THE CROSS OF GOA
A novel by Laurence Howard
The right of Laurence Howard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.
Jesus Said:
“Let one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be troubled. When he is troubled, he will be astonished and will rule over all.”
“Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the mysteries will be revealed to him.”
The Gospel of Thomas
Text adapted by Elaine Pagels and Marvin Meyer
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
It was 23rd February 1502. A brilliant full moon burst from behind a cloud flooding Lisbon’s narrow back streets with its cool sensuous light. Sharp teeth of shadow cut mystical patterns across the streets and roofs and climbed their way up the walls. Stars cluttered the heavens, hanging like coruscating snowflakes, falling slowly, eternally from the cosmos. A welcome southwesterly breeze thwarted any possibility of a frost, instead bringing with it the promise of spring.
The streets were packed with small wooden dwellings hastily built to house the perpetual influx of country folk seeking fortune in the city. Churches, which had once dotted the countryside surrounding old Lisbon had been absorbed, along with the grand stone mansions, eclipsed by the clutter of new houses. The second floors of the houses overhung the narrow streets, offering perfect concealment to any nefarious character of the night. It also provided cover for those forced to operate clandestinely, those who endeavoured to elude the prying eyes and ears of the Inquisition.
The Inquisitors had commandeered a small church on the outskirts of the city. Within its ancient stone walls, two soldiers dragged a young man into a small room at one side of the altar. They dropped the broken, partially clothed body into a chair. His head lolled lifelessly on his chest. Blood dribbled, slithering like a dark snake from the corner of his mouth.
A black robed, aged cleric rose like a raven from behind a worn oak table. A fat, solitary candle flickered upon its polished surface. It illuminated the cleric’s face from beneath, his chin and nose resembling an open beak about to rip apart the carrion before him. His bony hands clawed at the edge on the table, pulling him around until he could reach out and touch the prisoner’s face. The young man’s blood caked face was bruised, swollen beyond recognition. A thin finger lifted an eyelid and the young man’s eyeball rolled upward into his head.
The cleric nodded to one of the soldiers, who left the room and returned with a bucket of water with which he doused the prisoner.
Consciousness brought with it agony. The prisoner screamed his broken hands and fingers burning from being crushed in the mill wheel. He tried to focus, tried to open his lids just enough to see. Although his vision was blurred he could see the eyes of the Inquisitor, burning hatefully down into his own.
“You will confess,” the cleric demanded then cackled, the sound sharp and parrot like. “You’re apprenticed to that heretic Federico de Silva. Your loyalty to this devil will condemn your misguided soul to everlasting damnation. You must renounce this man and all his evil…you must do it now, before God. You are dying, Miguel. This is your last chance to cleanse yourself before you rejoin your maker.”
Delirium took the prisoner unto semi-consciousness. Anaesthetised from pain he watched his persecutor’s diseased mouth open and close with a detached fascination: his five decaying teeth, the three protruding from the centre of his lower jaw overlapped the two at the top whenever his jaws met. He could feel the cleric’s warm breath on his mouth, his pulverised nose sparing him from the stench. The old man’s head became the pike he had caught the evening before. It amused him to watch his jaws moving, like the pike gasping for life dangling on the end of his line.
The pike would still be in the bag by the door to his home by the river. A vision of his wife came to him. Joy engulfed his soul. He could see her sitting on the front porch of their wooden hut by the stream, her chubby small hands busily sewing, looking up her enchanting smile broadened as he gazed into her eyes that glinted in the sunlight. A blanket of warmth and peace enveloped the prisoner’s body.
“Confess, Miguel,” the cleric’s tone harsher. Time was running out. “What is your master doing? We know he has a commission from the King. What devilish business is he into? What kind of golden calf is he making? Answer….!”
A brilliant light appeared to the prisoner. It beckoned to him filling his spirit and dominating his nervous system. There was no more pain …no more suffering. He had proved himself worthy of the man that he had worshiped; the man that he loved more than his own father.
“What is de Silva doing?” the ‘Raven’ shouted frantically, both eyeballs about to pop out from their sockets. “Help me to destroy this man,” he beseeched, softening his tone suddenly. “He reveres the ancient heretical order of the Templars,” he explained in a last attempt to reason with the young man. “His ways are insidious and perverse. Help me put and end to his evil doings and you will receive absolution…”
Miguel’s swollen and broken, bloody mouth opened hideously wide, white teeth smashed away from crushed gums were embedded in his tongue. Air wheezed from the scarlet and black orifice. The cleric turned his ear closer to the gaping hole to hear his confession.
“Baphomet!”, Miguel managed to whisper followed by a burst of chilling, hysterical laughter that gurgled up through his blood. He choked.
The cleric staggered backwards as if stabbed in the heart with a contorted expression of amazement and disbelief frozen on his face.
A soldier smashed the hilt of his sword onto Miguel’s skull. He died instantly. The look of triumph and joy on the young man’s battered face stunned the cleric. He withdrew and slumped into his chair.
That night five men hurried stealthily through the narrow stinking Lisbon back streets. Their lightness of step was precision timed to resemble one person running through the night. They dodged the drunks and whores jumping open drains fouled with raw sewage, their capes brushing the flaking plaster walls of the overhanging two story buildings. Their hands clasped sword hilts ready for ambush from any doorway or street corner.
Fifty yards behind a bare foot young boy of about eight years old, his shirt and pants torn and ragged, sprinted to within sight of the men and ducked immediately into a doorway. Malnourished, exhausted and gasping for breath he clasped tightly in his small, grimy hand two pieces of silver that the priests had given him. It was enough money to feed his dying mother, two sisters and himself for another week. The priests had promised him more if he could bring back useful information about the men he had been told to follow.
Ahead the men had turned left at a crossroads. The boy crouched in the shadows of a doorway until two drunken, laughing women of the night passed him by leaving in their wake a heavy odour of cheap wine and strong perfume. He hurled himself to the corner where the roads crossed and gingerly peering round.
The street was wide with one side of it bathed in moonlight. The men were clustered in the deep shadow of a large three story mansion fifty yards down the street. The taller one, his face gaunt with deep sunken eyes and a goatee beard, checked furtively up and down the street.
Deep shadow and door recesses covered the boy who slithered and crawled to within six feet of the men. Standing within a narrow doorway, his bony body pressed as thin as possible against the door, he fought to control his gasping breaths.
A small door built into one of the massive doors of the mansion creaked open. The taller man leaned forward. The boy heard him utter a strange sounding word then they all disappeared within.
The boy dashed to where the men had stood. He recognised the door instantly. It was the King’s master goldsmith’s house, an immense edifice stretching across the block with its back yard opening onto the street behind.
Federico de Silva ushered his guests through the lower rooms of his house and out into a covered workshop. The yellow glow from the smith’s furnace lit up a covered workbench and reached out far into the cobbled backyard and reflected upon the shiny hindquarters of two immaculately groomed chestnut mares harnessed to an open wagon their reins tied to a railing adjacent to the stables that ran along one side of the yard. Four other horses, saddled and ready to ride stood just visible tied to a rail on the opposite side of the yard close to the double gates that opened onto the street behind. One snorted and stamped impatiently, its hooves clipping the cobblestones.
“You have come at a most unfortunate but opportune moment, my friends,” the old man announced sadly.
“Take us to the Cross, de Silva, if you will” the taller man demanded. “Time’s not on our side.”
“I’m aware of that Lefrage, my friend. I sent my apprentice Miguel on an errand this morning. He has not returned.”
“WHAT!” Lefrage exploded. “The Inquisitors have him. He’ll talk! No one can withstand their devilish ways of extracting information….”
“I trust him, Lefrage,” the old man snapped.
“But he is young! He will be tricked by their cunning and devilish methods!”
“I trust him. They’ve had him only one day…”
“Trust him or not, they will extract what they want from him. If they find out about the Cross now…. at the eleventh hour… all will be lost. Everything!”
“Get a grip of yourself, man. We have time enough to see our work through. The Cross is finished and safely hidden inside. I’ll take you to it in one moment. First, you must all witness something very special.”
“We can’t waste time, de Silva,” Lefrage persisted.
De Silva glared back at him. “You will do as I command.”
The old man immediately eased the tension with a kindly smile then fixed each of the men with his wide bulbous eyes, masking his deep concern for Miguel.
“What you are about to see is a phenomenon no other mortals have witnessed since ancient times.” The stooping old man beckoned them towards the far end of his workbench away from the furnace. Six clay tablets, each 10ins square, lay under the glow of a heavy silver candelabrum with an ancient form of writing, clearly depicted, cut into the top surface. It was Sumerian cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of written language.
“These tablets were rescued, with other secrets and priceless treasures, from Jerusalem by the Knights Templar in 1127. As you know, our brotherhood is responsible for their safekeeping. They are evidence of a ‘Truth’. It is the ‘Truth’ that everyone seeks and yearns to experience; a ‘Truth’ the church has suppressed and successfully denied its flock from knowing and is hell bent on keeping it from them.
“Anything and everything that threatens the Church’s blinkered doctrine will always be destroyed: like the great library at Alexandria, the countless martyrs of the brotherhood burned on stakes and the Cross….they will destroy it if they can! Maybe four or five hundred years from now things will be very different. People should know this ‘Truth’ by then. God willing!
“What you are about to witness, gentlemen…”
“Get on with it, de Silva,” Lefrage demanded.
“WHAT you will see…” the old man continued, “will astound you beyond your wildest imaginings.” A broad grin pulled the skin tight across his wide noble brow erasing momentarily the deep furrows etched by a lifetime of hard work. His old craggy face creased up around twinkling eyes. He guided them back to the workbench opposite the furnace and removed the canvas covering a one foot square closed iron box.
The furnace lit up one side of the box. It glowed a rusty orange and black. Rods had been fixed to the left and right sides of the box and were bent towards each other, almost meeting at the centre. Below the gap between the rods a raised platform had been erected above the centre of the box.
“Using the formulae given in those tablets I have unlocked an incredible power.”
“For pities sake hurry man…!” Lefrage nervously craned his neck towards the exit of the yard. “I’m sure we were followed. Fetch the Cross now, de Silva, and we can be on our way to the docks.”
“Relax, my friend….” He lifted a calming hand and shook his craggy head. “I’ve never known you to be so nervous…!”
“I’ve never been on a more important mission, de Silva! The King himself entrusted me with this huge responsibility. I must… we must not fail.”
“We’re all here on the King’s business, Lefrage…”
Federico de Silva looked away into the furnace, remembering his incarceration in Toledo castle, deep in Spanish Castile, two years before. He had been seized in Seville for assisting 300 Conversos Jews to escape from the Inquisitors. He grimaced, feeling again the excruciating agony of the garrotte. Just as they were about to turn the screw for the last time; just before his neck would have snapped like a twig, twelve members of his brotherhood, the Knights of Christ, suddenly burst into the torture chamber and snatched him away to safety. They had hacked their way through the whole castle guard to reach him and vanished into the night without a single casualty. He gazed up into the night sky, forgetting the five pairs of anxiously watching eyes that surrounded him, and gave thanks to God for his deliverance.
He coughed, embarrassed slightly by his lapse. “The timing of this last process requires absolute precision,” he continued. Using a pair of tongs he extracted a crucible containing molten gold from the furnace and placed it carefully onto the elevated platform on the iron box just beneath the gap between the two rods.
A blinding flash arced across the gap for several seconds enveloping the crucible. The men retreated in alarm. One stumbled, knocking over the candelabrum, which clattered onto the cobbled floor. One of the group picked it up.
De Silva waited for several seconds before partially immersing the crucible into a vat of cold water for two seconds. It hissed, steam billowing up from the vat.
“It’s vital that I retain that colour within the metal as it cools,” he explained, removing the crucible from the water.
All the men stared intently at the cooling gold, eager to see the colour de Silva had alluded to. Lefrage glanced over to de Silva and gave him a bewildered shrug of his narrow shoulders.
Returning the crucible into the furnace he waited for the molten gold to return to the colour he wanted then offered it once again to the iron box. The same intense flash followed, but this time all the men stood their ground. He cooled it again exactly as before. De Silva’s skilled eye could see into the heart of the precious metal.
“Look! See that colour?” They all gathered keenly around the crucible again, the liquid gold still radiating immense heat. The air was filled with the acrid smell of molten metal. “It must never be lost.” The passion with which he spoke induced them all to stoop over the crucible but the heat forced them to withdraw.
Eight times the old man repeated the heating and cooling process. A blinding flash of light sent them reeling backwards. He looked around at his shocked but captivated audience. Perspiration dripped from his nose.
“Watch closely!” he demanded, with all the drama of a magician. He lifted the cooled, blackened crucible in his gloved hand and, with ease, rested it on the anvil next to the furnace. He was amused to see their expressions change from mystification to incredulity and then to disbelief and finally to sheer amazement as the transition took place. The men gathered around him, crouching closer, to inspect the contents of the crucible.
One prodded it with a finger and examined the substance stuck to his fingernail. “It’s a white powder! It’s like freshly milled flour!” he announced to his comrades gaping around him.
“Come on, de Silva. Where is it?” Lefrage demanded, reaching for the iron box. “What happened to the gold?”
“Don’t touch that!” he screamed.
Lefrage leapt back with his hands in the air, then laughed nervously trying to regain some composure. He looked around at the others and saw to his relief that they had all shrunk back covering their faces with their forearms.
“What are you trying to prove?” Lefrage asked full of indignation. He pointed at the powder. “What is this, de Silva?”
“Exactly!” de Silva grinning with delight at his friend’s utter bewilderment and confusion and wanting to aggravate him to the limit.
“Well! What is it?” he glared back. “We haven’t time for your schoolboy games!”
“That’s what it is!” de Silva stated, nodding his head gleefully, gazing at each of Lefrage’s four men in turn. Within their dumbfounded expressions there was a hint of concern for their leader who was about to explode with anger and frustration.
“WHAT!” Lefrage screamed.
“What it is!” He giggled.
“I asked YOU that!” Helplessness was beginning to replace the exasperation in his eyes. “Tell me de Silva. What is IT?”
“Manna.”
“Manna! Manna. What the devil is Manna?” Lefrage pleaded, wanting only for this embarrassing game to end and they could get the Cross and be on their way.
“Manna is Hebrew for ‘What is this?’!”
Lefrage’s jaw dropped open. He shook his head forcing a wan smile. “Very funny, de Silva!”
De Silva laughed heartily, affectionately putting an arm around his friend’s shoulders.
“Come! Let me show you this,” directing them to the end of the workbench, chuckling as he went and pointed to the six tablets. “The people who inscribed those marks on the clay tablets knew the power of gold,” as he spoke the five men gathered around the candelabrum and studied the strange cuts in the clay. “These people had acquired these secrets from an unknown tribe that had come from the north. The Egyptians mastered this alchemy thousands of years later. They called the powder ‘mfkzt’ or ‘white bread’.”
“White bread!” Lefrage sneered.
“What does it taste like?” another asked.
“Sweet. Just like honey.” De Silva looked at each in turn. It delighted the old man to see his audience utterly confused and captivated. “Over the centuries the craft was absorbed by the Israelites,” de Silva continued. “When Moses led them out of Egypt to Mount Horeb, it was Bezaleel, the master craftsman, who built the Ark of the Covenant. Moses had said that the white powder called ‘Manna’ was ‘the bread which the Lord has given you to eat’ but when Moses came down from Mount Horeb and saw them before the golden calf he said to them, ‘You have not kept the covenant, and so the Manna is being taken from you’.
“All of you know the words: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. They all stared at him stupefied. “Yes! The ‘Lord’s Prayer’. Jesus was a craftsman too! Jesus said: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden Manna to eat’.”
“Are you saying” Lefrage scoffed, “that Jesus knew that gold could be turned into…this powder?”
“These secrets were employed by the Pharaohs in building the pyramids, by Moses in the making of the Ark of the Covenant and by King Solomon in building the Temple in Jerusalem.” De Silva paused, watching them closely as each of the group struggled to take in the revelations. He noticed that they all held that entranced, captivated look of expectancy seen in the eyes of small children.
“Here,” he tapped the fifth tablet with his index finger, “these marks explain what would happen if I continued to heat and cool this ‘powder’.”
“It would become gold once more?” Lefrage suggested hopefully.
“No,” he chuckled.
They waited.
De Silva held them in suspense.
“It vanishes!” he said with perfect timing. “It disappears completely!” he declared with a look of sheer joy.
“What!” a short rotund individual shouted. He glared at de Silva with an expression of utter disbelief and complete frustration. “I have strived as hard as the others to grasp and understand your methods and what you are saying to us, de Silva.” His open, scholarly face tipped to one side sceptically and his sharp eyes narrowed mistrustfully. “Can you honestly state that you actually performed this experiment?”
“Yesterday evening!” His joyous, self-satisfied smile stretched from ear to ear. “I divided the white powder into two portions. When I continued heating and cooling one of the portions there was a flash of brilliant white light…. then it vanished! As predicted on the clay tablet!”
De Silva held out the astonished man. “Go on, lift it,” he grinned nodding towards the crucible.
He pulled on the glove and clasped the crucible, expecting to bear the full weight of the gold.
“My God!” he shouted in astonishment. “It’s as light as an eagles feather!” His eyes were wide with excitement. “Unbelievable!” he shrieked, shaking his head.
“Shhh ! Shut up you fool,” hissed one of his comrades.
“Hurry man,” pleaded Lefrage. “This is all very interesting but if the Cross is ready, de Silva, we must get it loaded onto the wagon…” Lefrage’s turned his ear towards the arched entrance to the yard and raised a finger to his lips, “Quiet!” He hissed then crept towards the wagon and then continued with long gangling strides to the arched gateway, unlatched the gate and peered up and down the street. He returned to the others and shrugged his shoulders.
“A stray dog, possibly?” suggested de Silva jovially. “But you’re right to be cautious, my friend. We will succeed in fulfilling the Kings mission, never fear! You will not disappoint our King or the great Admiral da Gama. He sails on the next tide, does he not?”
“For pity’s sake, de Silva,” Lefrage hissed, throwing his arms in the air. “Why don’t you shout it out from the roof tops….tell everyone about your Cross whilst you’re at it!”
“It’s common knowledge, Lefrage. Everyone knows that King Manuel has commissioned his new Admiral to recapture Calicut.”
“Yes, I know. But keep your voice down.” Lefrage flapped his hands rapidly up and down, his long neck craning in every direction.
De Silva laughed. “You look like a constipated duck…you’ll worry yourself to death, man! All will be well,” he added, patting him firmly on the back. “You’ll see.”
“The sooner we get the Cross to the Admirals ship, the happier I’ll be. Federico…answer me this: why, in heavens name, are they taking this cross to India? It’s hardly the safest place following the massacre of Cabral and his men at Calicut! There has never been a worse time…!”
“That’s precisely why the Cross will be safe. It will be the last place those devil Inquisitors will think we have hidden our most treasured secrets. A new fort has been built at Cochin to receive the Cross. India is the future, my friend. Our King was wise to foresee its great potential as a trading gateway to Asia, the Orient and the newly found islands called the Japans. A magnificent cathedral is to be built and the Cross is to be housed within it.”
“Why would those natives massacre our men?” Lefrage asked. “Aren’t they supposed to be converted? Aren’t they Christians?”
They heard the slap of bare feet running on the cobblestones outside.
“I knew it,” Lefrage glared at de Silva. “For the love of God, GET THE CROSS!”
Without another word Federico de Silva carefully emptied the white powder into a golden box, the size of small jewellery box, and deftly soldered on the lid.
“All of you follow me. Oh, Lefrage! Bring those clay tablets…carefully!”
With the golden box in one hand and the candelabrum in the other, he led them inside to a small room stacked with empty sea chests. A ladder and a coil of rope lay behind the door. De Silva pulled a stack of chests away from the middle of the room to reveal a trapdoor.
“Someone open it up, please.”
One grabbed a ring handle. The four-foot square door opened with ease on its well-greased hinges. He laid it flat on the floor. De Silva held the candelabrum over the hole, its flickering light glinting upon two golden objects on the floor seven feet below them. He released a rope fastened to the wall. The rope passed through a pulley wheel at the end of a crane like arm. The arm swung out over the open trapdoor.
“Hurry, man. Hurry!” Lefrage held the pulley rope awaiting instructions.
“You!” De Silva pointed to one of Lefrage’s men. “Bring that ladder and coil of rope,” pointing to the spot behind the door. Placing the candelabrum and the gold box on the floor, he lowered the ladder into the hole and threw the rope down. “Lefrage! Follow me down into the cellar,” he commanded as he took off his shoes. “First, remove anything metallic from your person and take off your boots and stockings. Bring the clay tablets, though,” he smiled sardonically up at Lefrage. He picked up the box, took one of the candles from the candelabrum and descended the ladder.
The two sections of the golden Cross lay side by side before the two barefoot men. The base was an open rectangular box of gold. Next to it sat the jewel encrusted Cross, suspended upon four swan neck supports that rose up from the corners of a flat solid gold surface, which was the lid to the base section.
Lefrage gaped in breathless awe. “Fed...er...ico!” each syllable uttered an octave higher than the last. “It is magnificent. The craftsmanship… the beauty… What a design! It’s extraordinary! It’s intoxicating, de Silva! More wondrous than a newly born babe,” he added holding his arms up in joyous admiration.
The flame of the candle flared momentarily in a draught, dancing and playing on the golden surfaces and glinting upon the jewels in a mesmerising and dazzling multicoloured display of reflected, sparkling light. The bejewelled Cross had four intricately carved flaming suns, with rubies and diamonds at their hearts, shining from the ends of each jewel encrusted solid gold crosspiece; lines of tiny rubies, diamonds and sapphires radiated out along each tongue of flame. Each crosspiece was of equal length, measuring fourteen inches from tip to tip; a golden circle of Celtic design encompassed the intersection, bisecting the crosspieces. At the intersection there was an interlocking pentagram, traced in small diamonds, with a large diamond shaped crystal at its centre, representing the eye of God.
The four golden supports had a minimum width and thickness of half an inch solid gold, representing the four elements: Earth, Fire, Water and Wind. They gracefully curved up from each corner of the lid to cradle the Cross beneath the intersection. The Cross was held suspended four inches above the lid of solid gold one and one quarter inches thick. Two golden hands reached out from opposing sides of the lid, palms downward, each index fingers extended, almost touching, leaving a quarter inch gap over the epicentre of the lid. The gap between the fingers was also directly below the crystal at the centre of the Cross.
The base was made from resinous acacia wood lined inside and out with pure gold. It was fifteen inches long by nine inches wide and nine inches high and stood upon four stubby legs, two and half inches high. Four gold rings had been moulded into each corner of the base to accommodate the carrying poles. An intricately decorated rim had been fashioned around the top of the base half an inch wide and half an inch high to receive the lid and upper section and hold it fast. When both sections were in place the Cross stood 30 inches above the ground.
De Silva took the tablets from Lefrage and placed them carefully inside the base.
“Hurry de Silva,” Lefrage implored. “Get the Cross assembled and onto the wagon. We can’t waste any more time!” Lefrage attempted to lift the top section. His joints popped under the strain.
“Wait! Do what I tell you when I tell you to do it! Patience, my friend! We must act with the utmost care from now on. You’ll have great difficulty lifting that top
section without help,” he sniggered. “But we can cheat a little.” He handed Lefrage the small box of white powder. “Place it in the centre of the lid.”
He did so.
“Now lift the upper section.”
He lifted the top section with ease and held it over a foot above the base.
De Silva gripped Lefrage’s arm. “I need to replace the box of powder inside the base section. When I take it away you will bear the full weight of the top. Do not drop it. Once the top section is in place we must be extremely cautious,” he said raising his voice for the others to hear, his echoing words in the empty cellar adding gravity to what they were about to do. “From the moment the Cross is complete it can never be touched! Are you ready, Lefrage?”
He straightened his back and braced his legs and nodded.
De Silva removed the small box of powder.
Gravity exerted its full force upon the solid gold. The top section dropped.
Lefrage arrested its fall an inch above the base section. His arms and fingers were stretched to the verge of dislocation; his legs buckled under the incredible load.
“Hold it. Good man. Lift it a fraction higher. Come on, Lefrage! I must get the box inside the base. LIFT! JUST A FRACTION! COME ON!”
Lefrage’s veins in his neck protruded like knotted string. The sharp edges of the Cross and the supports cut into the flesh of his hands. His breath hissed out from between tightly clenched teeth. Lefrage concentrated his effort looking up through the trap door, willing his shoulders, back muscles and legs to give him more lift. He wanted to scream but instead a deep growl gargled from his throat as he pushed and pulled with all his might.
“Up! Up! Hold it.”
Lefrage held for one more second, the muscles in his face contorting and twisting with the strain. He banished the agony from his mind and held on for another second.
“Lower it, Lefrage,” he said at last. “Slowly.”
Lefrage’s head shook with strain, his eyes bulged from their sockets as de Silva carefully lined up the lid.
“Down...more…more. Okay. Well done, my good friend!”
The top slotted into its place perfectly with a deep clunk. Compressed air hissed perceptibly from the edges as it settled into position. Lefrage tried to remove his hands but flesh was stuck to the metal. Gently peeling his hands from the supports he rubbed life back into the deep purple grooves cut into his palms.
De Silva removed the ladder clear and took a pair of golden poles, each a yard long and one inch and half in thickness that lay close to the Cross. “They are of acacia wood covered with pure gold,” he explained, inserting the poles through the rings on the base. “From now on the Cross can only be moved using these poles.”
Lefrage nodded, recovering his breath and massaging his hands.
“Lower the rope from the pulley,” de Silva called up.
Lefrage grinned, still breathless, and paced slowly and reverently around the Cross. “My insides have become weightless simply looking at it.” He looked over at de Silva, his smile broadening. “I feel as though I’ve drunk a vat of wine,” he laughed, holding his head in his palms, “I’m that light headed.”
“You must treat this Cross with the utmost respect, my friend. It has unimaginable power.” He looked up. Four gawping faces peered down at them through the trap door. “The Cross must never be touched,” he yelled up. “I have made a list of safety rules. They must be followed to the letter. It’s absolutely imperative that these rules are passed on to Admiral da Gama. Is that understood?”
There was a murmur from above. Lefrage shot a sceptical glance at de Silva, but then respectfully nodded his agreement under the glare of the goldsmith. De Silva weaved the rope around the protruding ends of the two poles then fastened the end securely above the Cross.
“Lift…. Slowly does it…Careful now! …. Not too fast! … Hold it there.” With the Cross at waist height, de Silva checked that the rope and the knot were secure. “Take it up slowly.” They both watched it gradually ascend, the ends of the poles just passing through the frame of the trapdoor. “Lift it as high as it will go, men. Whatever you do, do not touch it. It could be the last thing that you do on God’s earth.”
The four men hauled the Cross until the knot de Silva had tied was pressing against the pulley wheel. The flickering candlelight reflected on the gold and the jewels projecting dappled multicoloured patterns onto the ceiling. De Silva and Lefrage climbed out from the cellar, squeezing between the sea chests and the four men holding the pulley rope. Lefrage retrieved the ladder as de Silva closed the trap door. He dragged an open sea chest underneath the hanging Cross. The chest had been adapted to the Cross with its wooden carrying poles in place.
“Right men. Lower it down gently into the chest.”
The four men stood around the chest speechless.
“It’s a masterpiece, Federico!” the short scholarly one declared at last. He searched the faces of his comrades in turn. “I’m feeling…a strange dizziness…and it’s not the wine…”
They all felt the warm pulsating sensation coursing through their veins. Grins grew broader on their faces as waves of euphoria lifted their spirits to heights they had forgotten existed. Their bodies become weightless, as if floating on air. They were overwhelmed by an extraordinary feeling that awoke within each of them an eternal truth that was instantly recognisable. It was a deep feeling of omnipresent love. Each man gazed at the other speechless, their eyes blurred with tears, their hearts pounding in their chests and their spirits joining together to become part of the greater divine spirit that is everything that is.
De Silva had felt it too, only this time it was stronger than at any other time since starting the project. He saw their almost childlike expressions of joy, as if the Cross had spoken to them of an undying universal truth that they had instantly remembered. The joy of seeing the same reaction in each of the men brought tears to his eyes.
“You’re all good men,” he said nodding slowly holding back a surge of emotion that was about to erupt. “All of you. Now you can all feel and know God, as I do, living deep within you.” He clasped Lefrage’s shoulder more for support than for the affection for his friend. “The Cross…will always give out….this energy,” he managed to utter, his throat tightening like a vice. “This is an…. undying energy. It’s God’s…. undying love…. for mankind.” His quivering lips stretched into a broad smile as he nodded in certain affirmation. Tears fell freely down his cheeks.
They watched the great man stand quietly before his creation, his magnificent work complete. “The base of the Cross is precisely one third the size and weight of the Ark of the Covenant,” De Silva said solemnly, looking at each man in turn. “It is made of identical materials. The King was specific in that regard. The base is of acacia wood lined inside and out with the purest gold. As pure as the gold Bezaleel had used to make the Ark. Part of the King’s brief was that I copy the marks on the clay tablets onto the inner gold lining of the base before they crumble to dust. This I’ve accomplished. The secrets will be safe now for generations to come.”
De Silva covered the Cross with the lid of the sea chest and fastened the three locks.
“Go now, men,” he said handing the keys to Lefrage. “Get this precious load onto the wagon and wait for me in the yard.”
De Silva disappeared into the great house as Lefrage’s four men carried the chest outside into the yard and carefully placed it onto the back of the wagon, covering it with a canvas.
De Silva returned to the yard with a sealed envelope. “Be sure that the Admiral fully understands the importance of the safety instructions,” he said handing Lefrage the envelope. “It is imperative that you do this.”
Lefrage thrust the paper inside his coat and held de Silva in an embrace.
“I hope all free thinking people of the world will remember you forever for what you have done this night Federico.”
De Silva laughed heartily and slapped his friend firmly and affectionately on the back. “I don’t think so, my friend. But I remember you telling me something, though. Something about being in a hurry! Go and do God’s work for our beloved King! God will keep you!”
De Silva watched Lefrage climb up onto the wagon and take the reins then hurried ahead and opened the gates to the yard. Two of Lefrage’s men galloped out on glistening stallions, turning left into the night. Lefrage pulled on the reins and the mares responded instantly. The wagon rumbled out of the yard and accelerated into the street, skidding wide on the cobble, and chased after the horsemen. The other two men kicked their mounts and raced after the wagon.