Sepulchre (52 page)

If there is a letter, it will still be there in ten minutes' time.

 

Léonie stepped forward and rapped upon the door.

 

For a moment, nothing happened. She leant her ear closer to the painted panels and could just pick out the sound of feet walking across a tiled floor.

 

'Oc?' came a child's voice.

She took a step back as the door was opened, suddenly shy that she had taken it upon herself to call uninvited. A small dark-haired boy, with eyes the colour of blackberries, stood looking up at her.

'Is Monsieur Baillard at home?' she said. 'It is Léonie Vernier. The niece of Madame Lascombe. From the Domaine de la Cade.'

'He is expecting you?' 'He is not. I was passing so took the liberty of paying an impromptu visit. If it is inconvenient.. .'

'Que es?'

 

The boy turned. Léonie smiled with pleasure at the sound of Monsieur Baillard's voice. Emboldened, she called out.

 

'It is Léonie Vernier, Monsieur Baillard.'

Moments later, the distinctive figure in the white suit she remembered so clearly from the evening of the dinner party appeared at the end of the passageway. Even in the gloom of the narrow entrance, Léonie could see he was smiling.

Madomaisèla Leonie,' he said. 'An unexpected pleasure.'

'I have been undertaking certain tasks for my aunt - she has been unwell - and Pascal has gone ahead. I had thought you were away from Rennes-les-Bains at present, but when I saw the shutters pinned back, I .. .'

She realised she was gabbling, and checked her tongue.

 

'I am delighted you did so,' Baillard said. 'Please, do come in.'

Léonie hesitated. Although he was a man of some reputation, an acquaintance of Tante Isolde and on visiting terms with the Domaine de la Cade, she was aware it might be considered inappropriate for a young girl to enter the house of a gentleman alone.

But then who is here to witness it?

 

'Thank you,' she said, 'I should be delighted.' She stepped over the threshold.

 

CHAPTER 71

 

Léonie followed Monsieur Baillard down the passageway, which opened into a pleasant room at the rear of the tiny house. A single large window dominated the whole of one wall.

'Oh,' she exclaimed. 'The view is quite as perfect as a picture.' 'It is,' he smiled. 'I am fortunate.'
He rang a small silver bell that sat on a low side-table next to the wing armchair in which he had clearly been sitting, beside the wide stone fireplace. The same boy reappeared. Léonie discreetly cast her eyes around the room. It was a plain and simple chamber, with a selection of mismatched chairs, a boudoir table behind the sofa. Bookcases covered the length of the wall opposite the fireplace, every inch of them filled.

'There, now,' he said. 'Please, take a seat. Tell me your news, Madomaisèla Leonie. I trust all is well at the Domaine de la Cade. You said your aunt was indisposed. Nothing serious, I hope?'

Léonie removed her hat and gloves, then settled herself opposite him. 'She is much improved. We were caught out in the ill weather last week and my aunt developed a chill. The doctor was called, but the worst is over and every day she grows stronger.'

'Her condition hangs in the balance,' he said, 'and it is early days. But all will be well.'

Léonie looked at him, puzzled at this non sequitur, but at that moment the boy returned carrying a brass tray with two ornate glass goblets and a silver jug on it, much like a coffee pot but with swirling diamond patterns, and the question died on her lips.

'It comes from the Holy Land,' her host told her. 'A gift from an old friend, many years ago now.'

 

The servant handed her a glass filled with a thick red liquid.

 

'What is this, Monsieur Baillard?'

'A local cherry liqueur, guignolet. I admit, I am rather partial to it. It is particularly good when taken with these black pepper biscuits.' He nodded and the boy offered the plate to Leonie. 'They are a local speciality and can be purchased everywhere, but I judge those baked here at the Frères Marcel quite the best I have tasted.'

'I bought some myself,' Léonie replied. She took a mouthful of guignolet, then immediately coughed. It was sweet, tasting intensely of wild cherries, but very strong indeed.

 

'You have returned earlier than we were expecting,' she said. 'My aunt led me to believe that you would be away until November at least, perhaps even until Noel.'

 

'My business was quicker to conclude than I had expected, so I returned. There are stories coming up from the town. I felt here I might be of more use.'

 

Use? Léonie thought it an odd word, but said nothing of it. 'Where did you go, Monsieur?'

'To visit old friends,' he said quietly. 'Also, I have a house some way into the mountains. In a tiny village called Los Seres, not so far from the old fortress citadel of Montségur. I wished to ensure that it was ready, should I need to repair there in the foreseeable future.'

Léonie frowned. 'Is that likely, Monsieur? I was under the impression that you had taken lodgings here in town in order to avoid the rigours of winter in the mountains.'

His eyes sparkled. 'I have lived through many mountain winters, Madomaisèla,' he said softly. 'Some hard, others less so.' He fell silent a moment and seemed to drift into thought. 'But, tell me,' he said finally, gathering himself together once more. 'What of you these past weeks? Have you had any further adventures, Madomaisèla Leonie, since last we met?'

She met his gaze. 'I have not returned to the sepulchre, Monsieur Baillard,' she said, 'if that is your meaning.'

 

He smiled. 'That was indeed my meaning.'

'Although, I must confess, the subject of Tarot has continued to hold some interest for me.' She scrutinised his expression, but his timeworn face gave nothing away. 'I have begun a sequence of paintings also.' She hesitated. 'Reproductions of the images from the walls.'

'Is that so?'

 

'They are studies, I suppose. No, in point of fact, they are rather copies.'

 

He leaned forward in his chair. 'And you have attempted all of them?'

'Well, no,' she answered, although thinking it a singular question. 'Just those at the beginning. What they term the major arcana, and even then, not each character. I find that I am disinclined to attempt certain of the images. For example, Le Diable,'

'And La Tour?'

 

Her green eyes narrowed. 'Quite. Nor the Tower. How did-'

 

'When did you begin these paintings, Madomaisèla?'

 

'The afternoon of the supper party. I only wished to occupy myself, to fill the empty hours of waiting. Without the slightest conscious design, I found I had painted myself into the picture, Monsieur Baillard, so I felt moved to continue.'

 

'May I ask within which of them?'

'La Force.' She paused, then shivered as she recollected the complication of emotions that had swept over her at that moment. 'The face was my face. Why do you think that should be?'

'The most obvious explanation would be that you see the characteristic of strength within yourself.'

 

Léonie waited, expecting more, until it became clear that again Monsieur Baillard had said all he intended on the matter.

'I admit I find myself increasingly intrigued by my uncle and the experiences of which he writes in his monograph, Les Tarots,' Léonie continued. 'I do not wish to press you against your better judgement, Monsieur Baillard, but I have wondered if you knew my uncle at the time of the events detailed in the book?' She scanned his face, looking for signs of encouragement or else displeasure at the line of questioning, but his expression remained unreadable. 'I have realised the . .. situation sits precisely within the period of time after my mother had left the Domaine de la Cade and yet before my aunt and uncle married.' She hesitated. 'I imagine, without intending to be disrespectful in any way, that he was by nature a solitary man. Not drawn much to the company of others?'

She stopped once more, giving Monsieur Baillard the opportunity to make some response. He remained perfectly still, his veined hands in his lap, seemingly content to listen.

'From comments Tante Isolde has made,' Léonie ploughed on, 'I gained the impression that you had been instrumental in effecting an introduction between my uncle and Abbé Saunière, when he was appointed to the parish at Rennes-le-Château. She also hinted, as you had, at some unpleasantness, rumours, incidents traced back to the sepulchre, which required the intervention of a priest.'

Ah.' Audric Baillard pressed the tips of his fingers together. She took a deep breath. 'I have . . . Did the Abbé Saunière perform an exorcism on behalf of my uncle, is that it? Did such an ... an event take place within the sepulchre?'

This time, having asked the question, Léonie did not rush in. She allowed the silence to do the work of persuasion. For an endless time, or so it seemed, the only sound was the ticking of the clock. In a room beyond the passageway, she could just discern the chinking of crockery and the distinctive rough scratching of a broom on the wooden boards. 'To rid the place of evil,' she said eventually. 'Is that so? Once or twice I have glimpsed it. But I realise now that my mother might have felt its presence, Monsieur, when she was a girl. She quitted the Domaine as soon as she was able.'

CHAPTER 72

In certain decks of Tarot cards,' Baillard said eventually, 'the card representing the Devil is modelled upon the head of Baphomet, the idol the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon were accused - falsely - of worshipping.'

Léonie nodded, although it was not clear to her how this digression might be of relevance.

'There was said to be a Templar presbytery not far from here, at Bézu,' he continued. 'No such thing existed, of course. In the matter of historical record, there has been confusion in the collective memory, a conflation of the Albigensians and the Poor Knights. They did bestride the earth contemporaneously, but were little connected one with the other. A coincidence of timing, not an overlapping.'

'But how does this connect to the Domaine de la Cade, Monsieur Baillard?'

 

He smiled. 'You observed, on your visit, the statue of Asmodeus in the sepulchre, è? Bearing the burden of the bénitier?

 

'I did.'

Asmodeus, also known as Ashmadia or Asmodai, is most likely derived from a form of Persian, the phrase aeshma-daeva, meaning demon of wrath. Asmodeus appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit and, again, in the Testament of Solomon, which is a pseudepigraphical work of the Old Testament. That is, a work purportedly written by and attributed to Solomon, but unlikely to have been so in historical truth.'

Léonie nodded, even though her knowledge of the Old Testament was somewhat limited. Neither she nor Anatole had attended Sunday school or learnt their catechism. Religious superstition, their mother claimed, sat ill with modern sensibilities. Traditional in ways of society and manners, Marguerite was a vehement opponent of the Church. Léonie suddenly wondered, for the first time, if the violence of her mother's feelings could be traced back to the atmosphere of the Domaine de la Cade within which she had endured her childhood, and made a note to ask her at the earliest opportunity.

Monsieur Baillard's calm voice called her back from her reflections. 'The story tells of how King Solomon invokes Asmodeus to aid in the construction of the Temple - the great Temple. Asmodeus, a demon most particularly associated with lust, does appear, but his presence is disturbing. He predicts that Solomon's kingdom will one day be divided.'

Baillard stood up, crossed the room and took from the shelf a small brown leatherbound book. He turned the tissue-thin pages with his delicate fingers until he found the passage he wanted.

'It reads: "My constellation is like an animal which reclines in its den, spake the demon. So do not ask me so many things, Solomon, for eventually your kingdom will be divided. This glory of yours is temporary. You have us to torture for a little while; then we shall disperse among human beings again with the result that we shall be worshipped as gods because men do not know the name of the angels who rule over us.'" He closed the book and looked up. 'Testament of Solomon,
Chapter five, verses four and five.'

Léonie did not know how she should react to this, so remained silent. Asmodeus, as I said previously, is a demon associated with carnal desires,' Baillard continued. 'He is most especially an enemy of newly weds. In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, he torments a woman called Sarah, killing each of her seven husbands before the marriages can be consummated. On the eighth occasion, the angel Raphaël instructs Sarah's latest suitor to place the heart and liver of a fish on red-hot cinders. The smoky, foul-smelling vapour repels Asmodeus and causes him to flee to Egypt, where Raphaël binds him, his power broken.'

Léonie shivered, not at his words but at the sudden memory of the faint, but disgusting, stench that had assailed her senses in the sepulchre. An inexplicable scent of damp, smoke and the sea.

'These parables seem rather archaic, do they not?' said her host. 'They are intended to convey some larger truth, but so often serve only to obscure.' He tapped the leather book with his long, thin fingers. 'In the Book of Solomon, it is also said that Asmodeus detests being near water.' Léonie sat up straighter. 'Hence perhaps the holy water stoup being set upon his shoulders? Could that be, Monsieur Baillard?'

'It could,' he agreed. Asmodeus appears in other works of religious commentary. In the Talmud, for example, he corresponds with Ashmedai, a far less malevolent character than the Asmodeus of Tobit, although his desires are focused on Solomon's wives and Bath-sheba. Some years later, in the middle of the fifteenth century, Asmodai appears as the demon of lust in the Malleus Maleficarum, a rather simplistic catalogue, to my mind, of demons and their ill works. As a collector, it is a book perhaps your brother would know?'

Léonie shrugged. 'He might well, yes.' 'There are those who believe that different devils have particular potency at different times of the year.'

'And when is Asmodeus considered to be at his most powerful?'

 

'During the month of November.'

'November,' she echoed. She thought a moment. 'But what does it mean, Monsieur Baillard, this marriage of superstition and supposition -the cards, the sepulchre, such a demon with his fear of water and hatred of marriage?'