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The first—Man of Histria, thirteen by tradition—likely referred to Histria, the Latin name for Istria, a peninsula between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner in the Adriatic Sea.
The second—House of Lazarus at Nazareth—could have hundreds of meanings. The name Lazarus was mentioned twice in the Bible, once as the man Jesus raised from the dead, the other in the parable of Lazarus the Beggar. Nazareth, of course, was the childhood home of Christ.
The third—Son of Morpeth, Keeper of Leuce—was also too broad to nail down. Morpeth was a town in northeast England, and in Greek mythology Leuce was a nymph, the daughter of Oceanus.
The fourth—Together they rest—was the most ambiguous of all. Who were “they”? Did “rest” mean sleep or death, or something else altogether?
“Think about the last riddle,” Sam suggested. “Napoleon and Laurent used a similar line—the ‘Genius of Ionia’ to reference Pythagorus. Maybe they’re doing that here. We know the third line probably contains a place-name—Morpeth. Let’s find out if Morpeth was home to any famous residents.”
Remi shrugged. “Worth a try.”
An hour later they had a list of a dozen semiprominent Morpeth “sons.” None of them were immediately recognizable.
Remi said, “Let’s cross-reference, see if there’s a connection between any of the Morpeth names and the word ‘Leuce.’ Are any of them experts in Greek mythology?”
Sam checked the list. “Doesn’t look like it. What else do we know about Leuce?”
Remi paged through her legal pad. “She was carried off by Hades, the god of the underworld. Depending on which version you go with, upon her death she was transformed into a poplar tree, either by Hades or by Persephone.”
“Poplar tree . . . ” Sam murmured, tapping on the keyboard. “The Leuce is a type of poplar.” He checked his list of Morpeth names. “This might be something: William Turner, born in Morpeth in 1508. Considered by many to be the father of English botany.”
“Interesting. So is the line about Turner himself, or about poplar trees?”
“No idea. What’s the last part . . . ‘the land that stands alone.’ ”
“My first thought would be island—they stand alone in the middle of water.”
“My thought, too.” Sam’s Google search of “island,” “poplar,” and “Turner” turned up no revelations. “There’re several references to a Poplar Island wildlife refuge in the Chesapeake Bay, but there’s no connection to Turner—unless you count Tina Turner donating some money to the refuge, that is.”
“Let’s try the first line again—‘Man of Histria, thirteen by tradition.’ ”
As they had with Morpeth, they generated a list of historical figures associated with the Istrian Peninsula, but like Morpeth, none of them were historically noteworthy.
They turned to the second line—House of Lazarus at Nazareth—and dug deeper, looking for more obscure references. “How about this?” Remi said, reading from the MacBook’s screen. “During the Middle Ages, Christian religious orders used to oversee leper colonies known as Lazar houses.”
“As in Lazarus, the patron saint of lepers?” Sam asked.
“Right. In Italy, the term ‘Lazar’ morphed into ‘lazaret,’ a quarantine station for ships and crews. The first recorded lazaret was established in 1403 off the coast of Venice, on the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth.” She looked up at Sam. “That could be our Lazarus and Nazareth connection.”
“We’re getting warmer, but it can’t be that easy,” he said. “We’re still missing the first line.”
He did another Google search, combining and subtracting words until he came across a 2007 National Geographic story describing t
he discovery of a mass grave for bubonic plague victims who had been quarantined to protect Venice’s uninfected.
Sam said, “The site was on an island in the Venice Lagoon called Lazzaretto Vecchio.”
Remi flipped through her notes. “Vecchio . . . that’s the modern name for Santa Maria di Nazareth. Sam, that’s got to be it.”
“Probably, but let’s be sure.”
Twenty minutes and dozens of search permutations later, he said, “Okay, here. I used the words ‘island,’ ‘Venice,’ and ‘plague’ and came up with this: Poveglia. It’s another island in the Venice Lagoon, used to quarantine plague victims during the seventeenth century. The bodies were buried in mass pits, sometimes the living mixed in with the dead, or cremated in mass pyres. Estimates put the number of dead between . . .” He paused and his eyes went wide.
“What?” Remi asked.
“Estimates put the number of dead between a hundred sixty thousand and a quarter million.”
“Good Lord.”