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“What is it?” Christian leaned down, curious, as Harry finally tugged the object free. I
only saw a small dark square the size of Harry’s hand. He passed it up to Christian. “You tell me.”
It was filthy dirty, for one thing. My cousin’s hand left black marks on the stone as he swung himself up the few remaining feet to join us on the narrow ledge above the well. Christian had turned the packet over, sniffing. “Oil,” he pronounced. “It has been oiled.”
“Waxed as well.” Harry pointed to the great untidy splotch of black that held the packet closed. “Somebody didn’t want this getting wet.” He was dripping water himself, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He slicked his hair back, glanced at me. “Emily, love, would you toss me my trousers? Thanks.” He rummaged for his pocket knife and prized the battered blade open. It was rather tricky, since the packet seemed to crumble when he touched it, but at length he’d sliced the wax seal through and gently, oh so gently, coaxed the stiffened edges apart.
The squares of parchment had been folded up so tightly for so long that they were nearly solid lumps, and Harry didn’t try to force them open. He knew better. There were specialists who did that sort of thing. But he did forget his training long enough to turn the parchment in his still-damp fingers, searching for a scrap of writing, anything. “Oh, my God,” he said.
I looked at him, and caught some measure of his own excitement. “What?”
“You ought to know that signature,” he told me, stretching out his hand toward me. I looked. I blinked, a long blink, looked again. And then I raised my head to stare at him.
I couldn’t even speak.
Neil slid his gaze from me to Harry. “What are they?”
“Letters.” My cousin’s voice had roughened slightly, as it always did when he became emotional. It echoed back from the still water of the well. “Love letters, I expect. Written by a king eight hundred years ago.”
Christian stroked a corner of the crumbling oiled packet. “Eight hundred years? Incredible.”
My cousin looked at me. “‘A treasure beyond price,’” he quoted, and his eyes grew moist. “That’s what the chronicle said Queen Isabelle hid, here at Chinon. Only it wasn’t jewels, or money. Damn, who would have known…?” He shook his head, his dreamy gaze returning to the crudely-chiseled footholds in the soft, unspeaking stone. And then, as if he’d suddenly remembered Neil and Christian wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about, which meant that they were fair game for a classic lecture, Henry Yates Braden, PhD, promptly cleared his throat. “You see,” he began, “there was another Isabelle…”
Chapter 33
…lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,
“What, no lectures?” Harry asked me, as we paused before the altar. Christian swung the iron gate shut and the sound disturbed my thoughts. I turned unfocused eyes toward my cousin.
“I’m sorry?”
“About how I shouldn’t steal things from historic sites,” he clarified. “You’re rather puritan about the subject, as I recall. You read me the Riot Act that day I nicked a pebble from Tintagel.”
“That wasn’t a pebble, it was a building stone, and if everybody did that there wouldn’t be a castle left to…” I saw his smile forming and broke off with a heavy sigh. “Anyhow, I suppose I can’t talk, can I? I stole a coin from an offering plate, for heaven’s sake.”
“You brought it back.”
“And you said yourself you’re going to give the letters to the University of Paris.”
“Right. Just as soon as I have a chance to look at them.”
My gaze narrowed. “Harry…”
“Well, have a heart! You can’t expect me to just turn the damn things over without looking at them first. Christ, I’m not a saint, you know.” His eyes flicked sideways to where Radegonde’s calm statue stood behind the altar, as if he half expected to be flattened by a lightning bolt. “Besides,” he went on, in a lower voice, “since no one else even knows that the letters exist, it stands to reason that no one will miss them for a few days, will they?”
“A few days?”
“Well, a month maybe.”
“And then you’ll send them on to Paris?”
“On my honor.” He swore the oath with hand upraised.
Past redemption, I thought—that’s what Harry was. On his honor indeed. I smiled and looked away, out past the iron grille to where the gentle fingers of the breaking dawn touched softly on the bay tree standing sentinel beside the chapelle’s door.
“Cold?” Harry asked me.
“No.”
