CHAPTER 45
The drive and the grounds looked very different in daylight.
October sun flooded the gardens, burnishing everything with intense colour. Meredith caught the smell of damp burning bonfires and the perfume of sun on wet leaves through the half-opened car window. A little further away, a more dappled light fell on the deep green bushes and high box hedge. Everything was outlined as if in gold and silver.
‘I’m taking the back way, cross-country to Rennes-le-Château. Much quicker than heading into Couiza and out again.’
The road doubled back and twisted up on itself as it climbed through the wooded hills. There was every shade of green, every shade of brown, every hue of crimson and copper and gold, chestnuts, oaks, bright yellow broom, silver hazel and birch. On the ground, beneath the pines, huge cones lay as if left to mark the way.
Then a final twist in the road, and suddenly they were out of the woods and into wide expanses of meadows and pasture.
Meredith felt her spirits lift at the views unfolding before her.
‘It’s wonderful. So amazingly beautiful.’
‘I remembered something I think will really interest you,’ Hal said. She heard the smile in his voice. ‘When I told my uncle I was going to be out this morning – and why – he reminded me that there are allegations of a connection between Debussy and Rennes-le-Château He was unusually helpful, in fact.’
Meredith turned to face him. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘I’m assuming you know the basic stories about the place?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t think so …’
‘It’s the village that sparked all the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail stuff? Da Vinci Code? The Templar Legacy? Ringing any bells? Bloodline of Christ?’
Meredith pulled a face. ‘Sorry. I’m more a non-fiction girl – biography, history, theory, that kind of stuff. Facts.’
Hal laughed. ‘OK, quick précis. The story is that Mary Magdalene was in fact married to Jesus and had children by him. After the Crucifixion, she fled, some say to France. Marseille, lots of places along the Mediterranean coast, all lay claim to being where she came ashore. Fast forward nine hundred years, to 1891, when it’s alleged the priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, came across parchments demonstrating this bloodline of Christ, going all the way from the present day to the first century AD.’
Meredith went still. ‘Eighteen ninety-one?’
Hal nodded. ‘That’s when Saunière began a massive renovation project that was to last for many years – starting with the church, but in the end gardens, graveyard, house, everything.’ He stopped. Meredith felt him glance at her.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
‘Sure,’ she said quickly. ‘Sorry. Go on.’
‘The bloodline parchments were supposed to have been hidden inside a Visigoth pillar, way back when. Most locals think the whole thing was a hoax from start to finish. Records contemporaneous with Saunière don’t mention any sort of great mystery associated with Rennes-le-Château, other than a dramatic increase in Saunière’s material circumstances. ’
‘He got rich?’
Hal nodded. ‘The church hierarchy accused him of simony – that is, selling masses for money. His parishioners were more charitable. They thought he had discovered some cache of Visigoth treasure and didn’t begrudge him, since he spent so much of it on the church and his parishioners.’
‘When did Saunière die?’ she asked, remembering the dates on Henri Boudet’s memorial in the church in Rennes-les-Bains.
Hal turned his blue eyes on her. ‘Nineteen seventeen,’ he said, ‘leaving everything to his housekeeper, Marie Denarnaud. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that all the religious conspiracy theories began to surface.’
She scribbled that information down too. The name Denarnaud had appeared on several tombs in the graveyard.
‘What does your uncle think about all the stories?’
Hal’s face clouded over. ‘That it’s good for business,’ he said, then lapsed into silence.
Since there was clearly no love lost between him and his uncle, Meredith wondered why Hal was sticking around now the funeral was over. One look at his face suggested he wouldn’t welcome the question, so she left it.
‘So, Debussy?’ she prompted in the end.
Hal seemed to pull his thoughts together. ‘Sorry. There was supposed to have been a secret society formed to act as guardians of the bloodline parchments, the things Saunière may or may not have found in the Visigoth pillar. This organisation was alleged to have had some very famous leaders, figureheads if you like. Newton, for one, Leonardo da Vinci for another. And Debussy.’
Meredith was so stunned, she burst out laughing.
‘I know, I know,’ Hal said, starting to grin. ‘But I’m just giving you the story as my uncle told it.’
‘It is totally absurd. Debussy lived for his music. And he was not a clubbable person. Very private, very loyal to a small group of friends. The thought of him running some secret society . . . well, just plain crazy!’ She wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve. ‘What’s the evidence to support this bizarre theory?’
Hal shrugged. ‘Saunière did entertain many important Parisians and guests at Rennes-le-Château around the turn of the last century – something else that fuelled the conspiracy theories – heads of state, singers. Someone called Emma Calvé? Ring any bells?’
Meredith thought. ‘French soprano, around at the right sort of time, but I’m pretty certain she never sang a major role for Debussy.’ She pulled out her notebook and wrote down the name. ‘I’ll check it out.’
‘So it could fit?’
‘Any theory can be made to fit if you try hard enough. Doesn’t make it true.’
‘Says the scholar.’
Meredith could hear the gentle teasing in his voice and liked it. ‘Says the person who’s spent half her life in a library. Real life is never so neat. It’s messy. Stuff overlaps, facts contradict each other. You find one piece of evidence, think it’s all going on. You’ve nailed it. Next thing you know, you come across something else that turns it all on its head.’
For a while, they drove on in companionable silence, both locked in their own thoughts. They passed a substantial farm and crossed a ridge. Meredith noticed the landscape this side of the hill was different. Not so green. Grey rocks, like teeth, seemed to push out of the rust-coloured earth as if a series of violent earthquakes had forced up the hidden heart of the world. Slashes of red soil, like wounds in the land. It was a less hospitable environment, more forbidding.
‘It makes you realise,’ she said, ‘how little the essential landscape has changed. Take the cars and the buildings out of the equation, and you’re left with mountains, gorges, valleys that have been here tens of thousands of years.’
She felt Hal’s attention sharpen. She was intensely aware of the gentle rise and fall of his breathing in the confined space.
‘I couldn’t see it last night. It all seemed too small, too insignificant to have been the centre of anything. But now . . .’ Meredith broke off. ‘Up here, the sheer scale of things is different. It makes it more plausible that Saunière might have found something of value.’ She paused. ‘I’m not saying he did or he didn’t, only that it gives substance to the theory.’
Hal nodded. ‘Rhedae – the old name for Rennes-le-Château – was at the heart of the Visigoth empire in the south. Fifth, sixth and early seventh centuries.’ He glanced at her, then back to the road. ‘But from your professional standpoint, doesn’t it seem a long time – too long – for something to lie undiscovered? If there was anything genuine to find – Visigoth or even earlier, Roman, I guess – surely it would have come to light before 1891?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Meredith replied. ‘Think of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s surprising how some things turn up, while others stay hidden for thousands of years. According to the guidebook, there are the remains of a Visigoth watchtower nearby in the village of Fa and Visigoth crosses in the cemetery at the village of Cassaignes, both discovered pretty recently.’
‘Crosses?’ said Hal. ‘They were Christians? I’m not sure I knew that.’
Meredith nodded. ‘Weird, huh. The interesting thing is that it was Visigoth practice to bury their kings and noblemen with their treasure in hidden graves rather than in graveyards round a church building. Swords, buckle clasps, jewellery, fibulae, drinking cups, crosses, you name it. Of course, this brought with it the same problems as the Ancient Egyptians.’
‘How to deter grave robbers.’
‘Exactly. So the Visigoths developed a way of constructing secret chambers below riverbeds. The technique was to dam the river and temporarily divert its course while the site was excavated and the burial chamber prepared. Once the king or warrior and his treasure were safely stowed, the chamber would be sealed and camouflaged with mud, sand, gravel, whatever, then the dam demolished. The water rushes back and the king and his treasure is hidden for eternity. ’
Meredith turned to look at Hal, realising somehow her words had triggered thoughts about something else.
She couldn’t figure him out. Even bearing in mind what he had been through in the last few weeks, yesterday in particular, he seemed to switch from open and relaxed one moment, to a guy with the world on his shoulders the next.
Or maybe he’s wishing he was someplace else?
Meredith carried on looking straight ahead through the windshield. If he wanted to confide in her, he would. No sense pushing it.
They drove on, higher up the bare mountainside, until Hal turned a final hairpin bend in the road.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
