‘One pair of Zeiss 7 x 42 BIGA binoculars …’
‘If asked, say you want them for bird watching.’
Salem threw the money and the list onto the bed beside his brother. ‘What is all this?’
Kassim opened his eyes and rolled over onto one elbow. ‘They are things we shall need.’
‘For what?’
The scorn was evident in Kassim’s voice. ‘You, big brother, have been asking people since we arrived here for the whereabouts of the vale of muses. And you have been getting nowhere, while I now know where it is.’ He smiled. ‘With the help of my criminal friends, as you call them, I have obtained the map reference of a place called El Valle de los Cantos. It means the valley of songs, but the meaning is close. Maybe I mistranslated the word on the tile.’
‘And is there a secret fortress there, built by the Crusaders?’
Kassim was enjoying his brother’s mystification. ‘The fortress in this hidden valley was built in 1950 with money from Swiss bank accounts belonging to the German SS.’
‘Then it is not the place we seek. On the tile, our ancestor spoke of Crusaders – men of the Cross.’
‘Not so, big brother.’ Looking smug, Kassim rolled over and took from his other hip pocket a much folded piece of paper. It was a tracing he had made of the lettering on the tile with a rendering into modern Arabic below. He held it out for his brother to see.
Salem pointed: ‘It says, the secret fortress of the Cross.’
‘Exactly!’ Kassim rolled off the bed and sprang upright, grabbing both of Salem’s shoulders. ‘Exactly! The secret fortress of the Cross, which you with your clever European brain interpreted as a castle built by the Crusaders!’
‘And what does it mean?’
Kassim laughed, his face close to Salem’s. ‘It means what it says, big brother. Nothing more and nothing less. The moral is that lesser men should believe what is written and not seek to interpret the writings of the wise.’
Kassim folded the paper carefully and returned it to his pocket. ‘It is so simple when one believes.’ He spoke softly, but his eyes burned with religious fervour. ‘This secret fortress is owned by a man called Kreuz, which means Cross in German.’
On the other side of the wall, humdrum everyday life went on. One of the children was crying and the mother was shushing it before her husband was awoken. Salem sat on the bed, looking up at his brother. He had not really believed his father’s deathbed story of treasure and prophecy. To him the tile and its story had been primarily a lure which might entice his brother away from a way of life that must end in violent death sooner or later.
‘How is it possible,’ he asked slowly, ‘that our ancestor eight hundred years ago could write of something which happened only in 1950?’
‘Because all things are written,’ sneered Kassim. ‘Now, while I sleep, go and buy the articles on that list.’
Chapter 2
Jay stretched deliciously, her skin glowing from Merlin’s caresses. Beside her, he breathed regularly, eyes closed. On the dressing table her flute case reminded Jay that she had not touched the instrument for two days. She ought to get up now and practise for a couple of hours, but …
‘What are you thinking?’ Merlin asked.
‘So you are awake?’
‘I was watching you through half-closed lids.’
‘Sneaky.’
‘So what were you thinking?’
‘That it’s ten o’clock. We’re wasting the morning.’
He chuckled. ‘What a strange thing to say.’
‘I feel almost guilty, not to be up and working.’
‘My, you do need a holiday.’
‘We should be halfway to the Costa del Sol by now. That was the plan, wasn’t it, Merlin? We’re way behind schedule.’
‘Way behind geographically,’ he admitted with a yawn. ‘But emotionally we’re ahead of schedule: twice since dawn.’ Merlin reached lazily for Jay, who dodged his embrace with a smile and: ‘It’s my turn to make the coffee.’
She scrambled out of the bed and wandered dreamily into the kitchen with Merlin’s anorak tossed over her nightdress against the chill of the unheated room. There was an envelope pushed beneath the door, addressed to Miss J. French. Jay opened the door to see if there was anyone outside, and found a large bouquet of roses on the step. The handwritten card inside the envelope read: As a music lover, I hope to have the pleasure of your company at luncheon. H. Kreuz. Above the signature there were two bars of music written in the same hand, which Jay recognised as the opening of Papageno’s aria from Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ opera.
Obviously, she thought, the early morning visitor who had so annoyed Merlin was more than just an ordinary music-lover. Humming Mozart’s catchy little tune while she made the coffee, Jay wished the flowers had come from Merlin.
‘I,’ he said on seeing the roses, ‘have no intention of eating lunch with the guy, even if I hadn’t taken an instinctive dislike to him. Apart from anything else, we agreed yesterday we’d drop all the Eleanor nonsense.’
‘This mysterious Dr Kreuz is very persuasive.’ Jay was arranging the roses in a vase. She felt secure after the night of making love during which she had brought out of the psychological closet so many old fears. One by one, in Merlin’s arms, they had turned out to be no worse than bad dreams. Her anguish of the previous day at Chartres seemed now exaggerated, and she wanted to show Merlin that she was not a hysterical schoolgirl.
‘Flowers, an invitation and a polite note,’ she said. ‘And you say he came all the way from the south of Spain to talk to us? It’s a bit rude just to push off and leave him in the lurch, isn’t it?’
The rain had stopped. Jay threw open the window and took a deep breath. She could not remember feeling so carefree, ever. She heard Merlin roll off the bed and pad barefoot across the room. His hands slipped around her, gently cupping her breasts and pulling her back against him. She felt the touch of his lips on her neck and his hardness pressing against the small of her back.
Why was it never like this with Carl and the others? she wondered. Everything felt so right with Merlin, like the old cliché made for each other. With him, she did not have to close her eyes and concentrate. There was no hurry, no risk of all the delicious sensations slipping away at the last moment and leaving her empty and alone. When Merlin lifted her from one plateau of pleasure to the next, she abandoned herself to his caresses, knowing he would not let her fall. She felt as though they had a thousand peaceful years to get to know each other.
‘Merlin …’ she breathed the name and felt his fingers entering into her soul.
Merlin. It was the cry of a seagull, wheeling on the north-east gale. Merlin was the lover who held her tightly when she called his name in the warm, moist tumult of love. Merlin was the ideal man she had dreamed of long ago, her knight on a white charger, the magician who magicked cuts away and healed the dark places in her soul, the man who would keep her safe from dragons. But this Merlin holding her was no fantasy. He was flesh and blood and desire – the lover who gave her what she had always been seeking from a man. Jay let his hands travel up and down her body. She felt the strength of his desire and moaned with the soft pain of wanting him.
‘Look!’ he whispered.
She opened her eyes. In front of her was the familiar cottage garden with the rooftops of the nearby village showing through the leafless trees. Above them rose the whitish limestone escarpment with the ancient Templar tower on top. It was a scene she had known for most of her life and yet, that morning, it was different. Or perhaps, she thought, I’m seeing it for the first time with Merlin’s eyes.
All the muted hues of winter blended in the landscape. The lichen-grey of the stone cottage outbuildings, the million shades of green and brown in trees and shrubs, the reddish tiles of the distant rooftops of the village, all melted together in a moment of perfection as the sun burned a hole through the overcast sky and made a million raindrops dance and sparkle on every
branch. For sheer perfection, it was like playing the second movement of a Mozart piano concerto.
‘Why are you crying?’ Merlin turned Jay to him and wiped the tears from her cheeks. His other hand pressed gently against the base of her spine, holding her belly against his. ‘Because you’re happy? Or because you’re sad?’
She looked deep into his brown eyes, searching, searching. ‘It’s not so simple as that.’ Jay wanted him to understand. ‘I feel as though all my life I’ve been running faster and faster, with never the time to stop and waste a morning like this.’
Merlin had his head on one side, puzzled.
‘You don’t understand, do you?’ she asked, tracing his lips with her index finger. ‘Time is the tyrant that rules musician’s lives. And you, Merlin the magician, have made it stand still for me.’
The magic of that moment when raindrops were transmuted by sunshine into jewels which only they could see, carried them further away from reality on a tide of warmth and loving. Their progress into this new dimension was as effortless as that of a straw in the vortex of a whirlpool or a feather in a gale. As pleasure grew into joy and joy turned into what they both perceived as the beginning of happiness, they made love again and again, exhausting their bodies and consciousness until it seemed that their very souls were entwined. And when at last they were cast ashore exhausted on the ebb-tide of passion, they lay love-wrecked on a foreign strand which neither of them had ever trodden before.
If Jay had decided at that moment to go to Peru or up into the Himalaya, Merlin would have said yes.
Instead she announced drowsily, ‘It’s too late to leave for Spain now, so we might as well accept the mad doctor’s invitation and have lunch with him. And if conversation with Dr Kreuz is too boring, we can always make an excuse and leave early.’
*
Merlin did not argue. Although he would not have broken his promise of the night before to drop the whole idea, he had been intrigued at the speed with which Kreuz had followed up the visit to Dürnstein. Professional curiosity outweighed his dislike of the man.
Half an hour late, they wandered hand in hand into the restaurant. As Merlin afterwards realised, it was the point of no return. Kreuz was standing by a reserved table with his back to them. As the waiter announced the arrival of his guests, he turned, his gaze brushing over Merlin without interest and settling on Jay. He stood stockstill, a sliver of whitish banana poised halfway to his mouth. Beneath the tan, his face paled and for a second a gleam of excitement shone in the cold blue eyes. He swallowed the last piece of dried fruit and rubbed his hands together. ‘So this is Miss French, who discovered the sirventès?’
Merlin performed the introductions, while Jay flushed at Kreuz’s intent examination. His eyes focused on the mole on her neck. Thinking that it was a love bite which had attracted his attention, Jay pulled the collar of her sweater higher.
Kreuz took her hand and gave a half-bow, murmuring: ‘Kuss die Hand.’
After Jay and Merlin had ordered their meal, he engaged her in a conversation that excluded Merlin, all about music, musicians and conductors. Once or twice Jay tried to bring Merlin into the conversation, but there was nothing he could contribute. By the time the main course arrived, Kreuz had charmed Jay completely. Cleverly he brought the conversation round to her interest in medieval music and from there to the subject of the two sirventès, which he agreed were almost certainly clues to the buried treasure of Châlus. He wanted to know what she and Merlin had been doing at the castle, why Jay had immediately recognised the poem for what it was, how Merlin had made the connection with Baron Kempfer and why they had now decided to abandon the trail after coming so far?
As a professional interviewer, Merlin had to admire Kreuz’s manipulative skill; he was getting everything out of Jay and giving nothing back. To stop her answering yet another question, Merlin interrupted with, ‘Unlike the steak, Dr Kreuz, we didn’t come here to be grilled. You said you have some information which is important for Miss French.’
He sounded so hostile that Jay gave him a nudge under the table.
Kreuz was oblivious. ‘What kind of name is Freeman?’ he pursed his lips. ‘To my ears, it sounds Jewish. Would it be an anglicised form of Friedmann, perhaps?’
For a second Merlin contemplated getting up and walking away from the table. Only the weight of Jay’s hand on his thigh restrained him. ‘It happens,’ he said in a very controlled voice, ‘to be an old English name. My family were settled in Salisbury for centuries. Yeoman stock, I think they call it on Jay’s side of the pond.’
‘Excellent.’ Kreuz nodded approvingly as though Merlin had passed a test. He popped another sliver of dried fruit into his mouth and washed it down with water. ‘I am a scholar, Mr Freeman. My passion is the art of the Middle Ages, especially poetry. When I heard from Kempfer that you had discovered a hitherto unknown sirventès written by Queen Eleanor, I could not wait to see it.’
‘What do we get out of it?’ asked Merlin.
‘A great deal,’ said Kreuz. ‘I have the most extensive collection of medieval art and manuscripts in Europe. There is a great deal I can do to help you, but first I need to see this poem.’
‘Not good enough,’ said Merlin.
‘Please!’ Jay smiled at him. ‘Please show Dr Kreuz the poem we found at Châlus. It’s only fair. Baron Kempfer showed you his.’
Merlin took out his pocket book and folded it at the page where he had copied both the sirventès and Jay’s translation.
Kreuz bent over it, absorbed. ‘It’s a strange song. ‘Savies que la pucelle …’ He carried on reading aloud and grunted with surprise at the translation. ‘This is an excellent rendering, Miss French. I could not have done it better myself.’
‘High praise,’ Merlin muttered in Jay’s ear.
Then the interrogation began again, to end abruptly when Jay mentioned being a descendent of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Kreuz made a clicking noise with his tongue and nodded to himself as though everything made sense. He left the table and walked outside onto the terrace where he stood looking out over the river, deep in thought.
‘I told you the guy was weird,’ commented Merlin.
‘Why are you so rude to him?’
‘I don’t like being conned.’
‘In what way?’
‘Despite his promise to divulge information to which you have a right, you may not have noticed that so far the traffic’s been one way: from us to him.’
‘Relax, Merlin.’ Jay squeezed his hand. ‘I’m so happy today. Please don’t spoil things.’ She felt a growing fascination for Kreuz and could not see why Merlin disliked the man so strongly. ‘Doctor Kreuz is a musician and a medieval scholar. We have a lot in common. I think you’re jealous.’
‘Of that guy?’ Merlin laughed. ‘You’re kidding.’
They were sampling the cheese board when their host rejoined them. ‘Sitting,’ he announced, ‘is very unnatural. For thinking, one should walk, or at least stand and breathe clean air.’
He caught the look that passed between Jay and Merlin. ‘But I think you young people are not interested in my – what is that lovely English word like the German for sick? – my cranky ideas.’
‘Oh no,’ said Jay, straight-faced. ‘They’re fascinating, Doctor.’
‘I am an exceptional man.’ Kreuz leaned across the table, admonishing Merlin with one finger. ‘Those who listen, learn a great deal from me.’
To placate Merlin, Jay nudged his knee under the table.
Kreuz took from a pocket the plastic-covered parchment that Merlin had last seen in Baron Kempfer’s home. He placed it on the table beside Merlin’s notebook and announced, ‘Tantalising, aren’t they? They seem to say so much yet really tell us little. We don’t even know exactly what the treasure is.’
‘It’s a pile of gold,’ said Merlin.
Kreuz laughed. The sound stopped in mid breath as though he resented wasting the energy. ‘Of course, the gold. Well, that must be wort
h between twenty and thirty million dollars in today’s values. To find it, you will need my help.’
‘And why would you help us, Doctor?’ Merlin cut in.
‘To please my vanity as a scholar,’ Kreuz smiled. ‘Many people have sought Queen Eleanor’s gold and failed.’
‘Like the SS Division Das Reich?’ Merlin slipped the question in.
‘I think so,’ Kreuz agreed smoothly.
‘Were you helping them too, Doctor?’
Kreuz shrugged. ‘I am a scholar, not a soldier, Mr Freeman. And why do you try to irritate me when I am offering help?’
‘Because I don’t believe in Father Christmas. What exactly is in this for you?’
‘Frankly, Mr Freeman, I disapprove of treasure hunters like you, but Miss French, who is a descendant of Queen Eleanor, has a moral right to the gold hidden by her ancestor. That is different.’
‘I repeat: what do you get out of it?’
‘Something far more valuable than money: knowledge!’
Merlin laughed sourly. ‘We’re talking perpetual motion or the secret of eternal youth?’ He stood up and threw his napkin on the table. ‘I never heard such a load of shit in my life.’
Kreuz froze. For a moment, Jay thought he would strike Merlin. Then he mastered his anger and turned to her. ‘Miss French, I don’t understand your friend’s mentality.’
Jay looked after Merlin. His shoulders were hunched with anger as he left the restaurant. ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean to insult you,’ she said.
‘On the contrary, it’s obvious that he did. But it is of no importance.’ Kreuz waited for Jay’s eyes to leave Merlin and settle on his face again. ‘My motive in assisting you to recover the lost hoard of Châlus is not material reward. On that you have my word. It is for me a privilege to place my unique talents at your disposal.’ He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Jay. Wishing that Merlin had not gone, she tried without success to break the eye contact.
He was whispering so quietly that no one else in the restaurant could hear: ‘You have a great destiny to fulfil. Am I not right?’
The Spirit and the Flesh Page 20
