The Lazarus Vault

XLV

Annelise Stirt lived in the Champagne country south-east of Reims: a land of rolling valleys with vineyards on every hill. Ellie and Doug passed through village after village of squat, sandstone houses: shuttered windows and locked doors in the moonlight. They sawnoone. Just as Ellie decided they’d missed it, Doug pulled up at a pair of wrought iron gates, framing a long gravel driveway.

‘Are you sure this is right?’ Ellie had imagined that all academics lived in houses like Doug’s: cramped, shabby places mainly meant to accommodate books. Dr Stirt’s house was a full-on chateau: a three-storey mansion with tall bay windows, a gaggle of subordinate outbuildings and a turret hanging off one corner.

‘This is where the map says. It looks as if she’s still awake.’

The drive had taken longer than they’d expected — it was after eleven now — but light still shone from the downstairs windows. Ellie scanned the shadows around the house, wondering what they harboured.

‘Let’s leave the car here,’ she said.

‘If anyone’s there, they’ll already have seen us.’

‘That’s not exactly reassuring.’

‘I’ll go up and have a look. If anything happens, drive like hell.’

I’ve already put you in far too much danger, Ellie wanted to say. But Doug had opened the door and slipped into the night. Ellie watched him stride up the drive, his lanky silhouette moving with purpose. If he felt any fear, he didn’t show it. Ellie was trembling all over.

You don’t deserve this, she whispered to him. You don’t deserve what I’ve done to you.

Doug reached the top of the drive and looked around. Ellie watched him go left, then right, peering around the corners of the house. Her heart went into overdrive as he vanished behind an outbuilding, some sort of garage or workshop, but a moment later he was back, waving the all-clear to her.

She drove up the driveway and joined him at the door. Doug lifted the knocker — but before he’d let it drop the door swung in. A tall woman stood in the doorway, prettier than her photo on the website. She wore her greying dark hair loosely tied back, framing a heart-shaped face with round cheeks and a dimpled mouth.

‘Dr Cullum?’

Doug shook her hand. ‘This is my colleague, Ellie Stanton.’

As they shook hands, Ellie realised how filthy she must look. She’d washed her face at the restaurant, and brushed off all the mud she could, but there were still big stains down her jeans where she’d fallen in the lake, and her hair stank of smoke.

‘We had a flat tyre. I tripped and fell in a ditch while I was changing it.’

‘You poor thing.’ Annelise Stirt put an arm around Ellie’s shoulders and steered her through into a flagstoned hallway lined with paintings of hounds. ‘Do you want to change? Have you eaten?’

Doug demurred. ‘We’ve already kept you up far too late.’

Annelise led them into an elegant drawing room. A log smouldered in the hearth; a pair of gleaming shotguns were mounted above it, and long brocade curtains draped the windows. All the furniture looked at least a hundred years old.

‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’

Annelise disappeared. Ellie perched on the edge of a golden-upholstered chaise longue and hoped the mud wouldn’t stain it. She felt like a lost soul finding an oasis in the desert, unwilling to believe its shimmering welcome could be anything more than a mirage. Everything around her seemed so soft and warm and comforting she thought she might cry.

Annelise came back carrying a tray. As well as the teapot and three mugs, she’d brought a plate piled with cured meats, sliced baguette and a steak pie cut into quarters.

‘I had a rummage in the fridge. You look as if you could use feeding up.’

Ellie gave decorum about five seconds, then descended on a piece of pie. ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

‘My father was Scottish and my mother German, but both of them wanted to be French. This house was their way of achieving it.’ Annelise sat back in a deep armchair and curled her legs under her. ‘But you didn’t come here to admire my home.’

‘We wanted to talk about your research interests,’ said Doug.

‘You can say it — the Holy Grail. I know it’s a bit of a dirty word in academic circles.’ She settled back in her chair. ‘Actually, I’m rather glad to see you hesitate. So many of the people I come across are fanatical on the subject.’

Ellie spread thick butter on the bread and added a slice of ham.

‘In this field, there are two kinds of people: scholars, and crazies. I try to avoid the crazies, but you can’t be a scholar — a proper scholar — and not come up against them from time to time. They talk about the Knights Templar, tarot cards, the bloodline of Jesus, Freemasons, all that conspiratorial stuff. Sometimes you have to admire their ingenuity, but it’s still complete rubbish.’

‘We’re more interested in Chrétien de Troyes and his poetry.’

Annelise nodded, thoughtful. ‘I looked you up when you said you were coming, Dr Cullum. Your field is French poets and their classical models. You haven’t published anything on Chrétien.’

‘It’s a recent development.’

‘You said you had something to show me?’

Doug glanced at Ellie. Ellie pulled the leather tube out of the bag and unscrolled the parchment. She passed it to Annelise, together with Doug’s translation.

‘Where did you find this?’

‘A friend of the family found it in an attic,’ Doug said. ‘He knew I studied old manuscripts, so he gave it to me to look at.’

Annelise put on her glasses, which she wore on a red cord around her neck, and read over the manuscript. A glow came into her face.

‘You think this is Chrétien’s work?’

Doug nodded.

‘And you’re convinced it’s genuine?’

‘We wouldn’t have troubled you if we weren’t.’

‘The language seems right. The Champenois dialect, some of the vocabulary. It’s obviously Grail related. All those allusions: the bowl, the spear, the maiden. But that much you’ve surely seen yourselves. What did you think I could tell you?’

‘We think it’s some kind of riddle.’ Ellie rushed out the words, then blushed. ‘Now you must think we sound crazy.’

‘To misquote Henry Kissinger, just because you’re crazy, it doesn’t mean you’re not right.’

Annelise took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shawl. She squinted at the parchment.

‘Some scholars — bona fide scholars — think Chrétien’s poems are full of riddles. In the manuscript of Lancelot there’s a totally unnecessary illuminated capital letter on line 4401. The whole poem is 7118 lines long. 7118 divided by 4401 gives you 1.62, the golden ration. Phi. Coincidence? No one knows.’

She stirred her tea with a finger. ‘Have you considered chess problems?’

Doug shook his head, surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Chrétien has a thing about chess. It features in several of his poems — I’m sure you know this — and lots of examples of chequered floors, horses that are half black and half white, black and white coats of arms, a chessboard used as a shield …’

She gave them a probing smile, waiting for them to catch up. Ellie got it first.

‘The poem’s a grid. Eight lines by eight syllables. Like a chessboard.’

Annelise looked at Doug’s translation.

‘The word you’ve translated as “turns” —’

‘I thought it might refer to tournaments,’ Doug said. ‘But it wouldn’t fit the metre.’

‘You could also translate it as “tours”. Have you ever heard of the Knight’s Tour?’

Ellie and Doug both shook their heads. Annelise unfolded herself from her chair and opened a silver laptop that sat on a gilded side-table. She tapped into a search engine.

‘The Knight’s Tour is a chess problem. The goal is to move a knight across every square of the board in turn, using only the regulation move — two up and one over.’

‘Can it be done?’

‘Easily. The problem’s been known for centuries; the earliest solutions in Europe go back to the Middle Ages.’

‘What does that —?’

‘Your poem’s a chessboard — each square is a syllable. Perhaps if you read them in the order the knight moves around them it would spell out something new.’

‘How would you know which order that is?’

Annelise tapped the computer. Ellie and Doug stared. A geometric pattern had appeared on screen, a spiky tangle of black lines criss-crossed into sharp points and overlapping triangles. It wasn’t the same as the Mirabeau mosaic, but the family resemblance was unmissable.

Annelise, with her back to them, didn’t see their shock. ‘This is what one of the solutions looks like.’

‘One of the solutions?’ Ellie repeated. ‘How many are there?’

Annelise moved down the page on the computer. Text replaced pictures. ‘More than you’d think.’ She read a little further, then gave a rueful laugh. ‘According to this website, no one knows how many possible paths there are. Something over one hundred trillion is the latest estimate.’

She gathered up the mugs and piled them on the tray. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been much help.’

‘Not at all,’ said Ellie. ‘You’ve given us lots to think about.’

‘It’s probably all nonsense. There’s something about the Grail that provokes fantasies, even in a hardened old cynic like me. Eight hundred years ago Chrétien de Troyes described a jewelled serving dish. In the next generation it became the cup of Christ. In the German tradition it’s a stone that fell from heaven. Now people want you to believe that it’s the body of Jesus’ love child, or esoteric wisdom. Did you know, there are scholars who argue that Chrétien intended his poem to be as infuriating as possible? He piles up these dense, allusive symbols like a dream, and never tells you what they mean; his plot spins out of control without resolution, and then he leaves the whole thing unfinished. Perhaps it’s just a joke, to drive people mad with wondering.’

‘You don’t think it’s a joke,’ Ellie said. She tucked the leather tube back in the bag and stood. ‘But we’ve kept you up much too late.’

‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’

‘We’ll find a hotel.’

‘Not around here, at this time of night. Stay here. You’d be very welcome.’

Ellie glanced at Doug. A vision of bed, of clean sheets and soft covers and hot water, danced before her eyes.

‘It’s very kind of you —’

Annelise made an embarrassed gesture around the grand house. ‘I’ve plenty of rooms.’

The room she gave them was warm and snug. Doug had to physically drag Ellie out of the shower so he could have a turn. She left her clothes in a corner and curled up naked under the heavy duvet. Her head sank into the pillow — when Doug joined her ten minutes later, she was already almost asleep. He curled around her and wrapped her in his arms.

‘That Knight’s Tour …’

‘I know …’

‘I’ve got it in the bag. We could …’

‘Shhh …’ She didn’t want to think about it.

Ellie woke in darkness. The luminous hands on the bedside clock glowed quarter to four. She lay there a moment, remembering where she was, savouring the dark peace of the night. She was safe and warm; she had nowhere to go. She listened to Doug’s breathing soft and even beside her, like a mother with her sleeping child.

She needed a pee. She slid out of bed and padded across the wooden floor. The toilet was at the end of the corridor, dark except for spandrels of moonlight coming through the window. She couldn’t find the light switch.

I feel like a ghost, she thought. A pale figure, flitting through the old house. It was hardly more fantastical than anything else that had happened.

She fumbled for the flush. The toilet had an old-fashioned chain to pull, dangling somewhere in the dark. As she swiped for it, something outside the window caught her eye. She looked out.

Lights were coming up the driveway.