The Spanish Helmet Read online

  Matt was pleased Warren wanted to go to the site directly. He was nervous with anticipation of what he was about to see. This could be a life-changing moment.

  ‘Thanks for bringing me in on this, Warren.’

  ‘It’s me who has to do the thanking, mate. Without an academic on board, there’s no way I’ll ever be listened to. I need you more than you can imagine.’

  Warren turned right onto an even smaller gravel road and right again down what was nothing more than a track. Ahead of them a little farmhouse and some outbuildings came into view. As they rounded the corner of the house to where there was a large dirt parking area, Matt let out a surprised gasp. He looked to Warren for reassurance but saw he, too, had turned white as a sheet. Parked near the house were a Ford Transit cargo van and two white sedans with wording on the sides that read, in an unmistakably proud fashion, Department of Cultural Identity.

  ‘Bugger!’ Warren said. ‘I sure as hell hope we aren’t too late.’

  * * *

  Warren led Matt across a field in the direction of some clumps of trees. As they got closer, Matt realised a stream cut a winding path through the field, and that some of the trees he had seen were lining it. A short distance before the stream, about 500m from the farm-house, a sail was suspended on four poles. Underneath the sail were the tell-tale signs of a small dig surrounded by eight or nine men and women who were busy scratching away at the dirt.

  As they approached, one of the hunched up balls of man stood to meet them. Matt looked up a few inches at the hard, unsmiling face attached to the six-foot plus body.

  ‘Good morning Mr Rennie, Dr Cameron,’ he said, as he shook their hands with a vice-like grip. ‘My name is Colin Wolfe. I have been given charge of this site by the DCI.’

  The agent’s hands felt coarse and unfriendly to Matt’s touch. It unnerved him how this man knew both of their names. Matt had certainly never met Agent Wolfe, he would be impossible to forget.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Wolfe.’ Warren smiled. ‘I wasn’t sure you guys were going to be interested enough to look at this site. It’s great you’ve spared the time.’

  Matt caught a sideways glance from Warren when Wolfe wasn’t looking, and realised that Warren was putting up an act.

  ‘No, no, we’re very interested in the site,’ Wolfe said, his voice cold and void of further niceties. ‘Have you got the coins that you notified us about?’

  Matt looked at Warren and hoped that his confusion wasn’t visible to the austere DCI agent. Hadn’t Warren told them about the mirror?

  ‘Sure.’ Warren pulled a small cloth pouch out of his satchel. ‘I’ve kept them with me since the find.’

  ‘We’ll be needing those.’ Wolfe took the pouch from Warren’s hand before it could be formally offered. He removed the coins from the pouch and studied them briefly. ‘You didn’t find anything else at the site then?’

  ‘No, we came back today to make further diggings in the hopes of finding more artefacts.’

  That was an outright lie. But watching the exchange before him, Matt could see why Warren was withholding information. This government agency had literally come in and taken over Warren’s dig without any consultation or warning, and now they were even taking hold of his findings without documenting anything. The lack of ethics made Matt cringe.

  ‘We won’t need your further service on this dig,’ Wolfe said. ‘We have a team of eight here now and the dig has officially been appropriated by the DCI. You will, of course, be sent a copy of our official report when our work is complete.’

  Warren nodded. He looked disappointed.

  ‘It was nice to meet you Dr Cameron,’ Wolfe said. Something resembling a smile twitched his lips.

  ‘You too,’ Matt said. He doubted that the comment or the smile held any meaning whatsoever.

  As they retraced their steps across the field, out of earshot of the surly figure that was retreating to the trenches behind them, Matt let out a sigh of relief. ‘Nice chap.’ He said. ‘Are they always so friendly?’

  ‘Yep. He was a shining example of a DCI agent. Exactly what I expected.’

  ‘You surprise me Warren. You lied about the mirror. They don’t know about it do they?’

  Warren smiled. ‘They haven’t a clue. But I had to hide it from them. If I hadn’t, we would have no chance to study it.’

  ‘I see that now. I didn’t really believe it could be as bad as you had told me, but now I see it is. These guys are like vultures on a freshly killed lion.’ Matt looked back over his shoulder at the site which was shrinking in the distance. ‘Do you think they will find anything else there?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if they do we can be assured we’ll never hear anything about it. So can the rest of the country. It’ll be another of the DCI’s dirty little secrets.’

  They arrived at Warren’ Hilux and climbed in.

  ‘So where is the mirror?’

  ‘Just around the corner. Let’s go.’

  With that, Warren turned the key and they sped off up the bumpy driveway back to the small country roads.

  * * *

  Warren turned the Hilux onto the road that led back to the small settlement of Donnelly’s Crossing. When he arrived back at the junction and turned left back towards the main highway, Matt spoke up.

  ‘Isn’t the mirror at your friend’s place?’

  ‘No, that would be too obvious. I’m sure the DCI or NISO would search there if they got wind of it. I hid it right where I found it, well almost.’

  Matt was intrigued. Warren seemed to have thought this out thoroughly. He must have made some quick decisions when he found the mirror. Several minutes later, Warren pulled the car out onto the main road and turned back towards Auckland. ‘I thought you said it was just around the corner.’

  ‘It is. Unfortunately if we had gone overland to it, we would have been in direct line of sight of that overgrown moron back there.’

  ‘So we have to take the long way round?’

  ‘Bingo,’ Warren said as he looked in the mirror. ‘There’s sort of a track that we could otherwise use. A disused railway in fact. The lines were ripped up long ago. But like I said, direct line of sight.’

  They turned left again, on to another smaller road that headed back east towards the stream. Soon they had parked the truck beside another farmhouse and Warren was leading Matt over fields again.

  ‘We’ll cross the stream up here. There’s an old tree that has served as a bridge for the farmers’ kids for many years. I used to play around here when I was a kid. Not much has changed, except the trains have gone.’

  ‘Was it a freight line or something?’

  ‘Forestry and passengers. But that’s all ancient history now. Trains in New Zealand are a thing of the past. Few and far between. A couple of tourist numbers that run to a very irregular schedule, and some commuter stuff in Auckland and Wellington. Of course a bit of freight here and there, but the lines are limited in their reach, and everything is diesel. Almost.’

  Matt was a bit shocked. A country as big as New Zealand should surely have a huge transit system to get everyone from A to B. He found it hard to imagine Britain without trains. Anywhere for that matter.

  ‘I can see why you chose to hide the mirror here,’ Matt said, as Warren stopped near a large stand of trees to kneel and start digging. ‘That forest there completely blocks out the other site. How far away is it?’

  ‘I reckon on a good kilometre.’ Warren answered, his words fighting to be heard through his shortness of breath, as he pulled a bundle of cloth out of the ground. ‘Right where I left you. Little beauty.’ He passed the mirror to Matt.

  Matt turned the mirror over, dumbfounded. This mirror was older than the British settlement of New Zealand. There was no question of its antiquity. Matt trembled, the excitement of holding such a beautiful and important object propelling a tingle up through his arm and down his spine. He gazed at his distorted and faint reflection. ‘How did you get here?’

>   ‘Have you seen anything like this before Matt?’

  ‘I’ve seen similar items of course, in museums and in literature. But I haven’t actually studied one close up. I can’t determine its age or anything, not without help from some specialists.’

  ‘Then help from specialists we shall get. Just not in New Zealand. Maybe you’ve got some friends back home?’

  ‘Definitely. I’ll take some pictures and get them off to Julia tonight. This is right up her alley.’

  CHAPTER

  12

  It had been a long day, and Hemi was more than just a little pleased to sit down at his computer to do some research.

  He had watched Warren Rennie from a safe distance today. Oh, he had watched Matthew Cameron too, but it was what he saw Rennie doing that intrigued him. Hemi had realised early in the trip north that Rennie must be taking Dr. Cameron to the dig site. Confident that he wouldn’t be recognised by anybody in his borrowed car, Hemi happily overtook the duo on the motorway and got a head start on them. Rennie hadn’t requested Hemi to observe today, probably because he could do it himself. But Hemi decided to watch anyway and he was glad he did. He arrived at the site with ten minutes’ lead and used the opportunity to find a spot in some scrub slightly above the site, about seven hundred metres away. Happy that he was out of sight, Hemi set up his spotting-scope and made himself comfortable. With his right eye to the lens, Hemi counted nine workers clad in DCI field-uniforms. An amused smile cracked his normally composed visage.

  When Rennie and Dr. Cameron arrived and left so quickly, Hemi thought it had been a waste of time. But he didn’t immediately get up and leave because he was captivated by the DCI activity on site. Much to his surprise, Rennie and Cameron appeared again about an equal distance away on his right. They got out of the Hilux and hurried to a cluster of Macrocarpa trees. Hemi turned and looked at the DCI agents, then back at Warren. He realised that the two groups could not see each other. He continued to watch Warren Rennie to see what surprises were in store. What he saw certainly fitted into that category.

  From where he was lying, it appeared that Rennie was being a little less than truthful with the DCI about his dig site. Through his scope, Hemi watched as Rennie crouched on the ground and pulled another object from underneath a shallow layer of soil. That hadn’t been chance, Hemi had realised immediately. He must have planted it there. He took his little Lumix camera with the powerful zoom and snapped up an image of the object. Now he wanted to look at it on the big screen. You couldn’t see anything on those bloody tiny preview screens the cameras have. Hemi removed his laptop from his backpack and transferred the camera contents to it. The last photo he took soon sprang to life in his favourite photo viewer. Hemi studied the bronze object, a dinner plate perhaps, and could make out some sort of pattern on it.

  That looks like much more than a coin or something, Mr. Rennie. I see I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you.

  * * *

  The little piece of paper sat in front of Matt on the dining table. It was great that Aimee had given him a phone number instead of an e-mail address. Ever since he had discovered the Internet, Matt had slowly lost contact with most of his good friends. It seemed that everyone wanted to e-mail to keep in touch. But over time the e-mails became less frequent and the emotional context was lost, through the lack of vocal expression. More recently, the invention of social applications had made it all the worse. Now your friends were people you had never met, that you sent a one line text to, in public, saying you had seen a good movie. All the tangible benefits of relationships were disappearing and Matt hated it. But now, looking at the phone number, he wished it was an e-mail address instead. Then he could simply forget to e-mail, or at least not have to talk... you know, out loud.

  Why did a string of seven simple digits make him so nervous? It wasn’t like Matt hadn’t talked to girls before. He had even been on dates and had what some might refer to as a girlfriend. But this was different. She was interesting and she was good-looking. At least Matt thought so. Likely a thousand other guys did too, and he would never stand a chance. Good, he decided. He doesn’t stand a chance, so it can stay strictly professional. That made it easier. He dialled the number.

  ‘Hello?’ The ringing tone was replaced by a sweet but unsure sounding voice. An equally unsure voice squeaked out of Matt’s mouth. He didn’t even recognise it.

  ‘Ah, hi, is this Aimee?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, hey, British accent. Is that Matthew?’

  She remembered him!

  ‘Yes, yes it is.’ Matthew was relieved not to have to explain who he was. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks. Even better now. I didn’t think you’d call.’

  ‘Well, I had to. I want to make sure you spent the last few days immersed in pseudo-history websites.’

  ‘A promise is a promise. You wouldn’t believe how diverting this stuff is!’

  Matt couldn’t believe it. Not only had he managed to pull off a witty line with a beautiful woman but she had actually been interested enough in their previous conversation to follow through. This was incredible.

  ‘Seriously? What have you found? A long lost tribe of Celts?’

  Aimee laughed. ‘No. I’ve been much more interested in the Spanish stuff. It goes deeper than the helmet, you know?

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, right now I’m looking at a Pohutukawa tree, that’s a New Zealand native. Lovely big green trees with red blossoms, they grow on the coast.’

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘I’ve got a picture on my screen of a real beauty, it’s about 500 years old.’

  ‘Uhuh.’ Matt wasn’t sure where this was going.

  ‘That would all be good... if it was in New Zealand.’

  ‘Ah, OK. Where is it?’

  There was a pause. Was she pausing for effect? It was working. Matt hung on every word she said. All right, maybe that wasn’t because of what she was saying, but rather because she said it to him.

  ‘In the gardens of the police station in La Coruña, the capital city of Galicia.’

  ‘I’ve not been there,’ Matt said, although he had no idea why he said it. ‘Been to the Costa del Sol a few times though.’ What a klutz Matt. Leave it out.

  ‘You’ve got one up on me, we don’t get to Europe all that much from here.’

  Matt felt like a moron. It was one thing for hordes of Brits and Germans to flock to Spain every year, but New Zealanders? Where do they go?

  ‘The million dollar question,’ Aimee continued, ‘is how it got there. I found out that La Coruña was a popular port in the 16th century because it was cheap and the pirates didn’t cause much grief. The Spanish Helmet is a 16th century close helmet. So I figure, maybe someone took a Pohutukawa seedling and dropped their helmet in the harbour all at the same time.’

  ‘Sounds like an eventful trip. Wouldn’t there be records of something like that?’

  ‘Maybe the tree is the only surviving record?’

  ‘I guess it’s possible.’

  ‘Well, I also read a bit about Kumara and Hangis.’

  ‘You’ll have to translate that for me,’ Matt laughed.

  ‘Kumara, c’mon, we talked about it on the plane. The South American sweet potato. And a Hangi is a Maori earth oven. Well, in South America they use ovens that are almost identical. And you know what else...?’ Aimee’s voice rose with excitement, ‘the Kumara store-houses, traditional Maori ones, are built above the ground and look just like South American store houses.’

  ‘That’s pretty damned interesting.’

  ‘Then there was the so-called Crosshouse.’

  ‘Crosshouse?’ Matt was flabbergasted by the amount of research that Aimee must have done over the past days. This really was some girl.

  ‘A Maori meeting house or school that was burned down in the Eighties. Its design was strongly influenced by sun, star and moon movements. Like the Celts did. Where did the Maori get these ideas f
rom, did they develop them alone, or were they taught?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Matt said.

  They continued to discuss the questions that Aimee’s research had raised for a few more minutes and made small talk about catching up again while Matt was in town. He promised that if he had questions, he would get in touch. Surprising himself, he made the light-hearted suggestion they maybe meet for a meal before he left the country. He just about squealed when she agreed. Hanging up the phone, Matt promised himself to find an excuse to get in touch with her again before the week was over.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Tuesday, March 24, 1526

  We are ready to attempt the Estrecho de Magallanes again. The ships have all been repaired and are again seaworthy. Unfortunately, I cannot report the same of our poultry. We have but one rooster and one hen to share for the whole fleet. I offered the commander of the caravel Santa Maria del Parral a very good trade for these, but he refused me. I guess my men will go without eggs. We have been lucky, though, to find a good supply of the sweet potato that grows in these parts. Some of the men come from farming families and believe they could cultivate this species on board and back home in Spain. I have given them permission to establish a small nursery on the foredeck, for I admit that I would be happy to devour the mellow creamy-white flesh of this vegetable every day. While in the river’s safe harbour, we have watched the natives cooking their food in earth ovens and have practiced the same method. The result is a flavourful feast fit for kings. We will all be sorry to return to boiled food.

  Our respite here, although we were busied with repairs to the San Lesmes, has served as a good opportunity for the men to lift their spirits and regain their strength. I am pleased to depart on our new attempt of the straits with a strong and happy crew.