The Cortés Enigma Read online

  St Lide. Founder of the island

  544–601AD

  He heard what sounded like a door closing, followed by the echo of footsteps, possibly walking towards him. Moments later, a man appeared in the archway, fifties, balding grey hair, dressed all in black with a dog collar around his neck.

  “Ah, Reverend Williams, I presume?”

  “Ah, you must be the fellow Alfred was just telling me about?”

  “Yes. This really is a most charming little church. I had not realised that any existed as far south-west as here.”

  “The most southern Anglican church in the British Isles,” the vicar replied. “It’s because of the geography we’ve managed to survive for so long. The reformation was really much more peaceful on St Lide’s.”

  In truth, that thought had never occurred to him. “My name is Maloney,” the Londoner began, “my family played rather a small part in the history of the island. Back in the sailing days.”

  The vicar smiled. “They still exist, you know.”

  Maloney returned his smile. “I was looking for one of my ancestors – an Irishman. He died in the naval disaster of 1707, and I understand from the sexton at St Mary’s he might have been buried here. Chap by the name of Wilcox.”

  The vicar nodded. “Yes, I recognise the name. I think I can show you.”

  The grave of Martin Wilcox was located on the south side of the churchyard, in between two men named Slater. Five graves away was another Wilcox.

  Stephen Wilcox.

  Maloney guessed he was also a relation.

  The slab was badly weathered. Like many in the churchyard, it was dirtied by the presence of thick layers of ice, the most recent of which was slowly melting, causing water to run down the stone. It was after 1:30pm, and the sun was at its highest point, its diffused rays breaking through the cloud. Despite the sun, it was cold, sharp gusts of wind penetrating through to his bones, infrequent but painful. Again he shivered, his teeth chattering, the end of his nose raw.

  Every time he breathed, he saw his breath before his face.

  Maloney heard a noise to his right, the sound of a trowel on stone. The gravedigger had worked his way round from the west side of the churchyard and was presently performing repairs on a large monument. Its appearance was strange, unlike anything Maloney had ever seen. It looked like something from southern Spain.

  “I say, what on earth do we have here?”

  Alfred looked over his shoulder. “I hope you had no problem finding your relative, sir.”

  “Better. I also found his cousin.”

  Alfred paused, resting against the monument. “Well, isn’t that something?” He placed his tool on the ground, removed a hip flask from his pocket and swigged down whatever liquid was inside. Maloney watched him, silently appalled.

  In his experience, such things were banned on a Sunday.

  He moved closer to the monument to see what Alfred was working on. Unlike the others in the cemetery, it was not a grave but a remembrance stone. Five strapping men of mythical appearance were carrying a large boat, as if dragging it to safety from the waves. The stone was lighter in appearance than most, grey to brown, parts of which had evidently been lost to frost.

  Judging by its appearance, it was at least one hundred years old.

  “Many a fine man has been lost in the deep,” Alfred said. “Many a fine widow has been forced to fend for herself during winter’s darkest hours.”

  There was writing on a block beneath the five men, written in calligraphic form. Maloney read it quietly.

  O Trinity of love and power,

  Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;

  From rock and tempest, fire and foe,

  Protect them wheresoe’er they go;

  Thus evermore shall rise to thee,

  Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

  It was clear from the words the monument had been erected to honour those lost at sea. “I say, never have I seen the words of William Whiting appear so dignified,” he said, receiving no recognition from the gravedigger. “William Whiting. He wrote the lyrics to the hymn.”

  “If that be his name, sir.”

  “Yes, it was,” Maloney said, slightly indignant. “He was an Anglican churchman from Winchester. As a matter of fact, we attended the same school. Many years apart.”

  Alfred worked intermittently, banging away bits of frost from the stone. “We not be having any schools here, sir.”

  Maloney realised he had chosen a poor subject. Moving on, he tightened his overcoat, doing his best to keep out the cold. Judging by the lack of headstones in the graveyard, a couple of hundred at the most, and the low population of the island, he assumed resources were quite scanty.

  Behind the monument he saw a thick area of undergrowth: a series of small bushes surrounded by a gathering of trees, their bark depleted by the winter winds. There were further graves hidden among them, these smaller and seriously weathered. He walked toward them, holding back the branches with his gloved hand. The branches were brittle, snapping instantly, causing several twigs to fall to the ground.

  Crouching down, he looked at the nearest headpiece: a small stone with minimal writing. Like most, the stone was red, though the upper portion was slightly discoloured. Maloney brushed his hand against it, removing elements of mud and grime. There was no hint of a name or a date; whatever had once existed was no longer legible. Persevering, he cleaned the lower portion, revealing some form of engraving. A symbol.

  A double-headed eagle.

  Confused, he moved on to the next one. There were five gravestones in total, all the same colour, about two feet high. The double-headed eagle appeared in the same position on all of them.

  Maloney studied them in turn. As a historian, he knew that the double-headed eagle was a symbol associated with people in authority: usually a king or a governor. While the symbol itself could potentially belong to any age and race, twenty years experience told him it was Spanish.

  The mark of the Hapsburgs.

  Pulling back the vegetation, he saw a sixth grave, clearly in worse condition still. While the other five remained standing, this stone was broken and lying loose.

  He picked it up and took a closer look. Again the double-headed eagle was the prominent feature, engraved into the upper portion of the stone. Below it was another symbol, large, yellow, possibly a bird. The creature had two arms and legs, and a head with two eyes, a long nose and a short, reptile-like mouth with sharp teeth and a long tongue. Its face was like that of a dragon, only with feathers covering its body.

  Above it, he made out a name.

  Pizarro.

  Maloney looked at it, awestruck. Had his life up until now been different, the image would have made little sense to him.

  Experience told him what he saw should not have existed on the Isles of Scilly.

  Still holding the stone, he looked around for Alfred. Annoyingly, the man had disappeared. Failing to find him, Maloney returned to the church, again seeing nobody there.

  The vicar had also left.

  Leaving the church, he walked across the graveyard toward the rectory. A large oak door, surrounded by a white stone archway that was starting to look run-down, guarded the property in between thick grey walls. There was a round iron knocker situated midway up the door; he knocked loudly three times.

  The vicar answered moments later, carrying a recently made cup of tea.

  “Mr Maloney, did you find your long-lost relative?”

  The academic had already forgotten about it. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ve found something far more extraordinary. Tell me, Reverend, are you an authority on the history of the island?”

  “I’ve been the vicar here for over thirty-three years.”

  “Yes, quite. Well, tell me, good fellow. What possible reason could there be for a church on the Isles of Scilly to have a tombstone with a pictograph of an Aztec serpent god?”

  The vicar was confused. “Excuse me?”


  “There are graves.” Maloney pointed in the general area where he had seen the strange symbol. “Over there, there are graves with Aztec symbols on them.”

  The vicar was unconvinced. “I assure you, Mr Maloney, I’ve been vicar here at St Lide’s for over thirty-three years. There is nothing of that type in this graveyard.”

  Maloney was still holding the loose slab beneath his right arm. “In that case, why don’t you have a look for yourself?” He offered the vicar the stone, showing him firstly the double-headed eagle, and then the image of the serpent lower down. “Much of it sadly has been lost over the centuries, but the symbology on the base is incredible. Who on the island is an expert on this sort of thing?”

  Suddenly the vicar’s expression hardened. “Mr Maloney, how dare you remove one of the slabs? The contents of our graveyards are sacred.”

  Maloney raised an eyebrow, initially stunned. Then, as the seconds passed, it dawned on him the vicar wouldn’t necessarily have known the slab had already come loose naturally.

  He decided to be respectful. “All right, I’m very sorry, Reverend. I really didn’t mean any harm. The slab was just lying there. But, please, let me show you. The find is quite fascinating.”

  “Mr Maloney, please, I must insist you leave here at once. I suggest you return the grave marker to its rightful place. ’Less you be wanting any trouble, sir.”

  The vicar closed the door firmly. Maloney looked at it, and then at the windows, the dark glass separated into smaller panels allowing minimal observation from the outside.

  Stunned, he followed the path back through the graveyard to the area where he’d made the discovery. He returned the grave marker to its rightful location, his attention once again distracted by the mysterious set of symbols, notably the feathered serpent.

  Its inclusion still left him baffled.

  Leaving the mysterious graves, he passed the sailors’ monument and headed toward the heart of the churchyard. He noticed names on the graves as he passed, Slater being the most common, dates ranging from the 1720s to the modern day. He assumed they had all been related…hardly surprising given the small size of the island. All were English, clearly Anglican. He had heard a rumour that the Spanish had once had a presence on nearby St Agnes, though this was still to be confirmed.

  There was no sign of anything Mexican.

  No clue about the origin of the mysterious symbol.

  He entered the church a second time and headed along the main aisle. He knew that the local church usually provided the key to discovering the history of a village, particularly the plaques and the graves below the floor. He hadn’t seen anything of relevance on his first trip, not that he’d been looking. He started with the stained-glass windows, then the various wall plaques. On second viewing, he recognised certain names from the graveyard, but nothing out of the ordinary. He finished with a second visit to the Lady Chapel, paying extra attention to the tomb of St Lide. According to the story, the man had come from France.

  A preacher who became a hermit.

  Again, nothing Spanish or Aztec.

  He returned to the church and stopped before the altar. He could see that there was a second storey adjoining the west wall, used to house the church organ and possibly seating for members of the choir. As he surveyed the area in detail, he saw another stained-glass window directly above the main door; he had missed it the first two times. The image reminded him of Noah’s Ark, though the scene was different to those he was used to. The window depicted a ship, unmistakeably Spanish: the type that existed during the 16th century. It was docked in a small port with people standing alongside it: five men and one woman, all dressed in the attire of conquistadors.

  He looked at it, speechless.

  The time period was the same as that of the Hapsburg symbol.

  The door to the sacristy was locked, as were two others. Failing to find anything else of relevance, he left the church and then the graveyard.

  The church was located at the highest point of the island, a large hill overlooking the sea. The only access, aside from walking across a nearby field, was a muddy pathway that connected the church to the nearby hamlet, a settlement of several cottages. Islanders nicknamed it New Town, but that wasn’t its official name.

  Being the only settlement on St Lide’s, it simply didn’t have one.

  Ten minutes later Maloney approached the hamlet, still to see any sign of life. There were two buildings on the left, a fisherman’s cottage and a tavern, above the door of which hung a sign depicting a well-dressed individual dressed in a Georgian-style wig, holding an ale glass.

  The Duke of Cornwall.

  Maloney opened the door and entered a dimly lit establishment with a varied assortment of wooden furniture. Immediately he was overcome with a weird sensation – warmth; after four hours outdoors, he had already forgotten the feeling. A fire was roaring in the corner of the room, a wood burner surrounded by an iron grille and several keepsakes from the building’s past. The landlord was standing in front of it, poking the logs, causing the fire to glow orange.

  The tavern was small, and open, despite it being a Sunday. Instead of a bar, several long tables were joined together and extended all the way across the room, surrounded by eight wooden chairs, five of which were vacant. The interior was dated, brown and prone to woodworm, furnished with memorabilia of the village’s seafaring past. Among them was a framed photograph that had been taken ten years earlier; Alfred the gravedigger was standing alongside the landlord.

  Alfred was also sitting at the table.

  Maloney took a seat alongside him just as the landlord was returning. “I say, do you always open on a Sunday?”

  The four men looked at him, their expressions offering little warmth. Their appearance matched that of the tavern, dirty and run-down. As Maloney sat down, he became aware of several smells, in particular the strong odour of damp wood and natural scent vaguely overpowered by the stench of smoke coming from the fireplace.

  “Here on St Lide’s we often do things a little differently, sir,” the landlord said, standing opposite, his large frame leaning across the table. The landlord was a stout, bearded individual of indeterminate age, probably closer to fifty than thirty, his thick hair black to grey.

  Maloney turned to Alfred. “How long did you say you’d been working at the churchyard?”

  The man was nursing two drinks at once, a large brandy and a small ale. He took a long swig from his ale and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Well now, let me see,” he said, pretending to mull the question over. “Must be going back all the way to 1881. That was the year the Dunbar went down.” He glanced at the landlord and shook his head. “You remember that one, boys?”

  The locals muttered, all in agreement. Heads shook in unison. Sitting opposite, the landlord filled his pipe with tobacco and smoked freely.

  Maloney didn’t know what to say. “What happened?”

  “Back in ’81 there was this wooden-hulled brigantine called the Dunbar – the Charlotte Dunbar, that be its full name,” Alfred began. “Nice vessel, too. One night, must’ve been about this time of year, it was sailing away past Burnt Island. You ever set foot on St Agnes, sir?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t. At least I haven’t had a chance to yet.”

  “Folks are real different there,” one of the men sitting close by said. He had red hair, a scruffy beard, his clothes on the verge of falling apart. “They say people there don’t take kindly to strangers.”

  Maloney did his best to ignore him.

  Alfred sipped again from his ale. “The sea was rough that night, real choppy like. Must have been past midnight when it happened. See, the Dunbar ran aground; the captain misjudged the gap between the islands. Been sailing from Newport out to France. No one knows what happened to the crew.”

  Maloney cleared his throat, unsure whether the story was over. Having seen the man tending graves and now nursing two drinks on a Sunday afternoo
n, it didn’t take any extra persuasion to decide he needed to be on his guard.

  “A number of them are buried right there in the churchyard,” he added.

  “Is that so?” Maloney said, cupping his hands together and placing his forearms on the table – no elbows. “Well, if you are correct in what you say, and you do know the churchyard better than any other, perhaps you might tell me about Pizarro?”