The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) (17 page)

She started by introducing the new arrival. “This is Jean-Luc Lerenard who has been head-hunted to replace Andre.” She smiled sadly. “I’m afraid you’re going to have your work cut out. My old friend won’t be easy to replace.”

The big man said nothing. There was no smile. He clearly took his new role seriously.

“
The other thing to tell you all,” she said, “is that I’ve decided to open up a second area of excavation. It’s way down near the bottom of the site. It will only be a small operation - at least at the start.” She switched her attention. “Armand, I’m going to put you in charge of it. I’ve been very pleased with the way you’re coming on.”

“
Thank you.” The young man nodded with pleasure.

“
What’s the purpose of this new area?” asked Lerenard.

“
Well.” She half-smiled at him. “Let’s call it an insurance policy. So far not much has turned up on the main site or near the main entrance. I’m hoping that we may get some finds near the bottom of the site - stuff that has gravitated from higher up.”

“
Stratification will be difficult.”

“
Yes it will.” She was obviously impressed by his comment. “But I’m not looking to date the finds. We know most material down there will come from a restricted time zone. The castle hasn’t been occupied for six hundred years. I’m just hoping we’ll get some pointers about who might have used the site in its latter days.”

“
So you want us to be careful with sorting through our rubble?” asked Armand.

“
Certainly I do. I’ve decided to put Philip, our new arrival from England, with you, to do the digging. And Jeanette can sort the finds.” She nodded to the woman who was dressed as though about to go off on a shopping spree. “I think you’ve picked up enough from Marie to work on your own for a while. I’ve spoken to the scaffolders. They are already putting up a staging for you to use as a sorting platform. Of course you will need to check your procedures with Marie before you start.”

Philip was impressed with the smooth way Jackie had introduced the new area. Nobody seemed to object or question her motives. Perhaps they just accepted that she was the one who made the decisions.

“
What about the rest of us?” Gaston wanted to know.

“
Obviously the rest of the team will be working on the main site. Jean-Luc will be in charge of this site and you will be his number two, Gaston. We’ll walk him round and explain everything to him as soon as we get up to the castle. Marie will continue with the classification of finds in that area. Any questions?”

There didn’t seem to be any.

“
OK. Please will everybody be at the vehicles in five minutes. We’ve lost the best part of a week. We might as well get on with the digs without further delay.”

Obediently the meeting broke up and they all went to get their gear. The only problem was raised by Jeanette as she struggled down the path to the new location. Armand had rushed ahead to survey his new responsibility.

“
I don’t know why we have to come all the way down here,” she complained in her charmingly accented English. “It is very difficult to get to this new place.”

“
We’ll have to make a better job of clearing the path and put in some more steps to help you,” said Philip as he helped her over one rough section.

She chuckled conspiratorially. “It is lucky I have you to hold my hand. Armand doesn’t even think about me when Mademoiselle Blontard tells him to do something. He is too excited about his new job to show any interest in me.”

Philip thought the lady was hardly dressed for an archaeological dig. Admittedly she had sensible new walking boots on her dainty feet but her skin tight jeans restricted her movement. He noticed her face was carefully made up and her auburn hair was done up in a wispy scarf. She was wearing a strong perfume and he thought that her scarlet-painted nails were likely to suffer when she was sieving the soil. She was carrying a shoulder bag which also set her apart from the other archaeologists.

When they got to the area that he and Jackie had roughly cleared the previous Saturday, Armand was already photographing the site. A scaffold area about five metres by two had been erected at one side and a table was set up on it with a fixed sieve at the back where the buckets of soil were to be emptied for Jeanette to sort through with a small trowel. A selection of boxes and trays were set out on the table waiting to be labelled as the finds were sorted. Philip noticed that the lady had had sufficient foresight to bring a pair of soft leather gloves which she was now putting on to protect her hands.

“
Right,” said Armand with Jeanette translating for him, “Mademoiselle Blontard says we’ve got to take out a trench a metre wide against the rock face here. It will be about six metres long and we’ll take it down in half-metre steps. When we get down a metre we’ll have to start strutting the side to make sure we don’t have a collapse. But for the first half metre it’ll mainly be vegetation and roots.” He smiled. “Philip, I want you to take the end near the finds table. I’ll take the far end. That means you’ll have to lift up the buckets of soil and tip them in front of the sieve for Jeanette to sort through. Is that all right?”

“
Yes, of course.”

Throughout the morning they dug steadily downwards. Jeanette, who was cheerfully playing French pop music on her little radio, smiled at him gratefully as he lifted each container of soil on to the table for her to push through the sieve.

They stopped for lunch for half an hour at one o’clock and they went up the site to where the food and drink were provided. Jeanette required a lot of help from Philip and he reminded himself that he must take a spade up next time to make a better job of cutting the access steps.

They continued digging throughout the afternoon and it was about four o’clock when Philip hit masonry under his feet. He did a little preparatory scraping with his spade before he alerted Armand. The young Frenchman immediately came over and crouched down beside him.

“
It looks to be a flat stone surface,” said Philip.

“
Vraiment.” Armand called to Jeanette. “Can you give me my trowel?”

“
Is this the one?” She stepped down from the scaffold platform and joined them.

Armand took the trowel and began to scrape away the soil on the top of the stone. Jeanette stood beside Philip, watching her husband as he busily cleared the earth from the masonry. Within a few minutes he had uncovered the sharp edge of a slab which seemed to be sloping down slightly in the centre.

“
I think it is an old step,” he announced. “We must tell the director. Jeanette, will you go and find her while Philip and I clear away more soil and take some photographs.”

She pouted. “I don’t like climbing that rough path without help.”

“
Don’t be silly.”

“
I’ll go, if you like,” said Philip. “Only one of us can work on the step at a time.”

That suggestion met with Armand’s approval so he set off up the path. He hadn’t gone far when he met Jackie.

“
I was coming to find you,” he told her. “We seem to have hit some steps.”

“
Sounds interesting.” She hurried down the path in front of him.

When they reached the trench, Jackie went down on her knees beside Armand who had already cleared enough soil to show that the piece of masonry was certainly a step, worn down and cracked in the middle. He had even dug down the face of the stone at one end to reveal a second step, the leading edge of which was set at an angle to the one above.

“
It looks like the start of a staircase,” he said excitedly.

“
I think you’re right,” she agreed. This lower step is what we call a winder. That’s the sort of step you get when a staircase goes round a corner. It looks as though this flight of steps is turning away from the rock-face.”

Armand was exultant. “This is my best find so far.”

“
Well done, Armand.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Now then, I want you to take this staircase down as far as you can, still keeping within the width of the trench. If you find that it goes off to one side, send Philip to find me. I will then decide if it makes sense to put in another trench at right angles to this one. You’d better do this work by yourself, and I want you to be careful. We may come across some important finds in the corners as we go deeper.”

She straightened up. “Jeanette will have to be especially careful sieving through the soil you get out to make absolutely sure that nothing is missed. I’ll come back again before we finish for the day to check up on your progress. OK?”

“
Of course.” Armand bent enthusiastically to his task.

“
Philip can carry on clearing the trench behind you, so that you’re not digging in a hole. The soil from that can be heaped further along the trench unless something else interesting comes to light. See you later.”

She set off back up the path, moving quickly.

- 18 -

“
This latest news is most disturbing, Charles.”

The president and Marcus Heilberg were sitting in the same chairs as they had four weeks before when Charles Robert had last been summoned to meet them. He suddenly had the ridiculous notion that they hadn’t moved since that previous meeting.

There was no time wasted in asking about his health or his hurried overnight journey through the length of France; no apologies about requiring him to appear before them without having a wink of sleep in the last twenty-four hours or even having time to call at his home to freshen up.

Nevertheless he agreed with them, “It is indeed most worrying, monsieur le president. I regret to inform you that, from the description given to me by young Sejour at seven o’clock last evening, it appears our worst fears may be about to be realised.”

“
Why do you think this situation has suddenly arisen,” enquired Heilberg. “We had thought, from your previous reports, that the excavations were taking place further up the site. Why the sudden change of location?”

“
I do not have the answer to that at present, Grand Treasurer. There have been two new arrivals at le Bezu in the last few days. Perhaps one of them has brought some new information which has led Mademoiselle Blontard to review her strategy. It is only a small additional area with three archaeologists working on it. Fortunately Sejour has been put in charge of the new area. So he is in a position to keep us right up to date with developments.”

“
Who are these new arrivals you refer to?”

Charles Robert took a breath. “You knew of course that Blontard’s second in command - a chap called Andre Jolyon - had died in a fall from the castle cliffs?”

“
Indeed we did. It was assumed that young Sejour might have had something to do with that. We wondered if it was an attempt to disrupt the exploration.”

“
Perhaps he did,” agreed Robert, “although he does not admit it. I decided it was imprudent to question him closely about the matter.”

“
Very wise.” The president nodded. “The council does not wish to be implicated in any way in that sort of activity.”

“
Exactly. Well, this Andre Jolyon has been replaced by a man sent from Paris - a fellow called Jean-Luc Lerenard. Apparently he is a great brute of a man.”

The president and the treasurer exchanged glances.

“
You need not worry about him,” said the old man. “We know all about him.”

Charles was surprised. “Really? What
do
you know about him?”

“
Ah!” There was a pause. “I’m afraid that information is privileged, Charles.”

“
You mean it wouldn’t affect any dealings which I or young Sejour might have with the fellow.”

“
Don’t worry about it, Charles. Just accept my word that it will not have been Lerenard who directed Mademoiselle Blontard to look in the new location. If we decide that you need to know any more about the man we will inform you when the time comes. The only thing I advise you to tell Sejour is that he should not attempt to confront Lerenard in any way.”

Charles felt he had been firmly put in his place and made a little bit of a fool at the same time. It seemed that he was having his information rationed. He was unable to decide why this was.

After a pause he continued. “Very well. The other new arrival is a young Englishman called-” He consulted his notebook. “He is called Philip Sinclair. I know very little about him but it has just occurred to me that his name could be an Anglicisation of Saint Claire.”

“
How interesting,” muttered Heilberg.

“
While I think about it, Sejour told me that this Englishman seemed to be getting on very well with the Blontard woman. Perhaps he brought some special information for her from England. I believe she did spend a year in Oxford a while ago. Who knows how far her contacts spread over there?”

There was long silence while all three digested the possible importance of this new player on the scene. At last the president said, “Do we have any information about this Philip de Saint Claire, Marcus?”

“
I will have him checked out this morning, monsieur le President.”

“
Charles - tell me - what is this fellow’s explanation for his sudden arrival in le Bezu?”

“
I - I regret I do not know, President.” Robert was covered in confusion. “I did not think to question Sejour about him when I met him last night. It did not occur to me until today that the man might be important.”

The silence which followed condemned his shortcomings more absolutely than any outburst of criticism which he might have received from another source. Charles Robert observed that his standing on the Council was beginning to shrink. This whole business connected with le Bezu seemed to have been a catalogue of errors on his part. He began to wonder whether he might even have his membership of this powerful central body terminated. He knew there was a number of rising stars in both government and industry who would give their right arm to step into his position.