The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold

A castle outside Seville, Spain, 1668

Albrecht Konigsberg tried not to think about the fact that the torturers would be coming for him soon. He might have prayed, except that the men who were about to kill him considered themselves to be doing the Lord’s work. If they were right, then God would not listen to his prayers anyway, because he was a heretic.

Even knowing that, Konigsberg slipped to his knees beside the bed in his cell and sent a prayer heavenward, asking for deliverance.

He was still kneeling there when footsteps began to echo in the long corridor leading through the vast underground dungeon.

A bitter laugh came from Konigsberg’s lips. So much for his prayers being answered. He hadn’t expected anything else, really. He was a German, he was a Jew, and he was a man of science, rumored to be a descendant of the great astronomer Regiomontanus. To these Spaniards, any one of those things might have been enough to condemn him. Taken together, they were damning beyond redemption.

He stood up and faced the cell door. He would not force them to drag him out like a coward. He would go to meet the inquisitors on his feet. He would die a man, even though he was a heretic in their eyes.

But when a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open, it wasn’t the priests or the torturers who stood there. It was one of the guards, a man named Alphonso.

“German!” he said. “I would have a word with you.”

“What do you want, Alphonso?” Konigsberg asked. “I have nothing with which to bribe you. The Church has taken everything I own.”

The guard came closer and tilted his head to one side. Greed lit up the eyes in his brutal face. “It is rumored that you know a secret…a secret that is very valuable.”

“I know nothing,” Konigsberg replied with a shake of his head. “If I did, would I not try to trade it for my life?”

“I will help you escape, if you take me to the treasure,” Alphonso went on, as if he hadn’t heard a word that Konigsberg said.

“Are you not listening to me? I know no secret! I know nothing of any treasure!”

Alphonso smiled and pointed a blunt, dirty finger toward the stone ceiling. It was a moment before Konigsberg realized that the guard was really pointing toward the heavens.

“The Twelve Pearls,” Alphonso said.

Konigsberg’s breath hissed between his teeth. He had to restrain himself from leaping forward, grabbing the guard’s tunic, and shaking him. “What do you know of the Twelve Pearls?”

“I know that
you
know their secret.”

Konigsberg never would have thought of it that way. No wonder he hadn’t realized what Alphonso was talking about. The guards must have gossiped among themselves, taking a thing that had only scientific importance, and inflating it until it was supposed to be the key to some sort of fabulously valuable treasure.

Sensing that this would be his only chance for freedom, for life itself, Konigsberg put a sly smile on his face and said, “What if I do know the secret of the Twelve Pearls?”

“Is it worth your life?” Alphonso demanded. “The torturers will be here soon.” The guard lifted his ring of keys and jingled them. “But I can let you out. You’ll be gone when they get here.”

Suddenly, Konigsberg worried that this was a trick of some sort. A test for the heretic.

“What about you?” he asked. “They’ll know you did it. They’ll torture and execute you in my place.”

Alphonso shook his head. “No, I’m leaving with you. They’re not watching your cottage anymore. Take me there and give me the secret, and then we will go our separate ways.” He paused. “I have a cousin, the master of a ship sailing tomorrow for the New World. I intend to be on that ship. With the wealth that you will give me, I will be an important man in New Spain!”

The fool. The utter fool. But like most poor men, he had a dream, and that dream told him that if he could do one certain thing, achieve one certain end, then he would be rich and all his problems would be solved. It didn’t matter what that thing was; it was probably different in every dream.

And like all dreams, it never came true.

“All right,” Konigsberg said. He had nothing to lose. “But let us go quickly.”

Alphonso nodded eagerly. He led the prisoner out into the corridor and then locked the cell door behind them. When the torturers arrived and found the cell locked and empty, they would be puzzled, until they figured out that Alphonso was gone, too. Then they would understand, and they would come looking for the guard.

As Alphonso led Konigsberg through the rat’s warren of passages underneath the castle, he said quietly, “I heard the priests talking about how they searched your cottage, German. They found nothing save some journals. You hid the secret of the Twelve Pearls well, I think.” Alphonso laughed. “Are they real pearls, German?”

“You’ll see,” Konigsberg said.

But you won’t understand
.

They came to a narrow flight of stairs, dimly lit by a candle in a wall sconce. When they reached the top, Alphonso unlocked another door and led the way into a chapel. It was a small room, but richly furnished. Konigsberg saw a golden candlestick inlaid with gems that had to be worth a small fortune. There were other things there in the castle that were equally valuable, but Alphonso would never dream of stealing them, because they belonged to the Church.

He wouldn’t hesitate to steal from a German Jew, though. That was entirely different.

Konigsberg had no doubt that Alphonso planned to kill him as soon as he had turned over the secret of the Twelve Pearls. Then he would flee to the harbor at Cadiz and his cousin’s ship bound for the New World.

As they went past the table where the candlestick sat, Konigsberg snatched it up.

“Here now!” Alphonso said. “You can’t take that! It belongs to the Church!”

Konigsberg’s lips curled in a snarl. “I’m a heretic, remember? I need something to pay my way, to help me escape.” And to recompense him for the tortures he had already suffered, he thought. A shudder ran through him as he remembered the pain that had been inflicted on him in numerous sessions.

Alphonso hesitated, then shrugged. “Your immortal soul is damned anyway, I suppose. Come!”

They reached a small door leading out of the castle’s rear wall. The guard unlocked it, and the two men stole into the night. No one had seen them. They had made their escape, and Konigsberg breathed deeply of free air once again. It smelled wonderful.

Alphonso’s hand closed around his arm. “Now, take me to your cottage,” he ordered. His other hand caressed the handle of the knife at his hip. “Give me the secret of the Twelve Pearls.”

“Of course. A bargain is a bargain.”

Konigsberg’s cottage was on top of a hill, well outside the city. He had settled there for a reason. The view of the night sky was unobstructed. He remembered all the pleasant hours he had spent with his telescope in front of the little, thatched-roof cottage.

He wondered how the view of the stars would be from the New World. Perhaps he would find out. Alphonso had planted that idea in his mind, and with luck, it would take root and grow.

They reached the cottage an hour later. The door hung crookedly from its hinges where the men who worked for the inquisitors had wrenched it open. A goat came trotting out as Konigsberg and Alphonso walked up. It bleated at them and ran off. Konigsberg knew the inside of the place was probably unfit to live in now, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t plan to stay there.

“The books that the priests found,” he said to Alphonso. “What did they do with them? Did they burn them?”

“Of course! They were sinful, the work of a heretic.”

Konigsberg laughed. He reached down to the stone in front of the door. “Help me pry this up.”

“What?”

“The secret lies underneath it.”

That was enough for Alphonso. He bent down, and his strong back and arms did most of the work as the two men pried up the stone, revealing a small cavity underneath. Konigsberg went to his knees—so oddly like prayer, he thought—and reached into the dark hole. He brought out a small wooden chest. Inside it, wrapped in oilcloth, was the only truly important book he had. The other journals he had left lying around on purpose, so that if the priests ever searched the cottage they would have something to find and destroy in a fury of self-righteousness. Now, Konigsberg clutched the box and its precious contents to his chest.

“Is that the treasure?” Alphonso asked eagerly.

“No, that’s still in the hiding place,” Konigsberg said. “You can get it if you’d like.”

Instantly, Alphonso was on his knees beside the hole. He bent over and reached down into the cavity.

Konigsberg picked up the candlestick he had set aside and brought it crashing down with stunning force on the back of Alphonso’s head. The unexpected blow drove the guard to the ground with a grunt of pain and surprise. Konigsberg struck again before his victim could regain his senses. The candlestick was heavy, especially its base. He smashed it down on Alphonso’s head again and again and again, until the man’s skull had been beaten into a shape that didn’t resemble anything human. Blood and brains leaked into the hole that had hidden the secret of the Twelve Pearls.

Konigsberg straightened from his work. Earlier tonight, he had been prepared to die. Now, through a miracle—divine intervention?—he was not only free, at least for the moment, but he had recovered his life’s work.

The inquisitors and their torturers would try to find him, he knew. Every hand would be against him. But he would cling to his freedom as long as he possibly could, and perhaps where one miracle had occurred, so could another. He would make his way to Cadiz, find that ship, tell Alphonso’s cousin that Alphonso had sent him…If word of his escape and Alphonso’s death had not yet reached the port…if the ship sailed in time…

Well, in that case, Konigsberg thought as he hurried through the night, the box in one hand and the candlestick in the other, then he would know that every now and then, God heard the prayers of a so-called heretic after all.

God…or possibly the Devil…