Countdown - Iris Johansen [146]
“I care about everything connected with Cira. I want to know.”
“And you think I can help you?”
“You were very eager to grab Reilly’s Herculaneum files. You didn’t like it at all when I wouldn’t let you have them.”
“True. Naturally, I was concerned that they might give a clue to where the gold was.”
She shook her head. “You were concerned that there was a ship’s log written by a merchant captain Demonidas among those documents.”
His gaze narrowed on her face. “Was I? Now, why?”
She didn’t answer. “I didn’t realize myself how important that log might be until I read Mario’s translation of Cira’s last letter.”
“You found it?”
She nodded and reached into her pocket. “Would you like to read it?”
“Very much.” He straightened away from the wall and held out his hand. “You know I would.”
She watched him unfold the pages, and she tried to decipher his expression as he read the words that were engraved in her memory.
I need to talk to you of life. Our life. I cannot promise that it will be either easy or safe, but we will be free and answer to no one. That I can promise you. No man crushing us beneath his heel. Achavid is a wild land, but the gold will make it tamer. Gold always soothes and comforts.
Demonidas still has not agreed to take us past Gaul, but I will persuade him. I don’t wish to waste time finding another ship to take us farther. Julius will be on our heels and he will never stop.
Let him look. Let him venture into those rough hills and confront those wild men that the emperor calls savages. He’s not a man who can survive without his fine wines and soft life. He’s not like us. We’ll live and thrive and thumb our noses at Julius.
And if I’m not there to help you, then you must do it yourself. Be bold with Demonidas. He’s greedy and you must never let him know that we’ve hidden the gold among the boxes that we’re taking with us.
By the Gods, I’m telling you how to handle him, yet I hope with all my heart that I’m there to do it for you.
But if I’m not, you will do it. We are one blood. Anything I can do, you will be able to do. I trust in you, my sister.
All my love,
Cira
MacDuff folded the letter and handed it back to her. “So Cira did manage to get the gold out of the tunnel.”
“And put it on a ship captained by Demonidas sailing to Gaul.”
“Perhaps. Often plans go awry, and she wasn’t sure she’d even live through the night.”
“I believe she did. I think she wrote that letter the night the volcano erupted.”
“And your proof?”
“I don’t have proof.” She reached into her pocket. “But I have Reilly’s translation of Demonidas’s log. He refers to a Lady Pia who paid him well to transport her, her child, Leo, and her servants to Gaul and then to southeastern Britannia. They left on the night of the eruption, and he brags about his bravery in the face of calamity. They wanted him to take them on to what he called Caledonia, the place we call Scotland, but he refused. The Roman army was warring with the Caledonian tribes, and Agricola, the Roman governor, was launching ships to attack the northeast coast. Demonidas wanted no part of it. He left Pia and company in Kent and returned to Herculaneum. Or what was left of Herculaneum.”
“Interesting. But it refers to this Lady Pia, not Cira.”
“As you read, Pia must have been Cira’s sister. They were probably separated as children and Cira was too busy surviving to search for her. And when she did find her, she didn’t want to involve her in her battle with Julius and put her in danger.”
“And then Cira died and Pia sailed away with the gold.”
“Or Pia died in the city and Cira took her name and identity to escape Julius. It was the kind of thing she would do.”
“Any mention of the names of the servants who accompanied her?”
“Dominic . . . and Antonio. Cira had a servant, Dominic, a lover, Antonio, and she’d adopted a child, Leo.”
“But wouldn’t her sister have taken care of Cira’s family if Pia was the one who survived?”
“Yes. But, dammit, Cira didn’t die.”
He smiled.