For a second, Jack could only stand rigid, then he realised that the words had been spoken in English and the accent was very familiar.
‘I thought you were guarding the beach, Captain McConnell!’
‘And who are you to know my name?’ A hard hand spun Jack round and the cynical Irish face of McConnell stared into his. He dropped the musket and grinned. ‘Well now, if it isn’t Jack Tarver, the bold engineer! And what in God’s name are you doing here?’
‘Washing!’ Jack said quietly. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Aye, there’s just me and half the British army.’ McConnell suddenly raised his musket again. ‘And who’s with you? Is it another engineer or that fellow that abandoned you so readily?’
‘Neither,’ Bethany said, emerging from the shade of the trees, carefully placing her hair in place. ‘I am Mrs Tarver, Jack’s wife. And you are?’
‘Bloody astonished,’ McConnell said. ‘Tell me, Mr Tarver, how did you manage to get married out here? And to an Englishwoman of all things?’
Jack smiled, as Bethany came to his side. ‘Oh, she just follows me around, so I had to make it legal.’
‘I believe I heard my husband call you Captain McConnell?’ Bethany dropped in a formal curtsey, to which McConnell had to reply with a stiff bow. ‘Well, Captain McConnell, could you tell me where I might find the British army? I would dearly like to get out of this country.’
According to McConnell, the British army was here, there and everywhere. Jack was not alone in having contracted fever, it seemed, and after allowing his men to lie for days in the marshy plain, subjected to unhealthy air and countless insects, General Stuart had eventually decided to move against those French who were not in full retreat northwards. However, without cavalry, Stuart had found it impossible to pursue Regnier’s army, so instead he mopped up the French in the toe of Italy and thereby achieved the security of Sicily, although malaria downed many more of his men than the French had. While Stuart’s army and the Royal Navy captured one French-garrisoned town after another, Scylla, overlooking Sicily still held out.
‘So, we’re finally beating the French!’ Bethany looked at Jack in triumph. ‘I always said that one Briton was worth any three foreigners! So, Captain, how can we get back to Malta? Jack has a road to build.’
‘Find the army and you find your method of transport,’ McConnell said calmly. ‘The navy brings in food and supplies, so somebody will be going back to Malta. Of course,’ he added, ‘some of us still have work to do.’
Bethany sighed. ‘Come on, Jack. We still have some walking to do. Scylla it is.’
Scylla was different from anywhere else they had seen. It was an ancient site and, despite its fame in mythology, Jack was more interested in the French tricolour hanging above the massive fortification and the French cannons glowering down at him. Below the fort was an impressive bay, with Sicily only a couple of miles across the Strait of Messina. The British army faced the fort, with artillery batteries booming away and the infantry camped in neat little lines, the smoke of their campfires a pleasant blue haze in the morning light.
‘Very interesting,’ Bethany said, barely looking at the siege. She knew it was happening, but the details did not interest her. ‘Now, get us back to Malta, Jack.’
Jack pointed seaward, where a host of vessels, from sturdy British brigs to the more exotic feluccas, carried troops and goods to the besiegers. ‘Somebody will take us.’ He was relieved that HMS Rowan was not there. Despite his reaffirmed faith in Bethany, he did not yet want her to spend time with Commander Cockburn. He did not want her to make a comparison with the vigorous leader of men and himself, a tattered refugee.
If only I knew who I was!
The artillery fired again, the heavy boom of twelve pounders and the deeper, more ominous thunder of the massive twenty-fours hammering at the walls of Scylla. Every so often a howitzer would fire, its shell arcing upwards, the lighted fuse visible for seconds as it rose, then descended inside the fortifications to explode with a visible orange flash and a column of dust and smoke.
‘Are there civilians in there?’ Bethany wondered.
‘Probably,’ a powder-blackened artilleryman said. ‘We’ll see later today when the infantry go in.’ He pointed to the lines of scaling ladders that the redcoats were making ready and a group of shirt-sleeved warriors lining up with minimum equipment – forlorn hope was the name given to these men, who were virtually certain to be killed.
‘These are the lads that make the first rush,’ Jack explained. ‘The forlorn hope that gets the glory.’
‘If they survive,’ the artilleryman added. ‘Oh my God! Look!’ he pointed to the tricolour. ‘They’re hauling down their colours!’ The delight in his voice was evident.
It was true. As Jack watched, the French flag came fluttering down and, within minutes, the order to cease fire came.
‘What does that mean?’ Bethany asked.
‘They’ve surrendered,’ Jack explained. ‘We have captured Scylla.’ He shook his head. ‘After so many defeats, it seems that we have the measure of the French.’
‘Oh good,’ Bethany said. ‘Now can we go home?’ She stopped with a frown as she saw a long convoy of wagons trundle towards the harbour, each one laden with sick and wounded men. Pale faces stared hopelessly out, while the scarlet uniforms of honour were stained and tattered. ‘Oh God, Jack. Look at these poor men!’
Jack nodded. He was utterly sickened by the horrors of war; he realised that if he could do nothing to ease the suffering of wounded men, it was best not to notice. Bethany, however, was softer hearted.
‘When you were sick with fever, Jack, I would have liked anybody to help, and these men also have wives and sisters and mothers. Come on.’
‘What …?’ Jack could only obey, as Bethany strode to the nearest wagon. For the remainder of that day, as the garrison of Scylla marched out with all the paraphernalia of war, he was fetching water and helping Bethany care for a never-ending horde of sick and wounded.
For every injured soldier, ten were ill with fever, and Bethany tried to help them all, organising work parties from any straggler who came to watch.
‘Where is the surgeon? You – attend to this man!’ Bethany was everywhere, one minute listening to the words of a feverish boy, the next washing the face of a tanned veteran or berating a soldier for clumsiness with a groaning man.
‘Bethany!’
‘Not now, Jack.’ Bethany was holding a man’s hand, as he told her about his wife in Lincolnshire.
‘Bethany!’ Jack saw the man lean up to impart some information.
The man pointed to his arm, where blood had soaked the sleeve of his jacket and was dripping from his hand.
‘Wait, Jack!’ Taking the dagger from its hiding place next to her leg, Bethany cut away the jacket. When she washed the arm, the wound was wide but shallow. ‘Find me some cloth for a bandage, Jack. Badger the surgeon!’
‘Bethany! There’s a ship for Malta!’ Jack pointed to the glittering waters of the harbour.
‘And here’s a man in need!’
Bethany worked with the wounded for another day, then a desperate hand clutched at her. ‘Madam Doctor!’
The accent was east European rather than French, but the man was a prisoner of war, with blood seeping through the bandage around his chest.
‘Madam Doctor!’
Bethany knelt at his side, speaking first in English and then in French. When he spoke again, she gestured for Jack to come.
‘Madam Doctor,’ the man said again, and continued in a torrent of French. Bethany translated, her eyes fixed on the wounded man.
‘He is asking where I got the knife.’ She glanced at the dagger with which she had been slicing shirts into bandages. ‘My husband found it,’ she said, speaking English for Jack’s benefit, then French.
‘Where?’ The man tried to struggle up, moaned, then sank back down. ‘Please tell me.’
‘In Malta,’ Bethany said slowly.
The man listened, his eyes darting from Bethany to Jack and back. ‘You found that knife? Where in Malta did you find it?’
‘In a building,’ Bethany told him. ‘Was it yours? Were you based in Malta there before we took the island from you?’
‘St Alfonso’s Tower?’ The soldier slurred the words. ‘Did you find it in St Alfonso’s Tower? I thought we hid it well.’
Jack would not have recognised the accent, but he knew the uniform to be Polish. He tried to control any excitement, for in the horror of the war he had nearly forgotten the reason he had come to Calabria.
Bethany bent closer, as the man’s voice began to fade. ‘Are you Monsieur Sobczak?’
The man looked up, a hint of recognition on his face. He nodded. ‘You know me?’
‘I know of you,’ Bethany corrected. ‘And you hid it well.’
Sobczak whispered something inaudible before stiffening with a new spasm of pain. ‘The Knight gave it up, then,’ he said, his voice suddenly distinct. He looked directly into Bethany’s eyes and his jaw dropped open, as he slumped back down.
Bethany stood up slowly, smoothing a hand through her tangled hair. She shook her head. ‘He’s gone.’
She staggered back through pure fatigue and Jack reached over to support her. ‘You’ve done enough,’ he said. ‘Enough.’
‘The second key must be somewhere in St Alfonso’s Tower,’ she said, even as she slumped in Jack’s arms.
Malta was busier than ever, with sick and wounded returning from Calabria, bored guards watching prisoners of war, shipping milling in the Grand Harbour and hurrying officials attempting to appear important. Bethany threw herself on the bed in Ta Rena, allowed Jack to remove her shoes and stared at the ceiling.
‘I feel as if my life is circling all around me,’ she said. ‘What with battles and sieges and wounded men’ – she turned her head to face Jack’s – ‘and a foolish husband who believes every fantasy that comes into his head.’
Jack lay beside her, watching the pattern of the evening sun dapple the ceiling, as it played through the plants Bethany had placed on the window ledge. ‘What do we do next, Bethany? We can go for the treasure ourselves, or tell Mr Dover about the second key and leave everything to him.’
‘Let’s discuss this properly,’ Bethany said, turning over so she lay on her face. ‘We know that there is a treasure hidden on this island somewhere. Correct?’
‘Agreed,’ Jack nodded.
‘But we do not know where it is. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Fine.’ Bethany sighed. ‘But we do know it needs two keys to open it.’
‘Agreed.’ Jack began to rub her back.
‘And these keys are in the form of knives. We have one …’ – at which point she displayed the dagger – ‘and we have been told where the second is hidden.’ She turned towards him. ‘No, don’t stop doing that. A little lower, please. Lower … lower. Just there …’ She wriggled slightly under his hand. ‘Now, we are in a good position to find the treasure, Jack, if we only knew where it was. The question is: what do we do now?’
‘We find the second key first, and then decide,’ Jack said, stroking softly.
‘Decide what? Either we tell Sir Alexander’ – she eased enticingly closer to him on the bed – ‘or we tell Mr Borg, who does not like the British very much.’ Twisting her head, she looked up. ‘We have two other choices, Jack. We can forget the whole thing, or we can try and find it ourselves. What do you think?’
‘Don’t forget Mr Egerton and Kaskrin and that devil woman Elizabeth Baranov,’ Jack reminded her. ‘I doubt they’ll give up searching for the treasure, so we’ll have to get it first. I think we should find the second key and then decide.’ Reaching under the bed, Jack checked the priming of the pistol he had placed there. ‘And you missed out one other option. We could tell Mr Dover. He does have the best interests of the country at heart.’
‘I would prefer not to tell him,’ Bethany said simply. ‘So we have a bit of a dispute. Let’s find the key first, then decide.’
‘Good idea,’ Jack agreed. ‘I knew you would think of something sensible.’
Although the road building was well behind schedule, Jack refused to leave Bethany to search for St Alfonso’s Tower alone. ‘Not with Mr Egerton and his friends still running loose,’ he told her. ‘I’m not chancing that again.’
‘And I’m not chancing you having any more silly ideas,’ Bethany said, holding his arm. ‘So we’re together in this at last.’
‘As it should have been from the start,’ Jack agreed.
They checked the map first and found the island dotted with the names of saints. There was St George’s Bay, St John Square, St Julian’s, a host of St Paul’s, a selection of Santa’s, but no St Alfonso’s Tower.
‘Maybe it’s changed its name?’ Bethany suggested.
‘In which case we’ll find it in the reign of Queen Dick,’ Jack sighed. ‘God, but this is impossible, Bethany!’
‘I know how to find it,’ Bethany said. When she smiled, the mischief had returned. ‘Now trust me on this, Jack, and don’t say anything stupid.’
Jack stared at her. ‘What do you have in mind, Bethy?’
‘Put on your best clothes, husband dear, and come with me.’
The interior of St Paul’s greeted them with splendour, and the priest, Father Vicente, welcomed Bethany with genuine pleasure. A small man with a completely bald head and soft brown eyes, he spoke good English with a strong accent.
‘Ah! The engineer’s wife! And you have brought your husband with you.’ Father Vicente’s smile broadened. ‘Have you come to be converted to the true faith, Mr Tarver?’
Bethany threw him a warning look. ‘Jack has come to ask about all the saints on Malta,’ she said. ‘I thought it best that a priest explained, rather than somebody else.’
Father Vicente raised his eyebrows. ‘An interesting question from a Protestant,’ he said. ‘Come,’ he indicated a side door, ‘come into my inner sanctum and we can talk.’
The room was surprisingly bare and businesslike, with a simple desk and two chairs, while a crucifix was the only adornment on the whitewashed walls. Perching himself on the edge of the desk, the priest indicated that his guests should occupy the chairs.
‘It’s not right that we sit in comfort while you do not,’ Bethany said.
‘It is as it is,’ Father Vicente said and began a long lecture on the importance of saints to Christianity, their place in the Bible and how St Paul came to Malta. Jack listened with little interest. Wolvington College had driven any feeling for religion from him by its rigid rules of adherence, but he could understand how other people found such things comforting. He noticed that Bethany was listening intently, nodding at all the right places and making small noises of agreement.
‘I see,’ Bethany said when Father Vicente eventually halted – probably for breath, Jack thought uncharitably. ‘So why are there so many different saints here? I mean, St Paul I understand, but why St John, St Julian and St Alfonso?’
It was so subtly done that Jack nearly did not notice, but the priest did.
‘Alfonso? Have I mentioned a St Alfonso?’ The smile was still there, but the eyes were shrewd and questioning.
‘Did you not? I am sure that somebody mentioned St Alfonso. He has a castle named after him, I believe?’ Bethany gave her sweetest smile, but the priest was immune to such blandishments.
‘There is a St Alfonso’s Tower, but that is a name given in irony, rather than in ceremony.’ He looked towards Jack. ‘I do not think it relevant to our discussion today.’
‘Perhaps not, but now I am interested.’ Bethany never denied her essential curiosity. ‘Tell me, pray, in what way was St Alfonso’s name given in irony?’
Father Vicente began to explain: ‘Alfonso Bellus was anything but a saint, Mrs Tarver. In fact, he acted like the devil incarnate. He was commander of a galley in the seventeenth century but rather than protecting Christendom by attacking only Mohammedan vessels he captured everything he could and enslaved what he could not kill. At first his disposition was overlooked because he was a fine warrior and useful when it mattered, but eventually the Grand Master published his name prae foribus ecclesiastiche and declared him guilty of heresy, blasphemy, devil invocation and maleficium.’
‘Oh?’ Bethany looked at Jack. ‘He was an out-and-out blackguard, then.’
‘A blackguard?’ Father Vicente sought an explanation of the term. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, a decided blackguard. But the proclamation was not enough and eventually the Grand Master banished him from Malta.’
‘And quite right too,’ Bethany approved.
‘Unfortunately, he did not go far. He left the shores of Malta, as he had been commanded, but only went as far as a nearby island, which he fortified and used as a pirate’s base. His tower was known as St Alfonso’s, but even today people do not go there.’
‘No? Why ever not?’ Bethany wondered.
‘Because it is a bad place, Mrs Tarver. There are tales that would frighten young ladies and stories of terrible things.’ Father Vicente lowered his voice. ‘Even the local fishermen do not go there because of the tales of devils and monsters that haunt the coasts.’
‘I see,’ Jack nodded. ‘Well, that’s warning enough for me. If the local fishermen do not go there, then that’s a good reason to keep well clear.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘Well, Father, we have taken up enough of your time. I thank you for your help. You have cleared up a mystery for me.’
Father Vicente slid off the desk with the agility of a boy. ‘Whenever you want to come into the fold, Mr Tarver …’
‘There are a few islands off Malta,’ Jack said, as they stood on the Dingli Cliffs looking out to sea. ‘The largest is Comino, between Malta and Gozo, and that is included as part of Malta, so no renegade could settle there. Then there are the St Paul’s Islands off St Paul’s Bay, which are also part of Malta, and there is Fifla,’ he said, pointing to the largish lump that broke the southern horizon. ‘Lastly, there is that place there, which does not appear on any map I have seen.’
Bethany looked downwards to a tiny islet, which appeared at the head of a spit of rock. Only a couple of hundred yards square, it was dark and ugly.
‘I saw that when I was surveying the road,’ Jack explained.
‘Do you think St Alfonso’s Tower is there?’ Bethany asked. ‘Give me your telescope, please.’ She scoured the rocky island. ‘I can’t see anything. Can we get down there?’
‘Not past the religious site,’ Jack said, ‘but there must be another way.’
A mile further along the cliff, a path descended in a series of dizzying zigzags. Jack led the way, very aware of the sucking drop to the sea, as his feet slid on loose stones, and even more aware that Bethany had only thin soles on her boots.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘If I wasn’t,’ she replied, ‘you’d soon hear me scream.’ Her smile was unconvincing. ‘I can’t see anything that looks like a tower, Jack.’
‘Nor can I,’ he agreed. ‘You can stay behind, Bethany, if you like.’
She shook her head. ‘And you can go to Jericho, Jack.’
The path ended on a tiny strip of beach that extended along the base of the cliffs, with the sea hammering to their left and the rough, light stone cliffs rising forever to their right.
‘Just follow the beach,’ Jack said.
‘And I thought we could swim!’ Bethany sweetened her sarcasm with a smile.
Composed of fragments of fallen cliff, the shore was littered with sharp rocks that thrust upwards, threatening to pierce their boots, so each step was measured. It meant that, though only a short distance, it took them over an hour to get there. But at last the point stretched before them, white and ugly under the burning sun. At some stage in history, the sea had bored an arch through the rock, which had collapsed, leaving the tip of the point as an island: empty, bare and stark.
‘I still can’t see any tower,’ Bethany complained. She looked behind her, along the empty shoreline. ‘Who in their right mind would want to live here?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Who says that this Alfonso fellow was in his right mind?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘This is taking far longer than I anticipated,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to return in the dark.’
‘We will return when we have found the key,’ Bethany told him sternly. ‘And that could be midnight or broad daylight.’
Along the irregular coastline of the islet, the sea was dark and warm, breaking gently against the rocks and hissing down to settle for the next wave.
‘It is completely different to our sea,’ Bethany said. ‘It hardly looks like a sea at all. It’s so placid.’
‘Until the monster gets you,’ Jack said, smiling at the expression on Bethany’s face.
Away from the beach, the islet was more fertile than it had appeared, with patches of rough grass and even a small tree, gnarled and wind stunted into a half circle. The centre of the island had sunk down to form a deep lake of brilliant azure, and on the landward side were the remains of the tower.
‘There we have it,’ Bethany said. ‘It’s so battered that I thought it was just a large lump of rock.’
The tower was two crumbling storeys high, with a broad base that slanted at an acute angle to the narrower top. The large gateway loomed darkly a few feet above the level of the lake.
‘It’s a sea gate,’ Jack said. ‘Alfonso would bring his ship right in here from the sea.’
‘How would he do that?’ Bethany asked, sarcastically. ‘Did he carry it?’
‘The entrance must have been filled up, but I’ll wager that at one time there was a channel from the sea to the lake.’
There was a high banking between the edge of the lake and the gateway, so Jack clambered up, with Bethany only yards behind. He was unsure what to expect, but when he got there he found that most of the internal construction of the tower had collapsed, leaving a heap of ruins within a framework of bare limestone walls.
‘Where do we start?’ Bethany said, looking around. ‘We could spend a lifetime in here and find nothing.’
‘If you were to hide a key in here, where would you put it?’ Jack mused. ‘Somewhere easily accessible, surely, but not immediately visible.’
‘Under a stone, perhaps? Or on a ledge?’
‘Or exactly where the last one was hidden, perhaps? I would imagine the Knights were rushed, so would not have had much time for anything complex. Not with Bonaparte’s men knocking at the door. If they hid our key in the cistern, why not do the same here?’
‘If they have a cistern …’ Bethany sounded doubtful.
‘They must have. They needed water and there wouldn’t have been a well so near the sea.’ It was so logical that Jack did not explain further. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Hot and humid, the rising southerly wind whistled unpleasantly between the ragged stonework as they searched.
‘Here’s something,’ Bethany said. ‘Over here!’
The cistern was on exactly the same pattern, a large but shallow tank under the floor of the courtyard, with an entrance that had once been covered by a trapdoor but now gaped wide.
‘We should have brought a torch,’ Jack said.
‘Too late now,’ Bethany told him, cheerfully. ‘Down you get.’ She pushed him forward.
With no mechanism to supply water, the cistern was dry, and the absence of a trapdoor allowed some light in, but Jack still felt uneasy as he knelt on the floor from which the clay covering had long vanished. Crawling on hands and knees, he felt cautiously for he-was-not-sure-what.
‘Hurry up, Jacko!’ Bethany’s voice echoed around him.
‘I can’t see anything down here,’ Jack complained. He rose slightly, banged his head against the ceiling and swore.
‘Jack!’ Bethany’s voice mocked him. ‘You use such commonplace language for a gentle husband.’
‘It’s dark, it’s low and there’s nothing down here!’ Jack rubbed his head. For a moment, he thought of Alfonso Bellus and wondered what sort of a man he had been, and what sort of things he had done, and then his feet gave way beneath him and he found himself slipping downwards.
‘Bethany!’ he shouted, scrambling for purchase. He found a ridge between two of the bricks and held on tight.
‘What is it?’ Bethany’s face appeared upside down as she peered into the cistern. ‘What on earth are you playing at, Jack?’
‘There’s a hole in the ground!’ Jack tried to pull himself up, but the stones worked free and he slid backwards into the black hole.
‘Jack!’
It was not a long fall, but the impact knocked the wind from him, so he lay for a while, feeling himself for broken bones.
‘Are you all right?’ Bethany had lowered herself into the cistern and was poised above him.
Knowing her terror of dark places, Jack tried to sound reassuring. ‘All’s bowman, Bethany. I’m unhurt, but you take care there.’
‘What is it?’ As soon as Bethany knew that Jack was safe, her natural curiosity asserted itself. ‘What have you fallen into? Is it a well, perhaps?’
‘If there was only some light …’ Jack looked around, but it was too dark to tell where rock ended and space began. ‘Get back to the surface, Bethany, while I poke around down here.’
‘And you can go to Bath, Jack Tarver! I’ll wait right here until you are out!’
Jack grinned ruefully. That was his Bethany. He began to feel along the ground. It was damp, with pieces of slimy weed and other objects that he could not identify. ‘There are lots of things here,’ he reported. ‘Sticks, I think. And bits of rusty iron. I can’t find the key, though.’ He stopped as a sudden thought hit him. ‘Bethany, what if it’s completely different? I’m looking for another dagger, but what if it’s something else?’
‘Don’t think that! Just look for anything that might be the key!’ Bethany’s sigh was very audible. ‘Oh Jack, I do wish you had remembered to bring a lantern!’
Night came so suddenly it took them by surprise. One moment they were in semi-gloom, the next the sun had set and the fort was in total darkness. Bethany’s breathing roughened, and Jack tried to struggle back to the hole through which he had fallen.
‘I should have watched the time.’ Reaching for her hand, he manoeuvred them both back to ground level.
‘What do we do now?’ Bethany asked. She looked around the shattered fort and shivered. ‘I don’t want to stay here all night.’
‘Nor do I, but we can’t go back that route in the dark. Think of the cliff path, and that beach.’ Jack sighed. ‘It will be a long night, Bethany, so we had better find the least uncomfortable place to spend it.’
They squeezed into a corner, with stone walls on two sides and the stars high above. ‘At least it’s warm,’ Bethany said, as she snuggled into him.
Jack put an arm around her. He felt completely foolish for not bringing a lantern or anything to eat and drink, and he should have been far more attentive of the time.
‘This day has been a total fudge,’ he said apologetically.
‘No, it has not,’ Bethany chided him. ‘We’re together and we found the fort. We’ll have another look tomorrow morning.’
Perhaps it was utter exhaustion that made Jack sleep, but he was surprised when Bethany shook him awake. ‘Look, Jacko!’
At first he could see only the glitter of moonlight on the sea and the breaking phosphorescence of the surf, but then he focused on where Bethany was pointing. A shaft of moonlight hit low down on the walls of the fort, revealing a gap in the rough stonework.
‘There’s a hole there,’ Bethany said. ‘I’ll bet that leads into that room you found.’
‘Maybe so.’ Jack could not see the significance.
Bethany encouraged him with a nudge. ‘Use the moon as a lantern, Jack. You will be able to see what you are doing.’
Angled through what might once have been a window or ventilation shaft, the moonlight illuminated the underground room far better than any lantern. As soon as Jack thrust through his head, he realised exactly the function of the room and the priest’s words returned in full meaning: ‘It’s a bad place. There are tales that would frighten young ladies and stories of terrible things.’
The light gleamed on things that were white and long, on harsh stone and strands of damp vegetation, creating shadows too dark to be simply a product of the night. What Jack had taken to be sticks were bones scattered around the floor, with three human skulls and lengths of rusted chains. He recoiled for a second before shaking his head at his own foolishness and returning to his search. Dead men can’t bite.
‘This used to be the dungeon, Bethany,’ he reported, his voice hollow with echoes. He shivered anew as he saw a brazier and wondered to what terrible use it had been put. The moonlight ghosted along the wall, revealing strange implements and iron bars, and there, high on a ledge in the far corner, sat a man in a long dark cloak with the black cross of Malta reflecting the light. Jack started, and looked again, seeing the full uniform of a Knight of St John, green with mildew save for that resplendent Maltese cross.
The Knight gave it up, then. Those were Sobczak’s words. And there was the Knight, sitting eternally in a corner of the dungeon. Feeling the breath constricted inside his chest, Jack stepped forward, studiously avoiding the bones and debris that littered the ground.
The man was long dead, with the skin stretched tightly across the sharp bones of his face and sightless eyes staring into nothing, as they had done for many decades. Why was he here, Jack wondered? Was he a Knight who had transgressed some ancient code, or was he perhaps just an ordinary prisoner dressed up as a macabre joke? He did not know, and would never know, just as he did not know how long the man had sat there in his lonely vigil. What was more important was the sheath that dangled from the Knight’s belt. Decorated with gold wire, the leather had mostly perished, but the handle of the dagger it contained was the brother of that which Jack had found in Ta Rena.
‘Got it!’ Jack shouted his triumph, and pulled the dagger free. The movement was enough to cause the corpse to collapse into a pile of acrid dust and clattering bones. The sound seemed to last forever.
‘Jack?’
‘Coming out …’ Jack spoke just as a cloud blocked the moonlight, leaving him in total darkness. For a second, he stood still as the atmosphere of things long gone pressed upon him, but he had never been a particularly imaginative man so he just shrugged them away. There were no ghosts or spirits, and bones were simply devices that framed the human machine. Whistling to prove his lack of concern, Jack scrabbled his way to the cistern and nearly ran up to the surface, where Bethany was waiting for him.
‘You got it?’ she asked.
‘I got it,’ Jack confirmed, and handed her the dagger.
She held it for a second. ‘It’s too dark to compare them here,’ she said. ‘We’ll do it in the morning.’ She accentuated her smile, so it could be seen. ‘Do you realise that we’ve done it? We have both keys to the treasure that Bonaparte lost?’
Jack looked at her. He had been too busy actually searching for the key to recognise the significance. Bethany was correct: they held the keys to the Knight’s treasure. The thought was strangely frightening.
‘Now we really have to make a decision,’ he said softly. ‘Do we tell Sir Alexander or Mr Dover, Mr Borg or …’
‘Or?’ Bethany’s voice was soft.
‘Or do we tell nobody.’ Jack clutched the second dagger close. ‘Annis Yat, Bethany. We could have it, and anything else we want. We could be landowners, country gentry with a place in town. I could ride to hounds and keep a carriage and four, while you could have as many clothes as you wished.’
‘Books,’ Bethany corrected him. ‘I would have a library of books, the best and most modern editions, as well as all the classics.’ He could hear the catch in her voice. ‘I would open a school, Jacko, where girls and boys would get taught together, side by side, and they could have access to every advantage that I never had …’
The sound of the sea was very loud as they stopped, looking at each other inside the four harsh walls of St Alfonso’s Tower.
‘Can we?’ Jack asked, as the temptation grew within him.
We could have everything, we could start afresh. My Wolvington education gives me the background, the treasure provides the means and nobody would ever question my antecedents again.
‘We’ll need to find out where it’s hidden,’ Bethany said. ‘Mr Borg knows, that’s for sure. Oh Lord, oh sweet Lord. I am in a perfect fever of uncertainty! What to do, Jack? What shall we do?’
‘No more money worries,’ Jack coaxed her.
‘Father could retire from the land,’ Bethany agreed.
They looked at each other as the possibilities multiplied.
The first droplet hit Jack without him realising what it was, but the second was harder, stinging his face like the lash of a small whip. He looked up, thinking it was rain, but the skies were clear again, brilliant with stars and the moon hanging low and silver.
‘Listen, Jacko. It’s the sea.’
They had been so absorbed in dreams of the future that neither had realised the tide had turned. Now silver surf hushed at the gate, splashing spindrift within the fort’s shattered walls.
Jack shook his head. ‘It’s still a sea gate,’ he said. ‘But the tide was out. The fall is so small here, I nearly forgot about it.’
‘Will the sea rise this high?’ Bethany wondered. ‘Will we drown after all our hard work?’
‘No,’ Jack shook his head. ‘If it came all the way, the dungeon and the cistern would be under water.’ He did not mention the slimy weed, and wondered if prisoners had been put in that dungeon to drown. Perhaps that was why the Knight had been on the high shelf, cowering from the rising water each high tide, waiting to die of hunger and thirst. The thought was horrible. ‘But we won’t be able to leave until the ebb.’
‘It feels more like an island now.’ Bethany was holding on to his arm, as her old fear of the dark returned. ‘Shall we get somewhere higher?’
They withdrew as far as they could, holding hands for reassurance. Bethany’s hand was cold and Jack squeezed it.
‘I don’t like this place, Jack,’ Bethany said, as the sea grew more intense, the waves slapping from the walls and the sound reverberating within the fort. ‘Remember what the priest said about a monster?’
‘I remember,’ Jack said, squeezing her to him. ‘Our smugglers spread similar tales to keep people away from places. It’s all superstition and old wives’ tales. Nobody believes such things nowadays.’
Bethany shook her head. ‘No, but that’s because nobody sits overnight in old towers beside the sea, or lives in haunted castles. It’s easy to be a sceptic when you’re beside your own fire.’
Jack held her close. He remembered Bethany’s tales of her childhood, when her mother had punished her by locking her in a dark cellar with a book of images of hell and a single candle. The childhood terrors still affected her, so Bethany was nervous of dark places and of anything pertaining to the supernatural.
‘Jack,’ Bethany said, pointing to the gate. ‘What’s that?’ Her voice was unnaturally calm. ‘It’s coming this way.’
At first Jack could see nothing, but then he saw the eyes. They were much larger than those of a man, and they seemed to slide across the surface of the lake, heading straight for the gateway to the fort. As he looked, a final shaft of moonlight glinted on them, showing the vivid whites and the unblinking blue orb of the pupils. Then another cloud scudded over the moon and they were left in the dark, with the knowledge that whatever had seen them was coming their way.