“Let me walk you back, just to be sure.”
Hugging the building, both of us sharing his large umbrella, we circumnavigated the chateau. As we came around a bend, I looked up and saw a lone figure, a man, standing in a window, seeming to look right down at me. Was it Sebastian? Mathieu? I didn’t think it was either. I shivered.
“It is windy and wet. Let’s hurry before you get even more chilled,” Gaspard said.
But I didn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off the figure. His malevolence reached out to me through the glass, the rain, and the distance. Which one of the several men who’d come to the chateau for the séance was it? And why would any of them be so angry with me? He was too tall for Picasso. But it could have been any of the others.
Gaspard followed my gaze. “Do you know who that is?”
I shook my head. “No, he’s too far in the shadows.”
“Shadows again. They haunt us here.” He opened a doorway that I hadn’t noticed. “Come this way; it’s a shortcut to the kitchen. We can get some coffee. You need to be warmed up.”
I followed him. In a few minutes, we were sitting in the kitchen with big cups of café crème and a plate of the cook’s freshly baked madeleines.
“What did you mean about the shadows? I call my paintings shadow portraits. Did I tell you that?”
He nodded and began to tell me about the different people who had lived in this land and the secrets they had left behind.
“Many believe that in these hills, the ghosts of the Knights Templar still guard their Grail from beyond the grave. For more than a hundred years, they performed valiant acts and were repaid with gifts: money, gold, silver, land.
“At their zenith, their wealth was second only to that of the papacy. With their riches, they became what some say were the first international bankers. Instead of travelers carrying their gold and silver with them and having it so easily stolen by highwaymen, the Templars accepted deposits and gave the travelers intricately coded notes. When the traveler reached his next destination, he could visit the local Templar house or castle, present the note, and withdraw what he needed. These codes were the secret to their system. Masters of encryption, they were said to have used them to safeguard other secrets.
“Some of the legends about them are fabrications, but there is one I can attest to. A man named Bernard Sermon I joined the Poor Knights of Christ in 1151. He was a benefactor of the order, which allowed him to take part in the Knights’ spiritual life.
“In 1156, he learned of a group of marauders searching the countryside for treasure. Concerned for the Templars’ considerable store of silver and gold, Bernard had a massive bell cast from the precious metals and hid it underground. As if the earth had opened and devoured it, the bell was never seen again.
“Every year on the night of October 13, pale shadows rise from the graveyard. All together, the ghosts of the Templars move slowly in a solemn procession to a castle not far from here. There they hold vigil while the invisible bell tolls, and they mourn their losses.”
“Have you heard the bell? Have you seen the ghosts?”
He nodded. “Many of us have. We’re a strange breed. Living in the Languedoc, we’re more susceptible than most to the arcane and mystical. We have Cathar blood in our veins.”
“My father is fascinated with their history. When I was younger, we used to take trips searching for their ruins.”
“They’re holy sites. You can feel it when you find them. Almost as if the earth that soaked up their blood hums.”
“My father calls it the choir of the dead.”
Gaspard shook his head in remorse. “And all they did was try to live peacefully. Innocent farmers who believed our souls were reborn each time with more knowledge and goodness. Doomed because they believed in two Gods, an evil one and a good one. It was just their way to explain everything malignant and terrible in the world. How, they asked, could a benevolent God allow for the sickness and strife, the war and misery that man was subjected to? Logical, wasn’t it?”
“But dangerous. Isn’t that what got them branded as heretics?”
“Exactly. In 1209, with the help of the nobility, the church organized an army to attack them. By 1244, more than thirty thousand men, women, and children were massacred in the name of the Catholic Church.
“The ghosts of those good souls and the promise of their hidden treasures cast great shadows over the land. You’re sensing them. You’re a shadow seer even without your blindfold.”
I had finished my coffee but lifted my cup to my lips to see if I could eke out one last drop, and then I put down the cup. Always hesitant to discuss my gift, I just nodded.
“That day on the bridge, you saw my shadow, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I saw someone else’s shadow, not yours.”
“And you saw him in danger?”
“Yes.”
Gaspard leaned close to me. “Listen to your instincts.”
“You mean stop looking for Madame Calvé’s treasure?” I asked.
“Some mysteries are destroyed if solved. Some confidences, once buried, shouldn’t be disturbed. If a secret is hidden, revealing it could prove dangerous. There are reasons we can’t always know.”
He was speaking in riddles that could have been applied to any one of a dozen things. My feelings for Mathieu. The secrets I exhumed for pay. My being here working for Madame.
“Tell that to Madame Calvé. She’s determined,” I said.
“She’s always been determined. But she never succeeds. You might be the one to change that after all these years.”
“And you don’t think I should? You don’t think the past should be disturbed?” And then I realized something and was certain of it. I blurted out my next question. “Are you protecting whatever it is?”
“With all the people Madame has brought here to try to divine the secrets, there have been so many talentless fakes. It’s amazing how easy it is to believe when you are desperate. And she has been desperate. But with you, she finally stumbled on the real thing.”
“I’m afraid I’m the one who’s been stumbling. Both literally and figuratively. You are protecting the secret. Who are you?”
“If I asked you to stop trying to suss out the location of that cave you keep drawing, just enjoy the company in the chateau until the roads clear, and then let your brother drive you away, would you?”
“If you could give me a good reason, I might.”
“The best reason. To protect you. To keep you safe. Stop looking, Delphine. Don’t meddle in thousands of years of history.”
“But what if I’m the one who is supposed to be meddling?”
Chapter 43
I slowly climbed the stairs, trying to decipher the puzzle Gaspard had left me with. I felt as though I were facing a blank canvas, with only a glimmer of an idea of what I wanted to paint.