The Hermaphrodite's Curse Ch. 24

PART FOUR - BODRUM

- 2 -

After the grand international museums that Gabe and Saphy's mysteries had taken them to in London and Paris, the Halicarnassus Mausoleum Museum seemed inordinately small. In reality it was just a few rooms with what little statuary could be salvaged from the rubble outside and had not been taken away to somewhere like London's British Museum, along with lots of information and reconstructive images of what the Mausoleum may once have looked like. In all, they were able to look around the whole museum in about half an hour.

"'When the crusading knights built the Castle, they took stone from the Mausoleum ruins to fortify it,'" Saphy read in one of the displays, happy to note that this Turkish museum was more willing to write explanations in English than the museums in England were to use any other languages, "'In 1522, further fortifications at the Castle came as a result of a rumoured invasion from the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The Crusaders broke up what remained of the tomb and built it into their walls. The Mausoleum's polished marble can still be seen today in the Castle towers.'"

"So, I guess if there's anything for the stones to tell us, then maybe we shouldn't be looking in the ruins here," Gabe suggested.

"Right, there's actually more parts of the Mausoleum at the Castle than there is here," she confirmed, "So that's where we're headed."

They walked back down towards the sea through Bodrum town, heading for the obvious focal point of the historic settlement. For a building some of which was over five hundred years old, Bodrum Castle remains remarkably in tact and unchanged and, as the two amateur mystery solvers arrived at the curve of the high grey curtain wall and looked up at the imposing perfect battlements and crenellations, they could well imagine what stern defensive deterrent the fort offered for any mediaeval warrior foolish enough to lay siege to it.

They walked in through one of the many gates in this outer wall and were confronted by the interior of the castle, still almost as well preserved as it appeared from the outside. Red and white crosses were still visible in the glass of the windows, cannons still stood in their places along the ramparts, pointing out to sea. A number of square grey towers stood around the castle site, seemingly arranged in an almost random assembly, some much closer and at different angles to the others. Each tower was designed in a slightly different style. Around the walls, the carved designs, coats of arms and relief images, were still clearly outlined. Amongst all of this, the marble of the former Mausoleum was obvious, its images of centaurs and amazons now forming part of the Castle's decorations.

They approached one of the towers. It was about three storeys high and featured a simple set of carved designs part way up. Close to the top of the tower, they could see the long reclining figure of a white lion beneath another coat of arms. However, their attention was distracted by another carving, closer to the ground, something disturbingly familiar. It was a cross, with the four points narrow at the centre and growing wider at the ends like inverted triangle shapes. It was a symbol that Gabe had seen on the robes of the men that had captured and locked him up in Cambridge, the ones who had ties to the creepy hissing voiced bald assassins, the ones who had been responsible for the death of Professor Cavendish.

"Look," Saphy pointed, "Recognise that?"

"All too well," Gabe agreed, "But what does it mean?"

"It's a Maltese cross," came the interjection of another voice, a precise, pronounced accent speaking clipped if perfect English, "Symbol of the Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller."

They turned in surprise to see the figure standing beside them, dressed in casual slacks and a polo neck shirt, the sun glinting off his high forehead with beads of sweat on his thinning grey hair. His eyes studied them with a close scrutiny, as if he was equally surprised to see them in front of him and was trying to figure out quite how they had got there. It was Dr. Raymond Gerard, the classics professor from Pembroke College, Cambridge.

"Dr. Gerard?" said Gabe with an expression of confusion on his face, "Aren't you supposed to be in England? What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Herrison, I might ask you the same question, but I assume you are here for the same reason as myself and through following the same line of reasoning," he said, his eyes looking piercingly into Gabe's, "After you came to my office with your wild ideas about Robert and the Fountain of Salmacis, I was inspired to look a little closer into my colleague's research. I think that he may have been close to finding something when his unfortunate disappearance occurred. I have followed the clues that he left here in the hope of finishing his work."

"You mean, you believe there is a fountain to discover?"

"Do not misunderstand me, Mr. Herrison, I do not mean to suggest that I believe in magic or the supernatural transformative abilities of legend. However, if Robert has some evidence of a real find of classical historic significance, I would like to discover it. His research suggests that he uncovered some clues in the 17th century Hermaphroditus statue that led him here. It was a version of that same statue that you were so interested in, the one you talked to Jane Cavendish about."

"Well, isn't that just great?" Saphy interjected, a note of aggressive sarcasm in her voice, "We're all here now on the same little quest. How about we help each other out?"

"Miss Cross, I don't believe we've been properly acquainted with one another," Dr. Gerard gave her his hand to shake, with Saphy took after a few seconds' consideration, "I have heard great things about you from Jane. What tragic circumstances for the college to lose one of its great unconventional thinkers. I had a lot of respect for Jane even though her ideas were sometimes a little unusual."

"She was a brilliant mind, a true inspiration, something I'm sure you could have gained from her if you'd given her the chance," Saphy pouted aggressively, "Anyway, let's try not to dwell on it. In the absence of your infinitely more useful colleague, I guess we're going to ask for your help once more. What does the cross mean?"

"Like I said, it was the symbol of the Knights Hospitaller, the order of Crusader knights that first built the Castle here at Bodrum" he explained, "It was designed so each edge of the cross has two points, making eight in total, representing the eight tongues of the Order."

"Tongues?" asked Gabe, confused.

"Like provinces in other orders," Dr. Gerard went on, "The tongues of the Hospitallers were the subgroups of the Order, representing the various Grand Priories of the different geographical regions of the Hospitaller Order, Provence, Auvergne, France, Aragon, Castile, Italy, England and Germany. The eight towers of the castle here also represent the eight tongues. Each tongue was responsible for their own tower, and the defence and maintenance of the castle area around it, hence the differing architectural styles and symbols. The Lion Tower here is the tower of the English tongue. The tallest one over there is the French as the Order was always most powerful in France."

"And this Order, were they knights or priests?" Gabe asked, "I don't really understand."

"The Hospitallers were a monastic order," Dr. Gerard explained, "They were responsible for the hospital in Jerusalem that was built for the Christian pilgrims in mediaeval times. However, the pilgrimage proved a dangerous journey for the pilgrims so the monks of the Hospitaller Order soon provided an armed escort."

"So the monks became an army?"

"Exactly, an army of God, separate from any country or government. They won many great victories for the Christian world against the Muslim armies during the Crusades and this made them grow rich and powerful. They were not just independent from any government by then, they wielded more power than many governments."

"How much power?"

"You've heard of the Knights Templar, right?" Dr. Gerard asked and Gabe remembered hearing that name in connection with various conspiracies and legends, "They were the other major Order of monastic knights. The incredible power and wealth that they held has caused many to speculate that they had access to all kinds of ancient secrets. They were so powerful that in the 1300s the King of France and the Pope had their leaders arrested and executed and the Order shut down. Who were the main people to benefit from this? The Hospitallers. Most of their property and thus much of their wealth ended up in the hands of the Hospitallers, who were now the uncontested power of knightly orders, even though their original purpose had long since ended with the 12th century fall of Jerusalem.

"Despite that fact, they just grew more powerful and richer throughout the middle ages. They controlled much of the Mediterranean from their base in Rhodes and were able to expand outwards, building numerous castles like this one to safeguard their position of importance."

"So, what happened to them?"

"Like anybody who rises to a position of power and authority, like the Templars before them, the Hospitallers attracted greedy eyes determined to usurp their role. The powerful Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to them in Rhodes and defeated them. That was when they left this castle. This was the end of the Hospitallers position as the great power in the region, but their wealth was still enough that they were able to occupy the island of Malta where they settled afterwards. Now, they became less a religious crusading order and more a group of mercenaries, serving in foreign navies and defending sailors against piracy in exchange for great sums of money.

"Many feel that the Hospitallers lost their way in this time, failing to react to the growing power of Islam and the Catholic church's struggle with the increase in Protestantism, they were no longer an Order devoted to fighting for the holy against the immoral, they were now solely concerned with making money. When Napoleon took Malta, the Order ceased to exist in any real sense."

"So, the Order no longer exists?" Gabe asked, knowing that, whatever Dr. Gerard said, their power was perhaps not so completely in the past as he had heard, he knew from seeing that cross once more that in some way this Order of mediaeval warrior monks still asserted an influence on events today.

"In some sense it does, yes," Dr. Gerard replied, "The Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the modern day claim descent from the Knights Hospitaller and their original mission. They offer aid and assistance to the sick and diseased and victims of natural disasters. However, there are those who feel that the Order of Malta's offer of aid to all regardless of race or religion contradicts the Hospitaller origin as a Christian crusading Order. The lack of authenticity in the Order of Malta did bring on a few mimic Orders claiming to represent the true will of the Hospitallers in the 20th century. Who knows? Maybe some of these continue to operate."

"Well, that's all very interesting," Saphy, usually the one most keen on getting an impromptu history lesson, was now operating almost entirely with abrasive sarcasm, "But what has that possibly got to do with the Fountain of Salmacis, apart from the chance of the Hospitallers happening to build their Castle in roughly the same place as Salmacis might have been?"

"Oh it's a much more significant choice of location than that," Dr. Gerard responded, "Robert theorised that the Fountain of Salmacis was the whole reason for the Hospitallers to have chosen this spot for their Castle; that this Castle was, in actual fact, built to defend that secret rather than for strategic purposes. The power of Salmacis could prove a valuable secret for any army in time of war. Just imagine it, the ability to transform the enemies' greatest, strongest warriors into weak and feeble women."

"Yeah, 'cause women can't possibly handle themselves in a fight," Saphy chipped in snarkily.

"Robert suggested that in 1522, when Suleiman the Magnificent was about to seize control of the Hospitaller lands, they destroyed the remaining ruins of the Mausoleum not to fortify the Castle further, but rather to destroy any evidence of Salmacis' existence."

"Surely if the Hospitallers used magical feminising transformations against their enemies, then history would record something that bizarre," Saphy added.

"As I already mentioned on more than one occasion, there is no such thing as such a magical transformation," Dr. Gerard finally seemed to become a little irritated by Saphy's snide interjections, "The Hospitallers may have believed in the power, but they were more concerned about guarding it lest it come into the wrong hands, than in using it themselves."

"So, if they destroyed all evidence of Salmacis' location five hundred years ago, what is it that you hope to find here?" Gabe asked.

"The Hospitallers were determined such secrets should not be lost completely," Dr. Gerard explained, "They made sure that by following the right path people could discover them. Robert felt that, in destroying the Mausoleum ruins, the Hospitallers hid their secret in the marble built into these towers here."

"Well, that's just what we were looking for anyway," Saphy replied, "But if you want to join in and lend a hand, then you're welcome to."