Raimund held the door open for her. ‘Be careful. The steps are very steep.’
Olivia peered through the doorway. Steep was an understatement. The narrow stairs appeared almost vertical, dropping into shadow as they curled to the right. To her surprise, the staircase was made of timber, held together by a steel frame bolted to the wall. On the right-hand side, supported by risers extending from the frame, was a tubular polished steel handrail. The overall impression was of a strong but temporary fitting, like shiny new scaffolding. Hefty but easily dismantled.
For some reason, she’d expected oozing damp stone, and the musty smell of parchment, mould and age. She realised now that was a ridiculous notion. They were still one floor above street level and Raimund had already explained the house had been rebuilt after an earthquake in the early 1900s.
‘Since Patrice’s death I’ve upgraded security,’ said Raimund, anticipating her question. ‘And safety. Access to the archives was previously by rope ladder.’
‘Very Tomb Raider.’
‘Non. Very much my father. He enjoyed the sense of adventure.’
Olivia raised an eyebrow at him. ‘And you don’t?’
‘I would not wish to die so ignobly.’ He indicated the landing. ‘Please.’
She stepped through the door onto the small square timber platform and halted, eyeing the steep decline and shadows. Suddenly, a wash of vertigo had her reaching for the wall. No one knew where she was, who she was with. Friends and colleagues thought she was on an extended holiday to Australia, tanning herself on some secluded tropical beach. For the last two months, she hadn’t telephoned, emailed or otherwise engaged with anyone beyond calls home to her parents. They assumed she was still happily in Oxford and Olivia hadn’t done anything to correct the notion. All she’d done, with unfettered determination and bloody-mindedness, was search for La Tasse. And she’d loved every second.
But that was before people started shooting at her, before Raimund disclosed his outrageous intention, before he’d led her to the edge of a secret staircase in a nondescript house in a sleepy Provencale village. A place where the only people aware of her existence were an eccentric elderly couple and a man, who, although forswearing torture, had only the night before made no apologies for his capacity to kill. A man who right now stood behind her, watching with unfathomable dark eyes.
She took a deep breath and waited for the vertigo to fade, then straightened and squared her shoulders. Life was full of risks. Only those with the courage to take chances achieved their goals. If it meant finding Durendal, Olivia possessed the heart for anything, although it never hurt to be cautious.
She beamed brightly at Raimund. ‘You go first.’
He stared at her, hard, his jaw rigid, as if he’d read her mind and was disgusted by it. But whether it was disgust at her for thinking him capable of hurting her or at himself for giving her that impression, she didn’t know. Whichever it was, it made her feel guilty.
She turned away, her fake smile flattening, and gripped the rail. She’d go first. He’d broken a thousand years of secrecy to allow her access to the archives. The least she could do was trust him.
His hand went to her shoulder, stopping her from taking the first step. ‘I will lead.’
‘No. It’s okay.’ Then she twisted around and smiled at him, this time genuinely. ‘I trust you, Raimund. Truly.’
The rigidity in his jaw eased a little, softening the planes of his face, and for the hundredth time, Olivia thought how handsome he was. While his soldier’s granite stoicism might be necessary for the army, in the ordinary world it made him seem inhuman and cold. But that was not the real Raimund. His feelings might be hidden but they existed. His semi-breakdown in the gîte had proven it. And it was that imperfect, tortured man who stirred her most.
He squeezed her shoulder a little and let go. ‘As you wish. But if you change your mind there’s a landing further down where we may change position.’
She nodded and then, with her hand firm on the rail, took her first tread towards the archives.
Thirty steps later, they reached the landing and yet another door. This one was smooth, and when Olivia pressed her palm against it, she felt the cold solidity of steel. There were no handles or keyholes, but flush against the adjacent wall was a rectangular metal panel which did possess a keyhole, albeit small.
Raimund stopped in front of it, and from under his shirt, pulled out a chain on which a thin key was threaded. In silence, he unlocked the panel and swung it open. Recessed in the wall was not a keypad as Olivia had assumed, but a strange-looking device similar to a camera lens. Leaning slightly forward, he stared at it for a few seconds. Below the lens, a green light began to flash.
‘Biometric scanner,’ he said, facing her.
As he spoke, a hollow clunk and then a sound like sliding steel barrels surrounded them. The light on the scanner switched to steady green.
She let out a whistle. ‘Impressive.’
Raimund pushed open the door. ‘No. Necessary.’
‘Do Christiane and Edouard know about this?’ she asked as she ducked under his arm and stepped through.
Overhead, fluorescent lights flickered and hummed into life. She sized up the doorway. The jamb was at least six inches thick and steel all the way around, bolted into what was now rock instead of brick. Deep holes indicated where the bolts secured the door. They had travelled beyond ground level.
‘Yes and no.’ He waited until she had moved down a few steps before closing the door. The bolts slid back into position, followed by a final locking thunk. ‘They are aware there is secure underground storage, but they know it belongs to the family and that it’s not their business.’
Olivia raised her eyebrows. ‘They’re not curious?’
He shrugged in that uniquely French manner. ‘Perhaps, but they know not to ask. The Rosecs understand discretion.’ He indicated for her to move on.
The steps were rock now, carved from the ground. Although the work was thorough, not all were even and there was no rail. She kept her hand against the wall for balance. It was surprisingly dry.
‘So this is your house, not theirs?’
‘Correct.’
Olivia wondered exactly how many properties he owned. She knew of two already, and Patrice must have lived somewhere. Raimund had the educated voice and, of course, the clothes of a well-to-do man, but she had not taken on this job without decent recompense and biometric technology and steel doors cost money. Raimund, she was beginning to suspect, wasn’t just well-to-do but extremely wealthy.
‘You must have a great deal of trust in them to let them stay here, though. Who are they?’
For a few steps Raimund didn’t reply, but then he spoke. From the tone of his voice, it was with reluctance, as though she’d asked one question too many yet manners dictated he answer.
‘My godparents.’
‘Really?’
She found his response incongruous. The word ‘godparents’ conjured images of happy families and close friends and communities, whereas the impression she had of the Blancards was more insular. A family who kept themselves to themselves. A secretive family. A reflection of Raimund.
To Olivia’s irritation, Raimund demonstrated again his uncanny knack of knowing what she was thinking. It had happened so often she’d come to the conclusion that the army had taught him some special skills, like the ability to read the fleeting micro-expressions that unconsciously crossed her face. How he did it this time, though, was a mystery. She had her back to him.
‘You make too many assumptions. We are not as you imagine. My family is —’ He drew in a breath as he caught the error in his normally perfect conjugation. ‘Was as normal as I imagine yours is.’
‘Most people’s families don’t have fabled swords and ancient vows in their backgrounds. Or hidden underground archives. Or a madman chasing after them.’
For a long moment he didn’t respond, but when he did, his voice had changed. The icy determination in it left Olivia shivering.
‘No. But I promise you, that will soon end.’
The descent progressed in silence. Olivia’s mouth twitched with the urge to ask more questions, to find out more about his family, about him, but she didn’t want to provoke him any further. The soldier was once more in control and Olivia didn’t like him.
The steps ended, opening up into a man-made underground cavern with the appearance and atmosphere of a vaulted cathedral. The air was eerily still and smelled earthy, clean, as though the rock had filtered it pure but left behind a residual tang of minerals.
There was still no sign of the archives.
The ceiling was low and brushed Raimund’s dark hair as he walked across the dirt floor towards an unlit archway. The opening appeared black and ominous, as though a great mouth yawned open, ready to swallow them whole. A closed steel portcullis gave the mouth teeth, compounding the impression of a fearsome gaping maw.
Olivia blinked a few times, casting the image from her mind. Her grandmother had always told her a fertile imagination was a wonderful asset, especially for a historian. It allowed them to think creatively, to imagine what closed minds could not, to develop brilliant theories that made others burn with jealousy. Her grandmother may have spoken the truth, but at that moment, Olivia could have done without the Hammer Horror imagery.
He pointed to the right-hand wall. ‘Five metres behind that rock is Edouard’s wine cellar and above that, the garage. This cave —’ he used the French pronunciation, which made cave sound like ‘carve’ ‘— was dug parallel to the original, but further into the hill and with a separate entrance.’
Olivia stared around her. Tool marks formed strangely beautiful asymmetric patterns on the roof and walls. The chamber had been dug by hand. The effort must have been phenomenal.
‘It must have taken ages.’
‘It did.’ He patted the wall, his mouth lifting with what Olivia recognised as deep pride. ‘Five years.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘You did this?’
‘And Patrice and my father.’
‘Bloody hell.’
He stopped at the arch and pointed upwards. ‘Proof.’
She stood beside him, her head tilted. Above the arch, tooled in block letters, were the names Alain, Patrice and Raimund. Her eyes slid towards him. He was smiling slightly, as though the names had evoked something good in him, a happy memory, a touching recollection of familial love, and then it was gone. With a swift collapse of muscle, his face returned to his usual studied mask.
Olivia reached out her fingers and gently took his hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
For a brief moment he let her hold him. The revived pain that creased his features and thinned his mouth flickered and then was hidden quickly. With a light squeeze of her fingers, he pulled away. Patrice’s death had left scars that would never heal, though whatever emotion his father’s name summoned she didn’t know and now was not the time to ask.
Without a word, he crouched down and pressed at a point low in the wall close to where the arch met the floor. There was no button or switch that Olivia could see, but immediately a camouflaged panel flipped open in the wall at eye level, exposing the lens of another biometric scanner. Raimund stood and then turned to look at Olivia.
‘Are you ready?’
Abruptly, she remembered why they were there. Why they were deep underground in a carved-out cellar protected by hi-tech security devices and steel doors.
The archives.
Her pulse began to throb as anticipation gripped her. She felt the same way she did the first time she saw the magnificent spires of Oxford and realised the world was filled with possibilities and adventure. Except this was ten times more exhilarating. This wasn’t just a possibility. This was real.
She grinned at Raimund. ‘You bet I’m ready.’
He nodded, and then stared at the lens.
Three clicks sounded as, one by one, a series of huge overhead hanging lights burst into brilliant illumination. Then slowly, like the gateway into Camelot, the portcullis began to rise.
Raimund flourished an arm. ‘Et voilà. Les archives.’
Olivia sucked a breath into lungs that felt at once incapable of inflation and yet too big for her chest. All over, her skin tingled, as if thousands of goosebumps were erupting over its surface at the same time. She stared and stared, her mouth wobbling between an idiotic grin and open-mouthed shock.
As she surveyed the room in front of her, the insane idea that she’d clicked her heels and somehow transported herself to a library in Oxford or Berlin or Paris filtered into her brain. A strange noise erupted from her throat, and immediately she felt Raimund’s hand cup her elbow, as if he thought she was about to faint. But she wouldn’t faint, not in this place, not amongst these treasures.
She had expected archive boxes, a few tables spread with maps and the odd diary. Perhaps some fake swords and reproduction artworks. But this … this was like the underbelly of a museum. The sort of storage facility that housed a collection’s overflow, the artefacts that didn’t fit into the public viewing rooms, or were off display and undergoing cleaning, restoration or study.
The entire room was made of concrete—walls, floor, ceiling—like an air-raid bunker or deep underground carpark. Separated by a central aisle, row upon row of sturdy steel racking filled either side of the chamber. On the left were tall open shelves, each stuffed with books and artefacts and scrolls and cups and hundreds and hundreds of wonderful things that made Olivia’s mind overflow with excitement. On the right, squat glass cabinets, each with its own climate-control system, held more books and artworks and precious, beautiful items of incalculable value.
She took a step closer. Her mouth still didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. She wanted to run around whooping and laughing and yet the sight before her made her jaw drop with awe.
‘Is it real?’
‘Yes, Olivia. It’s real.’
She glanced at Raimund and pointed to the first shelf on the left. ‘May I?’
He nodded, his espresso eyes softening to molten dark chocolate and a smile reflecting his pleasure in her reaction. ‘You may touch anything you wish.’
Around each shelf and down the length of the main aisle, thick rubber matting had been laid for comfort and protection. It felt spongy underfoot, like walking on a sprung floor, and Olivia had a childish urge to do cartwheels or multiple somersaults. Anything to release the enormous bubble of joy that had welled inside her. This was like nothing she had ever seen before, nothing she’d ever experienced. She was the first outsider to see this treasure, to touch it, to wallow in its magnificence.
If she wasn’t feeling so over-the-top wired, she’d be humbled.
She trailed a fingertip down the spine of a book, almost afraid to take it from the shelf. She cast Raimund a silent question. When he smiled and nodded, she carefully eased it from its slot. The binding was tooled animal skin, cracked and dull with age. A plain volume. Gently, she opened the cover and translated the French cover page. It was a first-edition history of the Albigensian crusade, a volume so rare she didn’t want to breathe near it, and yet here it was, sitting on an open shelf in an underground cellar in Provence. She blinked, and blinked again, reeling with the thought of the riches that must lie on the controlled-environment shelves.
‘The collection is vast,’ said Raimund. ‘Patrice would spend days down here, lost in his books and papers. I used to tease him that he would never find a wife because his mistress was too demanding.’
Olivia returned the book to the shelf. ‘I can imagine. I’d be exactly the same.’
She walked further along, scanning the shelves then stopping and picking out another book. This one was also bound in skin, but in contrast to the Albigensian book, the cover was beautifully tooled. She guessed sixteenth-century binding but it could have been earlier, and definitely Moroccan. The pattern was distinctly Islamic, although the majority of the once-generous gold embossing had flaked away.
She eased open the cover. It was a biography of Louis IX, Saint Louis as he later became, and one she’d never seen before. She turned a few pages, scanning the text, marvelling, then closed the book and reluctantly returned it to the shelf. There’d be time to read it in detail later. Assuming Raimund granted her that privilege.
But he had to. He had to let her study the collection. He could not be so cruel as to take this away, to leave her knowing of its existence but unable to examine it. Unable to lose herself in its glories until time ceased to exist.
She walked down the main aisle, counting the rows. Six sets of open shelves and five climate-controlled ones. A staggering amount to explore. Each open shelf contained five tiers, each two and a half metres long and more than a metre wide. The enclosed shelves were smaller—a metre and a half or so in length, with only three tiers—but each was wide and brimming with artefacts.
At the rear of the chamber, a study, lounge and kitchen area had been laid out, with the kitchen separated from the other spaces by a bank of filing cabinets.
Raimund placed the aluminium case containing La Tasse on a large timber table in the centre of the study zone, then stood watching in silence as Olivia explored the space around him.
Bracketed against the right-hand corner walls were a span of sloping boards. Along the base ran a wide timber lip designed to prevent reading material, pens and other miscellany tumbling to the floor. Abandoned haphazardly at various points were stools on casters, as though the occupants had only left moments ago.
Pinned to the walls were a series of maps—of Western Europe ranging from the days of the Carolingian Empire through to modernity. One depicted the southern coastline of modern-day France, with blue stickers marking several towns. Narbonne, Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Nice, Avignon, Gailhan, Carpentras, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Perpignan, Albi, Béziers, Vauvert and Rognes were all marked. Blancard property locations, Olivia guessed.
There were paintings, too, some of which, to Olivia’s shock, appeared to date from the thirteenth century. Leaning across the study boards, she inspected one up close. Although hundreds of years old and painted on wood, the work was breathtaking, the colours still vibrant even after all this time.
It showed, unmistakably, a scene from the Song of Roland. In full armour, propped against a boulder, Roland sat dying. Beside his left hand lay the oliphant he used to call Charlemagne back to his side, while still grasped in his right, glowing as though it were alive, was Durendal. Overhead, his wings beating in an impossible blue sky, hovered an angel, ready to call Roland to heaven.
Olivia swallowed. ‘Am I dreaming?’
‘No.’
‘This is incredible.’
She straightened, pressed her fingertips against her eyes and rubbed them for a brief moment before dropping her hands and staring at the painting. Although she knew there was still much to explore, the picture held her mesmerised, and it was some minutes before she could drag herself away.
She crossed to the kitchenette and lounge area, more out of nosiness than real interest. Magazines were scattered across various surfaces, dog-eared and bent open, and she was curious to see the journals Patrice subscribed to.
She picked up a copy of Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales off the coffee table and smiled. Beneath it lay a Sotheby’s catalogue. Academic journals and auction house catalogues. Not everyone’s choice to curl up with, but for her, and so it appeared, Patrice, essential reading.
She replaced the journal and surveyed the remaining lounge area. With the exception of a comfortable-looking blue sofa pushed up against the rear wall, every available surface was covered in books or magazines. Thinking a sit-down would allow her to settle and catch her breath, Olivia walked towards the sofa, but even that was occupied.
In one corner, as if someone had tossed it aside after waking from a nap, was bundled a garish yellow-and-red Provencale-style quilt. Sitting casually on top, like a misplaced piece of cutlery, was the tip of a lance.
‘Carolingian,’ said Raimund, picking it up. ‘Presented to Charlemagne by Pope Hadrian I.’ He smiled and held it out to Olivia. ‘Or so Patrice told me.’
She took it gingerly, afraid of dropping or breaking it, and slowly turned it over in her hands. The lance was made of several different materials but mainly iron. Across the tip, three rows of gold wire had been twisted and knotted, but whatever they had once held in place was now gone. If the lance was genuine—and Olivia had the creeping feeling it was—then it was likely the wire had once secured a nail from the cross of Jesus.
‘This isn’t the Holy Lance, is it?’ she asked half-jokingly.
‘The Lance of Longinus? I doubt it.’ Raimund took it from her hands and inspected it. ‘Patrice assures me it was Charlemagne’s, though.’
‘But what of the Holy Lance in Vienna? The provenance of that is so indisputable Napoleon tried to pinch it after the battle of Austerlitz. Even Hitler wanted it. Patton, for God’s sake, became obsessed with it.’
He walked to the nearest climate-controlled cabinet, slid open a door and laid the lance tip inside. ‘Perhaps Charlemagne had two. Perhaps it is a fake. I do not know, Olivia. This is your area of expertise, not mine.’
She flopped onto the sofa and sat staring into space. This was simply unbelievable.
Raimund crouched in front of her, inspecting her face with concern. ‘There’s a problem?’
She shook her head.
He smiled a little. ‘It’s a shock.’
She closed her eyes. ‘That’s an understatement.’
Olivia let out a sigh and opened her eyes. She gazed at Raimund, wishing she had words to express how she felt, to explain how honoured she was to be granted access to such a treasure. Instead of speaking, she caressed his cheek with her fingers, hoping that simple movement would say enough, and for a fleeting moment, she felt something pass between them. Something indefinable but full of meaning, an understanding. An infinitesimal breath of trust.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He cupped his hand over hers and removed it from his cheek. Then, very slowly, he brought it to his lips and kissed the back of her hand with the same light press of lips she thought she’d only dreamed of at the gîte. ‘You are very welcome.’
Then he stood and walked down the centre aisle towards the archway, his back straight and his shoulders squared as though he were on military parade and the kiss had never happened.
Olivia watched him, wondering if she had imagined that moment of intimacy, wondering if once again she had conjured up something that wasn’t there. But she hadn’t. What she had felt was real. She had felt it and so had he, and now he was walking away. For a second longer she observed him, then rose and followed.
He stopped at the arch. Olivia wanted to reach out and touch him, to absorb some of that tension that seemed to emanate from his body like rampant electricity.
‘I know Patrice would have been proud for you to see this, Olivia. You and he —’ He stared hard at the archway, as though seeking strength from the stone. ‘The archives are yours to explore. I know you will treat them with respect.’ He addressed her over his shoulder, under control once more. ‘I will leave you in peace.’
She stepped closer, ready to grab his hand again, to offer him the friendship and understanding she sensed he desperately needed. ‘Please, don’t go.’
‘Do not worry, there has not been an earthquake in years and this room is heavily reinforced.’
‘I’m not worried about earthquakes.’
And she wasn’t. She was worried about him. For the last two months he’d been acting like a robot, showing no emotion, almost callous in his indifference. But in the space of twenty-four hours she’d watched him change. His grief was leaking to the surface like molten lava. Soon it would overflow. Instinctively, she knew that for a man like Raimund the loss of restraint would be devastating. He wouldn’t know how to handle it. He’d view any show of emotion as a sign of intolerable weakness and try to contain it, but that would only make things worse.
She swallowed and then thought to hell with it. The man needed to hear what she had to say even if he wouldn’t like it.
‘Raimund, I’m just an academic, but even I can see you need to face your loss. Patrice is gone, but in this place,’ she pointed to the shelves, to the artworks hanging on the walls, ‘in these books, in this room, he lives.’
His reaction was one she should have expected. His jaw went rigid and his eyes sparkled with fury. Then he unclipped the buckle of his watch and lobbed it at her. Unsuspecting, Olivia missed it. The watch bounced on the rubber matting at her feet.
‘I’ll return at one o’clock with some lunch,’ he said coldly. ‘If you become thirsty, the kitchenette refrigerator contains bottled water and soft drinks. I’m afraid there are no toilet facilities.’
‘Raimund, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to —’
She took a step forward, but he was already striding across the chamber towards the steps. Although she knew it was unwise, she kept talking.
‘I know what it’s like to lose someone you care about. I know how you feel.’
He swung around, advancing on her with scorn in his eyes, stopping three feet away with his finger pointed at her. His tone sent shafts of ice down Olivia’s spine.
‘You know nothing, Olivia. Nothing! I saw the photographs of my brother’s torture. Each one was dated. A week it lasted. A week! At the start he was brave and defiant because he believed I was coming for him. Then his eyes turned dull when he realised I was not. Patrice died thinking I had forsaken him. Believe me, Olivia. You have no idea how I feel.’
Without another word, he whirled around, strode across the chamber, took the steps two at a time and then disappeared.
Leaving Olivia with her heart as empty as the staircase.