The French Prize

by Cathryn Hein

  She raked her eyes across his face. ‘It has to be.’

  ‘It’s not.’ He sighed and stepped away, then rubbed at his forehead, at the point just above his left eye. ‘My father and I scoured that property for hidden artefacts when we consolidated the archives. Durendal was not there.’

  ‘But what about the cemetery?’

  ‘We dug up every grave. Except for the lead casket containing the archives, there were only bones.’

  ‘But what about the rest of the property?’ she asked, clinging to her fading hope. ‘Perhaps there’s a cave or hidden cellar or something?’

  ‘No. My father undertook a geophysical survey to make sure we did not miss anything. There’s nothing there.’

  She closed her eyes and bowed her head, feeling lost. ‘Then it could be anywhere.’

  Raimund’s strong arms stretched around her shoulders and hugged her to his chest.

  ‘Do not lose faith, Olivia. You will find it. This is just a small setback. You are the most intelligent woman I have ever met. You will solve this. Do not worry.’

  But she didn’t feel very intelligent. She felt stupid for carrying on like an excited child, for not thinking things through yet again. She needed time to work things over properly in her mind without being distracted by wild goose chases.

  Or Raimund with his protective embrace and unwavering faith.

  She couldn’t let him down.

  She couldn’t let herself down.

  Rough stubble brushed against her hair. She thought she felt the light press of a kiss, but then his arms dropped and she was left with a sense of what it would be like to live without him. Out of his embrace, the room felt cold, like she’d just risen from a tranquillising warm bath into an icy wind.

  He picked up her wrist to inspect the watch she had still yet to return. ‘Come. It’s almost time for lunch. We will surprise Christiane with our punctuality. She has promised me moules marinières today. No one does them better.’

  As they walked towards the archway, Olivia unstrapped the watch from her wrist and pushed it into his hand.

  ‘Here. You’ll want this back.’

  He stopped and stared at it, rubbing his thumb over the glass. Then he picked up her left arm and re-strapped it to her wrist.

  ‘It is yours.’

  ‘But it’s your father’s. You can’t give me this.’

  ‘I have just done so.’ He put his finger to her mouth to silence the protest she was about to voice. ‘I want you to have it, Olivia. It’s a gift from me to you. Something to remember our adventures by when you return to England.’

  His words made her throat close over. She didn’t want gifts to remember him by, she wanted him. In person. Sharing his bed, his life.

  She swallowed away the gravelly ache. ‘Thank you.’ She fingered the worn band. ‘I will have to find something to give you in return. Something to remind you of me.’

  The tenderness in his eyes faded. His lips pressed together as he rebuilt his mask and hammered his iron stoicism into submission.

  ‘I only wish one thing from you.’

  ‘Durendal,’ she said numbly.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, sounding as hollow as she felt. ‘Durendal.’

  CHAPTER

  13

  Olivia ran her finger over the map, following its endless roads and contour lines and getting nowhere. Town names came and went, swimming in her head like uncatchable fish. None seemed right.

  She should never have let Edouard top up her wine glass a second time at lunch, but the wine, like Christiane’s moules had been superb and his face had crumpled with hurt when she had tried to tell him no. It seemed kinder to give in and let him pour. And Raimund’s words had temporarily sapped her will to fight.

  Except now, back in the archives, her concentration was paying the price.

  ‘Why did you join the army?’ she asked, looking up from the map.

  Raimund put down the file he was straightening and picked up another. A neat stack had grown in front of him as he laboriously saved Patrice’s records from their Olivia-induced chaos.

  ‘It’s a good occupation.’

  ‘So is being a doctor or lawyer or waiter or bus driver. There must be some other reason.’ When he didn’t reply she went on. ‘Christiane said it’s a tradition in your family. Perhaps you felt obliged?’

  She waited. Nothing.

  ‘So you’re willing to break the promise of your ancestors and destroy Durendal but this tradition you blindly followed? You’re a contradictory man, Captain Blancard.’

  ‘I do what is right.’

  ‘For you or the world?’

  He flicked a steely look her way and continued with his work.

  She scanned his face. ‘Maybe there was more to it. Maybe you were trying to escape something?’

  Another folder went onto the pile. He picked through the papers he had gathered to one side, inspected a sheet, and then searched through the pack for the correct folder in which to place it. His face gave away nothing, yet his jaw seemed more sharply defined, as though the muscles had turned to stone.

  ‘I’m not a coward. I do not run from anything.’

  Olivia opened her mouth and closed it again. From the tone of his voice, now was not the time for smart-alec quips. Pointing out that he was running as fast as he could from his desire would not be politic. Besides, she was genuinely interested in his reasons for enlisting. If she knew why he went in, she might be able to figure a way to get him out.

  ‘I know you’re brave, Raimund. You’ve proved it more than once and I’ve no doubt you’ll prove it again. You’re brave and honourable and —’

  Honourable. Honourables.

  She tapped her finger against her bottom lip, thinking. Maybe the Grey Knight was referring to an army’s path, or a group of soldiers. A path left by hospitallers.

  ‘Do you know of any hospitaller strongholds within a day’s ride of Aigues-Mortes?’ she asked suddenly.

  He blinked at the change of subject. ‘Did they possess any?’

  Olivia churned that over then let her head fall as another idea lost credence. She had to focus and think things through properly, but the wine seemed to have fuddled her brain.

  She sighed. ‘Not really. Hospitals and pilgrim hospices were more their thing. Lots of defences in Syria. Jerusalem, of course. Malta obviously, given it was theirs until Napoleon pinched it. Rhodes. Cyprus. A few other places.’ She stared back at the map. ‘They owned thousands of properties in France. Manses, hospitals, chapels, but most are ruined now. Perhaps there’s a church out there that hasn’t been scoured clean by amateur and professional historians, but I doubt it. Unless the Grey Knight buried it in a coffin or crypt somewhere.’ She rubbed her face. ‘God, I hope not. We’d never find it.’

  ‘What about Fort Saint-Jean at Marseille?’

  ‘Too far away and hardly any of the original hospitaller commandery remains. Louis XIV’s fort practically ruined it.’

  ‘Saint Gilles du Gard?’

  He was trying to humour her now, to keep her deflated hopes up, a sign of his kindness. As a thankyou, she tried not to let her despair show.

  ‘Benedictine, I’m afraid,’ she said, her voice falsely light.

  Raimund caught it. ‘Don’t be despondent.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sure. Just a bit frustrated, but otherwise fine.’

  He considered her answer, then, apparently deeming it the truth, returned to his folders.

  Olivia went back to her map. Her eyes wandered over the terrain, at the arc she had drawn in pencil around Aigues-Mortes. If Durendal wasn’t at Vauvert, where was it? There were hundreds of towns, thousands of hectares in which the sword could be hidden.

  A nagging feeling told her she wasn’t approaching this right. That she had let herself wander off on another tangent. Yet the hypothesis was sound. The Grey Knight had limited time in which to escape the mayhem of Aigues-
Mortes, hide the sword somewhere secure and then deliver La Tasse to his son. Durendal had to lie within the radius she had outlined.

  Perhaps if they could narrow it down further. If she knew whether he had one, two or even three days in which to complete his task, she would have a better idea of where he could have travelled.

  ‘The fleet sailed from Aigues-Mortes on the morning of July 4th, 1270,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘There were few stragglers, plus he would have wanted to stay close to the king, so it’s unlikely he lingered after Louis set sail. When did the Genoese arrive?’

  At the look on Raimund’s face, she laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to know.’ She scooted her stool over to the filing cabinets and began pulling out drawers and shuffling through papers.

  ‘Allow me,’ he said, nudging her out of the way. ‘Tell me what you seek and I’ll look for it.’

  ‘Don’t you trust me not to mess things up?’

  He looked pointedly at the table and the files he’d been sorting.

  She smiled. ‘I guess not. I need to know the date and time the Genoese fleet arrived in Aigues-Mortes. Patrice will probably have a copy of the maritime records somewhere. He seems to have everything else.’

  Raimund closed the drawer she’d opened and moved to a cabinet further along the row. Crouching down, he slid out the bottom drawer and began examining the plastic tabs.

  ‘For someone who says this was Patrice’s area, you seem to know your way around pretty well,’ said Olivia, balancing on her haunches beside him.

  ‘Sometimes I help him. Plus he is —’ He sighed as though sick of making the same mistake with his tenses. ‘Was very organised.’

  ‘Unlike me?’

  ‘As you say, you have your own methods.’

  ‘A soldier and a diplomat. Impressive.’

  He selected a file and opened it. Inside lay a series of photocopies. He flicked through them, paused, then extracted a sheet and handed it to her, his beautiful coffee-coloured eyes creased and warm.

  She scanned the page. The Genoese had arrived on the evening of the first of July. The fleet had sailed on the fourth. One day for the loading of supplies and munitions, another day for the horses. The turnaround time was tight. The Grey Knight should have been present for the entire operation, but only on July second did he have any chance of slipping away, and then it would have been tricky.

  ‘He had one day,’ she said, then threw her arms around Raimund and kissed him hard on his stubbly cheek. ‘You’re a genius, Captain Blancard.’

  For a moment he let her hold him, but then he reached for her hands and took them from his neck. He held them for a second, rubbing the backs with his thumbs, then let them go, and, angling away from her, fussed with the filing cabinet.

  It was hard to discern under the layer of stubble, but Olivia could have sworn he was blushing. She gave herself a mental shake. Raimund blushing? Impossible. He possessed far too much self-control.

  His filing sorted, he stood and helped her up. Not a trace of colour on his light-olive cheeks. She had imagined it after all.

  Reinvigorated, Olivia returned to her map. She picked up her pencil and redrew the arc, bringing it closer to Aigues-Mortes. The area was greatly reduced, but in effect, it still covered a vast tract of land.

  She rolled back the stool and wandered over to the map-covered right-hand wall, stopping at the chart of southern France on which bright-blue sticky dots designated Blancard properties like an alien pox. Under the old arc, several properties were in contention, but with the new, there was only one—Vauvert—and Raimund had already ruled that out. The next closest dot was near a tiny town called Gailhan.

  ‘This place,’ she said, leaning over the reading boards and pointing to the town. She looked over her shoulder at Raimund to check she had his attention. ‘What’s here?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s vacant land. A goat farmer leases it.’

  ‘You checked it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With geophys?’

  His eyes narrowed slightly as if he suspected criticism. ‘The country is too rough and heavily forested. There’s never been a building on it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  Her shoulders slumped. She wandered back to the table, disappointed another potential lead had led nowhere. That they were taking baby steps towards their goal, when what they needed to be doing was running.

  If only she could work out who the Honourables were, then she’d have something concrete.

  If only. She loathed that phrase. It spoke of poor choices, of lack of thought, of failure and she hated to fail at anything. This was the biggest challenge of her life. There was no room for ‘if only’.

  Summoning her strength, she tried to concentrate, but her mind kept drifting back to that imagined blush. She couldn’t help but cast Raimund surreptitious looks. Had Christiane told the truth? Did he really feel something for her? Her stomach somersaulted at the thought. More than anything she hoped it was true. Because if he cared, if he felt even a glimmer of deeper feeling for her, then graveside vow or no, he might think twice about destroying Durendal.

  It was a hope on which she had to rely, or all was lost.

  With a quiet sigh, she tucked away her thoughts in the recesses of her mind. They were for another time. Unless she found where the sword was hidden, none of it would matter.

  ‘Take the Honourables’ path but beware,’ she muttered to herself. ‘What you seek is hidden in eternal night.’

  But what did it mean? Who the hell were the Honourables?

  Could they be hospitallers? Unlikely, but if it wasn’t them, then who were they? Some secret group no one had ever heard of? The Blancards? The path a road they took to some secret location?

  And what the hell did that symbol mean?

  She let out a frustrated groan. This wasn’t getting her anywhere. Rising from her stool, she set off to prowl around the archives.

  After a slow and irritatingly unproductive lap of the room, she stopped at the controlled-environment cabinet closest to the study area. Inside lay Charlemagne’s lance along with numerous other precious items, but stacked on top, arranged neatly in alphabetical order by author, was Patrice’s collection of research books.

  She scanned the titles, looking for anything that might send the cogs of her sluggish brain whirring.

  L’Histoire du Moyen ge by Francois Ruiz. The Legend of the Grey Knight: Fact or Fiction by Anthony Caldwell. Chevaliers et Chateaux Forts: Tome IV by Corrine Quinard. Le Règne de Charlemagne by Leopold Finkelstein. Les Croisades au Moyen ge by Olivier Bisson. Saints or Sinners: The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem by Dame Elizabeth Thatcher.

  The last title brought her up short.

  Her hand smacked against her forehead. ‘God, I’m so stupid.’

  Raimund looked up. ‘What is it?’

  Olivia pulled the book from the shelf, then whirled around, holding it to her chest with one hand while pointing to the cover with the other.

  ‘Dame Elizabeth Thatcher.’

  ‘The prime minister?’

  ‘No, not that Thatcher. She’s a baroness. And dead.’ She tapped the cover. ‘This Thatcher. Elizabeth Thatcher. Celebrated historian, Oxford luminary, notorious misandrist and virago extraordinaire. And,’ she added, grinning, ‘resident of Aix-en-Provence.’

  Raimund’s expression didn’t change. He still appeared lost. If Olivia wasn’t so keyed up, she would have thought his expression cute.

  ‘Misandrist? Virago? My English is excellent, Olivia, but I do not understand what you mean.’

  ‘It just means she’s a man-hating harridan, but that’s not the important bit.’ She walked to the table, still clutching the book to her chest. ‘The important bit is that she’s an expert on the various orders of the knights. If anyone knows of a hospitaller stronghold in France, she would.’

  The lost expression vanished and he became very still. ‘You wis
h to speak to this woman?’

  ‘Yes. Now, if I can. Although she’ll probably refuse to help me given that I haven’t been to see her.’

  ‘You know her?’

  Olivia laughed. She knew Elizabeth Thatcher all right. At Oxford, the woman had made her postgraduate life hell, picking her theories to pieces, but at the same time she spent an inordinate amount of time with her.

  ‘It’s only because I know you can do better,’ she had snapped at Olivia in a rich, upper-class accent so posh and queen-like, it sometimes bordered on the incomprehensible. ‘Someone has to kick that formidable brain of yours into action. It might as well be me.’

  At the time, it had felt like blatant harassment. Her fellow Masters candidates had even insinuated Dame Thatcher had developed a crush on Olivia, which had only added to the humiliation, but it was nothing of the sort. Her teacher simply had recognised talent and refused to see it wasted.

  Despite the ordeal she had been through, Olivia now appreciated she owed her former teacher a great deal. She not only had toughened up to criticism, she also had learned to think laterally, to critically challenge the established doctrines, to harness her imagination and use it to form new hypotheses.

  But mostly, Dame Thatcher’s legacy lay in Olivia’s determination to never give up on the legend of La Tasse du Chevalier Gris. In her unwavering conviction when others could do nothing but chunter into their beards and label her ‘that beautiful but misguided child’. As if she was some sort of gullible ingenue and not a maverick eyeing their lofty thrones.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, finally answering Raimund’s question. ‘I know her.’

  He rubbed at the point above his left eye. ‘What will you ask her?’

  ‘I told you. I’ll ask if she knows of any hospitaller fortresses or hiding places within the boundaries of our search area.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  Olivia ducked her head at him. ‘This is a good thing. We have an expert we can trust on hand.’

  Still he didn’t comment.

  ‘Raimund?’

  His hand dropped. He leaned on the table with his head down. Alarm jangled through Olivia’s veins.

  ‘What is it?’