Bright Hair About the Bone (34 page)

“All's in hand, Miss.” The countryman grinned with pleasure, eager to speak to her. “We'll get 'er in from the pasture long before the junketing starts.” He rolled his eyes. “The Saint Jean! It's likely to get a bit lively, like! And how that do go on! Begging your pardon, Miss, but I said young Robert could go down to town and take a look around. He's still of bonfire-leaping age and unattached as yet. The count usually gives permission. There'll be two lads on duty here just to quieten any nerves. As per usual.”

“Then I'm sure that will be fine, Marcel,” said Letty, bemused. “Carry on. Bath time, is it?”

“That's right. He's been rolling in something nasty.”

“Where's he taking that animal?” Marie-Louise asked.

“To have a bath,” said Letty, enjoying her surprise. “Oh, yes, they have their own bath! Well, washing pond—there's a reservoir a short way down the hill to feed it.”

“
And
their own piped water supply, I see,” said Marie-Louise, eyeing a water basin and brass tap.

“Horses need a lot of water—they're not happy to guzzle champagne like their master.” Letty was getting a bit fed up with Marie-Louise's socialist slant and critical eye.

“Sorry! This is all fresh and strange to me!” she said, tuning at once to Letty's mood. “Do go on—I'm enjoying the tour. Tell me—how many grooms work here?” she asked, struggling to show interest.

“There are three at the moment, more in the high season. And there's Jules, who's usually in charge, but he's away in Lyon with the boss.”

“I see. And over there?” she asked, pointing towards the door at the end of the run of stalls. “Is that where the grooms live? Does he make the men live with the horses?”

“No. They have their quarters over in a wing of the main house. This is the harness room.” Letty unlocked the solid oak door and Marie-Louise poked her head around and then entered.

“Ah! At last a room I can enjoy,” she said, sniffing appreciatively the scents of leather and cedarwood, approving the neatness and order. Glass-fronted cupboards held saddles in rows; pieces of metal harness were arranged on felt-backed boards fixed to the panelled walls; polished riding boots stood lined up, toes outwards; and a row of wild boars' heads glared down at them with small savage eyes.

But it was the wall backing up to the natural rock outcrop that encircled and defended the castle promontory that was drawing Letty. While wishing Marie-Louise and her iconoclastic eye a thousand miles away, she had to feel grateful to the girl for spotting the marker in the portrait: the second escutcheon, clearly indicating a place of interest—the place to which Daniel had been directing her all along. Letty paused and looked around to get her bearings, recalling the position of the escutcheon, and then she strolled along until she reached the spot where she calculated it would have appeared, halfway along the stalls and opposite the main entrance. And she saw there another sign so clear, so obvious, that for a moment she stood, frozen and staring.

Marie-Louise's voice over her shoulder made her jump. “Is she special?” she asked. “This horse? The pretty white one.”

“Grey,” said Letty automatically.

“Nonsense. She's pure white. What's her name? What do you bet it's ‘Snowflake'?” She peered into the stall which occupied the exact halfway point along the row and put out a hesitant hand to pat the silken flank of the mare, standing quiet and unthreatening. She read with some difficulty. “Ah! We'd lose our bet. It appears to be ‘Eponina.' Daughter of Epona…well, what else?”

The lettering was florid, curlicued—of a bygone age. The brass name plate was so well polished, the letters were barely discernible. Probably of the same age as the stables, Letty guessed. And it looked unchanged. It occurred to her that every horse occupying that stall must have answered to the name of “Eponina.” A long tradition of white mares? All the guardians of the goddess?
Vera dea celatur equis suis.
The true goddess is concealed by her horses.

A rush of frustration and longing swept over Letty. “Edmond! Where are you? You should be here. Now.”

Her fingers closed over the notebook in her pocket.

         

“Supper calls, I think. We'll just let Mme. Lepage know that we're leaving now.”

Letty led the way back into the château and along to the summer salon, where she rang the bell for the housekeeper. Letty thanked her for the excellent tea. “We were particularly taken with the cake, madame. The
quatre-quarts?
Delicious! Your own recipe?”

“One I inherited from my grandmother, mademoiselle. But it is simple: a question of the best ingredients—eggs and butter straight from the home farm—and the exactness of the quantities.”

“Is it a secret or could you bear to give me the recipe? I should like to have a copy for my cook in England.”

At Mme. Lepage's nodding consent, she tore a page from her notebook and handed it to Marie-Louise with a stub of pencil. “Look—why doesn't the teacher take dictation for a change? Would you mind, Marie-Louise? I've remembered I promised to telephone Edmond to reassure him about Dido's condition. I'll dash down to the library and do that now. Oh, and while I'm at it—why don't I ring your father and tell him we'll be a little late for supper? What's your number?…Write it down here…Thanks…Be back in a tick.”

Letty smiled as she closed the door on Madame Lepage's authoritative voice. “Take six eggs and their weight in butter…”

CHAPTER 32

“Let me have men about me that are fat;”

D'Aubec recalled with an effort the few lines of the one play of Shakespeare's that he admired.

“Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights;

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”

But just for once, Julius Caesar had it wrong, he thought, looking at the selection around the conference table. The two politicians would have found favour with Caesar, certainly. At first appearances, they had the comfortable fleshiness of the bons vivants they undoubtedly were, but their lapdog sleekness was deceptive. One French senator, one German—a disaffected member of the Weimar Republican government—it was hard to distinguish one from the other. Their eyes were shrewd and now, at the end of a gruelling two-hour session, remained alert. D'Aubec trusted neither one outside the limit of the control he exercised. The two reins of ambition and coercion that he held in his hands seemed to keep them on track. The pair of industrialists, however, had the rangy twitchiness of wolves. He didn't trust them, either. “Cassius” and “Casca,” he named them privately. Just as well he had his own special means of ensuring their loyalty.

He disliked the pair of them but agreed with Constantine that they had much to offer. He recognised that the war could have been won three years earlier by the allies, had not the German cause been saved by—of all men—a chemist. Not a general, not a politician, not even an assassin. By unravelling the threads and tracing them back, he and Constantine had arrived at a point early in the war when it was clear that the lives of millions hung on the discovery of one man. If a man called Haber had not found out how to synthesise ammonia, German supplies of nitrate, essential for the production of explosives, would have run out as a consequence of the British blockade and their army would have been obliged to put up its hands in short order. No Somme. No Verdun. No Ypres.

And here at his table was another of these modern magicians: a chemist, German-born, distinguished, sought after by many nations. Tipped to receive the Nobel Prize, d'Aubec was assured. A man of exceptional ability, conscienceless, ambitious, he was tireless in the quest he had pursued since before the war. This was no less than to produce industrially a highly toxic acid which would prove a more reliable and effective weapon than the chlorine gas the German army had uncorked at Ypres. A gas dependent on wind for dispersal, the armies had realised, was uncertain, and the prevailing wind on the battlefield, on two days out of three, blew from west to east. Unfortunately, the day Edmond's brother Guy had been sent to the trenches had been a third day.

In the grey unnamed folder under Constantine's elbow, the one he privately called “War Technology,” were details of the scientist's brainchild, a sweet-smelling, highly toxic pest-control substance. Already tested and ready for production. And there the scientist sat, smoking a cigar and dropping names: “…my good friend Albert Einstein once confided…It's not generally known, of course, that the Kaiser is pathologically afraid of the dark, but…” Tedious upstart! The second guest, a Swiss, owned the factories and the resources to turn the formulae into drums of poison gas.

And d'Aubec owned the Swiss.

Sharing a table with members of his family in his uncle's gracious town house, the newcomers had responded to the courtly good manners and warm welcome they had experienced. His mother, present as hostess, reassured them with her well-bred confidence and her openness. And who could fail to be impressed by the chairman, his uncle? D'Aubec exchanged a glance of weary amusement with Auguste. He owed everything to Auguste. The elderly aristocrat had taken in hand the distraught younger son he had been when, at the age of sixteen, he had acceded to the title on Guy's death. Auguste had understood the boy's grief and his urge to throw himself at once into the conflict, but he had successfully counselled against it, calling on the strongest motives. And, in the way of younger sons who have seen no action, d'Aubec had set about acquiring the panache he considered the world might expect of a descendant of the Dukes of Burgundy. Discovering that no one takes any notice of a sixteen-year-old even if he is shaving twice a day, he developed a peremptory bark and a decisive manner. With his uncle's guidance and the genius of Auguste's man Constantine, he had set about repairing the family's fortunes, sunk to a low ebb during the war. The unfathomable Constantine's first loyalty—d'Aubec was under no illusion—had always been to his uncle. And there he sat, his literal right-hand man, peacefully making notes and exchanging asides with Auguste.

D'Aubec examined their profiles, the elderly and the young. He could see no physical resemblance but, as he occasionally did, he played with the thought that Constantine might have a closer relationship with his uncle than had been publicly admitted. In the days of the
ancien régime,
illegitimate sons were given similar influential positions within a noble household. Constantine would have worn the splendid satin coat of a
gentilhomme servant
and been charged with the administration of the household. He would have had the ear of the lord and wielded considerable power. Nowadays he chose to call himself a secretary; he wore dark suits and stayed discreetly in the background. But the influence remained. And so carefully was it managed that d'Aubec himself was never quite certain how far it reached. He knew neither the extent nor the quality of that influence. What he did know was that difficulties and difficult people were often ironed away as they arose, following a calm “Leave this to me, Edmond.”

And perhaps he'd left too much to Constantine? Could he ever manage his enterprise without the man's acumen and his executive abilities? Probably not. D'Aubec had no delusions; he was clever enough to calculate and accept that his own intellectual powers were inferior to those of his secretary. And he was not unaware that to be the dashing figurehead of any movement was to occupy a dangerous and exposed position.

Well, today he intended to surprise them all. He'd had quite enough of standing at the prow, jaw to the wind, feeling but not occasioning the power surge and the direction changes happening behind him. Today the figurehead would suddenly show itself capable of acting as steering oar!

He looked around the table assessing alliances and allegiances and wondering in whom he could safely trust. Strangely, he'd have felt more confident with Laetitia at his side. She would support him, watch his back, make him feel less alone.

He'd enjoyed leading her on a wild-goose chase, a Gothic treasure hunt, trailing the lure of Daniel's clues to a secret that was no secret to him, and he felt no guilt at the deception. The distracting trail of ancient books he'd put in front of her had been an inspiration! And he'd dreamed up the scheme himself.

He pictured again the delight with which she'd fallen on the texts, tears of emotion in her eyes as she'd swept up her godfather's notes. She'd even secreted something from the wastebasket into her pocket when she thought he wasn't looking. It had been the work of a moment to bring out of storage the boxes of material Daniel had left behind and spread it out in a semblance of the disordered mess in which he usually worked. And he'd obviously got it right. He remembered Laetitia's barely contained eagerness to grapple with the translation, so reminiscent of Daniel's enthusiasm. He smiled at the memory of their last evening when, with wide-eyed solemnity just failing to cover a bubbling glee, she'd revealed to him “his treasure.”

And, much to his amusement, that's exactly what it had turned out to be—a treasure of sorts. He had felt proud to be the owner, the inheritor, of this nationally important cache of texts. Auguste had agreed with him that it should be exploited and as soon as possible. Their man at the Louvre had it in hand already, and the resulting news reports would have the power to knock any Egyptian Pharaoh off the front pages. The whole country would rediscover, in the most sensational way, a pride in its Celtic roots. Thanks to Laetitia, they'd taken the first step.

Unexpectedly, he had caught her fever. He'd fallen victim to his own manufactured excitement—been hoist with his own petard. Her instinct had been right and he was the more the fool…so unaware of what had been there in front of him, available yet ignored.

He'd shrugged off suggestions that he was spending too many precious hours in her sole company, but the pressure on him to “resolve the problem of Miss Talbot” as they delicately put it, was increasing. Was she on their side or not? No halfway position would be tolerated. No objections or queries had ever been raised by his previous fleeting amours. He'd always dealt with the consequences himself, amicably, satisfactorily. Easy enough to do if one was circumspect. Upper-class, married, Parisian. This was the preferred order of qualifications—and all three, for choice. He stirred in his seat at an uncomfortable and usually suppressed memory. He'd made a mistake. Barely out of adolescence and testing out his newly acquired position, he'd fallen for and tempted a village girl. It would all have been a disaster if Constantine hadn't been brought in to negotiate with the outraged family, calm anger, and divert recrimination. This was the first occasion on which he'd been grateful to hear “Leave this to me, Edmond.” And he'd defused the bad situation. D'Aubec was not encouraged to ask by what means.

But he wanted Constantine nowhere near Laetitia Talbot. He remembered standing with her before Guy's portrait, his arm about her supple waist, her blouse still damp from the spring, the delightful scent of the top of her head under his nose…herbs? grasses?…and a gentle female glow, at once reassuring and arousing. A woman who felt right at his side. A choice of the heart and the head. Perfect! He smiled to himself at the memory of her face in the grove at twilight, eyes huge with a blend of excitement and trepidation. He'd been a fool not to go through with it. He should have made certain of her there and then, as he'd intended, in the shade of the rowan tree. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling a rush of anger and regret. Yes, that would have done it.

A girl of her background—she'd have considered herself instantly committed to him. Undoubtedly a virgin. And you didn't expect an English girl to have acquired the sophisticated knowledge of someone like Gabrielle, with the addresses of discreet Parisian clinics in her notebook and their intriguing products secreted away in jewellery cases and powder boxes. He couldn't now imagine why he'd held off—she'd been very willing. Attracted to him, that was obvious; allured by his way of life but a girl not to be impressed by expensive gifts…He was sure he'd got that right. And if he'd insisted, they could have presented everyone with a fait accompli. He wasn't obliged to wait for Constantine's nod—or his mother's approval.

The old lady had had her doubts at first. “Darling, are you sure?” she'd asked. “My friends report that this English girl is somewhat…er…
farouche.
She goes around the town in trousers and boots with her hair all over the place and—they tell me—galloping about like a goatherd. Daniel gave us no warning of this, I'm quite certain.”

D'Aubec had reassured her that at Laetitia's appearance at the Lion d'Or, heads had turned; appreciative eyebrows had been raised at the sight of her severely elegant evening dress. Every hair of her blonde head had been in place, her manners impeccable. “This is, after all, Daniel's daughter, Maman!” he'd reminded her with emphasis. “Would we expect anything less than good breeding and charm?” And Laetitia had won his mother over, though Constantine remained impervious to the alleged charm.

As he watched, his secretary leaned to his right and made a comment to the old countess. She laughed and whispered something in agreement. Odd that; the man never said anything deliberately to amuse d'Aubec.

There was no doubting the parentage of the young man on d'Aubec's right. Very much his father's son, François had grown up with Edmond: his playmate, more of a brother than the cousin he was. François had just returned from a trip to the United States where he had plunged into a study of communications, particularly the possibilities of journalistic and cinematic propaganda. And he had returned invigorated and inspired. An ally, but more than that: his trusted lieutenant. Another young man unwilling to adapt his step to the slow march imposed by the Old Guard. His mother was supported in everything by her confidant, the priest Anselme. And their litany was unchanging: “This is not the time. We are still in the era of the fish. We must wait, prepare, strengthen, pave the way…There will be far graver challenges at a future time…Another ninety years must pass…”

Anything but take action. Edmond and François were ready. Fish? To hell with the fish!

D'Aubec had paid close attention to the scholarly Anselme's explanation of the ancient time patterns displayed by the astrological device to which his family paid such close attention. The Zodiac they kept on the wall of the chapel was the twin of the one discreetly displayed in Chartres. Such an obviously pagan symbol—he was surprised that it had not been routed out. He wasn't quite sure that it had a place in his own chapel, warning him of Sirius rising, red path intersections, ecliptic perihelions of the Dark Star…mumbo jumbo! He'd tried to come to grips with it but, really, you'd need the mathematical brain of a Pythagoras to decipher it. And who was to say that some devious old Greek wasn't responsible for the contraption in the first place, or even—if Anselme's hints were to be taken seriously—an earlier witch doctor…some ancient Egyptian. He entertained himself briefly with the thought that the ardent amateur Egyptologist and archaeological scavenger Napoleon had sweated his rapacious way through the deserts of Egypt with his squads of scientists when such arcane knowledge had been all the while right under his nose in Chartres.