She turned on her flashlight and studied the front surface of the medallion. She had never seen an object quite like it. ‘What do the glyphs say?’
‘Unfortunately, we just acquired the medallion yesterday. Charles immediately sent me a series of photographs, which I have been trying to decipher ever since. As far as I can tell, the glyphs say the same thing over and over again: “Death protects the treasure.” ’
‘Death protects the treasure? What does that mean?’
‘That, I’m afraid, is the riddle you must solve.’
‘Me? Why me? Why do I have to solve it?’
He smiled to ease her anxiety. ‘Look around you, Maria. We are inside Our Lady of Remedies, a historic Catholic Church. Your area of expertise is the history of Christianity. Who better to solve the riddle than you?’
She took a deep breath. ‘When you put it like that …’
He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Maria. I am confident in your abilities. If I didn’t think you could do it, do you really think I would have allowed you to join the team? As I told you in Cancún, the task that we hired you for is right up your alley. Now all you have to do is think.’
Maria thanked him for the information, then asked to be left alone for a few minutes so she could gather her thoughts on the subject. Hamilton quietly slipped out of the pew to give her the privacy she needed. Before long, he was gathering the others to explain everything he had told her about the medallion. Although most of the burden had been placed on Maria’s shoulders, Hamilton realized it would be foolish to keep the rest of the team in the dark about such an important clue. Unlike Boyd, who wanted Maria to be the one to solve the puzzle, Hamilton didn’t care who found the prize as long as it was one of them.
73
Unsure where to begin, Maria glanced around the church in the hope of finding a clue. She stared at the arches, the vaulted ceiling and the main dome, but saw nothing of value except exquisite craftsmanship. Eventually, her eyes drifted towards the main altar. Decorated with fresh flowers and gilded with 24-carat gold, it was truly a beautiful sight. Everywhere she looked, there were splashes of colour — red, yellow, green and pink — but the colour that grabbed her attention most was in the middle of the back wall. Remarkably, it was the same shade of turquoise as the water in the Caribbean Sea — the same colour she had seen in Cancún and Tulum and the Mayan coastline in between. Prior to her trip to Mexico, she had never seen that particular shade before, but here it surfaced again a thousand miles from the distant shore. With nothing better to go on, she decided to glance through Boyd’s file to see if the colour had any significance.
She flipped through several pages of the church’s history until she came across a photograph of the altar. She stared at the picture and realized the turquoise colour was part of a carved figure that depicted the patron saint of the church. Anxious to learn more, she turned the picture over and read the description on back. The tiny statue of the Virgin Mary, which resembled an elaborate doll in a long, turquoise gown, arrived in the New World in 1519. It was brought to the Americas by a Spanish soldier named Juan Rodríguez de Villafuerte, who viewed the idol as his protector for the dangerous trip. A year later, when Hernán Cortés was initially defeated by the Aztecs, Villafuerte hid the statue of Mary in a native temple, where it remained undisturbed for over twenty years. Eventually, the indigenous people of the region, who were in the midst of being converted to Christianity, discovered the statue and worshipped it until it was ‘rescued’ by a Spanish monk. Ever since, the statue has been considered the protector of the church.
Wait, she thought to herself, what was the statue protecting?
The whole church? Or something else?
She turned the picture back over and studied the details of the image. Strangely, the only part of the carved statue that was visible was Mary’s painted face. An elaborate gold crown, topped with a gold cross, rested on her head. The other features of the statue — Mary’s arms, legs and torso — were concealed by a turquoise gown that flared out from the collar. The end result looked like a turquoise pyramid with Mary’s head glued to the apex. Stranger still, there was a single item draped around Mary’s neck: a tiny gold medallion.
‘Santa Maria!’ she whispered, sensing she was on the right track.
Instead of rushing forward and making a scene, she held Mercado’s medallion next to the image of the statue. Unfortunately, the medallion in the picture was too blurry to make an accurate comparison. She cursed under her breath as she grabbed Boyd’s file. Trembling with excitement, she flipped through the dozens of pictures in the folder, hoping to find a close-up of Mary’s medallion. Amazingly, she stumbled across something even better.
The first photograph was a drawing of Diego de Landa, presiding over the auto-da-fé of Maní. He was holding a gold cross above his head as a group of natives cowered at his feet. In the background, Spanish soldiers were burning artefacts and chopping off the heads of Mayan rulers. The second photograph was an oil painting of a Spanish conquistador. He, too, was holding a cross in the air as dozens of Aztecs were slain around him. One native in particular caught her eye. He was kneeling on the ground, pleading for mercy, as a Spanish soldier prepared to pierce him with a lance. One end of the lance was sharpened to a deadly point, while the other end was topped with a jewel-encrusted cross.
Picture after picture, drawing after drawing, all of them depicting the same theme in slightly different forms: the Spanish killing natives in the name of the cross. She had studied them all during the flight to Cholula, but she had not picked up on this common thread until that very moment.
‘Oh my God!’ she blurted, louder than she had intended.
From various sections of the church, heads whipped round in her direction — everyone concerned that they had been spotted by a guard. Payne happened to be the nearest person to Maria. He rushed to her side to find out what was wrong. He was expecting trouble, but she greeted him with the best news possible. She had solved the riddle.
‘What is it?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve figured it out! I know what the Death Relic was.’
‘Already?’
She nodded, fully confident. ‘It was the cross.’
‘The Death Relic was the cross? I don’t follow.’
By this time, the others had rushed to her side as well. She quickly took them through her theory, using the photographs to illustrate her point. ‘It’s all about perspective. From the Spanish point of view, the cross was a relic to be worshipped. They took it into battle, where it gave them power and strength. They fought for the cross. On the other hand, the natives viewed the cross in a completely different way. From their perspective, it was something to be feared. Look at all the natives who were slain in the name of the cross. To them, the relic represented death.’
Ulster stroked his beard in thought. ‘My dear, you might be onto something. In the minds of the natives, who had never seen this symbol before the Spanish Conquest, they had to define it in their own terms. In their eyes, the cross was evil. The cross was death.’
Hamilton nodded enthusiastically. ‘That would explain the glyphs! The lone difference between the Death God and the Death Relic symbols was the necklace of bones around the Death God’s neck. The bones were shaped like an X. It must have been their way of depicting the cross.’