“On the same subject,” added Siegfried, “I usually take pride in being able to get things done fast, when organizing archaeological expeditions at least. And there are experimental robots I thought we could use. Programmed with enough ‘smart’ software AIs, those robots should be able to dig and ‘find their way’ through a maze of tunnels—even if many of them be half-collapsed, half-silted, clogged, or altogether blocked by walls or boulders, barely above the phreatic layer—and do all that producing little more than a humming sound.
But the robots are neither available at the drop of a hat, nor do they come for cheap. Renting them would require some explaining: no matter how secretive archaeologists might want to be, insurers tend to be rather obstreperous and fairly inquisitive. If you decide, for example, to take one or two of those robots to either a seismic or a lawless area, your insurance gets quite outrageous—and if you can’t get them insured, you can’t rent them. So, in that case, if you want them, you must buy them.
As it happens, I am tinkering with the idea of buying a couple of them. To rent them, I could lie and say we want do dig under this castle, but my future as an archaeologist would then hung by a thread. So my go-getter instincts are violently colliding with my survival ones. Hence, I must agree: getting inside those tunnels, unseen and unheard, in August, would be, in my opinion, quite challenging”.
“So, Milady Sól,” asked Conrad, “do you know with certainty whether we have to get there just around the anniversary of Kidinnu’s death, or is it on the date, or before it?”
“Well,” Sól replied, “there is something else in the document that might make the specific date the slightest of our problems…they key ‘ingredient’ perhaps is not exact timing…”
“That ‘ingredient’ being…?” Severian asked.
“That ‘ingredient’ being: the person doing what Lilith said must be done has to be a man without malice…a human man without malice…not a ‘saint’ but a human man without malice…”
“Why not a woman…?” asked the Countess quite miffed.
“I suppose when they wrote such things, feminism did not exist. At the time of Conrad even noble women were little more than breeding bags with dowries…” replied Sól, with an air of resigned frustration.
“I see…” quipped Haim. “So we might have some time to prepare the excavation…”
“It’s quite reassuring…” began David.
“What’s reassuring?” asked Tony.
“…To have so many opportunities to fail. We could fail if we do it too late, if we send the wrong man trying to go faster, if whoever does it misses some detail, since we’re not exactly sure what has to be done…Should we admit defeat and go home?” he added, his words freezing the room into an oppressive silence, for a few interminable minutes.
24—Improvisation at Saint Pierre
“In Summer, there is too much going on in Chartres,” said Sól. “There are concerts, people out in the parks and near the river, tourists visiting churches, the light shows, even the occasional guided tour of ongoing archaeological excavations; and, if the Eure is not absurdly low, and/or the wheat fields on fire, and/or the temperature intolerably hot, lots of people picnicking, kayaking and canoeing.”
“It would require real magic to get there before Kidinnu’s anniversary, and even bigger magic to do it without the entire city realizing we’re up to something at the very least unusual. They might even mistake it for another summer attraction and flock to us like flies to…a jar of marmalade,” sighed Siegfried.
“However,” said the Countess, “pauvre Irène—Dieu la garde—in life, she had one pet project, one that she saw, in a sense, like her ‘path to redemption’. She once told me this, which she made me promise not to tell anyone; but since now she’s dead, I guess I can mention it: She had been sent to some catholic school, not in Chartres—where exactly, she didn’t say—where a priest forced himself upon her.
As it happened, another priest visiting the area realized what was going on; and, before the second assault could happen the next night, drugged the pervert, took him in his car to the house of a doctor friend, had him castrated, and sent an anonymous message to Irène’s parents—telling them the now castrated priest had been a rapist, and they’d better took her away from that school as soon as possible.
Alarmed, her parents went immediately to ask questions, found the priest, who the next day was “feeling unwell”, attempted some more fact-finding—and only got resentment and resistance from Irène’s rather uncooperative school. Given this weird veil of secrecy, they assume the message was factual and took her to another school.
She was never sure if the priest she had talked to, the one she assumed had saved her was indeed the one who actually had the pervert neutered and had anonymously called her parents. However, one thing that priest—if it was indeed the one and same—had mentioned to her, was how sad he felt that, in Chartres, so much was made of Notre Dame, while Saint Pierre, such a beautiful abbey, was, comparatively, neglected, and falling prey to slow but inexorably decline. For some reason that memory remained with her till we last spoke.
After the rape, Irène also got psychiatric help; and, instead of the frigidity and apprehension that at times follows such traumatic experiences, she developed an uncontrollable, insatiable libido. In her dreams she thought she had asked the castrated priest to show her “his little piece of meat with the rose tip” out of curiosity, and that that had led to more than she wanted. In that sense, she felt guilty—a rather common problem among rape victims.
In a strange way, to atone for ‘having abruptly forced her rapist into chastity’, and as a monument to her savior, for a while, she did high-end escorting—disguising it as a tour guide—to collect large amounts of money. The money she saved, she wanted to donate some day to the city, earmarked to help restore Saint Pierre church, autrefois abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée.
Whether she had a testament drawn up or not, I have no idea; but I know she had a sister who hated her for being a woman of such lose morals—even in France, where we pride ourselves of equality and being open-minded, we have reactionary assholes, you see?
Her sister is also a rather poor and quite nasty zealot, so I am pretty sure she would be happy to claim her heritage unless a testament preempting her from getting her “claws in the dough” were found somewhere—and fast,” the Countess commented, pausing.
Severian immediately cleared his throat. “Your wishes are my command, Votre Grâce,” he whispered to her ear, bobbing his head while pouting, pensively.
“Merci, mon cher Severian. I know I can count on you. Let’s screw that bitch,” scoffed the Countess. “However, since I, too, dearly love that building, and have visited it a few times; and, a few times, as well, hinted I would soon make a donation to help with its restoration… were I to…somehow…arrive with a crew and a couple of trucks…to restore Saint Pierre, nobody would be too shocked—I’m not suggesting a fleet: on a busy summer evening, a couple of reasonable size trucks might barely make into the locals news; but a fleet or some giant ones would certainly go on national television.
Perhaps if Tony’s bosses, at the Vatican, can convince the right people in France, to allow a restoration effort, allowing it to be pursued day and night, we could work on a very tight schedule, do some sort of restoration, and then be gone, ‘with minimal disruption of the tourist season’.
At night, our vampire friends should be able to come unnoticed and glamorize anyone who might snoop to see what we actually need to do. We could then dig a hole to get into the tunnels, close the hole and go—leaving whoever be the human in charge of bringing those stones to the Ark, with a supply of oxygen tanks hopefully sufficient to complete the mission. Come to think about it, on the matter of closing and opening holes, I presume in those days without oxygen tanks there had to be…”
“…well hidden lead pipes to allow ventilation. Yes, there were! You’re a genius, Votre Grâce!” said Conrad.
“Merci, Votre M
ajesté! Chloé is fine!” said the Countess.
“All right, Milady Chloé. There are ventilation pipes, but we would have to localize them. There are documents left by the Templars that describe their location in detail. Moreover, I think I have a good idea where I can find them.
But if we can’t find them, what you propose would be well night impossible. If the human were to be—as it seems most probable—David, his corpulence requires a significant amount of oxygen. Through mind conditioning I can help alleviate his claustrophobia, so he can stop hyperventilating—but I can’t make him breathe without oxygen. The tunnels have ‘bubbles’, domed rooms to store treasure and victuals, also places to displace soil and rocks—a mechanism intended to block one tunnel and open another one, so the builders of those tunnels could keep their underground caches’ existence from everyone but a very select few. Such movable septa systems not only allowed tunnel construction, storage and removal of treasure and victuals, and circulation between tunnels, but made possible to safely hide there for a few days, when in need.
Still, this limestone was set there a thousand years ago. Clearly, from then till now, much could have shifted. Rain might have moved soil, creating empty spaces, about to cave in under the weight of added city’s structures. That much we can speculate—but where and how large or how bad weak sections might be, we don’t know. It will be dangerous, very dangerous, to get in those tunnels. If you and Tony can convince the powers that be that we should be allowed to do this fast restoration project somehow—perhaps because there is some availability of equipment, and use-it-or-lose funds with tight deadlines attached, and, say, you want to minimally disrupt tourism…” said Conrad.
“You speak like a remarkably modern man,” commented Haim, in a very neutral tone.
“You mean I watch news on television?” replied Conrad smiling. “Nowadays, I must confess, I do.”
“Well,” chuckled the Countess. “That was cute. Anyway, I have my contacts in the high echelons of the church here. And I sincerely think we could do both: bring two trucks worth of digging robots, and suits, and equipment, and oxygen, and food, and even blood supplies, if required…”
“I am old enough to forego feeding for a few months,” clarified Conrad. “Otherwise, I would not even consider the option of letting any human go into a tomblike environment with me, expecting him or her to come back alive at the end.”
“Now, that’s reassuring,” commented David, swallowing hard while trying to laugh it off. “Didn’t Severian say he was a lot younger than you?” Conrad shrugged.
“Remains Tony and his seemingly rather well established links with the Vatican,” said Severian, shaking his head.
“All right. Although this might be complicated—he said glancing over in Conrad’s general direction—I will speak to my bosses,” Tony agreed. “However, Siegfried said those robots were expensive and/or hard to rent without deceiving insurers and such. How long would it take to have the deception—and the robots—set up?”
“My brother Oskar is also an archaeologist, with powerful contacts at the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, DAI, a scientific corporation under the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. If anyone can get the best underground discovery robots (we call them ‘undies’) on such short notice, calibrated—and with few questions asked—he’s the man. On the other hand, if you damage his robots, you will have to get me a ticket to Mars,” replied Siegfried.
“That bad, huh?” asked Tony.
“Far worse!” Siegfried chuckled. “But, even if Oskar comes through, the soil removed at the very beginning to reach the tunnels would have to be put somewhere. Can you glamorize everyone in a building for a few days, have the building closed, put the soil somewhere in an inconspicuous spot in the abbey/church, until the robots create an empty vault somewhere? How wide are those tunnels? How tall? Do you know, Conrad?”
“They are tall as a standing man and wide as four walking men,” Conrad replied.
“Well, men were shorter then. So, say 175 cm tall or so, and say 200 cm wide at most. ‘Undies’ can build a double circulation path there. In other words, if worse comes to worst, you can move forward by filling out the section you just left—but that way you can only escape by excavating backwards. In other words, say, if the tunnels floods, you can’t run backwards: you would have to excavate your way out, going backwards. Also, since sections re-filled after digging would contain far less compact soil—to prevent fracturing stone arches and walls ‘undies’ should not compress too much—if the stones get too loose or fractured, they might not, by themselves, be able to hold the column of soil above them. In other words, those sections might collapse, filling with rock as well as soil, probably making reverse excavation harder. Another detail: the streets above might then visibly sink, precipitating an investigation by the city authorities,” explained Siegfried.
“Well, if the speed at which the Aéroport du Grand Ouest in Nantes is any indication…projected in 1973, studied to death, abandoned in 2018…” ironized Sól.
“Indeed,” admitted Siegfried, “the risk of being bothered is low, unless you stay in the tunnel for over forty-five years. In any case, I would recommend that, once you cannot move without putting the soil behind your back, you be damn sure you will just move forward or sideways. The distance between Saint-Pierre church and the Cathedral, as the crow flies, is about 505 meters per GPS. But there are slopes, and detours, and vaults, and probably some tunnel sections by now have collapsed or are full of mud.
We will input all these data and let the system calculate food and water supply requirements, quantity and type of metallic screens, in case tunnel sections require rapid reinforcement, and such. Also, ‘undies’ are capable of laser welding the surface as they rotate; but the heat such welding generates would kill David, unless there were venting shafts and preferable water or oil heat exchangers to cool off the area closest to the laser head. Since you won’t be having any cooling, that is clearly out of the question. Even so, I’m sure Oskar will have ideas, workarounds and what not. So I will listen to him, not just because he’s my brother and I would trust him with my life. He’s also the best in the business, cavalier like none other when going into dangerous areas, but prudent and knowledgeable like none other when excavating soils of all sorts, even under machinegun fire.”
“So, how long are we talking about?” said Haim.
“Let’s give ourselves four days, but let’s try to be ready in three. There is much to do. Now, let’s distribute the work,” said the Countess. “How about we let Severian assign the tasks?”
“Why Severian?” asked Tony, used perhaps a tad much at being the boss.
“If he can plan projects for all the investments, expeditions, financing, PR campaigns and what not, that all our foundations and corporations have, all over the world,” the Countess explained, splaying her hands, “with help from the right experts, he should be able to plan each task like clockwork, n’est-ce pas?” Severian deferentially nodded in the direction of the Countess. After side-glances and shrugs, everyone seemed to agree.
And so started four days of feverish activity, days where the castle’s coffee consumption went far beyond the already high daily average, supplemented for the occasion with coffee and chocolate ice-cream in colossal doses. David’s constant trips to the Grande Grotte and the castle’s catacombs—to make sure neither his claustrophobia nor his fear of vampires would get on the way—were one of Severian’s first assignments.
A scuba diving instructor was also brought to the larger swimming pool, to train both David and Siegfried—who would take David’s place were he incapacitated for whatever reason before entering the tunnel system—in breath control. After that, an experienced speleologist took them to explore the deepest recesses of the Grotte and some of the oldest tunnels under the castle, and a few more caves in neighboring areas.
On how to proceed with the tallit with the attached stones and the slivers of the Tables, Haim lectured both on what
they would have to do, with help from Sól and her gold sheet and silver tube. Fortunately, his honest—if at times, discouragingly frequent—admissions of not knowing exactly how to accomplish this or that task, seemingly more reassured than panicked David and Siegfried. Clearly, whoever in the end would have to lay the stones on the Ark would need need, as Tony hinted a few times, a good deal of divine inspiration.
Finally, as the N-night was almost upon them, Conrad told David and Siegfried how to kill his own kind. The N-1-night, he brought an electrum dagger, intended for whoever should in the end accompany him and Severian into the tunnel system. “Should my blood-son appear in the underground or elsewhere, and his actions threaten our mission,” Conrad explained, “that dagger would kill him.” Even though he seemed more than apprehensive as he explained this, he made no special effort to prevent Tony, the Countess or Sól from hearing: the castle might be under attack by hostiles while they were away, he intimated. That night, Tony almost felt guilty for having doubted him at one point. Conrad seemed to notice, and simply nodded, a sort of resigned nod, in his general direction. That, added to Tony’s shame, but he did all he could to bury such thoughts.
Make no comment on the subject of lack of trust, Conrad simply paused, pondered for a brief moment, and finally, with a slight wave of the hand, added: “However, no matter who of you two gets entombed with us: Please keep that thing away from Severian, Mircea or myself, understood?”
A few snickers later, Tony’s unease was gone.
25—Mission Made Possible
During a brief respite the Countess took David apart and asked him to accompany her. Intrigued, he followed her. She led him to one section of the castle he had not seen before, a long series of imposing rooms, all so luxuriously decorated they made what he had seen of the castle look like a collection of dilapidated hovels.
In one of the rooms, there was another piano, with so much gilded and enameled enhancements he just stood there, open-mouthed, contemplating it. Seeing him so impressed, the Countess felt compelled to explain that this was an antique instrument, one she hardly ever played—a harpsichord. Since he admitted never having seen one in anyone’s room and asked a few questions about it, she even played for him Rameau’s “Les tourbillons” on it.
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