The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) (15 page)

“
Problems? What were they?”

“
Oh, you know -personal relationships.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I thought I’d fallen in love when I was at university. She was a fellow student called Madeline. We got married as soon as we left Sheffield and moved back to London. It took us twelve years to recover from the mistake. It wasn’t much fun, one way and another.”

“
You’re married?”

“
Divorced.” He looked at the date on his watch. “For six weeks and two days.”

“
Do you have any children?”

“
No. Madeline didn’t have time for that - too much work and too active a social life.”

She looked down at the table. “I’m sorry.”

“
Don’t be. It’s all over now and nobody else is suffering.” He shook his head. “I’m not complaining. It’s simply the explanation of why I didn’t spend enough time with my gran. For almost her whole life she was on her own. You see, my dad was sent to boarding school when he was thirteen. They still do that sort of thing in England.”

“
I’ve heard about it.”

“
Then he went straight on to university. After Cambridge he got a job in London where he married. I was born and brought up in the suburbs. I occasionally visited gran in the school holidays when I was young, but I admit I found the big house in Templecombe rather oppressing. And she used to tell me all those stories about the Cathars and how I was related to them. I must say I didn’t take them very seriously at the time. It all seemed so far away.”

“
Do you have a family tree?”

“
No, although I suppose I could fairly easily trace one since the family always appear to have lived in the same place.” He looked out briefly at the sparkling river, then back to her. “The interesting thing is that my grandmother was left all alone in that great big place for all those years. It seems that while she was alone she searched around and found an old document or series of documents which turned out to have been the journal of this man Phillipe de Saint Claire that I told you about. It appears that he had written about his adventures and his escape from France.”

She was watching him very closely now. “How fascinating,” she breathed.

“
She told me that she couldn’t understand anything in the journal at first. However she spent some time researching the language and she found that it had been written in Occitan. I understand that used to be the language of this area.”

She smiled. “I know quite a lot of Occitan.”

“
Really? Is that another of your talents? Can you speak it?”

“
Some, but please carry on with your story.”

“
OK.” He leaned back in his chair. “Well, after a lot of study, she managed to translate it, although I believe it took her several years.”

“
So what does it say?”

“
Well, Phillipe claims to have been one of the four
perfecti
who escaped from Montsegur on the night when the Cathars finally gave up their defence of the castle and surrendered to the French. I presume you know the story.”

“
Yes, of course I do.” Her eyes were glowing. “Go on.”

“
He says they escaped down the north cliff-face with the treasure of the Cathars strapped to their backs in sealed bamboo tubes. Phillipe had five tubes in his back-pack. He doesn’t give any details about the others. And he didn’t open the tubes so he doesn’t know what was in them. He just says that, whatever the contents were, they were quite light. So it wasn’t gold or jewels or anything like that. In fact, he was never told what it was. The journal gives us no details of the actual treasure itself.”

“
So what
does
it tell you?”

“
The main part of the journal is about his escape. He says that the four
perfecti
were told to separate and go in different directions in order to reduce the risk of being caught. Phillipe had been instructed to make for le Bezu where the local lord, Pierre de Voisins, was believed to be sympathetic to the Cathar cause.”

“
Ah,” she breathed. “I begin to understand now why you are so interested in the place.”

“
Wait. There is more.” He straightened up. “Just over a day after leaving Montsegur, Phillipe reached le Bezu where he briefly met de Voisins. However the lord was about to set off to Paris to make his obeisance to the French king. So he put Phillipe in touch with his kinsman, a young chap called Raymonde de Puyvert.” He paused for a moment. “The journal goes on to tell how Phillipe and Raymonde hid the bamboo tubes behind a wall in a basement room in the castle and then how they escaped from France. Unfortunately Raymonde had an accident and died on the way across the Pyrenees so Phillipe was then the only one to know where the treasure was hidden. That’s why he wrote it down in this journal.”

He stopped and looked at her. “So now you know that I have come to le Bezu to try and find the location of this secret hideaway and see if the bamboo tubes are still there.”

Jackie was quiet for a long time, thinking about the strange story. She was looking out at the river and the sun lit up her face in a golden glow, her hair a dark bronze.

“
Well?” he asked at last. “What’s your reaction?”

Before she could reply the first course of their meal was brought to the table. The chef chatted to them about the food while he topped up their glasses with wine. They began to eat as he retired to the kitchen. Philip ate the delicious food almost without tasting it as he waited for her to speak.

After a while she paused between mouthfuls. “I would like to see that journal.”

“
I have a copy of my grandmother’s translation with me. You can have it to read when we get back to the hotel.”

“
And you believe this co-called lightweight treasure is buried somewhere in the basement of the castle? How do you know it’s still there?”

“
I don’t. My grandmother put a note at the end of the journal saying she had tried to find out if the bamboo tubes had been discovered. She could find out almost nothing about le Bezu. The place seemed to have disappeared from the guide books.”

“
That’s right,” said Jackie. “It is only marked on some maps. And very few people seem to know about it in an area which has generated a lot of interest in the last few decades.”

“
My grandmother apparently wrote to the local papers in this area to see if there were any reports, especially about the time when Sauniere, the priest from Rennes le Chateau, was fossicking about in the countryside around here. However she had no luck. Of course I appreciate that it doesn’t mean that the treasure wasn’t unearthed centuries ago before there were any records made.”

Jackie was thoughtful. “There’s not much of the castle left above ground - just a few walls - as you know. However the basement, if there
is
a basement, would be the most likely place to remain unexplored. As the good quality stone was robbed from the upper walls to be used for newer buildings in the region, the mortar and fragments and useless rubble would gather in the lower levels filling up basement rooms until it built up to such a level that the masonry robbers couldn’t be bothered to dig for it.” She grinned. “It’s the idleness of these people which we archaeologists benefit from.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the chef arriving with the main course. For several minutes the food was discussed with him, sampled and enthusiastically commented on. Then he went off to prepare a surprise pudding for them.

“
Now
there’s
a man who enjoys his job,” said Philip.

“
We
are
getting very special treatment,” she agreed. “I hope you’re going to be able to afford it.” Then she smiled. “Have you noticed the way he’s looking at us?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I think he believes we’re celebrating some special event - the way we’re talking so seriously to each other.”

“
What event?”

There was a sparkle in her eyes as she replied, “If you can’t guess, I shan’t help you.”

Philip was silent as he thought about that and as he consumed the delicious food. When he had finished he laid his knife and fork tidily on the plate.

“
Well,” he said, “I have confessed to you my real purpose in coming here. I can tell you that I have taken a fortnight’s holiday to do some research and to look around the place. I still have just over a week left to help you, if the offer is still open. But after that I shall have to return to London. Before I started speaking to you I was planning to come back about once a month for a long weekend so that I could check up on your progress. I thought you might have found the hiding-place of the treasure by then. If you didn’t have any luck, I thought I’d come back for a longer period in the autumn and make a serious attempt to uncover it.”

She had a strange smile on her face as she listened to him. “Come and plunder my site?”

“
Wait a minute.” He put his head on one side. “What does French law say about my right to inherit something which was in the legal possession of my ancestor?”

“
That’s an interesting point.” She nodded. “I think you might have the prior claim. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t stand a chance of exercising it.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Once we have finished here and the camera crews have gone away, the contractors will move in.”

“
Contractors?”

“
You don’t understand, Philip.” She shook her head. “After we leave le Bezu, it will become the next tourist destination for thousands of people who will want to view the sites which they have been watching on their television screens. The road to the site will be widened and resurfaced. Reception offices and a car park and cafeteria will be built at the foot of the hill. A proper flight of steps will be constructed up the hill with resting places at intervals to give access to the castle. Footpaths will be made around the ruins, protected with handrails and fences. Notices will be put up all over the place explaining exactly what visitors are looking at. Public toilets and sales kiosks will be built. A whole new industry will be set up to make money out of our discoveries.” She paused. “And my agent has arranged for me to get a percentage of it all - and he gets his percentage of that.”

“
Good God!”

“
When it comes to the modern world of the media and its attendant publicity,” she reached across and patted his hand, “I’m afraid you’re still an innocent, Philip.”

He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “I suppose I am,” he said at last. He shook his head. “What am I going to do?”

“
I tell you what
we’re
going to do,” she said brightly. “You tell me you have a week to find out whatever you can about the hiding-place of this treasure. In the morning I have to see the police about what they may have turned up in the forensic investigation so we won’t be able to do much tomorrow. But at eight o’clock on Saturday morning I suggest you and I are going up to the chateau to have a hunt round for the most likely location for this hiding-place you have described.”

“
You should read the journal first.”

“
Oh, I will. After that we’ll decide what to do next. I’ll tell the guys they can have the weekend off to go back to their families because we will be returning to work at full effort from Monday.”

“
All right.” He grinned at her. “You’re on. My grandmother called the treasure my inheritance. I might even give you a share of this inheritance if you behave yourself.”

She wagged a finger at him. “Watch out. Don’t forget I’m the boss at le Bezu.”

An argument was prevented by the arrival of the special pudding.

- 16 -

Philip and Jackie left the hotel before eight on Saturday morning. Nobody was around to see them go. Even the town seemed still to be sleeping in the early morning sunshine.

“
I wanted to get away before Gaston appeared,” she said. “He was the only one who didn’t accept my offer of a weekend off to go home. He seems to have given himself the task of watching out for me.”

Philip chuckled. “I expect he’s trying to make sure you don’t come under the evil influence of the foreigner.”

“
He was still going on about you when we met Sergeant Leblanc yesterday morning.”

“
What did you see Leblanc about?”

“
It was to obtain clearance to continue working at le Bezu.”

“
And did you?”

“
Oh yes.” She smiled. “There was no problem. They’d already received instructions from Paris to let us continue. Obviously Alain Gisours has been pulling a few strings.”

They took Philip’s car to minimise the man’s suspicions and drove straight up to the castle. It was a trip of some fifteen kilometres on narrow, winding roads which took them nearly half an hour despite the lack of traffic. However they were climbing the path to the site soon after eight-thirty.

Jackie had read the copy of the translated journal during the previous day and was as interested as Philip in its contents.

“
Your ancestor says the tubes were hidden behind a wall which was built across a shallow cave in the lowest room of the castle,” she said. “I get the impression in the journal that this room was some way from the entrance and also from the main accommodation area of the castle. That area would have been centred round the great hall which is the area where we are currently clearing the collapsed rubble and other detritus.”