The Hermaphrodite's Curse Ch. 25

PART FOUR - BODRUM

- 3 -

"How come all those towers are bunched closer together and then there's a big space down to the wall there?" Gabe wondered, "It doesn't seem like the strongest defensive position."

"As I said before, each tower and the area around it was the responsibility of each different tongue of the Order," Dr. Gerard told him, "Perhaps the English and French tongues did not organise themselves well enough, perhaps some sort of internal rivalries."

"So, wait, that one with the lion is England, right?" Saphy asked, "And the tall one's France?"

"That is correct," Dr. Gerard confirmed.

"Right, so which is which of the others then?"

"That's Auvergne and Provence, the two there behind France, Castile and Aragon on the other side, and that's Germany and down there is Italy."

"Auvergne and Provence, those are parts of France as well, right?" Saphy asked, "So, why is there a separate one for France?"

"France was so powerful within the Order that they had control of three tongues, France in the north, Auvergne centrally and Provence in the south."

"And Castile and Aragon, those are the two halves of Spain," Saphy added.

"Indeed. And where are you going with this, Miss Cross?" Dr. Gerard's tone was becoming a little superior.

"How come the three French towers are grouped close together, as are the two Spanish ones?"

"Perhaps the French tongues were more comfortable being close to each other rather than Germany or England," Gabe suggested.

"What about you, the brilliant Cambridge University academic, why do you think they're configured like that?" Saphy turned her sarcasm onto Dr. Gerard.

"I have absolutely no idea what you're suggesting."

"Think about it, France bunched up over there," she pointed to the towers, "England here and Spain there. They're arranged geographically, the castle is laid out like a map!"

"So?"

"So, if we know the whereabouts of England, France and Spain on this map, we can extrapolate the position of Turkey," Saphy explained, a note of triumph evident in her voice as if she was competitively trying to solve the mystery against Dr. Gerard, "And if we can find the spot that represents Bodrum, then that's the place to be looking for our clues."

"Great," said Gabe, excitably, "So, all we need to know is the distance from two places in reality and then factor it down to the distances here in the castle."

"There is about 400 kilometres between Provence and Auvergne," Dr. Gerard interrupted, "And a further 2500 kilometres from Auvergne, through Italy to get to Turkey."

"How would you even know that just off the top of your head?" Saphy asked sulkily.

"I've had a whole education," the university professor replied smugly to the drop-out, unconsciously echoing a similar phrase with which she herself had once dismissed Gabe's own lack of knowledge.

"Right, ok, all we have to do then is pace out the distance between the Provence and Auvergne towers and then calculate the distance to the spot where Turkey would be," Gabe reasoned, feeling increasingly like he had to keep the peace between the other two by being the one who tried to move them forward rationally.

As they paced between the Castle towers, marking out the distances between countries and their equivalents here on the ground, Gabe allowed Dr. Gerard to get a little further ahead and fell into step with Saphy, for once sulky and pouty in a more insular way than her usual aggressive, forward manner. He was struggling to understand quite what it was that had got into her.

He knew that Saphy had not been comfortable around the fusty old buildings and traditions of Cambridge University. Her career as a student there had obviously not gone well and she had clearly been loath to return. Her relationship with Jane Cavendish had been one that had been nurturing for her spiky spirit, but Professor Cavendish had been an unconventional sort of Cambridge professor. Raymond Gerard, however, very much fit the stereotype that reminded Saphy of a world she would rather have left behind. However, Gabe wondered if, perhaps, there was something more to Saphy's sour mood.

Dr. Gerard's last remark had obviously hit home against something that made Saphy quite sensitive. She was used to being the dominant one in the growing relationship she had with Gabe. Intellectually she was very much in control and obviously appreciated being the one to provide him with all the knowledge her expensive education had given her, even while she derided that very education with her other moments. The presence of the even more knowledgeable and educated Dr. Gerard had stripped Saphy of her position as the brains of the operation and this had made her frustrated and irritable.

It was not just that Dr. Gerard's arrival changed Saphy's role in the quest to solve this mystery, the whole relationship between Gabe and Saphy had transformed with his becoming part of their adventure. In the few days that they had been together, Gabe and Saphy had both managed to bring something out of each other that they would never have achieved had they not been thrust into each other's company and had to work with each other and each other alone. The dynamic that they had built between them was really starting to work, a real connection was growing between them, but Dr. Gerard's presence made them revert right back to the way that they had been before. Still, Gabe was not completely sure if even that was enough to explain Saphy's mood.

"What are you getting so uptight about?" he half whispered as he walked beside her, "Aren't we getting close? Dr. Gerard can help us. What is your problem with him?"

"Doesn't it seem a little convenient?" Saphy asked, "Him just showing up like that, right here in the Castle, just at the moment we arrived."

"He was following the same clues we were," Gabe explained, "The same information in Robert White's research that led us here. Of course, if he was going to start in the same place at the same time and follow the same path then he would come to the same outcome as us at the same time. He obviously knows what he's doing. I think we could use his help."

"So, how did he know what we talked to Jane about?" she asked, "Nobody saw her again after we left her except for her killers."

"Well, I came to see him after we'd talked to Professor Cavendish," Gabe replied, "I told him that she'd told us about Hermaphroditus and Salmacis."

"But not that we were interested in the Borghese statue. How did he know Jane had told us about that?" she asked again, "Look, we know we've been followed by both the naiads and these Hospitaller people, how do we know that Gerard arriving here isn't a part of that too?"

"So, if you suspect him of helping the people that are trying to kill us, why are you letting him stay and help us too?"

"I'd rather have him with us, where we can keep an eye on him, where we can make sure of what he's doing, than following us from the shadows," Saphy explained, "Besides, I might be wrong. I'm just saying to be on your guard."

"OK," Gabe agreed sceptically, distracted by the progress they were making towards the wall at the far end of the Castle, "Come on. I think he's found something."

Together, they quickened their pace and soon found themselves alongside Dr. Gerard in front of a section of the greystone wall. He was leaning in towards the stones, examining them closely, running his hands over the worn masonry. This was a corner of the Castle that was far from where the main towers stood and, therefore, away from the main tourist interests. The wall was rough and worn, covered in moss and lichen, which also grew on the flagstones of the surrounding floor. As they joined him, Dr. Gerard was brushing the moss away from a piece of stone to reveal a symbol scratched into it.

"Another sign that you've seen before, I think," he said as Gabe and Saphy leaned in to see the shape of a circle scratched into the stone, a circle with a cross beneath it and an arrow coming from the upper right hand side.

"The hermaphrodite symbol!" Gabe exclaimed excitedly, "Then we must be on the right track."

"Not necessarily," Saphy pointed out, "This stone, complete no doubt with its inscription, had been moved from its original position in the Mausoleum into the Castle during the 1522 reinforcement. Whatever it originally indicated could still be right up at the Mausoleum."

"I'm inclined to believe that the Hospitallers would have placed that specific stone in this specific spot for good reason," Dr. Gerard said.

He pushed against the symbol and the stone shifted a little in its mortar. There was a crumbling sound almost as if age old gears were turning behind the wall, giving a suggestion that the symbol was a button that could release a secret doorway into the ancient world. However, nothing happened, the wall did not open to reveal a passageway, it just stood still and inactive, bringing a feeling of intense disappointment into Gabe's mind.

"This stone is a trigger," Dr. Gerard said, "A release to bring the wall down and reveal something behind. However, there appears to be some other part to it, some further pressure needs to be applied elsewhere to make it work."

"So, we just need to look around for something else to press," Saphy said, kneeling down against the wall and starting to clear away the dark green moss.

Pretty soon, between the three of them, they had uncovered the whole area of wall completely. All that they could do was stand back and stare at the complete blankness of it. Nothing new was revealed, no other buttons or triggers to be found at all. Gabe took a step back to look up at the whole extent of the wall and there was a metallic clunk as his shoe hit something that definitely was not a flagstone.

In a second, all three were on their knees, brushing away the green sludge that covered the small metallic plate that Gabe had stood on. It was not moss, it was some kind of rust or wear to the burnished brown metal. As they rubbed it away, the metal began to regain some of its sheen, beginning to reflect almost like a mirror. When pushed to put pressure on it, the metal plate shifted into the floor. Pressing the metal floor plate and the wall stone in unison, however, achieved no result at all.

"It's copper," Dr. Gerard said, "An odd choice for something left outside. Its glittering mirror surface is bound to become green before too long."

"Glittering..." Gabe turned the word over in his mind, it seemed to recall some earlier memory, "'Watch the world in glittering copper...'"

"What?" Saphy asked, "What does that mean?"

"Something...Something I saw in a dream," Gabe explained, "The mirror of the goddess, it said 'I would rather see the sparkle in your face than watch the world in glittering copper or see foot soldiers armoured in hard iron.'"

"The poet Sappho," Dr. Gerard recognised the words.

"Hmm, yes, although a bit of a misquote," Saphy agreed, "It seems that in your dream your subconscious mixed up all kinds of bits of information from the day."

"You don't know the half of it," Gabe admitted almost just into the air.

"What was that about the mirror of the goddess?" she asked.

"Glittering copper," he replied, "That was the mirror of Venus."

"Yes, that's true, why didn't we think of it before?" Dr. Gerard exclaimed, "The goddess Venus was always associated with the element of copper."

"Exactly," Saphy agreed, "You know, I completely forgot before when we were talking about the symbol when we first met, it seems like so long ago. One more thing that it represents is copper. You see that's why the circle with the cross beneath it. It's a mirror, Venus' symbol, the symbol of femininity and sexuality, just like in the painting. Mirrors were made of copper in ancient times."

"So, why is it here?" Gabe asked, "And why doesn't it open the door?"

"Because it's only half of the system," she replied, "We've got our Venus. We just need Mars."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember what Jane said about the symbol on the wall there, about the significance of Hermaphroditus?" Saphy went on, "The ancient Greeks felt Hermaphroditus represented the ultimate union of male and female in one whole. It was a marriage symbol, the two halves united in one."

"Artemisia built the Mausoleum because she loved her husband so much, she wanted to become one with him," Gabe cottoned on, "She drank her husband's ashes to unite them in one body. That was why she revered Hermaphroditus."

"I see what you are suggesting," Dr. Gerard replied, "You think this plate here represents Venus and another represents Mars. Together, they will trigger the release."

"Mars? What represents Mars?" Gabe asked.

"Well, the Venus half is the copper mirror," Dr. Gerard explained, "The other half of the symbol, the circle with the arrow coming from the right side is Mars' shield and spear."

"Femininity is represented in the mirror, masculinity in the martial arms," Saphy added, as she walked over a few steps opposite where the copper plate lay, and started to feel around the flagstones, "Copper for girls and for boys..." she found the spot she was looking for and tapped her fist against it, the metal ringing out, "Iron."

"'Foot soldiers armoured in hard iron,'" Gabe quoted from his dream once more.

"Right, iron for boys," Saphy said, pulling Gabe over to stand on the iron plate, "So you stand here. Copper for girls, so I'll go over here," she stepped onto the copper plate, "And we'll see what happens when we do this."

Gabe felt the iron floor button give a little under his weight, felt it push down into the ground. A tingle of excitement ran through him as Saphy took him by the hand. Together they reached forward to push the loose masonry on the wall, their fingers interlocking together, their bodies moving as one, each reflecting the other. Gabe's heart pumped faster with the thrill as he heard a sound of stone becoming dislodged.

A couple of small pebbles tumbled from the top of the wall. Like the tiny stones that begin an avalanche, these pebbles were the beginning of something much bigger. Within a matter of seconds, the whole wall was tumbling down around them, meaning that Gabe and Saphy had to spring back from the metal pads on which they were standing to join Dr. Gerard behind a rock.

When the whole section of wall had collapsed in a flash of dirt and stone and the dust had settled, the three of them emerged to see what had stood behind, or rather beneath, it. The falling wall had revealed that it had once been built right across the entrance to a long, wide tunnel. Stone steps led down into the unknown darkness. Steps that had been covered for nearly five hundred years and now, finally, revealed.