Prologue to part III - Father Eduardo Conspiratorez

‘Here lies the darkest mystery known to man, enter thy crypts and be damned!’ (Father Eduardo Conspiratorez)

The Venetian monk 'Father Eduardo Conspiratorez' is a little known figure in history preferring to remain in the shadows rather then hugging the limelight. It was not Venetian merchants but Father Eduardo who first travelled eastwards in the 11th century to:

‘Those sun-baked heathen lands of the Indus plain’

Perhaps it was a heightened sense of religious duty that drew him eastwards beyond the Fertile Crescent where the sun rages fiercely and scowls on those that live under it. Who knows what it is that rages in the hearts of such men, but this much is certain: -

At some point in Father Eduardo's journey, scholars still puzzle over exactly where, but contemporary thinking suggests somewhere north-east of Mohenjodaro (the oldest city in the world), Father Eduardo found something that startled and disturbed his pious countenance. He hastily dispatched a messenger to retrace his footsteps back to Venice with this very message:

‘Here lies the darkest mystery known to man, enter thy crypts and be damned!’

The Venetian monk was never heard of again; fading into history like dust, his scoured bones lying undiscovered under a sun-baked earth. But his name lives on in the English word conspiracy.