The Lazarus Vault Part 13

Jocelin scowls, but it's no place to argue. William's two years younger, with spindly red hair and a face like a cheese. He'll do as he's told.

'Ride to the castle. Tell Guy that Athold is here, with a small force and vulnerable. Bring him as quick as you can.'

William slips away. Sheltering behind the church wall, Jocelin and I listen to what Athold is saying. All we can see is the cone of his helmet, and the point of his spear.

'From now on, your t.i.thes and your taxes come to me.' He walks his horse back and forth in front of the villagers. The helmet traverses the top of the wall. One of the villagers must say something: all of a sudden, the helmet stops and Athold shouts.

'Guy de Hautfort is no longer your lord. Can he protect you? Can he protect you?' The spear rises and swings down. I hear a grunt and a scream. He must have cracked it over some poor unfortunate's head.

'Where is the miller?'

A shuffling in the crowd as the man comes forward.

'You are my tenant now. For supplying my enemy, Guy de Hautfort, your mill is forfeit.'

I remember the miller, I've seen him before. An old man with white hair and white skin, as if flour had been ground into every pore. His voice is strong and clear. 'The mill is my patrimony. My family have always kept it.'

'Until now.'

A desperate note. 'What will my son inherit?'

'Your son? Is this him?' The helmet turns a fraction, tilts forward. 'Is it true you're worried about your inheritance?'

I don't hear the answer. Athold doesn't either. 'Speak up.'

'Yes.'

'Yes ...?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'So.' Athold considers this. Then, so fast I barely catch it, the spear spins around and stabs down. I hear a woman's screams. An angry chatter rolls through the crowd, but Athold's knights advance their horses and the noise stops. Everything but the screams, which subside to a low sobbing, as if someone's heart's been torn out.

'Now you don't need to worry about his inheritance.'

The helmet moves away. The spear-tip rises again, streaked with blood.

One by one, the villagers come forward and swear fealty to Athold. I can't see, but I imagine they have to take it kneeling in the mud beside the still-bleeding corpse. A terrible dread hangs over the village. It's not Athold they fear any more, but Guy. In a month or a year's time, if he wins this war, he'll sit on his horse in front of them and demand fealty, and someone else's son will have to die as an example.

The gallery floor creaks. A gap-toothed man in a floppy cap has come round behind and is staring at us in shock. I put a finger to my lips and wave him to be quiet.

But he still has mud on his knees from swearing loyalty to Athold. He knows how to impress his new lord.

'It's Guy's son.'

We race across the road and down a lane to the mill. Hooves pummel the ground behind us. I'm running so hard my heart might burst, but the weight of my armour holds me back. I see the river in front of me. The hooves drum in my ears. Then we're on the weir, running across the treacherous planks so fast we don't have time to fall. A spear clatters off one of the stone piers, and I look back.

Athold's men have pulled up at the water's edge. The river's too fast and deep to cross, and their mounts would never manage the weir. They'll have to go down to the ford, cross, ride back. It gives us a head start.

But the ford isn't far, and by the time we've gathered our horses from the willow stand we've lost precious minutes. We follow William's tracks, back up the hill and out of the mist towards Hautfort. It's open heathland here, good riding country.

A horn sounds behind us. Looking back, I see five hors.e.m.e.n coming over the crest of the hill. They rise out of the mist like waves from the sea. The tips of their lances glint in the sunlight. Athold's seen Jocelin: he knows if he can catch him now, he'll have Guy checkmated.

I know where I fit on this chessboard a front-rank p.a.w.n, blocking the way to the more valuable pieces. I turn my back and ride. I'm galloping, standing in my stirrups crouched low over the saddle. The horse's mane billows back in my face. Something flies through the air to my right, an arrow. I'm riding so fast I could almost outpace it: they won't get through my armour, but they might yet injure the horses. I kick my mount again, though he's giving everything he can.

A low wall approaches. My mount clears it with a clean bound, but the horse behind isn't so lucky. I hear an animal scream and the clatter of stone; when I turn back, a black horse is writhing on the ground, hooves flailing. Jocelin lies outstretched behind him.

I only have a split second to make the choice, and I don't hesitate. I would happily see Jocelin trampled into the mud under Athold's hooves, but Guy would never forgive it. I rein in my horse, turn, and charge towards the pursuing riders.

There are four of them, with another further back. I aim for the smallest and lower my spear. The knight draws his sword and spurs his horse faster.

It's different from practising in the orchard. Apple trees don't move: here, everything happens twice as fast. The wind makes my eyes tear; I can feel the ash-shaft hard against my palm. He lifts his shield. I aim my spear. I try to remember everything Gornemant said.

And then I'm past. I've missed him I don't know how. Was it cowardice? Did I shy away at the crucial moment, fail my first test as a knight? I've no time to think. There's another rider ahead. He wasn't expecting me to break through: his shield's on his back and his sword still in its scabbard.

I'm not going to fail again. I raise my spear and try to hold it steady against the rise and fall of the horse. Everything is aligned: my eyes, my breath, the spear tip, the knight's exposed face. Gornemant wouldn't approve he says you should aim for the body, the biggest target but I don't want to unhorse my enemy. I want to kill him.

This time I don't shy away. The spear strikes and sinks in, so deep there's no chance to pull it free. I have to let go or I'll be yanked off my horse. My arm's numb, shivering. It's only later I realise that the lance went clean through his skull and struck the back of his helmet. I wheel my horse and look back.

The knight's slumped over in his saddle, the spear still implanted in his head like a heron's beak. Now I can see the device on the shield strapped to his back a red field and a white bar. Athold's arms.

The other knights are leaping down from their horses, casting their weapons to the ground, pulling off their helmets. I think Athold's death must have broken them: then I see a dozen knights cantering towards us. Guy's at their head on his chestnut charger, his banner floating behind him. He slips out of his saddle and runs to Jocelin, who groans and rubs his head. He'll live, at least long enough to tell the story of how I saved him.

Surely now Guy will make me a knight.

XXI.

London 'Come with me.'

There was no preamble, none of the small compliments he usually offered on her dress or her hair. His tone gave nothing away. She couldn't even see his face as she hurried after him to the lift. Walking out of her office, she saw a small mound of ash on the carpet by the door, and wondered how long Blanchard had been standing there.

They're listening, Ellie, all the time.

In the lift, he took his keycard from his pocket and slid it in a small slot that Ellie had never noticed before, not the one she normally used. A new light appeared on the panel. For the first time Ellie had seen, the b.u.t.ton for the sixth floor was illuminated.

'Push it.'

Ellie did. Perhaps it was her heightened expectations, but it seemed stiffer than the other b.u.t.tons, as if there was a great weight behind it. The lift began to move not up, but down. The lights blinked out their descent. First Floor ... Ground Floor ... Bas.e.m.e.nt 1 ... Bas.e.m.e.nt 2 ... and suddenly, back at the top of the list, 6.

'Not everything is where you would expect.'

The lift shuddered to a halt. The moment the doors opened, Ellie could smell the age in the air: a damp, dark smell of something that had been buried for centuries. How far down were they? The light from the lift crept over a square of flag-stoned floor; everything beyond was in darkness.

And suddenly it was golden. The moment Blanchard stepped out of the lift, hidden lights faded up to reveal a small square chamber bounded by ancient stone walls. Shelves had been cut into them, but even the stone seemed to sag under the weight of the treasures it held: plates and bowls, tureens and salvers, goblets, chalices and candlesticks. They sparkled under the lights, throwing off overlapping arcs of silver and gold that rippled across the floor like water.

Entranced by their l.u.s.tre, Ellie found herself moving towards them. She stretched for a particularly ornate piece of plate, decorated with relief images of jousting knights.

Blanchard's hand closed around her wrist and stopped it mid-reach. 'Don't touch. Every piece triggers an alarm.'

'Where did all this come from?'

'Orphan a.s.sets. We have been collecting for centuries.'

In the middle of the room, four stone columns supported the vaulted ceiling. At their centre, on a stone plinth, a golden cup sat spotlit in a gla.s.s case. It was the only piece in the room behind gla.s.s, though Ellie couldn't see why it should be more valuable.

Blanchard loosened his tie and unb.u.t.toned his collar. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out the golden key on its slim chain. He advanced towards the cup. Snarling stone faces adorned the four corners of the pedestal, strange monsters out of legend. Blanchard reached inside the mouth of one, a horned serpent, and turned the key.

Ellie blinked. Nothing had happened. Blanchard stepped away and let the key drop back inside his shirt.

'Behind you.'

Ellie looked back to the lift. The doors still stood open but on the far side of the lift, where previously there had been a mirrored wall, a heavy oak door had appeared.

They stepped back through the lift. Blanchard took out the same key as before and slid it into the wooden door. The black iron of the lock seemed far older than the bright golden key. In the corner of her mind, Ellie registered that he turned it clockwise this time, as if locking it.

The door swung in no hint of rust on the hinges. Blanchard gestured Ellie to enter.

She crossed the threshold and paused, swaying in the darkness like a feather in a breeze. She reached out, stroking the void for hidden obstacles. She felt nothing, but the movement must have touched some invisible beam. Hidden lights glowed into life, just as they had before, revealing a long gallery with low-vaulted ceilings. Twin rows of square pillars ran its length, dividing it into three aisles. There were no shelves, no golden treasures on display. Instead, the bays of the side walls were studded with iron doors like bread ovens. Each had a different shield painted on it.

'It was an ossuary for the monks.' Blanchard's voice, breathing over her shoulder as if the old monks still haunted this place. 'We removed the bones when we fitted the vaults.'

She felt a flash of pity; for a moment she imagined she heard the anguish of the unburied dead crying out. She shivered. This far down, in a city that was for all its skysc.r.a.pers and fibre optics indisputably ancient, it was easy to get carried away.

She turned. 'Why did you bring me here?'

'I wanted you to understand how deep the bank's history goes. Monsalvat have occupied this site for five centuries. You have heard the story that we built on the ruins of an old Templar lodge?'

Ellie nodded.

'That was built on the foundations of a Norman church, which in turn had vaults that were Saxon.' His arm swept down, from crisp blocks of masonry to the smaller, crudely dressed stones beneath. 'Where they built, who knows? Here, time becomes s.p.a.ce.'

Blanchard led her further in, to a place where a sunken mosaic sprawled between a gap in the flagstones. 'We think this might be Roman. Naturally, no archaeologist has ever been down here.'

Two thirds of the way down, a second corridor intersected the main aisle at right angles. It must mirror the shape of the church it had once underpinned, Ellie realised. She tried to imagine the floorplan of the Monsalvat building, and wondered if it still bore any relation to the buildings buried underneath, the pattern inscribed on every age of history.

At the far end the east end, Ellie supposed, though it hardly mattered that far down an iron door lay set in the floor. In the dim light she made out the bank's crest stamped into the metal, the ravenous eagle with the spear in its talons. Blanchard took almost reverential care not to step on it as he approached one of the vaults in the wall. He moved his hand over the surface in a series of brisk gestures, then turned the handle and opened the door. Ellie peered over his shoulder, but couldn't see inside.

'There is another reason I brought you here.'

He removed a small leather box from the vault and presented it to her. She fumbled with the leather strap that bound it. The moment she had it off, the two halves of the box fell open like wings. Cupped between them, resting on a cushion of raw wool, lay a gold ring. A red stone the size of a hazelnut bulged from its setting.

'I wanted you to have this.'

Blanchard slid the ring on to her hand. It was too loose on her ring finger, but fitted her middle finger perfectly. Ellie stared at the dull gold against her white skin, the way the smouldering ruby trapped the light deep inside. Her guts churned, she felt faint. Could he be ...?

'This is not a proposal of marriage, or something like that,' said Blanchard, in such a way that mere engagement sounded trite. 'This is an old ring of my family's. It solemnises our attachments, brings us luck.' He smiled. 'A ring of power.'

A roar filled the chamber, as if a long-dormant dragon had woken in his lair to find a piece of his h.o.a.rd missing. The walls shuddered. Ellie grabbed on to Blanchard in terror. He put an arm around her and grinned.

'The Central Line travels very close to this place. When they dug the tunnel in the nineteenth century we had to lodge a special application to re-route it so it would not disturb our vault. As Mr Saint-Lazare likes to say, the present always intrudes on the past. And vice versa.'

He leaned forward and kissed her. His cold lips made her tremble, but his mouth was moist and warm. She tasted tobacco on his tongue. He hugged her tight and pulled her against him, so that the hard points of his body dug into her.

'Do you like the ring?'

Ellie lifted her hand, enjoying the weight on her finger. 'I don't know what to say.'

'I will not tell you how old it is. But keep it safe.'

The vault door clanged like a bell as he closed it. He took her hand and began to lead her back to the lift, then paused.

'The Finance Ministry in Luxembourg will announce the Talhouett decision next week, December twenty-second. Michel Saint-Lazare has invited me to spend Christmas with him afterwards at his home in Switzerland. He has asked specifically if you would come too.'

He said it casually, but the whole weight of his gaze suddenly switched on to Ellie. She felt caught, an exotic b.u.t.terfly on the point of the collector's pin.

'It would mean a lot to me,' he added. He'd dropped the detachment he usually wore; his words were almost painfully frank. 'Christmas in the Alps is magical. To share it with you would be ... perfect.'

Ellie had never seen a white Christmas. She tried to think of her mother, the promise she'd made and the disappointment if she didn't go. But Blanchard's stare had a hypnotic power, a gravity that skewed everything beyond its field. Other obligations seemed only dimly important. She started to answer, and realised she'd already begun composing the excuses to her mother.

Luxembourg Christmas brought out the German side of the Grand Duchy. In the Place d'Armes in the heart of the city, a giant fir tree loomed over the Christmas market that filled every corner of the square. Wooden cabins festooned with lights and fake snow offered a psychedelic array of brightly coloured sweets, obscenely long sausages, carved nativity scenes and ornaments. Steam rose from vats of mulled wine, mingling in the air with the smells of gingerbread and frying onions, the sound of carols and fairground music and laughter.

Inside the conference room at the Ministry of Finance, the only concession to the season was a plastic tree with a few tired baubles at the back of the room. No one paid it any attention. There were no smiles in that room, only tense faces and brittle antic.i.p.ation as the rival bidders milled about, waiting. Blanchard was there, Christine Lafarge as well, and a number of the bankers she'd met doing the due diligence. Across the aisle, Ellie saw Lechowski. His jaw rose and fell as he worried at a piece of gum.

An official called the meeting to order. The Ministry people sat at a long table across the front of the room, fat men with thin hair and shiny suits. No one looked at them. All eyes were on the double-padlocked metal box that stood on a lectern in front.

The official invited representatives of the two bidders to come forward. In turn, Lechowski and Christine Lafarge each went up and undid one of the locks. The official opened the lid and turned the box upside-down. Two sealed envelopes fell on to the table.

The president of the panel handed one envelope to each of the men beside him. They ripped them open and read the letters inside, then swapped with each other. The audience waited. The president collected both letters and confirmed their contents for himself. They conferred. Ellie twisted Blanchard's ring on her finger. She hadn't expected to be so nervous.

The president switched on his microphone. 'The winning bidder is Groupe Saint-Lazare, three hundred and forty-seven million euros.'

In an instant, the Monsalvat team were on their feet, applauding and congratulating each other. Across the aisle, Lechowski and his backers sat stony-faced, the glares of men narrowly beaten and suspecting a foul. The men from the privatisation commission didn't look much happier: they must be wondering why the sale had failed to attract a higher offer.

'Well done, Ellie. Without you, we could not have done this.'

Blanchard kissed her full on the lips, the first time he'd ever done that at work. He must be pleased. Embarra.s.sed and surprised, Ellie kept her eyes open, and so saw Christine Lafarge watching in the background with a knowing smile on her face. She remembered Blanchard's story about Christine and Lechowski, and wondered if Christine and Blanchard had ever been lovers. The thought made her absurdly jealous.

Blanchard turned to murmur a few words to the commission president. Christine took her arm.

'Vivian tells me you are going to Mont-Valois for Christmas. Michel Saint-Lazare's chateau.' Ellie nodded. 'You are very lucky. It is a magical place.'

Ellie must have drunk more champagne that night than in all her life previous. The Monsalvat team drifted from bar to bar, hotel to hotel, ordering by the magnum. The group became a living organism: new faces appeared whom Ellie had never seen before; others disappeared, only to reappear two stops later with yet more hangers-on. The hotel clock had turned past 3 a.m. by the time she and Blanchard returned to their room. Blanchard ordered more champagne from room service, then set about demonstrating that it did nothing to impair his physical functioning. Ellie didn't get to sleep until five. At eight, the telephone rang with an alarm call. When she opened her eyes, Blanchard was standing in front of the mirror tying his tie, shaved and dressed already.

'What time is our flight?'

'As soon as we get there.'

The airport was crowded with families heading off on holiday and ex-pat workers trying to get the last flight out before Christmas. Ellie thought she might faint if she had to queue for more than five minutes, but Blanchard pushed past all of them to an unmarked door at the back of the terminal. Inside was a parallel airport universe of friendly staff and no queues: an immigration official who glanced at their pa.s.sports and wished them merry Christmas; a security officer who carried their bags to the gate; and finally a simple door that led straight on to the tarmac, up a flight of stairs and aboard a small jet.