The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) (8 page)

So the next morning he got himself some decent walking boots and spent the rest of the day exploring the town. Climbing to the old city he was able to absorb a lot of the local atmosphere connected with the Cathars. He didn’t feel any particular need to hurry to le Bezu. He decided there was no reason why he shouldn’t enjoy the benefits of his holiday in the South of France as well as undertaking the task given to him by his grandmother.

He set off south the following day. It was a lovely spring morning. The car purred happily along the road as it wound through the deep valleys between the tree-clad mountain ranges. It certainly appeared that the Cathars had chosen a beautiful, if remote, location to establish their unusual society.

When he reached Couiza he stopped for a coffee and to consult the map. He worked out his route via Laval and St Julia de Bec, then he set off again. The roads were narrow and tortuous and the last twenty kilometres took him over half an hour. Arriving at le Bezu village, he parked in front of the church and set out to walk the final two kilometres along a farm track.

He strode out, enjoying the warm sunshine as he went. There seemed to be nobody about. The track climbed slowly, keeping to one side of a wide valley. There were meadows in the bottom and woods cladding the slopes on both sides. As he got further up the valley he became aware that the mountains were closing in upon the scenery, especially to his left, where a rough, irregular rocky peak poked up out of the trees. Pausing to look carefully at the ridge, Philip was almost sure he could make out a few vertical masonry walls, hardly differing in colour or character from the bedrock which formed their base. Checking on the map, he was almost sure this was le Bezu castle.

Feeling increasingly excited, he pushed on. As he rounded a bend he came upon two four-wheel drive Land Cruisers parked at a point where the track widened out. From this point he could see that a narrow path led off up the hillside towards the castle. There was a patch of steeply sloping meadow and a small notice board. Philip went up to look at it.

This was certainly the place. The signboard described the chateau of le Bezu and gave a few details of its history. There was also a small, rather indistinct plan of the castle which stretched along the precipitous, rocky ridge high above. Philip found it difficult to compare the plan to the terrain frowning down upon him, especially when there was so little of the actual castle remaining.

As he set off up the path he noticed that someone had recently cleared and widened it, even putting in timber pegs and supports to form steps in places where the going became difficult. Even so the slope was sufficiently steep to get him breathing heavily and make the blood pump through his veins. When he reached the woods he had to watch his footing to avoid tripping on tree roots and to keep his head down under the low-hanging branches.

Emerging near the top he found himself in front of a couple of stretches of low rough wall with a gap between them. He guessed this must be an old entrance to the castle. He noticed the ground in this location had been recently trampled more or less flat and that there was very little vegetation. There was a rough timber and wire-mesh gate across the opening which stood half open. Philip pushed it wide and entered the castle.

Which way now? He saw there was a small level terrace to his right at a slightly higher level. He scrambled up a low wall and went across the area to look at the splendid view.

“
Hey!”

He spun round in surprise. He found he was confronting a young man of medium height with dark hair and eyes.

“
Qui etes vous?” The man’s attitude was rather less than friendly.

“
Oh!” Philip hesitated. “Er - je suis Philip Sinclair.”

“
Hah! Anglische?”

“
English? Yes.”

“
OK. I am Andre Jolyon. I am arch-y-ol-o-giste.” He indicated behind him. “This is arch-y-olo-giste site.”

“
Oh? Right.”

The man gesticulated vaguely. “You not permit here.”

“
Qu’est-ce que c’est, Jo?”

A young woman appeared at the other side of the terrace. Her beauty had Philip’s immediate attention. She was wearing jeans above short boots and her tight roll-neck sweater revealed an attractive figure. But it was her sparkling blue eyes which struck him most forcefully. Set in a beautiful face and framed by long dark hair they seemed to hold his gaze.

“
C’est un anglais qui s’appel Phillipe Saint Claire.” He turned back to Philip. “Is correct?”

“
More or less.”

“
This is Mademoiselle Jacqueline Blontard. She is director of site.” He shook his head. “Sorry. You cannot come here.”

“
Yes he can.” Jacqueline came forward. “We can’t exclude the public, Jo. We haven’t got an exclusive licence.”

Andre Jolyon seemed not to take any notice of her. “But why you here?” he demanded. “We not allow any person who has not been checked.”

Philip judged it was wise not to say too much at present. “I’m interested in the Cathars. I believe this was one of their strongholds.” He held up a guide book which he had purchased in Carcassonne but which he knew made no mention of le Bezu.

When Jacqueline smiled it seemed to Philip that the day became brighter. “You won’t find much information here,” she said. “Perhaps, if you come back at the end of the summer when we have finished our excavations, we might be able to tell you some more.”

“
Your English is excellent.” Philip shook his head. “I’m afraid my French is very basic.”

She smiled her beautiful smile again. “Thank you. I was a keen language student at school.”

“
And now you are an archaeologist.”

“
Jacqueline Blontard is the most famous archaeologist in France,” interrupted Jolyon. “Didn’t you see the television films about her?”

“
Were they shown on English television?”

She nodded. “The series on Egypt was translated into English. I did some of the translation myself.”

“
I’m sorry. I must have missed them. I’m afraid I don’t watch a lot of television.”

“
I expect they were on at a strange time.” She shrugged. “They wouldn’t have been important to the English.”

Philip indicated the castle in front of him. “Is this going to be another series?”

“
It certainly is.”

“
Then I shall make sure I watch this one.” He took a breath. “May I look around?”

“
Of course,” she said before Jolyon could refuse. “But I would ask you to be careful when you get close to any roped off areas - for your own safety. There may be holes in the ground and heaps of loose rubble to avoid.”

“
I promise to be careful.”

“
Don’t go inside the restricted areas. You might damage or disturb some of our finds. In fact it might be best if I took you round the excavations and explained what we are doing.”

“
Yes please. I would appreciate that.” Philip admitted he fancied the idea of spending some time with Jacqueline.

She put her head on one side. “I cannot do it today. I have promised Paris that I will telephone them to make some arrangements. But if you are here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning I will give you a guided tour.”

“
I look forward to it very much.”

“
Meanwhile you can explore the rest of the site - those are the areas which aren’t roped off - at your own risk, of course. Remember to be careful. The terrain is very rough and steep.”

“
I will be careful. And I won’t go into the roped off areas.”

Jolyon interrupted again. “I will still be here. I will check you go nowhere that is forbidden.”

Philip noticed that Jacqueline gnawed her lower lip in vexation at her assistant’s churlish attitude. But she said nothing. So he smiled at her and said, “Thank you. I will see you tomorrow morning.” He started to cross the terrace towards the main part of the castle.

“
Just remember, Monsieur Saint Claire, I will be watching you,” Jolyon called after him as he went. “I am careful about security.”

Philip ignored him. Jolyon seemed to be one of those men who liked to throw their weight around.

For the next hour he explored the rest of the site as well as he could. He soon realised that it would be almost impossible to carry out the task his grandmother had set him, at least on his own. As well as being very steep, the ridge on which the castle had originally been built was extremely rough and irregular. Rocks and heaps of rubble stuck up all over the place. These had been covered with soil and small stones which had been washed down from above over the centuries. And more than half a millennium of vegetation - bushes, trees and undergrowth - had grown up, died, collapsed, rotted and been replaced. So it was almost impossible to decide what had been located where.

A few surviving areas of walling projected through the greenery. The most obvious were standing on the tops of rocky cliffs where the creepers had been unable to cling to them. But these weren’t much help to Philip. He knew from his reading of the journal that the room where the treasure had been secreted was in the depths of the castle. That meant it had either been found by the men who had robbed the fortress of its masonry in mediaeval times or else it was buried under the rubble and completely obscured by centuries of vegetation and detritus which had fallen from further up the hill as the place fell into ruins.

Finding the hiding place of the treasure was obviously going to be a major problem. Philip was deep in thought as he scrambled back up the precipitous slope to the main site which had been roped off by the archaeologists. Up here he saw that there was an area where almost all the covering vegetation had been stripped away, revealing a chaotic tumble of rocks and masonry. Within the main area a number of ropes had been stretched across the site in both directions about a metre above the ground. These divided the site into blocks about two metres square. Near one corner six men were working with pick axes, crowbars and shovels to remove the loose rocks and chunks of masonry. A hand-operated swivel hoist could lift the heavier lumps and put them on a trolley which ran along a level scaffolding walkway to a spoil tip.

One of the men was Andre Jolyon. When he saw Philip he gestured to him to keep clear. “Go away,” he shouted. “This is dangerous. You must not come here.”

Obediently Philip moved round the roped off area to a more remote spot well above the site where he could watch their work without any risk of getting in their way. However apparently this was still not satisfactory to Jolyon. He left the other three and came scrambling up to Philip’s vantage point.

“
You cannot stay here,” he shouted. “It is dangerous.”

“
You needn’t worry about me. I won’t cause you any trouble.”

“
You may start a rock-slide.”

“
Rubbish.” Philip indicated the solid area where he was standing. “There is no danger of a rock-slide and I will be very careful.”

Jolyon shook his head. “It is not good. We do not know who you are or where you come from. We will be worried about you being above us.”

“
I tell you there is no need to worry.”

“
Look.” He wagged a finger at Philip. “You do not understand. I do not want you here. You must go.”

Philip gazed straight back at him.

“
Very well. We will make you go.” He turned and shouted down to the others, “Gaston, Albert - ici.”

There followed a string of instructions in French. Two of the other men stopped what they were doing and started up the slope. One carried a pickaxe and the other a large crowbar.

Philip decided there was no point in prolonging the confrontation. “All right.” He held up his hands with the palms showing. “I’ll go and leave you alone. I’ll wait until I meet your director here tomorrow morning.”

Jolyon pointed towards the gate. “You keep away from us. We know how to deal with people like you.”

“
Don’t threaten me.” Philip pointed back at him. “We’ll see what Jacqeueline has to say about this tomorrow.”

With as much dignity as he could muster, Philip turned and made his way back to the entrance to the castle and down the hillside. He decided he might as well find somewhere to have lunch and then return to Carcassonne. It would be wisest not to aggravate Andre Jolyon any further by returning to the castle that day.

- 9 -

“
I have had great difficulty getting hold of you,” grumbled Charles Robert. “Marcus must have slipped up and given me the wrong number for your mobile.”

Armand Sejour decided he shouldn’t confess that he had bought a smart new one. “There was no point in contacting you until I had something useful to report. I have been spending my time getting to know Jacqueline Blontard and her right hand man - a chap called Andre Jolyon.”

They were standing in the town square of Quillan surrounded by the bustle of the Tuesday market.

“
Nevertheless you should have kept in touch. I am expected to send regular reports back to Paris. It has taken me nearly two weeks to find out which hotel you were staying at.”

Armand doubted the truth of this statement. Quillan was the nearest decent-sized place to the chateau of le Bezu and there was only one proper hotel in the town. He thought this was the first place Robert should have tried. However he said none of this to the stuffy old fellow. He was uncertain how much influence Monsieur Charles Robert wielded. And the revenge which the Council visited on employees (even well-connected employees) who stepped out of line was well known.

“
I apologise,” he said with a small smile. “At least I responded quickly when I received your message.”

Robert merely nodded.

“
Why did you want to meet me here?” continued Sejour looking round at the activity on the market stalls. “Wouldn’t somewhere private have been more appropriate?”