Labyrinth

Jea

Audric smiled, remembering how curious she had been in the early days, always asking questions. Where did he live? What did he do in the long months they did not see each other? Where did he go?

Traveling, he’d told her. Researching and gathering material for his books, visiting friends.

Who, she had asked?

Companions, those with whom he’d studied and shared experiences. He had told her of his friendship with Grace.

A while later, he admitted his home was in a village in the Pyrenees, not far from Montsegur. But he shared very little else about himself and, as the decades slipped by, she had given up asking.

Jea

For Jea

Jea

Her took her hands between his. “Bonjorn.”

She stood back to look him up and down. “You look well.”

“Te tanben,” he answered. You too.

“You’ve made good time.”

He nodded. “The train was punctual.”

Jea

“It’s not so far,” he smiled. “I admit, I wanted to see how Carcassona had changed since last I was here.”

Baillard followed her into the cool little house. The brown and beige tiles on the floor and walls gave everything a somber, old-fashioned look. A small oval table stood in the center of the room, its battered legs sticking out from underneath a yellow and blue oilskin cloth. There was a bureau in the corner with an old-fashioned typewriter sitting on it, next to French windows that gave on to a small terrace.

Jea

The ice cracked and chinked against the sides as the bright red alcohol trickled over the cubes. For a while they sat in companionable silence, as they had done many times before. An occasional fragment of guide book commentary, belched out in several languages, filtered down from the Cite as the tourist train completed one of its regular circuits of the walls.

Audric carefully put his glass on the table. “So,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

Jea

Audric drew in his breath. For so many years he had tried to imagine how he would feel at this moment. He had never lost faith that, at last, the time would come when he would learn the truth of those final hours.

The decades rolled one into the other. He watched the seasons follow their endless cycle; the green of spring slipping into the gold of summer; the burnished palette of autumn vanishing beneath the austere whiteness of the winter; the first thaw of the mountain streams in spring.

Still, no word had come. E ara? And now?

“Yves went inside the cave himself?” he asked.

Jea

“What did he see?”

“There was an altar. Behind it, carved into the rock itself, was the symbol of the labyrinth.”

“And the bodies? Where were they?”

“In a grave, no more than a dip in the ground in truth, in front of the altar. There were objects lying between the bodies, although there were too many people for him to get close enough to see properly.”

“How many were there?”

“Two. Two skeletons.”

“But that-” He stopped. “No matter, Jea

“Underneath the… them, he picked up this.”

Jea

Audric did not move. After so long, he feared to touch it.

“Yves telephoned from the post office in Foix late yesterday afternoon. The line was bad and it was hard to hear, but he said he took the ring because he didn’t trust the people looking for it. He sounded worried.” Jea

“Who knows he went into the cave?”

“I don’t know. The officers on duty? His commanding officer? Probably others.”

Baillard looked at the ring on the table, then stretched out and picked it up. Holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he tilted it toward the light. The delicate pattern of the labyrinth carved on the underside was clearly visible.

“Is it his ring?” Jea

Audric couldn’t trust himself to answer. He was wondering at the chance that had delivered the ring into his hands. Wondering if it was chance.

“Did Yves say where the bodies had been taken?”

She shook her head.

“Could you ask him? And, if he could, a list of all those who were at the site yesterday when the cave was opened.”

“I’ll ask. I’m sure he’ll help if he can.”

Baillard slipped the ring on to his thumb. “Please convey my gratitude to Yves. It must have cost him dear to take this. He has no idea how important his quick thinking may turn out to be.” He smiled. “Did he say what else was discovered with the bodies?”

“A dagger, a small leather bag with nothing inside, a lamp on-”

“Vueg?” he said in disbelief. “Empty? But that ca

“Inspector Noubel, the senior officer, apparently pressed the woman on this point. Yves said she was adamant. She claimed shed touched nothing but the ring.”

“And did your grandson think her truthful?”

“He didn’t say.”

“If… someone else must have taken it,” he muttered to himself, his brow furrowed in thought. “What did Yves tell you about this woman?”

“Very little. She is English, in her twenties, a volunteer, not an archeologist. She was staying in Foix at the invitation of a friend, who is the second in charge at the excavation.”

“Did he tell you her name?”

“Taylor, I think he said.” She frowned. “No, not Taylor. Perhaps it was Ta

Time stood still. “Es vertat?” Can it be true? The name echoed inside his head. “Es vertat?” he repeated in a whisper.

Had she taken the book? Recognized it? No, no. He stopped himself. That made no sense. If the book, then why not the ring also?