“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “Let it happen. Give yourself over to it.”
“I can’t. I just—”
“You can.” He reached between them to touch her where they were joined.
It was like firing a bullet into a stick of dynamite. Her body erupted in convulsive ecstasy, tearing a raw cry from her throat as she tumbled over the edge.
Three
BY THE time Catherine returned to the chateau that night, having made her way back down the mountain in the dark, she found the dining room empty but for a few maidservants clearing away the remains of an elaborate dinner. They directed her to a nearby sitting room, in the doorway of which she paused, hesitating to enter dressed in her grimy day clothes, her hair springing from her chignon in sweat-dampened tendrils.
Six people—her father, Thomas, Archer, Inigo, Lili, and Elic—were relaxing over coffee and brandy in the sumptuously appointed room, the men in dinner suits, Lili in an off-the-shoulder gown of shimmering aubergine silk. Her lush mane of black hair was piled atop her head in a luxuriant mass; diamonds dangled from her ears and encircled her throat. She was perched on the arm of the velvet-upholstered club chair in which Thomas sat with a book open on his lap—of course—her arm brushing his as she leaned over to turn the page.
It looked like a painting by Sargent—the rich interior gilded by candlelight, the careless grace of the subjects. Lili and Thomas looked as if they belonged together, with their dark, gleaming hair and elegant attire. White tie was flattering on most men, and Thomas was no exception. It made him look older, more sophisticated, especially since he seemed so comfortable in it. Catherine had seen him in dinner attire many times but the sight had never struck her quite the same way before. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she was seeing Thomas through Lili’s eyes, without so many of her own preconceptions.
Lili pointed to the page and said something too softly for Catherine to hear.
It must have been some witty comment, because Thomas chuckled as he turned toward her, his gaze lighting for a fleeting moment on her bosom before he looked up and met her eyes. He looked at her the way a man looked at a sexually desirable woman, not leeringly, of course, but with an unmistakable glint of admiration. That look shouldn’t have surprised Catherine—Lili was magnificent, after all—but for some reason she’d never thought of Thomas as susceptible to feminine allure in the same way that other men were. Absurd, of course. An ivory-tower academician he might be, but he was still a man.
Catherine’s father was the first one to notice her standing there in the doorway. “There you are, my dear. Back from your adventures at last.” Elijah set aside his own book and rose to his feet, as did the other gentlemen. “We went ahead and ate without you.”
“Are you all right, Catherine?” asked Thomas as he took off his reading spectacles.
“I’m fine. I hope I didn’t worry you.”
Flipping up his coattails as he lowered himself back onto a couch strewn with books, her father said, “Kit and Thomas wanted to send out a search party, thinking you’d wandered too deeply into the cave and gotten yourself in a pickle. I assured them you were an old hand at such adventures, you and your trusty compass, and that you wouldn’t dream of venturing beyond Cella.”
“I lost track of time,” Catherine said.
“That’s easy to do, in certain areas of the cave.” Mr. Archer, seated across a backgammon board from Elic, was studying Catherine a bit too fixedly for her comfort. “People have reported all sorts of strange incidents.”
He knows, Catherine thought—or he suspected. Had other people really experienced the same types of phenomena that she had? If so, that would make the vortex theory likelier than the thirst-fatigue-stress theory. The notion, however, that terrestrial magnetism could produce not just compass anomalies but full-blown delusions would no doubt be greeted with hilarity by the scientific community.
Steadfastly avoiding Archer’s gaze, Catherine said, “Actually, I fell asleep,” which was true, if a bit disingenuous. She had dozed off after that remarkable fantasy of lovemaking, but not for long, she was fairly sure. When she awoke, it took her a moment to recall where she was and what had happened—or what she’d imagined had happened. The delusion had extended to a feeling of actual soreness between her legs, which had diminished only slightly in the interim. What she wanted to believe, what she had to believe for the sake of her sanity, was that it was just a residual imprint of an exceptionally powerful hallucination.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Thomas, eyeing her with concern. “You look a bit worse for wear.”
“I’ve no doubt of that,” she said. “All I really need is a nice warm bath and a good night’s sleep.”
“And some food, I’ll wager,” Thomas said. “You missed a splendid dinner. A leg of lamb with onions and potatoes in white wine.”
“Gigot Brayaude,” Elic said. “One of our cook’s specialties.”
“I’ll have someone in the kitchen bring you a plate,” said Archer as he heaved himself out of his chair and reached for the bellpull.
“No, please don’t,” Catherine said. “I can’t stay. I’m not…” She gestured toward her grubby clothing.
“Nonsense.” Lili came over and put an arm around Catherine, drawing her into the room. “We don’t stand on ceremony here. Please join us. Have a brandy while you’re waiting for your supper. You look as if you could use it.”
“Or something a little stronger, perhaps?” Inigo lifted the stemmed glass in his hand, which held a milky, pale green liquid with an almost phosphorescent quality. On a cut-crystal tray next to him were a pitcher of water, a slotted spoon, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a bottle of Pernod.
“Inigo, if you turn my daughter into an absinthe fiend,” drawled Elijah without raising his gaze from his book, “I shall be forced to reconsider my high opinion of you.”
“A brandy would be lovely,” said Catherine as she took a seat on the couch next to her father, shoving some of his books aside and piling others onto the floor. “Thank you.”
A maid entered in response to Archer’s summons. “A supper plate for Miss Wheeler,” he said, “and have one of the chambermaids draw her a bath.”
The lamb was splendid, and Catherine was famished. She had to struggle to keep from wolfing it down as Elijah delivered a lecture on the history of Auvergne, working backward in time from Frankish rule to Visigothic to Roman.
“The Romans occupied this area for just over five hundred years,” her father said, “beginning in 52 B.C., when the armies of Julius Caesar defeated the legendary Gallic warlord Vercingetorix at the Battle of Alésia. The battle and the fighting that led up to it are described in excellent detail within these pages.” Lifting a very old-looking book from the stack on the floor, he opened it to its title page.
C. JULII
CÆSARIS
COMMENTARII
DE BELLO GALLICO
ET CIVILI
TOMUS VII.
Lili came to look over Elijah’s shoulder, leaning down so that her hair brushed his. A warm, floral scent wafted about her, as if she were a rare and exotic flower. “Julius Caesar himself wrote this?” she asked.
“He, er, he did,” said Elijah, seeming a little rattled by the feminine attention. “And it’s the most authoritative account available, not only of the Gallic Wars, but of the Gauls themselves—or, what he called the Galli. They called themselves the Celtæ. The Romans had been colonizing Gaul for some time before they invaded, so there’d been a great deal of trade and communication between the two civilizations.”
Mr. Archer said, “I actually have a little collection of Roman coins that have turned up here over the years, along with various other Roman and Gaulish objets.”
“Thomas sniffed out a Gaulish glossary in the appendix of a book in the library this afternoon,” Elijah said. “It’s not much of a glossary, because the Gauls weren’t much for writing, but he looked up væsus, and there was a defi
nition. It means great, or worthy, so it would stand to reason that ‘Dusivæsus’ translates as ‘Great and worthy dusios.’”
“What of the second inscription?” Lili turned toward Elijah, their faces so close one would have thought they were about to kiss. “The one that’s sort of hacked out roughly over the first? Did you manage to translate that?” She met Elic’s gaze across the room in a very brief, unspoken communion of some sort. He paused in the act of moving some backgammon checkers to give her the kind of smile you gave someone for whom words are never necessary.
They had a bond, Elic and Lili; it was clear from the way they looked at each other, the way they acted, the little touches and smiles. Unless Catherine was very much mistaken, they were lovers. Yet, both last night and tonight, she’d flirted shamelessly with both Elijah and Thomas, and Elic hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow.
Perhaps, Catherine thought, they were free lovers. Given the sexual liberality that appeared to be the norm at Grotte Cachée, it seemed possible, perhaps even probable. The only real question in Catherine’s mind was what a woman like Lili saw in scholarly types like Elijah and Thomas, especially since she’d evidently already captured the heart of Elic, who was almost preternaturally handsome, seemingly intelligent, and with a most amiable disposition. Her father, though fit and good-looking for his age, had to be a good twenty years older than Lili. As for Thomas…
She stole a glance at him. He was looking at her with an expression that was contemplative and vaguely sad, his snifter of brandy cupped loosely in his hand, seemingly forgotten. She looked away, confounded by his melancholic beauty, then back again. Clearly sensing her discomfiture, he gave her a reassuring little smile that, in light of all that had transpired between them of late, wasn’t hard to interpret.
It’s all right, that smile seemed to say. You don’t want me, so I shall trouble you no more with my attentions. We can carry on as friends.
“We, er, we did translate that second inscription,” said Elijah as Lili leaned in even closer, one hand resting nonchalantly on his shoulder. “It was written in the oldest runic alphabet we know of, which is called Elder Futhark, and it’s actually two linked words in Old Norse—kjønn, meaning…well, ‘sex,’ and præll, meaning ‘thrall,’ or ‘slave.’”
“So it means sex slave,” said Inigo. “Funny, I can’t recall having posed for it. Must have been in my cups at the time.”
He shot a grin, for some reason, at Elic, who rolled his eyes in response.
Elijah said, “Kit was kind enough to point me to a handwritten Histoire de Grotte Cachée as recounted by Seigneur des Ombres’s…grandfather, was it?”
“Great-grandfather,” said Kit.
“Of course,” Elijah said, “it’s a bit cursory regarding the pre-Roman history of this valley, which is understandable, given the Gauls’ disdain for the written word. There were exactly one and a half pages in the Histoire devoted to the Gallic settlement in this valley, which was called Vernem. The Vernae, or most of them, fled the village for parts unknown, one step ahead of Caesar’s army. The Romans, you see, had a habit of enslaving conquered tribespeople, and to a Gaul, there was no worse fate than enslavement.”
“If that’s so,” Catherine asked, “why didn’t they all leave? You said most of them fled. What of the rest?”
“They stayed behind and were turned into slaves. They did have a sort of leader, apparently, someone referred to in the Histoire as Anextlomarus, which translates as Protector. He’s credited with having ensured that the Vernan slaves were treated well and permitted to remain in the valley. Kit, you probably know more about the Vernae than any man alive. Any idea why that group stayed here?”
Mr. Archer frowned into his brandy as if considering the question. “Couldn’t really say, old man.” His gaze shifted briefly, but never met Elijah’s.
He’s lying, Catherine thought. But why?
“I’d love to know the answer to that,” Elijah said. “And, of course, I’m desperate to sort out the mystery behind those damned—” He glanced at Catherine. “Excuse me, ladies. The mystery behind those satyrs at the bathhouse. They’re just so un-Roman. It simply makes no sense. It’s maddening, utterly maddening.” With a self-deprecatory little chuckle, he said, “Julia—my late wife…”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned her,” said Lili as she crossed the room to sit next to Inigo. In fact, he’d mentioned her at least a dozen times since they’d been there.
Elijah said, “Once, when I was obsessed with unraveling a particularly thorny historical enigma, Julia told me I would never be satisfied unless I could travel back in time and witness the event for myself. She was right about that,” he said soberly, “as she was about so many things.”
Lili smiled as Inigo whispered something into her ear. “What a splendid idea. Dr. Wheeler, why don’t you join us tomorrow, Inigo and me, for a little picnic in the woods. You shouldn’t waste this beautiful weather cooped up in that dusty old library. There’s a little clearing in a thicket of oaks that you might find—”
“The nemeton?” Archer sat up, scowling. “Do you really think—?”
“He’s a mythologist,” Lili said. “If anyone could appreciate the nemeton, it would be Dr. Wheeler.”
“A nemeton?” Elijah said excitedly. “A druidic sacred grove?”
“Well,” Archer said, “it hasn’t been used for ceremonial purposes in some nineteen hundred—”
“Of course I’d like to see it,” said Elijah. “I’d love to see it. Thank you for asking.”
As her father launched into yet another lesson, this one on the subject of druidic rituals, Catherine excused herself and went upstairs to the bathroom. The wood-paneled tub was filled and steaming, her blue-checked wrapper draped over the back of a chair. She undressed, nonplussed to find the inner skin of her thighs pink and raw from having been rubbed by a beard-roughened jaw.
Except that it didn’t really happen, it couldn’t have—just as she couldn’t have really lost her virginity this afternoon, despite how tender she still was between her legs. She’d imagined it—hadn’t she? Would she ever know the truth of what had transpired in that strange little bedchamber in the cave?
Possibly not. Probably not.
Just because you don’t know the answer doesn’t mean it’s not there. Something happened. A hallucination or…something else. Oddly enough, given Catherine’s analytical nature, she felt no need to solve this particular mystery through rigorous application of the scientific method. Perhaps, as her father and Thomas maintained, not all answers could be found within the realm of bloodless science.
And perhaps some mysteries were never meant to be solved.
Catherine unpinned her hair and lowered herself into the rose-scented water, sighing as it enveloped her. Laying her head back against the lip of the tub, she closed her eyes and let the warmth of the water permeate her bone-weary, dirt-caked body.
She stroked the flesh of her inner thighs, which felt just as chafed as it looked. Tentatively, for this was new territory for her, she felt between her legs until she located her vaginal opening, which stung when she touched it. She probed it gingerly, finding it smaller and tighter than she would have thought, given what it had accommodated this afternoon, and slick with secretions.
Emboldened, she explored the delicate little folds and furrows of her sex, her inquisitive fingers exciting a buzz of pleasure that, paradoxically, seemed to transport her out of her body. Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift where it would.
She saw Thomas smiling that sad, resigned smile…It’s all right… She saw the books straightening themselves on the shelf in that little bedchamber in the cave, saw the candles puffing out of their own accord…She saw her walking stick quivering on end, felt the thrill of penetration, the wholeness of it, the rightness of it…
She heard her ragged breaths and the lapping of the bathwater, felt the pleasure mounting toward its inevitable climax, panic squeezing her heart…
“You’re
afraid,” he whispered. “Don’t be. Let it happen. Give us a chance. I love you, Catherine. I want to marry you.”
The pleasure exploded and ran its course, leaving her breathless and reeling, her face wet with tears.
Four
THIS IS the nemeton?” asked Elijah Wheeler in reverential tones around noon the next day as Lili and Inigo led him into a sun-speckled clearing in a grove of ancient, strangely twisted oaks. In the center stood a stone altar, and next to it a patch of ashy earth enclosed by a circle of soot-blackened stones.
“This is it, brother.” Setting down the wicker hamper their cook had packed, Inigo took the blanket from Lili, shook it out, and laid it on the grass.
Elijah was filled with awe as he approached the ancient altar, essentially a table supported by four lava boulders. The top was a rectangular slab of the same dark stone about the shape and size of a door, its edges scoured by time—for it was at least two thousand years old, possibly a good deal older.
Elijah circled the altar slowly, tracing with his fingers the timeworn, convoluted pattern inscribed on its surface. The center bore the inscription DIBU E DEBU surrounded by a design of oak branches knotted together. In each of the four corners was carved a circle about eight inches across, enclosing a different stylized image.
“These corner symbols would appear to represent four of the most important Celtic deities,” he said. “This female figure on the horse has to be Epona, a goddess of fertility. She was especially revered among the Gauls. The old man with the bow and club is Ogimos, god of warcraft and poetry. The figure cutting branches with an axe is Esus, the god of agriculture and commerce. And this three-headed fellow with the raven on his fist is Lugus, whom Caesar equated with Mercury. He was a very important deity to the Gauls, the protector of travelers and source of all the arts. I can’t believe a relic this extraordinary has stood here undiscovered for all these years.”
“Seigneur des Ombres takes great care, as did his ancestors before him, to keep Grotte Cachée’s historical artifacts away from prying eyes,” said Lili as she knelt to empty blue china plates, cut crystal glasses, and covered dishes from the hamper out onto the blanket. She was clad, as she’d been yesterday until supper, in a saronglike swath of colorful silk—gold-trimmed plum today—which she called a lubushu. Her hair hung in a single braid down her back; her only jewelry was an exotically archaic-looking gold and lapis anklet. Not once, in his entire life and all his travels, had Elijah met a female as unself-consciously sensual as Lili. When he’d asked where she was from, she’d said she’d been born on the bank of the Euphrates, and changed the subject.
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