by Marie Laval
It was late into the night when Baldassase stood up and declared he needed to get some rest. He planned to set off on his long journey back to Sicily early the following morning.
‘How will I get in touch if I need you?’ Marie-Ange asked as they went up to their respective rooms. ‘Or am I supposed to forget all about you?’
He took her hands in his. ‘Send a message to the Priory in Paris, Rue de la Valette, or directly to my superior, Monsegnori Della Vita at the Commanderie in Catania. They will know how to get hold of me.’
He put his hands on Marie-Ange’s shoulders and looked straight into her eyes, the same pure blue as his own.
‘I will be there for you when you need me. And I will take you to Malta one day. I promise.’
She got up in the early hours to wave farewell to her father and his companion, and remained in the courtyard, wrapped up against the cold long after they had disappeared in the grey dawn mists. The two men she loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world had now left her.
‘Beauregard is back in our family, at last,’ Hermine exclaimed at the breakfast table, spreading butter and jam on her brioche. ‘Uxeloup didn’t have any siblings or children, so you are now the heiress.’
Marie-Ange wanted to go there straight away and tell Sophie about Uxeloup’s death, but Hermine said she must wait for the gendarmes.
‘What shall I say about the Cross of Life, and about Uxeloup’s death?’
‘Tell them the truth—or rather part of the truth. The Cross belonged to our family, the Beauregards. You found it in the dovecote, but Uxeloup abducted you because he wanted to steal it from you. He took you to Arginy to perform some kind of ceremony—don’t say anything more than that—the man fell into a trap and disappeared.’
Hermine finished her cup of tea. ‘It is well known around here that Arginy is full of dangerous traps. As for Karloff, he was Malleval’s accomplice. He will be taken to Beaujeu for interrogation.’
They didn’t have to wait long before Commandant Picard and a small detachment of gendarmes were announced. Picard cut an attractive figure in his blue uniform decorated with white and red braiding. He took off his black hat adorned with a red feather and bowed deeply before Hermine and Marie-Ange.
‘Mesdames, c’est un honneur,’ he said.
Marie-Ange told him, almost word for word, what her great-aunt had advised. It was a shortened, sanitised, version of the truth. She didn’t mention any angels or relics. She did however tell Capitaine Picard about Edmond Malleval’s coffin being taken into the vault by Uxeloup and later lost in the explosion.
‘You mean Monsieur Malleval Père wasn’t buried?’ Picard exclaimed, shocked. He smoothed the tips of his big moustache, deep in thought. ‘Mon Dieu, mais pourquoi?’
Marie-Ange raised her hands in dismay, as if she didn’t have any idea. There was no point mentioning the Cross of Life’s alleged powers in bestowing immortality.
‘We shall send a search party to Arginy straight away,’ Picard decided. ‘We need to look for the bodies of Monsieur Uxeloup and his guard, Monsieur Rochefort. Do not worry, Mesdames, I will solve this riddle.’
He then asked to interview Karloff and retired to Hermine’s study with the physician. The two men spent almost an hour in conversation, after which Commandant Picard said he wanted to speak to Marie-Ange again.
‘Monsieur Karloff mentioned the presence yesterday at Arginy of several gentlemen you failed to tell me about. A Capitaine Saintclair, who, if I recall correctly, is wanted by the King’s bailiffs, and two other men who he says were foreign agents—some kind of Turks, I believe. Would you care to explain who these men are?’
Fortunately, Marie-Ange had prepared her answer.
‘I did not want to implicate Capitaine Saintclair because he did me a great favour in helping me yesterday when he was supposed to be on duty at the barracks in Lyon. He could get into serious trouble for defaulting from his post. As for his debt, I learned it was fraudulently obtained by Monsieur Malleval when he cheated during a game of cards.’
‘I see,’ Picard remarked, nodding his head.
‘The other gentlemen were scouts from a foreign battalion who came with Capitaine Saintclair. I do not recall their names.’
Picard seemed satisfied with her answer. He said he needed to take Karloff to Beaujeu for further questioning.
‘He seems very troubled about some old parchments which have remained in Beauregard. Do you know what he is talking about?’
Polycarpe de la Rivière’s coded scrolls. The ones Uxeloup kept in the glass cabinet in the library. Karloff had mentioned he wanted to read through them again. Marie-Ange shook her head. ‘They’re not important’, she lied. ‘They’re only old papers.’
The gendarmes came back for her in the afternoon. Picard said she could now travel to Beauregard. He reported that the chateau and the grounds had been searched and not a single one of Uxeloup’s mountain thugs remained. ‘They ran away like rabbits when they saw my gendarmes,’ he laughed.
So Marie-Ange bade her great-aunt farewell. Today, she was going home.
Chapter Twenty-One
Beauregard, 20 March 1815 (three weeks later)
Jerusalem, 1230 Anno Domini
Note to our Brothers—
Our much revered Brother Bernard de Clairvaux wrote that a Templar Knight feared neither demons nor men because his soul was protected by an armour of Faith, just as his body was protected by an armour of steel. He will not fear death either if he kneels in front of the Cross of Life in our chapel at Temple Mount for he will live forever.
May I remind you, Brothers, how this most sacred relic came to be in our possession; how God’s messenger on earth appeared to Hugues de Payens and Saint Omer and demanded the creation of our Templar Order to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy City; and how the celestial envoy’s clothing, torn by our Brother Payens by accident, was preserved in a phial secured at the base of the Cross as an eternal reminder of God’s awesome power.
I must entreat you once again to keep its existence a secret. We have seen only recently how dangerous the relic can be when it falls into the wrong hands. An unfortunate and misguided pilgrim attempted to remove the Cross from Temple Mount two weeks ago. His quest for immortality was rewarded by the pit of eternal hell. Not only was his skin burnt, his eyes blinded, and his hair singed, his soul now languishes in atrocious sufferings. For we Templar Knights know that the holy relic can only be handled by one of us—a pure heart—and it will always be so.
Pedro de Montaigu, Grand Master Templar
Paris, 12 October 1307
These are my instructions concerning the safe keeping of our most saintly relic, the Cross of Life. It will be hidden in the fief of a trusted brother and relative of one of our most respected Great Masters. It will be guarded by the souls of eleven Keepers, all past Masters who will punish with terrible torments whoever dares violate its sanctuary. Should the Cross be removed, it must be returned by a pure heart of the same bloodline as a Master Keeper. Only he can hold the Cross unscathed, be blessed by the visiting angel, and granted the eternal peace he longs for. Pity the unfortunate who attempts to claim the Cross for his own purpose for he condemns his soul to eternal damnation.’
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master, Temple of Paris
Marie-Ange rolled the documents pensively between her hands. Her fingers played with the dark blue ribbon that kept them together and handed the parchments back to Gustave Karloff. The physician’s hand shook as he took hold of them.
‘So these are the translations of some of the papers Polycarpe was carrying when he was killed by the Malleval clan,’ she remarked. The reference to a pilgrim being thrown to the pit of hell had a sinister echo after Uxeloup’s disappearance into the gaping hole in the crypt of Arginy castle.
Karloff nodded. ‘I will gather my things as quickly as I can and be on my way tomorrow morning at the latest.’
He walked to the window and stared at the rain-
swept park and forest. ‘I have been thinking about what happened at Arginy, and I fear all is not finished.’
‘What do you mean, Monsieur Karloff? We both saw the Templar tomb, Uxeloup and the cross thrown into the abyss just before the explosion. How can it not be finished?’ Marie-Ange asked. ‘Commandant Picard certainly thinks it is. He said he wasn’t going to organise a search party.’
Karloff glanced at her with haunted eyes and turned towards the window and the forest again. Why did the man look so anxious?
He had arrived an hour before, having been released by Commandant Picard from Beaujeu prison pending further investigation. He appeared to have aged considerably during his three weeks’ incarceration. The hair was wilder, his face marked with deep lines, and there was a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth which hadn’t been there before. There was nothing left in him of the charismatic and sinister man Marie-Ange had once feared.
There didn’t seem to be any dark mysteries left at Arginy either.
A civil engineer appointed by Commandant Picard had established that the castle was built on ancient salt mines dating back to Roman times. Several entrances to tunnels had been uncovered, some as far away as half a mile from Arginy. The reports of mysterious balls of orange and blue light and sulphurous smells rising from the ground, of tremors and strange underground noises, which locals had put down to a Templar malediction, had in fact a very scientific explanation. They had their origin in pockets of gas trapped deep beneath the surface, causing explosions in the passages of the abandoned mine. It seemed Hugo had been right…the shadows in the crypt had nothing to do with ghosts of Knights Templar.
Commandant Picard decided it would be pointless and dangerous to call a search party to retrieve the bodies. The terrain around Arginy was too unstable after the explosion, and there could be no doubt that the two men were dead.
Marie-Ange walked out of Karloff’s room and went down to the library. The way the physician stared out of the window towards the woods made her nervous. She sat behind the desk where the accounts ledger she had been working on for the past three weeks lay open, but instead of studying the fine lines scrawled with figures, she sighed and slammed the book shut. There wasn’t any point looking at the accounts now.
Her travel trunk and bag were packed. She would leave for England the following morning with an escort of gendarmes, like a criminal or a traitor.
It was Commandant Picard who had brought the news of her exile. Red-faced and apologetic, he stammered so much that she had failed at first to understand what he was trying to say.
‘The Emperor…decrees of Lyon of 13th March…recent émigrés must leave French soil and abandon all claim to their property…under threat of imprisonment.’
Hermine had reacted with anger. ‘The audacity, the nerve of that little man! I don’t care if he calls himself an emperor. I don’t care if they say that since landing near Fréjus with a garrison of a mere seven hundred men he re-conquered the country like ‘an eagle flying from steeple to steeple’—an eagle! and what else? The truth is he is nothing more than an upstart. A glorified soldier! He ruined our country before, and he will do it all over again. I can’t believe he is back at the Tuileries Palace and forced our King to take refuge in Ghent!’ She punctuated her outburst with loud taps of her cane on the floor.
‘The populace is so fickle,’ she carried on after taking a deep breath. ‘One year ago they cheered as he was exiled and now they acclaim his return! I read that an infantry regiment sent by Louis XVIII to stop him near Grenoble placed itself under his command instead. Even Marshall Ney who had promised the King to bring back the ‘impostor in a steel cage’ joined forces with him.’
‘And once Marshall Ney changed sides, the whole army abandoned the royalist camp to support its former hero,’ Marie-Ange concurred. Lyon had given the Emperor a rapturous welcome and Napoleon issued some of his first decrees as France’s new ruler there.
Among those was, Picard explained, the decision to expulse all the émigrés who had returned to France between April 1814 and March 1815—during the reign of King Louis XVIII.
Marie-Ange was considered one of them.
‘I will escort you to Chalons and then to Paris and Le Havre.’ Picard looked sorry to be the bearer of such bad news. ‘Please be ready by Wednesday morning.’
Hermine might rant against the injustice, the indignity her great-niece was subjected to, but being angry changed nothing. With a heavy heart, Marie-Ange packed her few belongings. She would be travelling back to Norton Place with nothing. Considered an émigrée, she wasn’t entitled to claim any revenue from the Beauregard estate even if she was Malleval’s only heir. Her great-aunt promised to hire a good lawyer to look after her interests.
‘We will soon have you back here. In the meantime, I will ensure Beauregard is kept in good order for you.’
Somehow Marie-Ange couldn’t share her great-aunt’s optimism. If Napoleon had shown mercy towards returning émigrés in the past, he seemed to have radically changed his mind now.
Sophie came in with a cup of tea and a plate of sponge cake. The two women smiled at each other.
‘I am sure you will be allowed back,’ Sophie said, placing the hot drink and the food in front of Marie-Ange. ‘Napoleon can’t mean it when he ordered all émigrés from French soil.’
Marie-Ange shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Sophie. He has much to prove this time round and he is desperate for popular support. Returning émigrés are indeed an easy target and a fleshy bone to throw to the populace.’
‘But you are not even a real émigrée!’ Sophie was indignant. ‘Napoleon targeted those who came back to claim their estates. You were invited here, by Uxeloup.’ She bent her head. Her chest heaved as she tried to suppress a sob.
Marie-Ange stood and walked around the desk to take her in her arms. Sympathy twisted her heart for Sophie had loved Uxeloup with all her being. His death left her alone and bereft, but at least she would be able to stay at Beauregard. Marie-Ange had appointed her chatelaine in her absence, under Hermine’s guidance.
Sophie wiped her tears, curtsied and left Marie-Ange alone with her thoughts. She stood at the window, looking at the dark clouds in the lead grey sky. It was doubtful she would be able to return to her mother’s ancestral home in the near future. Her thoughts turned to Hugo, she longed to see him again, but that too was uncertain.
He had written the previous week. Napoleon had ordered him to escort the Comte d’Artois, the King’s brother, to the port of Sète and ensure he embarked for Italy unharmed. The Comte had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Lyon and Napoleon didn’t wish to start his new reign with an outpouring of Bourbon blood. Hugo was now posted to the southern provinces to quell a royalist uprising.
He also wrote he had been spared the threat of imprisonment for debt and his family was safe in St Genis. Hugo ended his short message with a promise to come to Beauregard as soon as he was discharged.
It would be too late by then, she would be gone.
‘Hugo,’ Marie-Ange whispered as her fingers traced his name on the window and followed the raindrops gliding down the other side like tears. She summoned the burning memory of his blue eyes and the caress of his lips on her skin. Memories were all she would have of him. She might not see him for many months now that war between France and Great Britain and its allies was, once again, on the cards. She might not see him ever again.
She gasped for air suddenly, her chest too tight for her to breathe. Wrapping herself in her cloak she went out into the garden, following the alley leading to the walled rose garden. It was, of course, too early for roses and the bushes were bare. She walked for a while in the park and around the pond, her heart as heavy as the skies. When her coat and her shoes were completely soaked, she made her way back towards the chateau.
The sound of a horse’s galloping hooves made her turn towards the gates. A cavalier was approaching. She froze and waited for the rider to come nearer. He wa
s tall, dressed in a dark grey coat, his face partly hidden by a black hat. She let out a sigh of disappointment. It wasn’t Saintclair.
Then she recognised the rider, and panic welled inside her. She ran up the stone stairs of the front porch and pulled frantically at the door.
‘Wait!’ Christopher called as he jumped down from his horse.
She turned round and confronted him, her face hard and unwelcoming. Her hand pressed down on the door handle to open the door but she didn’t seem to have the strength to manage it.
‘What are you doing here?’
Christopher remained at the bottom of the steps. He took off his hat, revealing a gaunt face. Dark circles shadowed his grey eyes, and deep lines cut channels around his mouth.
‘I want you to tell me about my past life.’
Marie-Ange opened her eyes wide. ‘Why now?’ She hissed. ‘You weren’t bothered with the truth that night in Lyon, when you stabbed Capitaine Saintclair and tried to…’ The words died on her lips. She looked down at the man standing at the bottom of the steps, feeling like an invisible hand was gripping her throat.
Something was different about him. He looked like he used to, a long time ago. His head was cocked to one side, the haunted grey eyes thoughtful. There was a sad, bitter line at the corner of his mouth. Although she had resolved to give him up for dead, she couldn’t shut him out, not when he looked so much like the man she had loved.
‘I am sorry. Truly sorry. I didn’t want to believe you. I didn’t want to hear that I might be that man—Norton.’
‘What changed your mind?’ Her voice was still hard, even if uncertainty was slowly creeping into her heart.
The rain became heavier. Large drops bounced on the front porch of the chateau. Marie-Ange’s hair stuck to her forehead, and cold rain slid down her neck.
‘There are so many things I want to ask you.’ Christopher smiled tentatively.
Her resolve weakened but she still hesitated. Even if he sounded genuine, she must not forget how dangerous he was. This could all be a ruse or a cruel jest. Just over three weeks before, he had tried to rape her and almost killed Hugo.
