The Vivero Letter

Fallen's house was big and cool, set in forty acres of manicured grounds. It was quiet with unobtrusive service, which clicked into action as soon as the master set foot in it. Soft-footed servants were there when you wanted them and absent when not needed and I settled into sybaritic luxury without a qualm.

Fallon's tray had not yet come from New York, much to his annoyance, and he spent a lot of time arguing the archeological toss with Halstead, I was pleased to see that loss of temper was now confined to professional matters and did not take such a personal turn. I think much of that was due to Katherine Halstead, who kept her husband on a tight rein.

The morning after we arrived they were at it hammer and tongs. 'I think old Vivero was a damned liar,' said Halstead.

'Of course he was,' said Fallon crossly. 'But that's not the point at issue here. He says he was taken to Chichen Itza , . .'

'And I say he couldn't have been. The New Empire had fallen apart long before that -- Chichen Itza was abandoned when Hunac Ceel drove out the Itzas. It was a dead city.'

Fallon made an impatient noise. 'Don't look at it from your viewpoint; see it as Vivero saw it. Here was an averagely ignorant Spanish soldier without the benefit of the hindsight we have. He says he was taken to Chichen Itza -- he actually names it, and Chichen Itza is only one of two names he gives in the manuscript. He didn't give a damn whether you think Chichen Itza was occupied -- he was taken there and he said so.' He stopped short. 'Of course, if you are right, it mean? that the Vivero letter is a modern fake, and we're all up the creek.'

'I don't think it's a fake,' said Halstead. 'I just think that Vivero was a congenital liar.'

'I don't think it's a fake, either.' said Fallon. 'I had it authenticated.' He crossed the room and pulled open a drawer 'Here's the report on it.'

He gave it to Halstead, who scanned through it and dropped it on the table. I picked it up and found a lot of tables and graphs, but the meat was on the last page under the heading Conclusions. 'The document appears to be authentic as to period, being early sixteenth-century Spanish. The condition is poor -- the parchment being of poor quality and, perhaps, of faulty manufacture originally. A radio-carbon dating test gives a date of 1534 a.d. with an error of plus or minus fifteen years. The ink shows certain peculiarities of composition but is undoubtedly of the same period as the parchment as demonstrated by radio-carbon testing. An exhaustive linguistic analysis displays no deviation from the norm of the sixteenth century Spanish language. While we refrain from judgement on the content of this document there is no sign from the internal evidence of the manuscript that the document is other than it purports to be.'

I thought of Vivero curing his own animal skins and making his own ink -- it all fitted in. Katherine Halstead stretched out her hand and I gave her the report, then turned my attention back to the argument.

'I think you're wrong, Paul,' Fallon was saying. 'Chichen Itza was never wholly abandoned until much later. It was a religious centre even after the Spaniards arrived. What about the assassination of Ah Dzun Kiu? -- that was in 1536, no less than nine years after Vivero was captured.'

'Who the devil was he?' I asked.

'The chief of the Tutal Kiu. He organized a pilgrimage to Chichen Itza to appease the gods; all the pilgrims were massacred by Nachi Cocom. his arch-enemy. But all that is immaterial -- what matters is that we know when it happened, and that it's consistent with Vivero's claim to have been taken to Chichen Itza -- a claim which Paul disputes.'

'All right, I grant you that one,' said Halstead. 'But there's a lot more about the letter that doesn't add up.'

I left them to their argument and walked over to the window. In the distance light reflected blindingly from the water of a swimming pool. I glanced at Katherine Halstead. I'm no good at this sort of logic chopping,' I said. 'It's beyond me.'

'It's over my head, too,' she admitted. 'I'm not an archeologist: I only know what I've picked up from Paul by a sort of osmosis.'

I looked across at the swimming pool again -- it looked very inviting. 'What about a swim?' I suggested. 'I have some gear I want to test, and I'd like some company.'

She brightened. 'That's a good idea. I'll meet you out there in ten minutes.'

I went up to my room and changed into trunks, then unpacked my scuba gear and took it down to the pool. I had brought it with me because I thought there might be a chance of getting in some swimming in the Caribbean somewhere along the line and I wasn't going to pass up that chance. I had only swum in clear water once before, in the Mediterranean.