Epilogue: Water and Stone

Frank

Joe, Nancy, Callie, and I were sitting on the banks of a small river in the United Kingdom called the Godfrey. It was a little over a month since our adventure with the Kelting/Miller crew. A team of archaeologists was excavating the ruins of a tower that had once stood alongside it but was now mostly tumbled down. They expected to find the "treasure" at any time, and had invited the four of us to come and be present when they did, out of consideration for the help we had given them in learning its location.

"Any new mysteries come your way since that last one?" Joe asked Nancy.

"What do you think?" she replied. "Still, I had to take time out for this. I couldn't miss it."

"Frank, you've been holding out on us for ages about how you figured out where the treasure was," Callie said to me. "How did you know?"

"Yeah, come on, Frank," Joe added. "You haven't even told me, your own brother."

"Okay," I said. "I was saving it for now. Geoffrey Kelting had done most of the legwork in researching the so-called treasure, with a generous amount of help from Evan Sinclair. Craig and Dalton Miller, with the help of Kelting's backstabbing nephew Bryan, stole most of Kelting's information. They took credit for it themselves, but I don't think they really did too much."

"We've already got that part figured out," Joe told me. "Let's cut to the stuff we don't know."

I grinned. I always enjoy telling a story that Joe is impatient to hear the end of. Maybe I'm a little malicious, but that always makes me want to draw it out even longer. Today, though, I decided to humor him and just tell the story.

"From the clues in the illuminated manuscript, Kelting realized that the treasure was somehow tied to a mural painted on the wall of the same monastery where the manuscript was made. Even though the monastery, along with the mural, were destroyed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, he managed to find a copy.

"However, there were two clues that Kelting couldn't make heads nor tails of – 'hooves of the charger' and 'water and stone'. There were also two that he hadn't found yet – 'where snakes roam' and 'sword of the king'. When the Millers let me have a look at the copy of the mural, I realized that three of those things – horse hooves, snakes, and a king's sword – were all in the painting and all seemed to be pointing in one direction or another. If you draw lines through each of those objects in the direction they're pointing, they intersect over one of the English soldiers."

"Yeah, we know all of that, too," Joe interrupted.

"Well, that got me thinking," I continued. "The soldier must be an important clue. I already guessed at that point that the 'treasure' was hidden near a body of water that was named after that soldier. Finding out his identity was the trick. I did some research and learned that the Godfrey River was named after one of the Englishmen who were killed in the Battle of Hastings, and that a decrepit stone tower stood on its banks. 'Water and stone.' You see?"

"Makes sense," Nancy said. "There's just one thing I don't understand. Why do you keep talking like the treasure isn't real?"

"Oh, I'm sure it's real," I replied. "I just have a hunch that the Millers and the Keltings would have been pretty disappointed if they had actually found it."

Before the others could ask me what I meant, Dr. Devon, the head archaeologist on the expedition called us over.

"We think we're about to uncover it," he explained.

The archaeologists were carefully brushing off dirt from a large, rectangular object. As they worked, it became clear that what they were uncovering was a tomb. There was an inscription on it, which Dr. Devon looked at closely.

"This is the tomb of Godfrey himself," he said excitedly.

"That's it?" Callie asked, sounding disappointed. "That's the treasure?"

"It was to the person who made the illuminated manuscript and painted the mural," I told her.

"How did you know?" Joe asked.

"I learned that Godfrey was a very pious man who gave generously to the Monastery of Saint John, where the creator of the manuscript lived," I explained. "He was practically considered a saint himself. After the Battle of Hastings, the Norman invaders left the bodies of the English who were killed on the battlefield. The monks must have secretly buried Godfrey here, but thinking that his body ought to eventually be honored as a relic, they set up all the clues so that Godfrey would eventually be found."

"I think you're right, Frank," Dr. Devon said. "Their 'treasure' might not be worth much monetarily, but it was worth a great deal in other ways to the monks. Even today, it's a great archaeological find."

"Well," Callie said a little later as we were walking toward our rental car, "I guess that was pretty cool, even if it wasn't gold and silver and jewels."

"Do you still like the feel of a solved mystery?" Nancy asked.

Callie smiled and nodded. "Yeah. In fact, next time we have a date, Frank, and someone interrupts us to offer you a mystery, I want in on it."

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read The Ancient Pages. I would especially like to thank everyone who has left reviews for this story: Cherylann Rivers, max2013, Jilsen, ulstergirl, Torchwood Cardiff, and guest reviewers.