Page 27 of In Just a Year
“What do you mean?”
“You solved the clue for the hidden treasure?”
“Not yet.” Ben shook his head, frustrated with his lack of progress. He’d already have found whatever lay hidden if it was that easy. “The background shows the palace or at least the old version of it. I saw the embroidered picture in the dining room of what it used to look like and it matches this.” He showed Greg his drawing of the background layer of the medallion.
Greg nodded. “And the leaves and lotus flowers show the gardens. There have always been beautiful gardens here.” He considered the second sketch for a moment. “Are these the same leaves as in the garden?”
“I don’t know. But Durga is the symbol for the East India Company, albeit one the locals wouldn’t like. Perhaps Izaac tried to convey the way the locals saw the power of the East India Company—that it could create but also destroy. It was too big to resist or control, like the deity Durga.”
“Is that why the lion looks so fierce?”
“He’s a lion, how else would he look? It’s a warning that the journey here is dangerous.”
“So, what haven’t you figured out yet? This all seems like a brilliant revelation to me.” Greg’s skepticism had turned into appreciation.
Ben handed Greg the magnifying glass he’d used for the gem grading. “Look at her crown, the armor, and the lion’s embellishments.”
Greg leaned in and kept silent for a moment.
Then he gasped. “It’s the same pattern!”
“Right. And it repeats itself in the inner circle of the frame.” Ben pointed at the intricate beads that lined the patterns of the carved frame. “I tried to draw the pattern and it’s repetitive.”
“Like links?”
“More like a row of symbols. And they lead to this.” Ben handed Greg a wrinkled paper. “This is what it looks like isolated from the rest of the medallion.”
“How did you think to extract the layers of the relief?”
“The Dreidel of Destiny is a stamp or a mold to make a medallion. Any jeweler knows that to make such a stamp you have to work with the layers. Each needs to be polished in a different direction so the slight differences in thickness of the medallion are amplified by variations in the sheen.”
Greg squinted. He didn’t seem convinced. “Certainly. Any jeweler who worked like Izaac Pearler, perhaps?”
“Yes, and my father.” Pavel Klonimus and Izaac Pearler had been masters of the craft, and Pavel had made sure each of his sons mastered at least as much as he did. That’s what made them first rate jewelers—tradition and talent.
“Aha!” Greg picked up the other drawing and compared the decoded frame with the image of the coin. He tilted his head sideways and then grinned. “Except that you missed a point.”
“From the symbols?”
“No, look here…”
CHAPTER12
Greg’s eyes sparkled with quiet enthusiasm. “The medallion from the Dreidel of Destiny sent you to India, to this palace, and the symbols tell you where Izaac Pearler hid whatever it is that you are supposed to find.”
Ben folded his hands over the open ledger. “So you agree there’s more in this medallion?”
Greg took the tray of gem roughs and sorted them by size.
“That makes no sense. You’re putting them in the wrong order.” Ben pulled the tray across the small table to himself. “These are rubies, these are sapphires, and this big one is just a spinel.”
“It’s red, how do you know it’s not a ruby, too?”
“The spinels are all the same shape, octahedrons,” Ben said as if it were obvious. He forgot that not everyone had a geometry education and jeweler training, like him and his brothers. “Diamonds have similar rough shapes, as do gold and silver.”
“So, the spinels from our mines here could be mistaken as rubies?”
Ben frowned gravely. “They shouldn’t. The inclusions in a ruby look like tiny needles called ‘silk.’ Spinels have different inclusions even though the ones I’ve cut from the mine here barely had any.”
