seconds of examining it the
others started climbing out, into the room above, and Bryson put it
away in his pocket.
The ring was valuable and could well prove
there was more, and showed they had wealth, which he had known
already by the massive castles and estates, and last treasure they
had found. Yet he could not work out why there would be two
treasures!
As he
climbed out he vaguely wondered how safe the castle structure
itself really was, and if it was safe to be in, as it had been
built by ancient craftsmen with only a basic knowledge. Who would
know if they had only designed it to last a few decades at the
most? Yet if it had stayed up the amount of time that it had it
must be strong enough not to collapse! They could have easily built
it to last! He had only seen castles with no roofs that were
crumbling away, and he had never heard of one such as it falling.
Yet he had heard of parts of modern
structures collapsing!
As they walked
along the corridor Bryson noticed some signs of value in paintings,
and took photos of them. There could even be a connection between
something in them and the clue!
Chapter 21
The Discovery
What Bryson was
surprised at was how easily and firmly they had identified where
the mark on the map was in the castle, and he had not even
considered that it had been when they had arrived there!
The man who
had found the mark on the map seemed to be the best at it, and they
all looked at the rooms there.
As Bryson
examined the best places to look he remembered the plan of the
castle and removed it, and he started trying to see what the mark
was at, and he suddenly noticed the man that had found the mark and
Mitchell were measuring the floor in the corridor, outside the
rooms, and he wondered what they were thinking.
The map looked
different in the light from outside at a window, and he saw things
that had not been recognizable before and it slightly surprised
him, as he had expected it to have dulled lines and blemishes,
especially because of its already bad condition and ancient
age.
Bryson glared,
partially blinded by a sudden illumination from the sun, and its
powerful glare from the snow. Then when it decreased he saw more
detail and faint lines that had faded and that had not been visible
before, and he wondered if the others had seen stuff that he had
not seen there, and why they never bothered asking to see it
again?
He studied
things on it astonished at missing them and saw where the exact
location of the small cross mark was marked at the castle, even
though it was so faint that he could easily have taken it to be a
badly drawn mark or correction rubbed away.
Yet
though he knew that it was something its size was not big – it
looked too small to be significant – and it was not just a bad
drawing as it had been carefully drawn there! And he considered why the person had gone to
such lengths to draw it so well into the sketch, and wondered how
the man in his tomb had died and what the person had been like, and
why he had been buried there?
Bryson stood
up and joined Mitchell and some of his men measuring the room, who
took it that he knew what they knew.
Bryson
gradually realized what he had missed and that there was a large
distance between a room wall and the wall in the room next to it,
and when he knocked the wall it did not sound as solid, and it was
not as solid as the stone walls in the other rooms.
He was sure a
small chamber existed there, and wondered why it had been hidden
away, and why they had been so secretive and had marked it on an
old map?
Nonetheless,
how could they check it? Where could the entrance to it be? It
could be sealed, but there could be a way to climb into it!
Bryson
considered it for a moment and realized that was what Mitchell was
considering, and he wondered if he would knock a hole in the wall
of the room where the map cross had been marked? Their faces still
some showed puzzlement, indicating that he had a
Christopher Beha
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L.J. Sellers
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