The Sixth Key(40)

Rahn recognised the fountain that crowned the pond; it was fashioned into a boy riding a dolphin. He smiled for its aptness, considering the proximity of this house to the extinct volcano the Pic de Bugarach.

Eva noticed his smile. ‘Do you like it? The monks had the infant made in Carcassonne.’

‘The child hurled by Juno into the ocean from Mount Olympus,’ Rahn said, realising that he was trying to impress her, ‘before he became the god Vulcan. The god of volcanoes.’

She raised one brow but did not smile. ‘That’s right.’

‘So this was once a monastery, that explains it,’ he murmured.

‘Explains what?’ she said.

He wanted to say, that explains why I don’t like it. Instead he smiled. ‘It explains the architecture . . . thirteenth century?’

‘Yes,’ she said, but she didn’t seem suitably impressed. ‘It was deserted during the Revolution when most of the monasteries in the south were closed down. It was laid to waste for a time, but it has been brought back from the dead, so to speak.’

‘Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Mademoiselle Cros?’ Deodat put in.

She smiled graciously at Deodat. ‘Please, call me Eva.’ She went to her uncle and said, ‘You have visitors.’

Deodat approached the old man. The abbé’s face was expressionless and there was dribble on his chin. Deodat shook one limp hand vigorously. ‘You lazy old fool!’ he said with fondness. ‘I thought I’d find you sitting about doing nothing.’

The man’s eyes focused on Deodat and were filled with a sudden, lucid intensity. Rahn had the sense that the man had something urgent on his mind and it would brook no delay. The abbé raised one hand slightly, led by an index finger that seemed to be pointing to the heavens.

Deodat didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. He said, quite unperturbed, ‘I have brought a friend: Otto Rahn. Do you recall that I spoke to you about him? He wrote that book I gave you on the Cathars.’

The man’s sharp gaze moved over Rahn and returned to Deodat. He wanted to say something, but when he tried to speak, what came out sounded like garbled whispers. Deodat sat on the lip of the pond directly in front of him and tried to make some sense of it.

‘You wanted to see me. Is it about what we spoke of before you fell ill?’ Deodat asked.

The man’s face moved barely a muscle but there was something strange playing about his eyes. He opened his mouth a little and Deodat leant in to hear.

‘He wants to write something, I think,’ Deodat said to Eva, and immediately she disappeared into the house. Meanwhile the old man began to make movements with his mouth again. He looked frustrated, worried – even afraid, Rahn thought.

When Eva returned, the abbé’s anxiety seemed to grow. She placed a fountain pen in his hand and held a piece of writing paper over a book so that he could scribble down what he had to say. The effort agitated him and his breathing grew laboured, but he managed to write one word:

Sator

When he was finished his eyes, full of meaning, returned to Deodat. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and tried again to form words. Deodat leant in one more time. ‘I think he’s saying something about the church. Is there something in the church you want, Eugene?’

There was the slightest nod of the head.

‘What is it?’

His eyes looked here and there, like a man seeking a place on which to lean his words. He glanced at his niece and Rahn saw something in the abbé’s eyes he couldn’t quite fathom. The girl bent to comfort him but the old man began silently weeping.

‘Look,’ Deodat said, patting the old man’s knee, ‘we can leave it for another time. We’ll come back when you’re feeling a little better.’

The abbé didn’t look away from the pond and their polite exit was ignored.

‘Please don’t feel bad, magistrate,’ Eva said, seeing them out. ‘He’s been like that since he was visited by a friend, another priest, a week or so ago. Afterwards, he was so anxious to see you . . . Perhaps he was just overwhelmed?’

Deodat turned to her. ‘An old friend saw him? Who was it?’

‘A priest, I think, from Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet. But I don’t know what my uncle could possibly want from the church, since all his possessions were brought here from the presbytery when he fell ill. As far as I know, there’s nothing left at the church that belongs to him.’

‘Is it possible to see the church today?’ Deodat said. ‘I wanted to show it to my friend while we were here.’

‘I suppose so. It’s Sunday but there isn’t a priest there at the moment. Despite that the church is always open.’ She looked thoughtful, then said, ‘Would you like me to come with you?’