cannon doubted things would go that far south. The clattering of chains and pulleys broke his train of thought, and the gate creaked open.

One monk waited for them. Cannon guessed his age at fifty or sixty, old enough for crow’s feet and smile lines, but not fully gray-haired. He spoke. “I am the abate here, of the Order of St. Giles, Aldo Lasalvatore. You are Captain Cannon, yes?”

“Guilty as charged,” Cannon replied. “This is my surgeon, Chuang Choufeng, and one of my mechanics, Pietro di Giacomo.”

Unique among Inconstant‘s aircraft, her two Albatrossses had conventional landing gear, instead of just arresting hooks, and Cannon pulled the handle for the former as he lined up with the road. The plane passed low over Castle Incus, and Cannon caught a glimpse of upturned faces on the ramparts as they flashed by below. Two hundred yards later, the Albatross touched down, bounced once, and settled, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

“That could have been bumpier. Do the monks keep this road smooth?” Cannon asked. Di Giacomo shrugged, and in the copilot’s seat, Choufeng Chuang showed no reaction at all. Cannon turned the plane around, goosed the throttles, and taxied up to Castle Incus’ gate. He shut the engines off and got up.

This time, he’d only brought di Giacomo and Choufeng. The former was a wiry Italian, olive-skinned with dark, wavy hair and a well-kept, luxurient moustache, who wore desert khaki much like Cannon’s. Choufeng, originally from Hong Kong, was the oldest member of the Long Nines gang at somewhere north of sixty—he had never said, but his white queue and goatee and his lined face told of a long, many-storied life. He didn’t tell many stories, or even talk much at all, for that matter, but he had won Inconstant‘s boxing tournament every year since its inception, and he was a learned and experienced man whose judgement Cannon trusted.

They disembarked through the crew hatch in the right-side fuselage. Castle Incus, Cannon thought, didn’t make a very good second impression, either. A keep and courtyard, behind a wall that looked like a row of jagged teeth, was all that remained of the original fortifications. Cannon had seen some evidence of a curtain wall from the plane, but centuries of cannibalization, no doubt to repair the keep, had reduced it to invisibility from this perspective. Even so, the keep was in poor shape. It had probably been built with four turreted towers, but only the one on the corner furthest from Cannon remained standing.