The Last Scion

by Richard Reed

  “Yes – of course I did,” he protested angrily. He turned to the gendarme. “Inspector, is the safe OK? Le coffre-fort – c’est bon?”

  “Du musée?” The gendarme turned and walked back into museum, where the safe stood behind the counter, its door hanging open. “It would appear not, I’m afraid, m’sieur.”

  “Christ!” exclaimed Rachel, rushing over to look inside. A petty cash tin containing the previous day’s museum takings was untouched, but of the manuscript there was no sign.

  “Fucking hell!” she swore. “That was our star exhibit – even if we had found nothing else, that would have made the programme a real show-stopper. It was our only real evidence. Now what do we have?”

  “For God’s sake calm down, Rachel. I’d already emailed the parchment text to Sue for translation. And there are the photographs…”

  “Oh, brilliant. They will look really good on TV,’ she said sarcastically.

  “The Visigoth coin – is that still there?”

  “Where was it?”

  “I stashed it at the back under those papers.”

  Rachel rummaged around in the safe. “Nothing!” she exclaimed angrily. “This is a disaster.”

  “Well I put them both in the safe – what more could I do?”

  The gendarme coughed politely, and they turned in his direction. “I take it, then, that something of value has been taken?”

  “Indeed,” said David. “We found a parchment…” He winced as Rachel slipped her hand behind his back and pinched him, hard.

  “A piece of paper – nothing valuable,” said Rachel, hurriedly. “At least not to a thief. But it was important to our research.”

  “You discovered this – comment dire en anglais… – in your dig?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was old, this… piece of paper?”

  “We’re not sure how old, really. We are still waiting for the dating results,” she lied smoothly.

  “Still, any ancient artefact is worth something to someone – especially if it has anything to do with this place,” observed the gendarme, gesturing with his hands, a bemused expression on his face. “It seems strange, however, that the thief did not take the euros – or those other objets…” he gestured to the artefacts strewn across the floor in the next room. “Is it possible he was looking for this… paper?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s possible,” said Rachel vaguely. “Though I can’t think why.”

  The gendarme gave her a long, hard stare. “And you, mam’selle, what is your role here? Do you work on this dig?”

  “In a manner of speaking…” The gendarme’s stare turned into a frown. “I work for National Geographic,” she said hurriedly. “The American TV station…”

  “We are not peasants, mam’selle,” he said sharply. “We have National Geographic here in France, too.”

  “Of course, I didn’t mean…”

  “So what is National Geographic doing here?” interrupted the gendarme. “You are filming the dig?”

  “Yes,” said Rachel brightly, happy to leave it at that. Telling him they were paying for the dig could open a whole new can of worms.

  “Very well.” He turned to David. “M’sieur, I would like a complete list of everything that has been taken as soon as possible.”

  “Of course. Though given this mess that might take a little while.”

  “Please give it to me as soon as you can.” The gendarme turned and walked away.

  “Now what!” said Rachel furiously, turning on David. “This is a complete catastrophe!”

  “I wouldn’t mind asking Monsieur Dubois if he knows anything about this,” he replied tersely.

  “Why the hell would Dubois be involved?”

  “He was the one who suggested we put the scroll in the safe yesterday – that there was a security risk.”

  “Precisely! If he wanted to steal it, he wouldn’t have made the job harder for himself!”

  “Or it could be an elaborate double-bluff – to make it look like he couldn’t possibly be involved. The timing is a little suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “No I don’t – but I do think you’re getting paranoid again.”

  “Really? There’s something not entirely straight about that guy. I’ve a good mind to mention it to the gendarme.”

  “Look, there’s nothing to be gained by making an enemy of him. Whatever his motives, he may still be able to help us.”

  “Well, the archaeology is my responsibility, and I’ve got to go and help the police right now,” said David, still seething. “So either way, I’m going to be tied up here with paperwork for the next couple of days. Perhaps while I’m doing that you can figure out where we are supposed to go to from here.” With that, he headed off to the Finds Room.

  Rachel trudged dejectedly after him. She tried to help out with the gendarmerie, but David was adamant in dealing with everything himself. Although she had overall responsibility for the project as far as National Geographic was concerned, when it came to the organisation of the dig itself, David was very much in control – it was his professional licence on the block, and there was no point alienating him further by insisting on getting involved. After a while, she headed over to the cabin to escape the mêlée and think. She would have preferred to go back to the hotel and do some research there, but she didn’t want David to think she was deserting him – whatever his protestations.

  She fired up her laptop and checked her mail. Thank God – David had copied her in on the email to Sue. She wasn’t in the mood for explanations to head office staff about losing their star exhibit. She looked again at the parchment translation. The first part appeared to be a vague, rambling prophesy. She read down to the last six lines of text, separated from the rest, and clearly written in a different hand. Was there anything more here to go on?

  ‘When the time is come, seek out she who is called Mary, at the grotto where Our Lady was laid to rest.’

  Well, they had found the grotto – she was fairly sure of that. But ‘seek out Mary’? Was that referring to the Magdalene’s descendant? The lines seemed to make a distinction between ‘Mary’ and ‘Our Lady’. But how, and where, was one supposed to meet her? Was there a hint in that cryptic ‘When the time is come’? Yet it could mean anything, particularly since it had been written hundreds of years earlier. They could hardly camp out there on the off-chance that she might turn up one day in the not too distant future.

  Rachel sat at the battered aluminium desk, covered with spots of mud and odd assortments of pottery yet to be catalogued, and buried her head in her hands. The whole project was rapidly turning into a disaster. They had lost their key artefact, and only had photos to prove the tomb of Mary Magdalene had ever existed – let alone that she had been married to Christ and borne his child.

  She looked up and glared out of the window in frustration, then froze as her eyes alighted on La Tour Magdala. Of course! The answer was quite literally staring her in the face.

  Chapter 27

  Montségur, Christmas 1243

  Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix stood on the battlements of Montségur as the first grey light of a cold winter’s dawn broke through the blackness, gazing down at the armies encamped 500 feet below. From the vertiginous heights of the limestone pillar that rose dramatically from the valley floor, they looked as if they could be brushed away like a swarm of insects, but Pierre-Roger knew they were all too real.

  Some 7,000 troops flying the colours of King Louis had pitched their tents in the valley that nestled at the foot of the pog, even though their numbers had been decimated by the worst winter in living memory. The snow had arrived in late November, and since then blizzard after blizzard had howled through the valleys like icy demons, cutting through wool and leather jerkins like a surgeon’s knife, chilling to the bone.

  Those within the walls of Montségur had enjoyed more shelter than the royal soldiers below, but thrust aloft into the icy wind, the isolated outcrop was exposed to the wors
t of the freakish elements. On one occasion the wind had been so violent it lifted a man-at-arms bodily off the battlements and dashed him to the ground far below.

  Still, it mattered little that hundreds of the king’s troops had died, thought Pierre-Roger, wryly. With the number of trained men-at-arms in the châteaux numbering little more than 100, just a fraction of the force gathered below could rout them if they dared descend from their mountain-top retreat. Their only hope was to sit it out, and hope that smuggled supplies of food and cloth continued to find their way through.

  Retribution for his attack on the Inquisition at Avignonet may not have been swift, but when the royal army had arrived more or less a year to the day after the assault, it had done so in overwhelming force. This was no token siege, as two years before, but a statement of intent: the last remaining Cathar stronghold would be destroyed, stone by stone if necessary.

  As his father-in-law Raymond had feared, the English army that landed at Royan had been but a token force, and Raymond VII and his allies had been easily defeated at the battle of Taillebourg just two months later. Raymond sued for peace, but was excommunicated by the Pope. The insurrection fizzled out, and after that it had only been a matter of time before the Crusaders arrived at Montségur. A thousand men had seemed plenty at first, but as the challenge of cutting off the castle’s supply lines through the myriad mountain paths became clear, the French commander, Hugues des Arcis, had called up reinforcements. Now, though some supplies were still getting through thanks to the bravery of a handful of Cathar sympathisers, there was no escape for the castle’s 500 besieged inhabitants.

  His wife had been proven right, and although the savage rift of the first few days after Avignonet had largely healed, there was still a lingering hurt between them, despite the birth of their first baby, Mariette. He bitterly regretted his rash decision to back Count Raymond of Toulouse, but regrets would not turn back time. Now he could only wait, and hope for a miracle.

  A sudden movement far below on Tower Rock caught his eye, and he focused his gaze more closely on the stone fortification that he had ordered to be built on the massive outcrop. Although the lowest point of the small hilltop plateau, its cliffs still plunged vertically nearly 350 feet to the valley below, and some had questioned the necessity of such a move when resources were scarce. But for all his faults, Pierre-Roger was a brilliant and capable military commander, and he had no intention of leaving a vulnerable point in his defences.

  What, then, was going on? A clammy hand grabbed his heart as he saw a lithe figure in a black jerkin scramble over the top of the cliff-face 500 feet to the east of his vantage point, closely followed by another, and yet another. Desperately he shouted a warning, but his voice was lost in the icy north-easterly wind. Within minutes the small band of mercenaries had quickly and efficiently slit the throats of the few defending foot-soldiers. His greatest fear had come to pass: the Crusaders had finally found a foothold on the pog.

  Chapter 28

  Rachel ran to the Finds Room to discover David in earnest conversation with the gendarme. Hardly able to contain herself, she went back outside and paced up and down in front of the church, watched curiously by the tourists streaming past. Every so often she would look through the door, but he was still busy, either talking to the gendarme, or Hélène, or checking that nothing else had been taken.

  After a while she returned to the cabin and tried to distract herself by surfing the net. Finally, at noon, the gendarme disappeared for lunch, and David emerged into the searing heat of the yard looking weary and dishevelled.

  “David…” she said, in the most submissive tone she could muster.

  “Yes?” he said irritably.

  “I think I’ve cracked it.”

  “What, for God’s sake?”

  Rachel bit back her natural response, and continued, sotto voce. “The message on the parchment. You know – ‘seek out she who waits at the grotto where Our Lady was laid to rest.’”

  “What about it?”

  Rachel looked anxiously over her shoulder. There were several people within earshot. “Come to the cabin,” she said.

  “Well?” he asked as they walked inside. “I’ve still got a huge amount of work to do for the gendarmerie, you know.”

  “I know – I did offer to help. Anyway, just hear me out. Dubois has told us the descendant of Mary is still alive…”

  “If you can believe him.”

  Rachel ignored his scepticism. “Well, I was sitting here while we were talking to the gendarme. I was feeling really frustrated about not understanding the message… and then I looked across the yard, and there it was, staring me in the face…”

  “What on earth are you rambling on about? Have you been hitting the vino already?”

  “No!” she said, laughing. “Look, I’m talking about La Tour Magdala. Remember what Dubois mentioned about the significance of the 22 steps, and St Mary Magdalene’s feast day – July 22nd?”

  “Yes,” said David slowly.

  “Well I’m pretty damn sure that’s the answer! I think we should ‘seek out she who waits’ on Mary’s feast day – July 22nd! It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Maybe that was how Saunière met her – on those long walks in the country.”

  “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?” said David sarcastically.

  “Maybe it wasn’t an accident; if the grotto was known locally as being associated with Mary Magdalene, maybe he went there on her feast day to pray. I believe it’s normal for a Catholic priest to pray to a saint on their allotted day.” She held her hand to silence him. “There’s more. After I realised the significance of the number 22 in La Tour Magdala, I thought I would quickly Google the number 22 and see what came up. You’ll never guess what…”

  “Enlighten me,” said David, drily.

  “It seems the number 22 was of particular significance to the Templars.”

  “Please God, not the Templars again…”

  “Just bear with me, David. In one of the first tellings of the Grail legend, The Young Titurel, written in the mid-13th century, the Grail temple is described as a ‘domed structure, surrounded by 22 radial chapels or arched recesses’. The author, Albrecht, devotes more than 100 lines to it. We know the Templars had a major presence here, in the south of France. The suggestion is that the troubadours, the wandering minstrels who frequented the Cathar courts in the 12th century, before the Albigensian crusade, were referring to the Templars when they told their stories about the knights of the Grail legend.

  “We know the Cathars venerated Mary Magdalene. The Templars were supposedly devoted to the Virgin Mary. But what if their devotion was, in fact, to the Magdalene? Wouldn’t that go a long way to explaining their extraordinary empathy with the Cathars?”

  “I suppose it’s plausible – assuming you buy the whole story…”

  “David, what’s got into you? You saw the tomb with your own eyes! How can you doubt it?”

  “Having seen what we’ve seen, I don’t doubt that Mary came to France and that that’s her tomb in there. But it’s a big leap from that to say that not only is her bloodline still alive, but her direct descendant is living nearby, and is able to prove her lineage.”

  Rachel sighed. “I know – put like that, it does sound a little far-fetched. But as I’ve said before, what have we got to lose by checking it out? We’ve got to explore every possible lead; anything that will add some weight to the documentary. And July 22nd happens to be next Wednesday. Humour me! If nothing else, it will be good to go for a walk and get away from this place for a few hours.”

  “Well, as you say, I guess we’ve got nothing to lose – just don’t get your hopes up too much.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what time we need to be there?”

  “I assumed you were just planning to hang around all day.”

  “Not necessarily. There’s another number linked to this place, that keeps recurring – the number 17. Remember, Dubois mentioned it? Maybe it�
��s the 17th hour of the day.”

  “I don’t think they had 24-hour clocks back then,” said David scathingly.

  Rachel gave him a withering look. “They could still count the hours in a day – that way there’s no room for ambiguity.”

  For Rachel, the next few days seemed to crawl by. David finally gave in and let her help out with the aftermath of the break-in, and much of the time was spent tediously putting together a report for the police and the mayor – who, having discovered that some kind of parchment had been stolen, demanded to know exactly what it contained.

  Since it was the mayor who had given them permission to stage the dig in the churchyard, they went to great lengths to mollify him, going to see him in person as well as submitting an official report. They assured him the artefact had come from an old grave uncovered by the dig – probably one of the many that Saunière had disturbed in his search for the crypt – and had been of no great significance, other than from an archaeological perspective.

  The mayor also demanded to know when the trench was going to be backfilled and the churchyard returned to normal, and David had to agree that if they didn’t hear from the Vatican within a month, the crew would return to restore the site. David took the risk of suggesting that the entrance through the Secret Room be left open for future investigations, and, somewhat to his surprise, the mayor agreed it would make sense – but pointed out that this fell within the Vatican’s jurisdiction, not his own.

  Dubois heard about theft on the grapevine and put in an appearance on a couple of occasions to offer his help. He was also anxious to know whether the parchment had yet been translated. David stalled him, saying it was written in Aramaic, and they had been forced to refer it to a specialist academic – he didn’t think Dubois believed him, but he didn’t really care.

  Finally, early on the morning of July 22nd, Rachel and David set off for the grotto, deciding to spend most of the day there in case Rachel’s theory on the timing was wrong. Rachel had wanted to invite Dubois along, but David would have none of it.