Summary - Post BoS. When The Babington Plot failed in 1587, Mary Queen of Scots left behind a great fortune that was kept safe by such men as Shakespeare, Marlowe and Francis Drake. Our heroes are sought out by an English girl determined to put the treasure into museums and to keep the treasure away from a man bent on keeping it for himself . bad summary I know, but I tried.

My apologies in advance for any mistakes I make regarding how codes work, if I get some historical stuff wrong or misunderstood my research, I've at least tried to make this fic the least bit intellectual. The clues make sense to me… and I also apologize for the Latin, I'm not sure if I translated it right… and the first chapter or so is a bit talky…

"Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you longlegged spinners, hence!
Beetles black approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence."
- William Shakespeare

When asked what event it was that started of this adventure, your heroes, Gates and Poole, might say the seventh of January 2008. However, I know a girl who knows for a fact that what really set the ball rolling happened ten years before…

Yorkshire, December 1997

Melody was an energetic eight year old, wouldn't sit still for five minute. Her parents sometimes joked about putting her in a bull chase 'lets just see who'd win'. One thing you could say about her though is that she loved learning; her teachers found her a joy to teach. They forgave her hyperactivity on account of the enthusiasm and the fact that even though she seemed all over the room, she always had her work finished. Despite her cheery nature though, she had very few friends. Many of the kids in her class didn't get past her strange new accent. The Mizuno family had lived New York for a time and Melody, having learned to talk there had a rather different way of speaking than her classmates.

Melody approached her mother on Christmas Eve, and climbed onto a chair backwards so she was knelt, peering over the back at the mother.

"Mom."

"Melody…"

"Mom, you said that it was gonna be fun living here." Mrs. Mizuno put down her sewing and looked at Melody seriously.

"Are you not happy here, Sweet pea?"

"It's not that… well, this is our first Christmas in England, and… I don't know." Melody bit her lip. "Doesn't matter."

As Mrs. Mizuno watched her small daughter walk away she felt her heart breaking slightly, she had noticed a distinct lack of friends, but she'd hoped that Melody had been at least a little happy. She remembered suddenly of a treasure she had heard of, tucked away somewhere in England. She had told her husband about it on one of their first dates, and he'd laughed, thinking no more of it than a tall tale. But Melody needed something, and she loved to learn…

"Melody, come back here for a minute, I want to talk to you about something." The unmistakable sound of small feet padding quickly to the door was heard and Mrs. Mizuno resisted the urge to laugh as the girl slowed to a saunter.

"Yes?" She asked, appearing slightly nonchalant.

"Come here, I have a story for you." The girl's face was puzzled. "You'll like it, I swear."

She sat down on the floor with cross legs and looked up at her mother. That can't be good for her neck…

"I heard this when I went to University. It's a legend. Have you ever heard about the Babington Plot?" Small pigtails shook. "Well, I'll make this easier, The Tudors, I know I've told you about them."

"Divorced beheaded died, Divorced beheaded survived!" The child chorused. She had to laugh.

"Well, Elizabeth-"

"Anne Boleyn's daughter."

"Yes, Anne Boleyn's daughter-"

"Her mom had eleven fingers."

"Yes, I know, well Eliza-"

"Henry VIII was playing tennis when she had her head chopped off."

"Do you want to hear this?"

"Sorry, Mom."

"Well, there were some people who didn't want Elizabeth on the throne-"

"Because she was protestant."

"Melody… yes, because they wanted a Catholic Queen. Mary Queen of Scots was Catholic and she, with a lot of men, plotted to kill Elizabeth so that Mary could have the throne. One of these men was called Anthony Babington. Now, Elizabeth's men knew about this and so she had another man, called Francis Walsingham, intercept, urm… take the letter, read it, then pass it on to the plotters."

"Why didn't he just arrest them?"

"Because they wanted to find out all the names of the men so they could arrest all of them." A mouth formed a small 'oh'. "These letters were written in code, so Walsingham had to decode them first. I won't go into the theory of decoding things right now. Well, after a while, Walsingham had a P.S. added to one of Mary's letters in the code asking for the names of the conspirators."

"So they caught all the men?"

"Yes, but not because of the letter, Babington got it, but was arrested before he could reply."

"Oh…"

"Now here's the legend. There was a treasure, hidden from view, with which Mary had planned to give to Babington as a reward. It is hidden to this day, somewhere in Britain, and clues have been left behind, by such people as Shakespeare, Mary Queen of Scots, Francis Drake- many of the names of the time. Once the clues are followed they will lead to the location of the treasure."

"No one found it?"

"No one. We have a clue; let me see if I can find it…" Mrs. Mizuno stood up and reached for a folder on the bookcase. She opened the folder and showed her daughter the inside of the cover:

torqueo in tergum Draconis,
rotundus et exquisitus,
abductat ut causa diffidis Titanae

"It's Latin. Now, one day, when you're older, and have learned more about history, Latin, everything, you can ask me for this clue- and I have no doubt you will find the treasure."

"So to find it I have to know more?" The girl smiled and hugged her mother. "I'll find it."

Washington D.C. January 2008

Riley had been finishing another chapter of his second book when he received a phone call from a woman he didn't know. She said she had tracked him down because she had something she believed would be of use to him, and she had requested to meet him in a public place, so he had no worries about being abducted. So here he was, sitting in a pancake house overlooking a busy road. The door jingled and in walked a girl, no more than twenty, with a small satchel slung over her shoulder and a book in her hand. I'll be damned… my book… The girl walked over to his table and opened the book to the back cover-

"Yes, that is me." The girl smiled and held out her hand.

"Melody Mizuno."

"Riley Poole." She laughed and pulled out a notepad.

"Well, I wanted to meet you, first off to ask you about the treasures you found- the Templar Treasure and also… Cibola. It was you and Ben Gates who found them wasn't it?"

"Yes." Riley was puzzled for a moment, hadn't she said she had something for him?

"You had to follow a bunch of clues hidden in the country to find them didn't you?"

"Yes, what does –"

"There is a purpose, I swear. Did you work out the clues?"

"I worked out some of the clues…" The girl seemed to think for a moment before smiling.

"I don't know if you guys have had enough of this, but there's a treasure in England. One that's hidden by clues. I have one here somewhere…" She flipped through the pages of the notebook until she seemed to find what she had been looking for. "It was in Latin to start with, I have the Latin written here and my translation underneath-"

"You know Latin?" He asked as he took the book from her to look.

END OF CHAPTER

A Riley hug to whoever can translate the clue before I post the next Chapter.