The Mask of Troy (34 page)

‘The one we want?’

‘Look,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘You can see the bands, as you go from the outer rim to the boss. Five layers, just as Homer described it. You can even see the dark rings, where glass niello is still visible.’ He stared at it, his mind reeling. ‘No decoration. Just an awful lot of dents and bashes. It’s odd. It hasn’t been flattened by the shipwreck. It still has the concave shape. It could be battle damage, but this just isn’t a shield you’d take into battle. It’s a display shield, a prestige object. That much
is
consistent with Homer. Something a king or a hero mounts beside his tent. But a lot of gold, no ornament. Strange. I feel as if this is Troy yet again, Costas. Fabulous find, but more unanswered questions than we started with.’

‘Take a closer look.’ Costas had extended the video arm to within inches of the shield, and was watching his screen. ‘Jack, I’m sure of it. You
can
see decoration. Only just. Vine leaves. An animal, maybe. It’s all been beaten out of it, really crudely. Check out your screen. I’ll feed it through.’

Jack clicked on his monitor and immediately saw what Costas meant. ‘Incredible,’ he murmured. ‘Look at that. It’s like a ghostly imprint. But why do it? Why?’ He drummed his fingers, speaking slowly as he thought. ‘The Shield of Achilles. Awarded to the victor in the funeral games. Claimed by Agamemnon. Let’s say he takes it to the armourers on Tenedos, those ones churning out the arrowheads, and they crudely hammer out the decoration. Why would he do that?’

‘Pride?’ Costas said. ‘Agamemnon was always having standoffs with Achilles, right? Didn’t he take Achilles’ girl, and Achilles went off in a sulk? All that prestige display stuff you were talking about. Agamemnon acquires Achilles’ shield, but shows who’s supreme by stamping out the ornamentation people associated with strutting Achilles. Agamemnon’s now the boss, the tough guy, no frills.’

‘But still very odd that it was left this crude.’ Jack stared. There was no time to ponder now. ‘I’m going to take it. We don’t leave this exposed on the sea bed.’ Costas rose above to give him room to slide the two forks of the extractor arm beneath the shield. Jack worked the lever until it seemed to be in the right position, then clicked the intercom to confirm with Costas. ‘You’ve gone quiet. You okay? Let me know how this looks from your angle. Over.’

‘Jack.’ Costas’ voice sounded faltering. ‘About those bumps and dents.’

‘What is it?’

‘My camera is angled directly down on the shield. You need to take a look. I think you’ll agree it’s sometimes good to take a step back.’

Jack clicked on his screen again. The image was fuzzy as the feed came through. He suddenly felt the Aquapod beginning to angle up, and quickly focused on the buoyancy control. He had to remember he was not on autopilot. It was exactly why he disliked using submersibles to excavate. He trusted his own hands more than mechanical extensions. He came level again and engaged the motor to drive the arms slowly under the shield, until he was sure it would lift out and not slip off.

‘Well?’ Costas said.

‘Just let me concentrate on this.’ He lifted the shield inch by inch, injecting water into the rear buoyancy tanks to compensate for the weight, raising a cloud of silt as he did so, watching it quickly settle. It was exactly as Lanowski said, a coarse-grained sediment, overlying the grey anaerobic layer that had preserved the wooden backing of the shield. Slowly Jack reversed the Aquapod until the shield was clear of the sea bed, grey sediment now falling away from it in a cascade. He used another lever to slide a metal basket beneath it, lined with plastic cushioning material like bubble wrap. A cover with cushioning would be extended above it, designed to cocoon artefacts for raising to the surface. He slowly depressed the lifting arm through the basket until it was several centimetres beneath, leaving the shield resting on the wrap, then withdrew the arm into the Aquapod. He exhaled forcibly. ‘Would you look at that?’ he murmured.

‘I think it’s about time you did exactly that, Jack,’ Costas said.

‘My screen. Yes.’ Jack saw a grainy video image of the shield from five metres above. The feed was still not working properly. He looked again. Then he saw it. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘
My God
.’

‘Remember I told you my uncle took me to see that in the Archaeological Museum of Athens as a kid?’ Costas said. ‘Never thought I’d see it this way.’

‘
So that’s what Agamemnon did
,’ Jack whispered in astonishment. He was barely able to register what he was seeing. ‘That’s what he had those smiths on Tenedos do. He must have had the golden mask to show them, the mask he later took back to Mycenae, where Schliemann found it.’ He stared. He was gazing at a face. The entire shield was a face.
And it was the face of Agamemnon
. The bumps and bashes were where the smiths had made an impression, like a ghostly impression of the mask, not crude at all, but executed with enormous artistry, as bold as any art from antiquity Jack had ever seen. In shadow it would have looked extraordinary, the ultimate extension of one man’s sense of his own power, stamped over the shield of the greatest of the heroes.

‘So let me get this right,’ Costas said. ‘Homer saw this, but he must have seen it earlier, before it was remade.’

Jack was sure of it.
As sure as he had ever been
. ‘Homer’s story was about the contest of heroes. Nobody in that story saw the shield this way. This shield, as we see it here, was an image from after the fall of the heroes, an image of the terrible face of war, of Agamemnon himself. It was being shipped back to the plain of Troy for Agamemnon’s final assault against the citadel when a seismic storm whipped up the sea and sank this ship, and pushed the galleys of Agamemnon from the beach into the very walls of Troy itself.’

‘I think Maurice might owe James that crate of whisky,’ Costas said.

Jack looked back at the bundles of arrows still visible in the background. Those would have to wait. Costas’ Aquapod was fitted with the video and lights array rather than for finds retrieval. They would have to come back down here as soon as possible. He looked at the shield again. He wished he could touch it, hold it to his chest, grasp a spear, feel the tactile power he had felt holding the Webley on the deck the day before. He gazed at that face with its hooded eyes, staring blindly upwards yet all-seeing, as they had done through all the history that had passed this way, through the age of mankind that had been set in motion during those few days at the death-knell of the Bronze Age. He stared at the iron arrowheads, and in a flash he understood. He understood the temptation. The temptation of power, the temptation to swing the murderous pendulum of anger and retribution. War as a condition of life, without reason, beginning or end.
The temptation that had driven Agamemnon to take the tablet of war, to cast away the tablet of peace
.

‘Jack. Reality check.’

‘Okay. Let’s get this topside. In that current, we’re in for a joyride. I can’t imagine anything worse than dropping this.’

‘Roger that. I’ll advise
Seaquest II
. Over.’

Jack activated the autopilot to maintain position three metres above the sea bed while he closed the basket down. He could already sense the pull of the current, edging both of the Aquapods beyond the stern of the minelayer wreck. He extended the upper cage over the basket, lowering it until the plastic wrap cushioned the shield on both sides and he could see only a rim of beaten gold sticking out. It was as secure as he could make it. He heard the rumble of ship’s engines in the water and looked up, seeing nothing but a dark blue haze. Costas edged his Aquapod alongside. ‘Okay, Jack. Do you read me?’

‘Loud and clear. Over.’

‘I’ve just spoken to Macalister. Here’s the drill. That current’s becoming more serious, four, maybe five knots. We’re going to move apart, fifteen metres or so, then rise very slowly up into the current where it takes off about eight metres above us, and let it take us.
Seaquest II
has got us on sonar and they’re going to track us, maintaining position above. Once we rise above the current at about fifty metres’ depth, we’ll assess the situation, but we won’t ascend further until
Seaquest II
is overhead and the divers are in the water. Copy?’

‘Copy that.’ Jack took one last look at the wreck, staring at the rusting hulk of the minelayer over the ancient war galley, seeing that lion prow rising on the edge of the sand channel. He remembered that it was a war grave.
A grave from two wars
. He closed his eyes briefly, whispering the words he had spoken at every shipwreck he had excavated since finding a Viking longship in the ice off Greenland three years before:
Han til Ragnaroks
, ‘Until Ragnaroks’, the Old Norse hymn for passing warriors, that they should meet up again. He had only ever told Rebecca that he did this, and the reason why. His empathy for the past came at a price. He disliked excavating burials because he could feel the emotions of those who had stood by the graveside. And shipwrecks held the emotions of those whose final moments were imprinted here. But now he had said those words. He looked at the finds basket, at that rim of gold, and shook his head with astonishment. He was itching to return.
What else would they find?

‘Jack. I’ve just had Macalister on the com again. He’s had a call from Maurice at Troy.’

‘I read you. Over.’

‘Apparently, it was mostly an attack of coughing. Macalister had a hell of a time making it out.’

‘That sounds promising. Sounds like Maurice has been down his hole again.’

‘Well, wait for it. You and Maurice might
both
be owing James a crate of whisky.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘You’ve found the Shield of Achilles. Kind of. Call it the ghost of the Shield of Achilles. And Maurice, with that palladion thing. It’s not that he’s found it, exactly, but it’s the same kind of thing. A ghost. As you say, that’s Troy for you. Never gives you exactly what you want.’

Jack felt his Aquapod tilt alarmingly, and he quickly pressed the buoyancy control handle to inject compressed air into the forward end of the pontoons, compensating for the extra weight of the finds basket out in front. He felt the submersible level out, and exhaled in relief.

‘Jack. You still with me? Over.’

‘Only just. James nearly lost his crate of whisky from me. The autopilot doesn’t like that weight at the front. I’m ascending on manual. Over.’

‘I never designed these as heavy-lift vehicles. But it’s another problem I can put Jeremy on to.’

‘Just give me a moment.’ Jack held the stick, then feathered the pedals to get as near to level as he could. On manual it was like flying a helicopter, with similar inherent instabilities that needed constant attention. He was having to ascend by bleeding air into the forward chamber in the pontoon, then quickly injecting a blast into the aft chamber to keep the Aquapod from tilting in the other direction, at the same time ensuring that both the port and starboard chambers were balanced. It was taking all of his attention, and his eyes were glued on the gyroscope and depth meter. He glanced out. The sea bed still seemed close, as if they were getting nowhere, but he knew that was an optical illusion, a function of the refraction of light through the Plexiglas that meant that everything outside looked thirty per cent larger. He glanced at the depth gauge. Ninety metres. He had achieved a modicum of stability with the controls. He glanced over and saw Costas in his Aquapod keeping a good distance away, about twenty metres to the north-west and five metres above him. The last thing they wanted was a collision. He pressed the intercom again. ‘Okay. So what’s he found? Over.’

‘He made his way along the tunnel. His team had dug out where the entrance collapsed yesterday and they’d shored it up with timber. Aysha’s arrived, by the way. She banned him from going anywhere near it, but he snuck back by himself over lunchtime.’

‘That’s my man,’ Jack said, eyeing his screen. He had no sense of lateral movement, of their horizontal speed. He looked down and caught his last glimpse of the shipwreck, a black smudge in the gloom far off to the right. Currents were always disconcerting, barely discernible without waymarkers unless you tried to fight against them, but sometimes alarmingly apparent if you veered away from your dive partner in a separate stream. They were rarely uniform, more like a swirl of tendrils weaving around each other, and this one was no exception. At any moment the two Aquapods might be drawn towards each other by forces they could never hope to counter with the water-jet engines. He could see that Costas sensed the danger too and had edged further off, at least thirty metres distant now. Jack looked up, and saw the dark form of
Seaquest II
’s hull above. That was a relief. Macalister was a damned good captain. He remembered Lanowski’s model for the current, suggesting that they should be out of the main flow at about fifty metres’ depth. He glanced at the gauge. Sixty metres. Another ten to go. He tapped the intercom. ‘I’m listening. Over.’

‘Okay. Didn’t want to distract you. So anyway, Maurice goes down the tunnel, and reaches this mass of ancient masonry that’s fallen in such a way that it leaves a passage ahead. He sees those hieroglyphics on the wall. Other inscriptions. Different languages. That linear thing James was on about.’

‘Linear B,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘Fantastic.’

‘He says they’re like dedications. He says it’s like walking into UN Headquarters, as if lots of different countries have put in a plaque.’

Jack felt a lurch, like flying over a thermal in a light aircraft. He remembered Lanowski’s warning that the sea here would be like that, with different water density and temperature caused by the outflow from the Dardanelles, little patches of the Black Sea expelled from the strait that continued outwards into the Aegean, eventually to meld with the more salty Mediterranean. He looked at the gauge. Fifty-one metres. He suddenly lurched again, this time more alarmingly, the back of the Aquapod lifting up, followed by a violent juddering. He saw only a yellow blur in the direction of Costas’ Aquapod. He compensated for the tilt but could do nothing about the juddering. They had reached the top of the fast-moving current and were breaking into the calmer water above. The juddering was caused as they bounced and skidded along the top of the faster current, while being slowed down by the water above. He saw the basket in front of him shaking, and decided to gamble on a big blast into the buoyancy tank. The Aquapod jumped upwards, leaving his stomach somewhere below, and then he was free, coming quickly back to the level. The basket was still there. Costas’ Aquapod appeared close alongside him. ‘Everything okay? Over.’