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“He wasn’t a historian, by any chance?” I asked.
The poet laughed at that. “God, no. Didier? He took no interest in such things. He was a clever man, don’t get me wrong—he worked once for a lawyer, so he must have had a brain. But I don’t think I ever saw him read a book. Now me,” he confessed, “I have too many books.”
Paul turned to admire the shelves. “There’s no such thing.”
“I have some books, old books, about the history of Chinon, that make some mention of the tunnels. I’m afraid I can’t lend them, but if you’d like to look…”
It was a good excuse to stand, to bring our rather pointless visit to a close, and I loitered patiently to one side as Paul leafed through the offered books with polite interest.
It was too bad, I thought, that Harry hadn’t known about Victor Belliveau. My cousin would have coveted this collection of books—old memoirs, bound in leather rubbed bald at the edges; some odd assorted plays and books of poems; an old edition of Cyrano de Bergerac, a copy of a British history journal…
I blinked, and peered more closely at the shelf. The journal was a recent one, with a revisionist slant. And there upon the cover, bold as brass, I read my cousin’s proper name: Henry Yates Braden, PhD.
“What’s that?” asked Paul, behind my shoulder. I tilted the cover to show him.
Victor Belliveau leaned in to look as well. “Ah, yes,” he said, “that talks about the tunnels, too. I had forgotten…” He looked a little closer, and his eyebrows lifted. “Braden… isn’t that the man you asked me about? The man from your university?”
Paul nodded. “Harry Braden, yes.”
“Then I’m sorry he didn’t come to visit me,” the poet said, his tone sincere. “I enjoyed his article very much. He has an interesting mind, I think.”
I put the journal down again, frowning faintly. “I don’t suppose that Didier Muret would have read this article as well?”
The poet shrugged. “I wouldn’t think it likely.”
“Because he didn’t read much, you mean?”
“Because he knew no English.” The poet’s smile was gentle. He walked us to the door and shook our hands. “You must come back again, if I can be of any help,” he said. But he didn’t linger for a good-bye wave. He closed the door behind us as we stepped onto the grass, and I heard the bolt slide home. The sound seemed to echo back from the abandoned barn opposite, where a padlocked door creaked in the slight wind as Paul and I trudged thoughtfully across the pitted overgrown yard.
“He certainly didn’t seem a drunkard,” I remarked.
“Yeah, well,” Paul smiled faintly, “that doesn’t mean anything. My Uncle Aaron soaks up liquor like a sponge, but you’d never know it. He only slurs on days he’s stone cold sober.” We’d reached the leaning gate. Paul pulled it open and stood aside to let me pass through first.
I looked at him, curious. “Do you think he was telling us the truth? About not writing Harry the letter, I mean?”
“Why would he lie?”
Why indeed? I looked back one final time at the dismal yellow farmhouse, at the crumbling walls and sagging roof. The curtains of the kitchen window twitched and then lay still, and the only movement left was that of the lone black chicken, stalking haughtily across the yard through the long and waving grass. I felt a faint cold shiver that I recognized as fear, although I didn’t know its cause.
“The chapelle, next,” said Paul, and slammed the gate behind us with a clang that sent the chicken scuttling for cover.
Chapter 18
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss…
Paul pulled the jangling ring of keys from the iron lock and swung the great door reverently, as though he hated to disturb the peaceful atmosphere laced with the songs of unseen birds and the whispering of wind in shadowed alcoves. Above the old baptismal font the bay tree rustled gently, while the wild flowers nodded drowsily along the edges of the empty grass-filled graves. Soft weathered faces watched us from each corner of the architecture, from every ledge and pediment and every vaulted niche, and in the shadowed aisle behind the tall black iron gates the pensive saints gazed through the bars as one stares at a lion in its cage.
It should have been unnerving, having all those eyes upon me, but it wasn’t. Oddly enough, it was reassuring. I felt again that rush of pure contentment, of childlike wonder, and the sense of beauty stabbed so deeply that I had to blink back tears.
“Wow,” said Paul. “It doesn’t lose its impact, does it, second time around?”
I shook my head. “You’ve been here before?”
“Yeah. It was one of the first places we discovered after the château. Simon read about it in a book, I think, and when he found out Christian had a key…” He shrugged, and left it at that, moving past me to the soaring grille of iron.
“And what’s the word for this place, then? Secluded?” I guessed. “Sacred?”
He grinned. “Sanctuary.”
