Day of the Djinn Warriors (23 page)

But it was only when they arrived in Scotland, at the not so imaginatively named Glasgow City Airport, that Marco Polo really got going with the complaints: Scotland was too wet and too cold; the people looked mean and smelled strange; nobody was wearing tartan, as he had expected them to do; Glasgow was grim and dirty and there was not enough sunlight; the food — especially the ice cream — was cheap and nasty; the air smelled strongly of beer; the taxi stank of air freshener and cigarettes — which, admittedly, is an unpleasant combination of smells; he couldn’t understand a word of the English that was spoken in Scotland.

Philippa could hardly fault Marco for this last complaint. Even she had to admit that it was hard to understand the mangled type of English spoken by Scots. The taxi driver they hired to drive them southwest to Ardrossan — from where they planned to take a ferry to the island — seemed especially hard to understand. Friendly, but quite impossible to hold any kind of conversation with. He seemed to have no trouble understanding what Philippa said. It was just that she couldn’t
comprehend anything at all of what he was saying back to them.

Arriving in the little town of Ardrossan about an hour later, following a journey made exhausting by misunderstanding, Philippa and Marco caught the ferry to Arran and, following a one-hour sea voyage, they reached the island just before dark, and spent the night at the Broons Hotel in Brodick, which is the main port.

Like the hotel, the next morning was cold and inhospitable. The sun shone on the sandstone-colored buildings with a hard uncompromising light that was very different from the light in Venice. And yet, somehow, it was beautiful, too. They hired a small boat with an outboard motor, and sailed off across a freezing, glassy sea to the holy island. Philippa felt they were traveling to the rim of the world, which was hardly made any easier by Marco’s insistence that the Earth was flat and that they would surely sail off the edge of the sea to their doom. But, after a while, the island hove into view, much to Marco’s relief.

The holy island is owned by Tibetan lamas, and there is a large Buddhist monastery on the island, which struck Philippa as a bit strange — following her experiences at the Jayaar Sho Ashram in India — even a little suspicious. Like the disciples of Guru Masamjhasara, the monks at the Peace Center on the holy isle wore orange robes and did lots of yoga. But there the similarities ended, for these were kind, hospitable people and their spiritual leader, Dr. Yes, who
was Chinese, seemed especially pleased to be spoken to in his own language by Marco, although for obvious reasons, Philippa thought it best that Marco should not tell the doctor his real name.

She and Marco told the doctor only that they had come to visit the hermit cave of St. Laserian of Leighlin, and the doctor lent them the services of a monk to guide them to the other side of the island, where the cave was to be found.

“I’ve never seen the point of being a hermit,” Philippa told Marco as they walked up one steep hill and down another. “I mean, what exactly do hermits do that makes them so holy?”

“I think the whole point is not to do very much at all,” said Marco. “Just stop yourself from having a good time.”

“I guess that’s easy enough if you live in a cave on a remote Scottish island,” said Philippa.

“I think hermits are just people who are very bad at resisting temptation,” said Marco. “This is probably why they come to places like this in the first place.”

“Good point.”

Close by the seashore they found the cave, which was not much to look at, and it was hard to imagine anyone living there, let alone a cardinal choosing to hide something valuable in the cave. It was covered over with moss and grass and a large, round, flat rock that looked like it had been a popular nesting site for geese since time immemorial. Going too near the nests was guaranteed to make the geese honk and hiss at them aggressively.

Marco dropped to his knees and clasped his hands and, after a minute or two, the monk politely went away. Minutes passed and then Marco spoke. “Well?” he said. “We’re here. What’s the next part of the message? Come on.”

“I’m sorry,” said Philippa. “After your performance in the boat — all that flat Earth stuff — I thought you were praying.”

“No,” said Marco. “I just did that to get rid of our Buddhist guide. People always leave you alone when you look like you’re praying.”

“Good thinking.”

Philippa hardly needed to consult the sheet of paper bearing the cryptic message from the cardinal’s painting.

“Seize loose shell,” she said. “Big glee.”

“Do you see a shell in there?” asked Marco, looking around.

“No,” said Philippa.

The cave was small, to say the least, and Marco had to stoop to go inside. “St. Laserian must have been quite a short man,” he observed, glancing around.

“But a tough one, I suspect,” said Philippa. “Do you suppose he ever had a door or a wall on the entrance? To keep out the wind and the rain and the sea spray.”

“I think not,” said Marco. “When I was alive toward the end of the thirteenth century, Europe was full of hermits. There were some who used to stand in the open air. Others who used to sit on top of a pillar. And a few who used to shut themselves up in a cell. Quite mad, mostly. I think they all welcomed a bit of wind and rain. To test themselves.”

A gust of wind peppered their faces with icy rain, as if the spirit of St. Laserian had been trying to remind them of his sufferings. The wild geese nesting on top of the cave honked noisily like New York taxis, warning the pair to keep their distance.

Philippa touched some ancient writing on the wall of the cave. “I wonder what language this is written in,” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Marco. “But I’d say this writing was probably here on the wall of the cave long before St. Laserian took up residence in it.” He paused.
“Bene
. What do you think we should do now?”

“Dig,” said Philippa, and produced a trowel from the sleeve of her jacket.

“Where did you get that?” asked Marco.

“I borrowed it from the monks’ garden,” confessed Philippa, and, kneeling down, she began to dig.

Half an hour passed. And then an hour. Philippa found an old coin, a button, and a piece of rusting iron that looked like a piece of old fence post. But of a shell or a golden tablet of command there was no sign. Angry and frustrated, Philippa went out of the cave and threw the old fence post into the sea.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “We know Cardinal Marrone came here on vacation. There’s a golden cross marking the holy isle on the globe in the Doge’s Palace. And there is only one hermit cave on this holy isle. This just has to be the right place. But there is no loose shell to seize.”

“Perhaps someone else stumbled upon it,” suggested Marco, “by accident.”

“Cardinal Marrone was too clever for that,” said Philippa. “He meant for that tablet to be found. But only by someone who solved his clues.”

“Then maybe you made a mistake,” said Marco. “In which case we’ve endured a miserable journey and come all the way to this godforsaken country for no reason at all. We’ll never find the golden tablet.” He sighed. “This has been a complete wild-goose chase.”

“What did you say?”

“I said we seem to have come here for no reason at all.”

“No, no, you said something else.” There was something nagging at the back of Philippa’s mind. But what was it? “Something relevant.”

Marco shrugged silently.

“Look, I didn’t make a mistake,” said Philippa. “I couldn’t have. But it’s just possible that someone else did. The man who wrote that book about Cardinal Marrone. Michel Bustinadité. I used his book as the source for the numbers on the bottom of the painting — the ones that give us the message when they’re turned upside down — because unlike him, I wasn’t able to touch the painting myself.” She was searching her bag for the book. “But if he made a mistake copying them down, then it’s just possible we’re looking for the wrong thing.”

She found the book that Sister Cristina had given her back in Venice, studied a close-up photograph of the
numbers on the painting for a while, and then let out a hoot.

“What is it?” asked Marco.

“This number 35007,” she said. “It’s very faint. But that’s not a seven at all. It’s a six! It’s 35006. Look.”

“Yes, you’re right,” admitted Marco. “But where does that get us?”

“Everywhere,” insisted Philippa. She wrote the number out and then turned it upside down. “It’s not a ‘loose’ shell we should be looking for. It’s ‘goose’ shell. Well, don’t you see? The tablet’s not in the cave. It’s on top of it!”

They eyed the geese nesting on top of the cave uncertainly. One that was the size of a German shepherd dog — or possibly a German shepherd — occupied a nest bigger than the rest on a sort of small rocky plateau. And sensing some danger, it hissed loudly and flapped its wings in a warning display. The wings sounded like someone shaking heavy beach towels in the wind.

Philippa and Marco kept on looking. And the more she looked, the more Philippa thought this seemed a perfect spot to hide something precious. Especially as the goose is a bird known for its aggression when guarding its nest.

“That big bird’s nest is the one we need to look under,” said Philippa.

Marco nodded in agreement. “Nasty temperament, the goose,” he said. “But good eating all the same.”

The goose fixed them both with a beady and distrustful eye. Philippa didn’t doubt for a moment that the goose would
give them a sharp peck if they got too close. A peck or something worse. A sharp blow from a flapping goose wing can break a human arm.

“How are we going to move that goose long enough for us to take a closer look at what’s underneath?” asked Philippa. She was a clever girl, but not a cruel one, especially where animals were concerned.

Marco Polo, who came from a different time, knew no such restraint. “Easy,” he said, and began to pelt the goose with stones.

The goose stood up, honked loudly, took a stone in the chest, flapped its wings, received another well-thrown stone to the head, and, before Philippa could protest at Marco’s cruelty, it flew away, apparently none the worse for wear.

“Come on,” said Marco. “Let’s see what’s there. Before it comes back again.”

They did their best to move the nest and the eggs it contained with care, so that the mother goose might come back to them later on. Their efforts were complicated by the amount of goose dirt that lay on the little plateau; and soon it was unpleasantly clear to them both that geese had been nesting on that particular spot for a very long time indeed. Holding her nose, Philippa began to scrape at the site with the trowel.

“It’s lucky I brought this,” said Philippa. “I’d hate to be doing this with my bare hands.”

The rock under the nest was hollowed into a saucer shape and, eventually, they scraped enough dirt away to reveal a
square stone, like a plug in a basin, which looked as if it had been placed there deliberately, to hide something.

Marco took the trowel, pried the stone loose, and then levered it up. Underneath the stone was a deep hole. Philippa disliked the idea of putting her hand in the hole, but she took a deep breath, reached inside, felt around for a moment, and then withdrew a rectangular object wrapped in oilskin and leather. It was a heavy object and it looked as if it had been there for at least a hundred years.

“Yes!” she yelled with enormous satisfaction. “Yes, yes, yes! We’ve found it, I’m sure.”

“It’s certainly the right size, all right,” admitted Marco.

They retreated to the shelter of the cave and then unwrapped the package to reveal an object the size of a large bar of chocolate, covered with Chinese writing. Shining brightly in the cold, harsh Scottish morning sunlight, it looked like something fallen from heaven. It was the golden tablet of command.

“After all these centuries,” Marco gasped. “I thought I’d never set eyes on this again,” he said with real tears in his eyes. “And thanks to you, I have.” But he did not touch it.

“Go ahead,” said Philippa, wiping her hands. “Pick it up.”

“I’m afraid it always made me rather nervous,” confessed Marco. “I think that’s one of the reasons I managed to lose it in the first place. The responsibility of such power was too great for me. No, you take it.”

Philippa, who was used to the responsibility of power, hefted the object in her hand. The golden tablet was heavy. And not just with weight. There was something about it — a feeling of electricity — that gave her the sense of having a supernatural power back at her command. Like djinn power.

“Just how powerful is this thing?” she asked Marco Polo.

“It’s irresistible,” said Marco. “Whatever you order. It will be done. Those to whom you issue commands, they will have no choice but to obey. That is how it is with the golden tablet. That is how it has always been.”

“Well, now that we’ve found it,” she said, “we’d better think of how we’re going to get ourselves all the way to China.”

“It’s a journey I’ve taken before,” said Marco. “But now that you have the golden tablet of command it will be easy enough.”

Marco sighed and wandered down to the shore where he took a deep breath and looked out to sea. Philippa thought the expression on the old man’s face was a sad one.

“Va bene,”
he said. “It’s been good to be back in the living world after all these years. I’ve enjoyed it. But my work here is now complete. The message is delivered and the golden tablet of command is in your possession. It’s time for me to leave.”

Marco Polo might have been a terrible traveling companion but suddenly the prospect of going to China by herself seemed infinitely worse to Philippa. “Don’t go,” she said.
“Not now. I’d have thought a trip to China would have appealed to you.”

“Once that was true,” said Marco. “But not anymore. Besides, I don’t think I could face a ten-hour flight to China. I don’t know how anyone could. Anyway, I’ve done what I promised the great Khan I would do. Now I just want to rest. I hope you enjoy China as much as I did.” He bent down and kissed Philippa on both cheeks, in the Latin way. “
Arrivederci, cara mia.”