The Emerald Key - By Christopher Dinsdale Page 0,12
years later, but not surprisingly, after searching the entire cavern, whatever had been in there had long before been removed. The missing Buddha and dead guard were all the evidence the monks had needed to prove their secret location had been blown.
Since then, Wilkes had been able to scrounge up some interesting Egyptian artifacts and steal a couple of small Mayan statues, but he could no longer afford the life of luxury he had grown accustomed to after the sale of the Buddha. He needed another big payoff, and soon.
After hitting the history books in the London library as he searched for a new treasure trail, he had come across an old story about Ireland that explained how, after the fall of Rome, the Irish had become the wealthiest and most educated country in Europe. Several legends proclaimed that a vast treasure had been hidden during Ireland’s golden years, but its location remained a mystery to this day.
“Not a mystery to everyone,” chuckled Wilkes. “Surely someone, somewhere must know where it is.”
He then glanced at his copy of the London Times. The headline quoted the prime minister as saying only market forces could cure the continuing Irish famine.
“An unending famine in a land that holds treasure,” muttered Wilkes. “This is what a man who has an interest in antiquities would call ‘easy pickings’. ”
Wilkes booked a ticket on the next ship leaving London for Dublin. Upon his arrival in Ireland, he had gone straight to Trinity College, where he set eyes on the Book of Kells, one of the only books known to have survived from the golden age of Ireland. He had never seen anything like it before in his life. Each letter was a work of art in itself, producing almost magical depictions of Irish nature from the ancient ink. The text itself read in an almost spellbinding beauty that seemed more the written word of an angel than that of a human being. His appreciation for what the Irish had accomplished after the fall of Rome rose considerably. He no longer had any doubts that a country capable of such a high level of culture could also produce magnificent treasure.
He knew from experience that a coin placed in the right starving hand might get him the information he needed to begin his search, and indeed it had. He learned from a penniless historian that there was a secret group of men called the Brotherhood, and rumours continued that they knew the location of a buried Irish treasure. The historian also mentioned that the Brotherhood seemed to have connections to the Irish Catholic Church. Prodded further about the treasure, the historian believed that the key to finding the treasure lay encoded in several keys kept safe by the Brotherhood, and one key was rumoured to be encoded in an old text located within the walls of the abbey in Limerick.
Wilkes quietly slipped a few more coins into the hands of those with intimate knowledge of the abbey in Limerick, which turned up only wild goose chases — until he made contact with the starving choirmaster. That old man informed him that the text he was searching for had been hidden in the abbey, but word was out that someone had been enquiring about it. It had been removed from its hiding place only the previous night, and it was on its way south. Where, he couldn’t be sure.
Wilkes immediately travelled south and put on his payroll a dozen hungry altar boys, all of whom had access to Ireland’s large abbeys and cathedrals. Their job was to try and listen in on private conversations. If they heard the word “Brotherhood” or witnessed any unscheduled meetings, they were to remember as many details as possible of those meetings and then report back to him. The size of their reward would depend on the quality of the information returned.
After waiting nearly two weeks, the big break had finally come that morning. Out of breath, an altar boy banged on his inn door. While working at Cork Cathedral that evening, he had followed a visiting priest deep into the catacombs and managed to get close enough to a secret meeting to hear the words “Brotherhood,” “key,” and “text.” It seemed that a young priest had to travel quickly across the ocean to Canada and return with his brother or with a text that was important to the Brotherhood that he had taken with him. Pleased with the news, the young lad was