The Last Scion

by Richard Reed

  It was nearly dusk, and he should have been back by now for his usual pre-dinner pastis. He had probably dozed off in front of the fire; too much of her herbal liqueur, no doubt. It wouldn’t be the first time he had nodded off in the afternoon with a few glasses inside him, but she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy.

  Another half-hour passed, and Marie could wait no longer. Bérenger didn’t like to be disturbed, and he could be an impatient man, but it was now well past the hour when they would eat. She put on a thick woollen shawl over her black dress to guard against the cruel wind that whipped around the village in winter and went out of the presbytery. She stumbled as a fierce gust caught her unawares, and pulling the shawl closer around her, bent her head and walked purposefully across to La Tour.

  She was still some yards away when she noticed the porch door banging in the wind, and knew instantly that something was wrong. She hurried forward as best she could against the strong gusts, and reached the porch to see Bérenger’s body lying in a heap just inside the door. She put her hand to her mouth with a little gasp of dismay, and crossing herself, stooped down beside her beloved priest. Almost hesitatingly, fearful of the worst, she reached out her hand and touched him on the face. He was cold and clammy, but perhaps there was still some life there. She picked up his hand and felt at his wrist: there was a pulse; feeble, but a pulse nonetheless.

  She grasped him by the shoulders and desperately tried to drag the big man back into the library where the fire was still flickering, but it was a hopeless task for the petite housemaid. She put her hands to her face once more, desperately fighting back the tears. What could she do? She must get help. She stood up and went into the study, where she found the blanket Bérenger put over his knees on a cold winter’s day. She draped it over his body, then shutting the door behind her, hurried across the presbytery gardens into the village.

  “Jacques, Jacques!” Marie shouted hoarsely as she rushed in through the back door of the boulangerie. The baker’s wife was clearing the table after supper, and looked up startled as Marie stumbled breathlessly into the room. “Annette – where’s Jacques? He must come quickly; the curé’s had a seizure. He’s lying in the porch of La Tour – the door was wide open, and he’s frozen half to death. I can’t move him – please, please, get Jacques to come straight away.”

  The startled Annette collected her senses. “He’s next door, making the dough. Sit yourself down and I’ll get him. Don’t worry, Marie, I’m sure he’ll be all right.” She went out of the room and returned a few moments later with her husband. Marie grasped him by the hands agitatedly. “Please, Jacques, you must help me – it’s the curé…”

  “I know, Marie, Annette told me. He turned to don his thick winter coat. “Venez! We’ll grab Jean-Luc on the way. The curé is no featherweight – it’ll take two of us to shift him.”

  With the wind now at their back, it took only a few minutes for the three of them to reach the tower, where the priest still lay stretched out under the blanket, his face a horrible shade of pale.

  “Mon dieu – he looks in a bad way,” muttered Jean-Luc, the village odd-job man, crossing himself. “Perhaps we should put him in front of the fire for a while,” he said, nodding in the direction of the open door to library, from where the warmth of the fire could still just be felt. It had probably kept Saunière alive.

  “No, no!” protested Marie. “We must get him to the presbytery. I cannot care for him here! He needs to be in bed.”

  “She’s right, Jean-Luc,” said Jacques. “Let’s get him to his bed – and then someone had better get down to Rennes-les-Bains and fetch Dr Courrent.”

  For more than 36 hours, Saunière lay in a coma, teetering on the threshold of life and death. Then, finally, on the third day, the ministrations of Marie and Dr Courrent began to bear fruit, and the priest stirred into consciousness.

  “Bérenger, Bérenger – I’ve been so worried.” Marie reached across and stroked his face gently. She had rarely left his bedside since they had brought him back, except to refresh the warming pan with coals from stove.

  “We found you on the floor in the porch of La Tour! The doctor says you’ve had a seizure – you were almost frozen to death. Were you heading back for supper? What happened, chérie – can you remember anything?”

  The room slowly came into focus and Saunière saw the terror in Marie’s eyes. He forced his face into smile to reassure her. This was the woman he had loved for 30 years; the woman who, despite his calling, had become his most intimate companion, and partner in everything he did. He could not bear to see her so distraught.

  He struggled to move his lips, but could only mumble incoherently. His mind was clear, though. He knew he would not be long for this world – but Marie? As the memories flooded back, his mind raced. What would become of his beloved Marie? She knew too much… they had done everything together. Would the Hapsburgs stoop to killing her, too? Perhaps not; the man had not threatened him straight away – and to kill a woman… They could not… they would not – surely. Nonetheless, it would pay to be prudent. He couldn’t risk the truth getting out now, not in Marie’s lifetime; they must destroy the evidence. And as for the future… well, he would be leaving a few clues, just as his predecessor Boudet had done. Saunière gave a wry smile.

  Over the course of the next day, village gossip ran wild as the diminutive figure of Marie Dénarnaud was seen tending a small bonfire of papers outside the curé’s ground-floor bedroom, from where he could keep an eye on proceedings. But what was she burning – and why? Were these secrets that Saunière would take to his grave, or did Marie know, too?

  Finally, on Sunday, January 21, 1917, Saunière sent for a fellow priest to hear his last confession. When Abbé Rivière of Espéraza arrived, however, the tongues began to wag even more. Here was a priest whom Saunière was known to dislike – and the feeling was apparently mutual. Yet he had called on him to perform the final sacrament. What was going on in the poor man’s mind?

  Marie ushered Rivière into his colleague’s bedroom. “Saunière! I’m sorry to see you this way.” Rivière fiddled awkwardly with his cassock.

  “I am dying, Rivière,” said Saunière hoarsely. “I would be confessed.”

  “Nonsense – I’m sure you will be well again soon, Bérenger…”

  “Don’t waste your breath, Rivière! Death is stalking me, and you know it. Now will you confess me, and give me the final sacrament?”

  “Of course, if that is your wish,” he replied curtly.

  “Then sit, and let me talk. This may take a while.”

  An hour passed before the door to the bedroom was flung open, and Abbé Rivière emerged, pale and shaken. “This cannot be,” he shouted hoarsely in rage, slamming the door behind him.

  “Monsieur l’Abbé, what is it?” said Marie, jumping up from her chair by the stove.

  “That man – he is the Devil himself! I will not give him the sacrament, I will not!” He stood in front of her, visibly agitated. Then a sudden realisation dawned. “Did you know this, Marie – did you know this… this… blasphemy?” he exploded.

  “Blasphemy?” she queried. But her voice was too measured.

  “You know! You’re in on this, too.”

  “It is what it is,” she said obliquely. “We cannot pick and choose the truth.”

  “You’re as bad as Saunière,” snapped the Abbé, snatching his cloak from the stand. “I’ll not stay in this Devil’s house a moment longer.”

  A small crowd of villagers had gathered close to the presbytery, partly out of loyalty to the dying curé, partly out of curiosity. As Abbé Rivière stormed out of the building, a murmur went up. The Abbé’s face was white, and he was visibly shaken.

  “Is the Abbé dead?” asked one villager, as the priest pushed his way through them.

  “He is not, madame, but he might as well be,” said Riviére, tightly. He said no more, but climbing into his trap, signalled the coachman to start on his way.

&nb
sp; Chapter 6

  For several days, bruising and swelling to her brain left Rachel’s life hanging in the balance. The doctors fought hard for her, inducing a coma to minimise brain injury, while her mother, brother and Jon took turns keeping a vigil at her bedside. They talked to her, holding her hand and chatting as if she were still listening to them – which the doctors told them was theoretically possible.

  It was the visits from her daughter, however, which seemed to help her turn the corner for, and as the doctors eased back on the sedation, it was Emma’s face she had seen first through drug-hazed, half-closed eyes.

  The consultant later admitted she had been concerned about the possibility of long-term brain damage – particularly short-term memory impairment – but it was soon obvious that Rachel’s mental acuity was unaffected. “You’re one lucky girl,” the doctor had told her. “I have to admit, I didn’t rate your chances of making any kind of recovery very highly, let along a full return of all your mental faculties in such a short space of time. You’re obviously made of stern stuff.”

  It had taken four weeks in hospital and a month of recuperation at home before Rachel was well enough to consider returning to France. She had stayed at her mother’s house at first, still in need of practical help, but after a couple of weeks with her mother endlessly fussing around her, she succumbed to Jon’s entreaties to stay with him for a few days. Since he was looking after Emma to ease the load on her mother, it had given Rachel the chance to spend some time with her daughter.

  Jon had never been far from her side throughout her stay in hospital, and while before the accident he had been hinting at a reconciliation, he now put the idea firmly on the table shortly before she was discharged. If truth be told, in her vulnerable state, the possibility of ‘turning back the clock’ on their relationship had its appeal.

  However, just a few days of enduring Jon’s pompous, arrogant preaching was enough to remind her why she had left him in the first place. OK, she was being a bitch. Jon was concerned; he had been there in her hour of need. But his self-centred attitude to life was goddamned annoying, and as a couple they were completely incompatible. There could be no going back.

  Of the driver who so nearly cut short her life, there was no sign. “I’m afraid we get so many hit-and-runs these days,” the police officer had told her while she was recovering in hospital. “Unless we get a definite ‘plate’, it’s hard to track them down – and even then, half the time the car’s been stolen. By the time we find it, the culprit’s long gone.”

  Because of her fractured skull, Rachel was under strict instructions not to go back to work for at least four weeks, and to take extreme care in everything she did. For a woman as active as Rachel, it was a frustrating time. The dig was continuing without her under David Tranter, and National Geographic had been sympathetic about her plight. The TV schedule was pushed back a month to October, and since the dig was progressing more slowly than expected, they were quite relaxed about the situation. Of course, as a freelance she wasn’t getting sick pay – but that was the least of her worries.

  Then in April, just a few days before she was due to fly back to the Languedoc, Rachel received the news she had been dreading.

  “Hey babe, how are you doing?” David Tranter’s cheery voice immediately brought a smile to her face and lifted the gloom of being virtually housebound for the past month.

  “I’m good, thanks, David. Champing at the bit to get back out there – going out of my mind with boredom stuck here while you’re having all the fun.”

  “Well, there’s not too much excitement going on here at the moment, just lots of cataloguing and other boring stuff – you know what it’s like. The big excitement was finding the entrance to the crypt when no-one was even sure it existed – you were here for that…” His voice trailed off.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  Rachel’s heart sank. “Like what?”

  “We’ve had a bit of a setback. It seems the Church is getting a bit funny about letting us into the crypt.”

  “Well that’s hardly a surprise – we’re only digging outside the church because they wouldn’t let us examine the interior. We’ll bluff them. That was always the plan – they can’t turn us down with the whole world watching.”

  “I know. But it seems that having failed to stop us digging outside, they’re determined not to let us into the crypt – at least, not without going in there first themselves.”

  “But that’s outrageous – we’ve done all the hard work, now they want to go and steal our thunder!”

  “Actually, you’ve inadvertently hit on my biggest fear – that they might literally steal, or at least try to cover up, any evidence they find. Anyway, I’ve set up a meeting with them next week, so we can discuss a plan of action when you get over here.”

  Chapter 7

  Rachel wriggled uncomfortably on the hard, stony ground. Beads of moisture clung to the inside of the tent wall over her head as the pounding rain permeated the canvas, swelling slowly before bursting and dropping onto her damp sleeping bag.

  The forecasters had predicted glorious sunshine for the Languedoc; the gods, it seemed, had other ideas. A brilliant shaft of lightning lit up the sky, followed seconds later by a deafening peal of thunder. Rachel started to feel a little nervous.

  She had only been back for two days – now this. It was not supposed to be how things turned out. With the dig running behind schedule, the tourist season at Rennes-le-Château was now in full swing, and the team’s lease on the gîte they had hired had run out.

  The ancient hill-top village, with its derelict castle, narrow, winding streets, old stone houses and stunning views across to the Hautes Pyrénées, would have been a natural magnet for holidaymakers at this time of year. Add to that the legend of a mysterious priest, buried treasure and the enduring myth of the Templars and the Holy Grail, and it was a formula for a mass influx of visitors, who arrived daily by the coach-load.

  The team had been faced with the choice of taking lodgings further afield or camping on site. In the end they had done both; finding rooms at a guest house in nearby Rennes-les-Bains for showers and somewhere to keep their spare clothes, but also pitching some tents on open ground near the church so they could keep an eye on the dig now their goal was in sight.

  The more extreme treasure hunters who had plagued Rennes for the past 40 years – in some cases even using dynamite when they found a promising site – would have dismantled the church stone by stone, given half a chance. They wouldn’t think twice about robbing an archaeological dig.

  Another crack of lighting split the sky, closely followed by the sound of running feet. Then the zip to her tent suddenly ripped open and a body tumbled inside.

  “What the hell?” started Rachel, angrily.

  “It’s OK, it’s only me,” came a male voice. “I just wanted to check you were OK.”

  “David! I’m not exactly sweet 16 any more – I can look after myself. What if someone saw you? The bush telegraph will be working overtime.”

  Another crack of lightning split the sky. “In this?” he said, grinning, shaking the moisture from his shock of golden curls.

  “Well, since you’re here, I suppose you might as well stay for a while,” said Rachel. Still feeling vulnerable after the accident, she was secretly pleased to have his reassuring presence at her side. “Just don’t get any ideas!”

  “I used to be terrified of thunder when I was a boy,” said David, ignoring her jibe.

  “Really? And there was me thinking you were the new Indiana Jones.”

  “Ah, that’s only the superficial me. Scratch the surface and you’ll find I’m quite a sensitive soul.”

  “Hmm. I’ll bear that in mind.”

  Another bolt of lightning lit the skies with an eerie brilliance.

  “So how did you lose your fear of thunderstorms?” asked Rachel quickly.

  “My mother told me to
listen for the time gap between the lightning and the thunder. The bigger the gap, the further away the lightning. She said it was a mile for every second, though I’ve no idea if that’s true. Anyway, concentrating on counting the seconds takes your mind off things. And then when you notice the delay increasing, it’s reassuring because you know the storm’s moving away.”

  “Clever mum. So where’s the storm right now?”

  A shaft of light lit the tent as if it were day, followed a split second later by a deafening peal of thunder that made the ground shake underneath them.

  Rachel threw herself, sleeping bag and all, into David’s arms.

  “I’d say that was right overhead,” said David softly, his lips brushing her hair. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

  Rachel woke wearily the next morning to find herself alone in the tent, and the sound of activity all around her. She looked at her watch. 10 o’clock! She struggled out of her sleeping bag, pulled on her clothes and stumbled out of the tent to find the camping field adjacent to the graveyard had become a quagmire.

  She spotted David’s tousled head over by the portable building that housed all their tools and equipment and plodded over to him, the mud sucking at her loosely tied boots. “Hey!” she said. “You started without me.”

  “We haven’t all got time for a lie-in. Anyway, you’re still recuperating.”

  “I’m fine!” she said indignantly. “But thanks for last night,” she added, sotto voce. “Just don’t think it gives you an open invitation to come into my tent in the middle of the night.”

  “You’re welcome! And I wouldn’t dream of it. Now grab yourself some breakfast, and I’ll see you in the museum in half an hour.”