“Really? What happened to them.”
“Merlin found them. He took them back to his cave, and secured them in the eyes of the serpent once more.”
“So they’re lost.”
Dexter grinned.
It was a fraction of pleasure, but he held onto it, like a child with candy. He knew he was about to die, but there wasn’t a hope in hell Excalibur would ever see Caliburn fused together once more. And without one of the two ancient relics from King Arthur’s reign, he was bound to die, also.
Dexter said, “Unless, you happen to know where to find Merlin’s Cave… and a truly righteous person to extract the eyes from the serpent.”
“I agree that might be difficult.”
“Or you might get lucky… and draw Excalibur from the stone.”
That made Excalibur laugh. Dr. Jim Patterson had intentionally returned the blade of Excalibur to the stone, where no one in present day could remove it. Merlin had designed it specifically to meet Arthur’s genes. So that no one else could wield the weapon.
Unless he happened to locate one of Arthur’s descendants.
Excalibur stopped laughing.
There was no more that Dexter could offer him. He would have liked to make the man suffer, but as Dexter had pointed out, he would be wiser to spend that time working to locate the serpent’s eyes.
A moment later, he drew a dagger from his belt, and lunged. Dexter didn’t move. He didn’t try to fight. Like a king that had been checkmated, he simply waited to die.
The blade struck the base of his neck, slicing straight through — and sending him to a permanent darkness.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Excalibur picked up his cell phone and dialed a private number.
A man answered on the first ring, and simply said, “Yes.”
Excalibur said, “They’re in the Old City of Jerusalem.”
“Good. Well done. I’ll send someone to go pick them up immediately.”
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Sam Reilly said, “The Madaba Map preserves a sixth-century perception of the topography, cities, and monuments of the Mediterranean. The mosaic was discovered on the floor of the Church of St. George in Madaba, Jordan, and has been dated from 560–565, less than twenty years after the inauguration of the Nea in 543, and it is the oldest surviving cartographic representation of the Holy Land.”
“How far does it cover?” Tom asked.
“The map depicts the Mediterranean world from Lebanon in the North to the Nile Delta in the South, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Eastern Desert. The city of Jerusalem is given prominence by its size and the mosaicists’ devotion to the detail of its monuments. No city represented in the map is larger. The central location of Jerusalem in the mosaic further supports Jerusalem's importance in the minds of the map's creators.”
Guinevere asked, “Where do we find the map?”
“The floor mosaic is located in the apse of the church of Saint George at Madaba.”
“Great. So now we’re off to Jordan?”
Sam shook his head. “No. I can download an in-depth digitization of the ancient map.”
“All right, let’s do that and see if we’re in luck,” Tom said. “Hopefully it captures part of the region near the private necropolis two blocks from the Nea Church.”
Sam pulled out a laptop from his backpack. He switched it on and synched it wirelessly to his satellite phone. A few minutes later he managed to download the digitized archive of the ancient mosaic of the Madaba Map.
He brought the image up onto his computer screen.
Guinevere sat next to him, while Tom and Genevieve stood behind them and leaned in to examine the image.
Sam said, “You’ll notice that the map isn’t oriented to the north, like modern maps. Instead, it faces east, toward the altar in such a fashion that the position of places on the map coincides with the actual compass directions. Originally, it measured 68 feet by 23 feet, and contained over two million tesserae. But nearly forty percent has been lost over time.”
Tom said, “Let’s hope the part we need wasn’t in that section of the map.”
Sam stared at the map.
The mosaic depicted an area from Lebanon in the north to the Nile Delta in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Eastern Desert. Among other features, it showed the Dead Sea with two fishing boats, a variety of bridges linking the banks of the Jordan, fish swimming in the river and receding from the Dead Sea.
To the bottom right, was a lion hunting a gazelle in the Moab desert, a palm covered Jericho, Bethlehem and other biblical-Christian sites, although some of the images had been rendered nearly unrecognizable by the insertion of random tesserae during a period of iconoclasm. Some historians believed the map may have once served to facilitate pilgrims' orientation in the Holy Land. All landscape units are labelled with explanations in Greek. A combination of folding perspective and aerial view depicts about one hundred and fifty towns and villages, all of them labelled.
Tom said, “Where’s the Nea Church located on this map?”
Sam pointed to the southeast of the Old City, just outside the walls of Jerusalem. “Right there. Southeast of the base of Mount Zion.”
Genevieve said, “According to the archives, Mount Zion was not a new site in Jerusalem for Christian patrons to erect their monuments, and as a result of past projects, monasteries, churches, and cult sites already existed there. Consequently, the highest available spot for the Nea to be constructed was on the southeastern slope of the hill, a fair way down from the hegemonic vistas afforded to the Basilica of Hagia Sion that perched on the mount's peak. Yet by choosing this site, Justinian was attempting to position the Nea within the hierarchical power structure that was connected to the topographical highpoints of Jerusalem.”
Tom studied the map. “So therefore, if Belisarius’s tomb and necropolis is meant to be about three blocks to the northeast of the Nea Church, it puts it somewhere over here, next to the Garden Tomb?”
Genevieve frowned. “It’s hard to believe that the Tomb of Jesus is meant to be Belisarius’s secret tomb?”
Sam said, “There’s been some debate over this since medieval Christianity. According to the Bible, Jesus was crucified very near the city of Jerusalem. Some have taken that to mean the Garden Tomb, while others believe it was merely a better representative of the Bible’s description of where Jesus was crucified and then resurrected. In contradistinction to this modern identification, the traditional site where the death and resurrection of Christ are believed to have occurred has been the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at least since the fourth century.”
Tom said, “My mother taught me to never start a religious geography debate in Jerusalem, but it still doesn’t explain why there’s no signs of the stone walls and distinctive roofline of the wealthy, private, necropolis.”
Sam stared at the map. “I see what’s happened. You’re looking at the map wrong.”
Tom bit his lower lip. “You think I can’t read a map?”
“No. I know you can read a map. But Madaba Map is aligned toward east — not north.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “That’s right. If that’s the case, then it would put it here, somewhere to the west of the Damascus Gates.”
Genevieve held out an image of a sketch of the private necropolis. “I don’t see anything like this on the Madaba Map.”
Guinevere glanced over Sam’s shoulder. “No. It’s right there.”
“Then we’re in trouble because that whole region was demolished and is now full of stone pavers that make up Beit HaBad Street,” Tom said, pointing to the street. He looked at Sam and said, “Unless you have another idea?”