The Medusa Amulet

Chapter 2

Even for someone as jaded as Phillip Palliser, it had been a strange day so far.

A car had been sent to his hotel, and the driver-a Frenchman named Emil Rigaud, who looked as if he had spent more than a few years in military service of some kind-had whisked them off to a private airfield just outside Paris, where they had boarded a helicopter and flown south toward the Loire Valley. Palliser, a man who spent a good part of his life flying around the globe, still harbored some reservations about helicopter flight. The din in the cabin, even with the headphones on, was excruciating, and as part of the floor was transparent, he could not help but see the landscape rushing by below his feet. First, the outlying suburbs of the city-a hideous jumble of concrete blocks and crowded highways, much like the wastelands surrounding most metropolitan centers-blissfully followed by snowy farms and fields, then, an hour later, deep, dark forests and valleys.

As they had passed above the town of Chartres, Rigaud had leaned in, and, over his headset, said, “That’s the cathedral, right under us. I told the pilot to ring the bells.”

And when Palliser looked down, it did indeed seem as if the chopper’s rails were about to clip the cathedral’s twin spires. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach and closed his eyes. When he opened them again a few seconds later, Rigaud was looking at him fixedly, with a smile on his face.

The man was a bit of a sadist, Palliser thought.

“Not much farther,” Rigaud said over a burst of static. But his tone conveyed less comfort than regret… at the ordeal coming to an end.

Palliser looked away and concentrated on taking deep, steady breaths. For nearly ten years, ever since leaving the International Art Recovery League, he had undertaken private commissions such as the one he was on now. But none was going to be as lucrative as this. If he could find what his mysterious patron had asked him to find, he could finally take that retirement he dreamt of and even, perhaps, begin his own art collection in earnest. He was tired of being the expert instead of the owner, the detective hired to track down the valuable objets d’art to which other people-most of them philistines-held some spurious claim. It was time to set up shop for himself.

As they approached the steep, rugged walls of a cliff rising from the river, Rigaud’s voice again crackled in his headphones.

“The Chateau Perdu is due south. You will see it soon.”

In all his years, and all his travels, Palliser had never heard of this Chateau Perdu-or lost castle-but he had been sufficiently intrigued by the note left at his hotel to undertake this journey.

“I understand that we share certain interests,” the note had said. “I have long been a collector of art, from all over the globe, and would be delighted to have someone with your discerning eye appreciate, and perhaps appraise, some of it.” Palliser picked up the scent of a commission down the road. But it was the conclusion that sealed the deal. “Perhaps I can even help you on your present mission. After all, even Perseus did not prevail over the Medusa without the help of powerful friends.”

It was that last comment-about the Medusa-that had piqued his interest. The man who had signed the note-Monsieur Auguste Linz-must know something about the assignment Palliser was on. How he’d found out was anyone’s guess, as even Palliser had never met his actual employer on this job. But if this Linz actually knew something about the whereabouts of La Medusa, the ancient artifact that he was seeking, then enduring the helicopter ride would have been well worth the trouble.

Rigaud’s arm lifted, straight from the shoulder, and he pointed past the pilot’s head at a ridgeline where towering old oaks gave way to a grim chateau with pepperpot towers-five of them, Palliser counted-rising from its walls. The day was fading, and here and there lights had come on behind the slitted windows.

A dry moat, like an open grave, surrounded it on three sides; the fourth was just a sheer drop-off to the river far below. But even from this height and distance, Palliser could see that the chateau far predated most of its more famous counterparts. This was not some frilly cupcake, designed for a royal mistress, but a fortress built by a knight back from the Crusades or a duke with his eye on a crown.

The chopper skimmed above the tops of the trees, their branches nearly grazing the bubble beneath Palliser’s feet, before banking slowly and wobbling down onto a sere, frost-covered lawn. A few dead leaves scattered in the wash from the propellers. Palliser removed his headphones, unhooked his shoulder harness, and after Rigaud had climbed out of the hatch, followed him, head bent low, as the blades stopped whirring and the engine died down.

His legs, he discovered, were a tad unsteady.

Rigaud, all in black and his dyed blond hair shining in the late-day sun, strode off, without another word, toward the main gate of the chateau, leaving Palliser, in his cashmere overcoat and his fine Italian loafers, to stumble after him, a leather briefcase holding the facsimiles from Chicago clutched in one hand.

They crossed a drawbridge, under a portcullis, and into a cobblestoned courtyard. A wide flight of steps led to a pair of doors standing open, and Palliser passed through them and into a vast entry hall with a grand escalier sweeping up it on either side. A middle-aged man was just coming down the stairs, dressed in English tweeds as if about to stroll down the lane to his local pub.

“Mr. Palliser,” he said warmly, stepping forward. “I am so pleased you could come.” His English was good, though it carried a Swiss or maybe Austrian accent.

Rigaud stood to one side, as if he were again on some parade ground awaiting review.

Palliser shook his hand and thanked him for the invitation. The man’s skin was both cool and damp, and though his blue eyes were cordial, there was also something in them that made Palliser distinctly uncomfortable. He felt, as Monsieur Linz clung to his hand a moment too long, as if he were being assessed somehow.

“What can we get you after your journey?”

“Perhaps a drink?” Palliser said, still recovering from the helicopter ride. “Scotch, neat?” He could tell already that this place was likely to be a treasure trove of art and antiques. “Followed by a tour of your magnificent home, if you would be so kind? I’m afraid I have never heard of this chateau prior to your note.”

“Few people have,” Monsieur Linz said, clapping his hands. A servant popped up out of nowhere and was dispatched for the drink. “But that’s the way we like it.” With his left arm tucked behind his back-was it shaking, Palliser wondered?-Linz strutted off to begin the tour.

“I should start by saying that the house was built in the early 1200s, by a Norman knight who had pillaged his way through the Holy Lands.”

Palliser silently congratulated himself.

“Many of the things he brought back are here still,” Linz said, waving one arm at a pair of faded tapestries adorning one wall, before ushering Palliser into a baronial hall lined with coats of armor and medieval weaponry. It was a fantastic display, worthy of the Royal Armouries in the Tower of London-swords and shields, bows and arrows, battle-axes, pikes, and spears. Their metal gleamed in the western light flooding through the casement windows. “One can only guess,” Linz said, running one hand along the dull edge of a broadsword, “what horrors they witnessed.”

Witnessed? Palliser thought. These were the very instruments of destruction.

The servant, breathless, appeared at his elbow with a silver tray on which rested a glass of Scotch.

Palliser put his briefcase down on a table before accepting the drink.

“You may leave that here,” Linz said, “I have so much to show you,” urging him on.

The tour was a lengthy one, ranging from the many salons to the top of the turrets. “As you no doubt know,” Linz said, “there was a royal edict, in the sixteenth century, decreeing that the nobility lower the walls and remove the pepperpot towers from their chateaux. The king wanted no fortresses in France that could withstand an assault by his troops, if it ever came to that.”

“But these, apparently, were spared,” Palliser observed. “Why?”

“Even then, no king dared to tamper with the Chateau Perdu. The place had acquired, shall we say, a reputation.”

“For what?”

“The dark arts,” Linz replied, with a hint of amusement. “It has served the chateau well ever since.”

From their perch on the ramparts, Palliser could gaze out over the tips of the ancient oaks and down to the river Loire at the foot of the cliffs. The sun was just setting, and the temperature had dropped another ten degrees. Even with the warmth of the Scotch in him, Palliser shivered in his Savile Row suit.

“But come, let’s go down to the dining room. We have a marvelous cook.”

Palliser was beginning to wonder when they were going to get down to business, but he knew that it was always best to betray no eagerness. Besides, he was astonished at the chateau and the thousand and one works of art it appeared to contain. Every corner held an oil painting in a gilded frame; every cornice was surmounted by a marble bust; every floor was covered with a threadbare, but immensely valuable, Persian carpet. Monsieur Linz, however peculiar he seemed, plainly possessed a great fortune and an exquisite eye. If anyone knew where La Medusa-the silver mirror lost for centuries-was hidden, Linz might be the man.

In the dining hall, a long refectory table had been set, and Palliser was guided to a seat in the middle. At one end, Linz sat down, while Rigaud sat directly across from their guest of honor. The other end was left empty, until Linz muttered something to a servant, and a minute or two later, a pretty blond woman, about thirty, fluttered in.

“I was exercising,” she said, and Linz snorted. She was introduced as Ava, but showed no interest in knowing who Palliser was or what he was doing there. Indeed, all through dinner she appeared to be listening to something through the earphones attached to an iPod in the pocket of her blouse.

The courses, many of them, were served silently by an older couple, and several bottles of very old, and very good, wine were poured. Palliser tried to gauge his intake, but the glass was always replenished as soon as he had taken a sip. Eventually, the conversation found its way to the assignment Palliser had undertaken.

“So tell me-what is so priceless about this mirror?” Linz asked, dicing up a roasted potato. Palliser had noticed that even though fish and game had been served, Linz had eaten only soup and vegetables. “Who would want it so badly?”

“That I am not at liberty to divulge,” Palliser said, glad for the convenient evasion. His only contact was with a Chicago lawyer named Hudgins, who closely guarded his master’s, or mistress’s, identity. “But may I ask you a question?”

Linz nodded vigorously, without looking up from his plate.

“How did you know what I was looking for?” He noted Rigaud throwing a glance at his boss.

Linz took a swallow from his wineglass, and said, “I’m an ardent collector, as you have already seen. I have many sources, many dealers, and they all keep me apprised of anything new that comes onto the market. They also tell me about any unusual inquiries. Yours was one of them.”

Palliser thought he’d been extremely discreet in his search so far, but now he wondered who had tipped off Linz. Was it that jeweler in Rome? The librarian in Florence? Some rival as yet unknown?

“Tell me what you know of it,” Linz said, “and maybe I will be able to help you.”

Palliser smelled a rat-a big one-but he suspected that Linz already knew what little he could tell him. Whoever his source was had undoubtedly told him a good deal more about what Palliser was seeking-a handheld looking glass, of sixteenth-century Florentine manufacture, and most probably from the hand of the master craftsman himself, Benvenuto Cellini. One side sported a silver head of the Medusa, her hair writhing like snakes, and the other concealed a mirror. Why his client wanted it more than anything on earth, he could not say.

But when he had finished, Linz speared the last of his asparagus, then said, “A lot of what Cellini made, as I hardly need to tell a man of your experience, has been lost or destroyed over the years. So how do you know it even exists? What proof do you have?”

“None, really, apart from a few papers in my case.”

Linz had the briefcase brought to them at the table, and as the servants poured out coffee, Palliser started to enter the combination to unlock the case, when he realized that it was already unlocked. Had he been so careless?

With some reservations, he produced copies of a sketch-in red and black ink-of the mirror, along with copies of some working papers written in Italian, and in a distinctive hand.

Linz studied them intensely, his dark hair, speckled with gray, sweeping low across his brow. There followed a detailed discussion of Cellini’s career, and of the Italian Renaissance in general, which bowled Palliser over. A graduate of Oxford, with a doctorate in art history, he knew a genuine connoisseur when he came across one-and Linz was not only a passionate devotee of the arts, but also someone who spoke of them with the intensity of an artist himself, someone who had wrestled with the aesthetic questions on his own terms. Palliser wouldn’t have been surprised if Linz had his own studio tucked away in one of the unexplored turrets.

Still, he felt that he had given the game away with little to show for it in return. When he finally ventured to ask his host what suggestions he might have for locating the Medusa, Linz leaned back in his chair, and after deliberating, said, “A lost cause, I should say. You admit that it hasn’t been seen for centuries. I should think it was best left alone.”

To Palliser’s practiced ear, it sounded like he knew more than he was telling. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Some things are meant to be found,” Linz said gnomically, “and others are meant to be lost. Everything has its own destiny. As an artisan,” he went on, astutely referring to Cellini in the vernacular of his day, “he was unparalleled in his various skills.” Although the term “artist” was also employed, and came into greater use over time, it was no insult, Palliser recognized, to be known as an artisan. “But in his own lifetime, even Cellini’s greatest work sometimes went unappreciated.”

“The Perseus statue was wildly acclaimed,” Palliser protested. He did not even mention the artist’s other great triumphs.

“But that was not his greatest work.”

Now Palliser was puzzled. Not his greatest work? It was one of the most revered works of all Renaissance art, known throughout the world.

As the evening progressed, Rigaud looked increasingly bored, and Ava perked up only when a torte was brought out, piled high with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. She dug in with gusto.

Linz, too, plainly enjoyed the dessert, a moustache of cream forming on his upper lip. But Palliser had lost his appetite. Glancing at his watch-it was well past ten-he said, “And I do hate to end the evening so abruptly, but I should get back to Paris. I still have La Medusa to find.”

“You sound undeterred,” Linz said. “I’m impressed.” Wiping his lips with his napkin, he added, “But if you would prefer to spend the night here, Lord knows we have plenty of room.”

Little as he relished the idea of the helicopter ride back, in the dark, Palliser was even less inclined to stay the night under such a strange roof. There was something unsettling about Linz, quite apart from the fact that he had provided so little help. All through the dinner, Palliser had increasingly felt as if he was being drained of all his own information, and for nothing in return. He wasn’t used to being duped, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Thank you,” he said, “but I have an appointment first thing in the morning.”

Linz acceded graciously, rising from his chair. That left arm was definitely palsied, Palliser noticed. But then, to his own great embarrassment, he found himself weaving on his own feet from the effects of the wine. Rocking in place for a second, he said, “Your wine cellar is exceptionally well stocked.”

“It’s the best in the Loire Valley,” Linz said. “In fact, you have been such good company, I’d like to offer you a gift-a bottle of whatever you like.”

Palliser demurred, but Linz would have none of it. “Emil,” he commanded, “tell the pilot to be ready in ten minutes.” And then, taking Palliser by the elbow, he escorted him out of the room while Ava called for a second helping of the torte.

Palliser, holding his briefcase, was led back through the armor hall and the salons, then down a winding stair and through the kitchens and scullery. The temperature grew colder and the air grew damp. Linz circumvented an old dusty rack and flicked a switch. A long corridor, carved from the stone itself, was lined with thousands of bottles of wine, as far as the eye could see. Palliser, who had seen the vaunted storerooms of Moldova, could not even guess at the quantity housed here.

“What do you like?” Linz asked, leading the way under a string of dim white lightbulbs. “Bordeaux? Pinot Noir?” He waved an arm at the racks, moving on. “This valley is best known for its dry white wines. Did you enjoy the Sancerre at dinner?”

“I did,” Palliser confessed, wishing that he had enjoyed it a little less.

“Then let me offer you one of these,” Linz said, stepping farther down the tunnel and taking a bottle from the rack. Blowing off the dust, he said, “Yes, this is a 1936-a very fine vintage.”

As Palliser took the bottle, he became aware of a draft under his feet, and the distant sound of sloshing water. He looked down, and in the wavering light saw that he was standing atop a rusty grate.

“This was once a dungeon,” Linz explained. “You’re standing above the oubliette.”

The shaft, Palliser knew, where prisoners were thrown to die a slow death of thirst and starvation.

Instinctively, he stepped back.

“But the chateau rests on limestone, and the river is eroding the cliffs,” Linz said, stooping to pull the grate away to reveal the shaft; he appeared rather proud of his oubliette. “You see? The water has already reached the bottom of the pit.”

Indeed, Palliser could just make out a surge of water swirling at the very bottom of the funnel, when he felt a steadying hand on his shoulder and turned to see that Rigaud had rejoined them.

“The chopper is ready to go,” he said, Palliser’s cashmere overcoat draped over one arm.

“Good,” Palliser replied, “thank you.”

“Let me take those for you,” Linz said, relieving Palliser of the wine and the briefcase before he could think to object.

Then, as Rigaud held up the coat, Palliser turned and slipped his arms into the sleeves. He felt warmer already. But as he reached down to button it, Linz patted him on the shoulder, much harder than he thought necessary, and he was thrown off-balance. Before he could quite regain his footing, Rigaud had crouched down and was lifting him by the cuffs of his trousers.

“Stop! What the-”

But he was already upside down, his hands scrabbling at the edges of the oubliette. He tried to brace himself, but the stone was slick and his fingers kept sliding off into space.

“Let go!” he shouted, trying desperately to kick free, even as the coins and keys from his pants and jacket rained onto the stone, and the glasses slipped off his nose. The Mont Blanc pen dropped from his breast pocket, spinning into the black void. One hand was still firmly planted on the stone, but Linz put out a foot and nudged it aside.

An instant later Palliser was falling headfirst, caroming off the edges of the narrow shaft, shredding his clothes and ripping his skin, until he plunged, screaming, into the black water at the bottom of the pit.

Linz waited a moment, listening to the gurgle of the water, then brushed his hands against his jacket and replaced the 1936 Sancerre on the shelf. He nodded at the grate, and Rigaud bent down and pushed it back into place.

On the way out, Linz flicked off the lights and went upstairs to his bedroom. Ava was in the bathroom, removing her makeup. After getting undressed, he put on his pajamas and red silk robe, and began leafing through the pages from the late Mr. Palliser’s briefcase. So far, they looked very similar to papers he’d seen before, more’s the pity. They could join all the other sketches and journal entries and ricordanze, carried by previous, and equally unsuccessful, emissaries. Sometimes he wondered what he would do for amusement if these detectives and so-called art experts ever stopped coming.

“Who was that bore at the dinner table?” Ava called from the bathroom.

“Nobody.”

“Will he be coming back?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, turning another page. Linz knew that behind them all, there lurked a rich and resourceful adversary-though nowhere near as rich and resourceful as he was-and while Rigaud had often advised him to cut the tree down at its roots, Linz resisted. A life like his held little enough to savor, and simply knowing that a nemesis existed gave him a special frisson of pleasure. He had always relished having enemies; he’d felt that their animosity directly fed his own power and invincibility.

And as for these futile attempts to recover La Medusa? He was the cat playing with the proverbial mouse.

Ava bounded back into the bed, nude as usual, and yanked the covers up to her neck.

“Tell me again why you won’t install central heating?”

“Tell me why you refuse to wear the nightgowns I buy you.”

“They’re not healthy-they constrict the limbs in sleep.”

It was a discussion they had had a thousand times.

“Heating ducts would destroy the integrity of the chateau walls,” Linz said. And he had always been terribly superstitious about any alterations to the Chateau Perdu.

She burrowed deeper, pulling the blanket up to her eyeballs. “You and your integrity,” she snorted.

Linz slipped the papers into the bedside drawer, right under the loaded pistol he always kept there, and turned out the lights. In the darkness, as he rolled onto his side, he fancied he could hear the cries of his dinner guest, echoing from the oubliette.