Chapter 3
Merlin did not trouble to keep his voice down. ‘In the entire world only you could have made me apologise to that guy.’ He could not remember ever meeting anyone who made him so unreasoningly angry as Hermann Kreuz.
Jay squeezed Merlin’s hand. After the excellent meal she would have liked to curl up in bed with him. Instead they were sitting in the rear seat of Kreuz’s white BMW while he pored over a map spread out on the bonnet of the car and explained to the bodyguard in German the route to follow. The series of barked commands was too rapid for Merlin to understand.
‘The last time I went for a ride with guys like these,’ he grunted to Jay, ‘it ended with a bag over my head and my wrists tied together with commo cable. Telephone wire to you.’
Jay took the remark as a joke. ‘I don’t know why you’ve taken such a dislike to Kreuz. I think he has a weird charisma. There’s a sort of physical energy radiating from him that I find compelling. When he fixes those cold blue eyes on me, it sends shivers up my spine.’
‘I saw.’
‘Don’t be so uptight, Merlin. ‘I’ve known a couple of conductors like Kreuz. In any other job, you’d say they were megalomaniacs, but on the podium they’re the ones that make an orchestra excel itself.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘You’re jealous, Merlin. I do believe you’re jealous.’
Kreuz got into the car and sat in front beside the driver. As they left the restaurant car park, he half turned to look at Jay. ‘You’re wondering what is this post-prandial treat I have in store for you? It’s a sample of what I can show you, a token of my good faith. So, be patient for fifteen minutes and you shall see something beautiful and unique. Now you must excuse me. At this time each day, I sleep.’
He pressed a button. His seat back reclined, his eyelids closed like a garage door coming down. The cropped head lolled back on the cushion of the head-rest.
In the mirror, Merlin was watching the driver’s face, which had not changed expression since they had first seen him. ‘Where exactly are we going?’ he asked.
‘Versteh’ nicht.’
‘Wohin fahren wir?’ Merlin tried.
There was no reply. Merlin put his arm around Jay’s shoulders and let her doze against him while he tried to follow the route. The driver used a hundred small and winding roads between vineyards, through woods and along marshy little valleys where there were no houses. Watching the compass mounted on the dashboard, Merlin could see that the route which Kreuz had told the driver to use was far from being the most direct way to wherever they were going.
Ten minutes later, Kreuz opened his eyes and announced, ‘Two minutes and we are there.’
The car pulled up outside an ancient chapel hidden in the depths of a chestnut coppice. Through the trees was the outline of a larger building. There was none of the noise of the modern countryside: no tractors, no distant cars, no aeroplanes. Beside the chapel a spring gushed out of a low limestone cliff into a moss-lined pool. The only sounds were the ripple of water, the song of a few birds and the clicking of the car’s cooling exhaust pipe.
‘Where are we?’ Merlin asked.
‘The building,’ replied Kreuz, ‘is very old.’ He ran his long, sensitive fingers over the finely carved figures of knights and ladies that decorated the arch of the Merovingian doorway beneath the more simple Biblical scenes depicted higher up the façade. ‘This stonework is ninth century,’ he explained to Jay. ‘Parts of the building are older still, built on the ruins of a Gallo-Roman villa which was sacked and abandoned in the third century when the barbarian invasions put an end to what remained of the pax romana in Aquitaine. Later the ruins were occupied by hermits. When the first chapel was built and dedicated to St Florence, it became a place of pilgrimage because of the source miraculeuse.’
He pointed to the spring. ‘The water is reputed to cure women’s problems. I had it analysed. It is slightly radioactive. What they do with it, I don’t know. Perhaps they drink it, perhaps they …’ He half-squatted to mime a woman douching herself. ‘And the chapel we now see was built by a rich woman in the twelfth century in thanks for her cure.’
‘You mean, by Queen Eleanor?’ asked Jay.
‘Who knows?’ Kreuz led the way into the chapel after opening the heavy, nail-studded door with a large iron key taken from the glove pocket of the car.
Merlin ushered Jay ahead of him. As their eyes adjusted to the comparative darkness they saw that the interior was not derelict. There were fresh flowers and a clean cloth on the altar. The plastered walls had been recently lime-washed, the leaded lights had no holes and there was no dust on the terracotta-tiled floor.
‘Local women,’ explained Kreuz, ‘still come here to perform their devotions and perhaps to ask for cures. He modulated his usually harsh voice, which took on an almost feminine quality. ‘What I am about to show you has been seen by very few people. It is a great privilege.’
He strode to a purple velvet curtain which concealed the wall behind the altar, waited until Jay and Merlin were standing beside him, and then jerked the curtain along its rail to reveal a group of figures painted on the plastered wall.
Merlin was stunned. If the carved heads he had seen resembled Jay, the likeness of her in the woman’s face painted on the wall in front of him was startling. The half smile on the lips seemed to be mocking him, the green eyes gazing boldly at him.
‘Eleanor of Aquitaine.’ Kreuz looked from the fresco to Jay and back again several times. ‘Is it not beautiful?’ His voice caressed the silence. ‘The colours are faded, but see the simplicity of the line, Miss French. The range of colours employed is small. In those days, the artist mixed his own pigments. And remember, to paint a fresco one must work fast in order to finish before the plaster dries. And yet, what a likeness! What art!’
The restored fresco showed Eleanor holding a flûte à bec or recorder. There was a second figure of a woman holding a lute. In the background stood two knights clad in chain mail, both holding swords. Their faces were part hidden by the nose pieces of the pointed helmets which came down almost to the mouth. The unknown artist had painted one knight’s eyes as brown as Merlin’s. He was looking sideways towards Eleanor. The other knight had blue eyes and was watching the first one.
Kreuz’s voice held an almost sexual excitement. ‘I believe that this fresco was painted from the life when Eleanor came here for a cure. Just look at the face.’
They stared at it until Kreuz pulled the curtain back to conceal the fresco from view.
‘And me with no camera,’ said Merlin.
‘I could not allow photography.’ Kreuz turned to Jay. ‘This portrait is unknown to the world. When I discovered it, the chapel was derelict. I bought the place, had the structure restored and arranged for some local peasant women to look after it. They have no idea what they are guarding for me.’
‘Why did you do all this?’ asked Merlin.
Kreuz took his eyes off Jay’s face and said, ‘I am a rich man, Mr Freeman. I spend my wealth to conserve the beauty of past ages which this decadent modern world would otherwise allow to decay.’ He gestured at the roof and the walls. ‘When I purchased this chapel, the roof was falling in and the walls crumbling under the onslaught of centuries. Nobody cared. Another few years and this thing of beauty would have vanished forever.’
‘How did you come to find this place?’ Jay asked.
‘Scholarship,’ Kreuz smiled.
‘Or maybe,’ Merlin accused, ‘you bought this place because you have had a special interest in Eleanor of Aquitaine ever since you and your old comrades were hunting her treasure in June of 1944!’
The accusation echoed off the stone walls and floor of the tiny chapel. Kreuz turned at the far end. The light from the small arched window behind lit his cropped grey hair but hid his face. ‘I do not normally answer hostile questions, Mr Freeman. But in this case, for Miss French’s sake, I will disabuse you. My interest in Queen Eleanor is not because of a buried treasure. It is because I
respect above all other human qualities the power of the will.’
He raised both arms in unconscious imitation of a priest at the altar. His voice was harsh and strident again. ‘Triunf des Willens. The triumph of the will!’
‘Title of a Nazi film by Leni Riefenstahl,’ snapped Merlin.
Kreuz lowered his arms. ‘Just so. Well, Eleanor of Aquitaine had a will so powerful that we can still feel it today. She had a will that transcended her sex, the age she lived in, even her death!’
Kreuz shook his clenched hands as though he wished to shake comprehension into his listeners. ‘Eleanor’s intellect was among the most superb Europe has ever known, but she lived in a time when power lay with men, so the history of her period is all of kings and battles. To the French she was an English queen; to the English merely a French duchess. Yet at fifteen, when she inherited the Duchy of Aquitaine, she was already statesman enough to sell herself in marriage to Prince Louis of France, who became king two weeks later. It was the only way of keeping her inheritance intact. She defied the Pope to go on Crusade. She married two kings and begat two others: Richard and John.’
‘We know all this,’ interrupted Merlin.
‘You may know, but you don’t understand!’ Kreuz shouted. ‘It’s not just a question of reading a few books! You must enter into the spirit of another age.’
He pushed past Jay and Merlin, and pulled back the curtain behind the altar, revealing the fresco again. ‘This was a woman who, at the age of sixty-nine, dragged Berengaria to Cyprus for a forced wedding with Richard, so that he should have an heir – to prevent Prince John becoming king, which she rightly foresaw as a disaster. And she was seventy-seven when Richard was shot at Châlus. So what did she do, this incredible Eleanor of Aquitaine? Like a man in his twenties, she rode day and night to reach the stricken king before he died. And even later, she …’
Kreuz stopped and mopped his brow. His chest was heaving. Despite the chill in the chapel, he was sweating. ‘I am getting carried away,’ he gasped. ‘Forgive me, Miss French. An old man’s obsessions can be embarrassing.’
Chapter 4
‘Sie dürfen weiterfahren!’
The blond guard in the black tee-shirt and slacks, who had kept them waiting for five minutes, waved Jay past the barrier and dropped the boom inches behind the Alpine’s rear bumper. Watching the car disappear along the dusty track, he spoke into his walkie-talkie. Overhead, but inaudible to Jay and Merlin above the noise of the car’s engine in low gear, a helicopter painted olive drab circled lazily like a vulture in a thermal, its occupants watching to make sure that the visitors did not stop to take any photographs on the way down the track.
‘What a weird place!’ Jay commented as they rounded the bend and saw down into the hidden valley. She twirled the power-assisted steering wheel, narrowly avoiding a large stone.
‘Try slowing down,’ Merlin suggested, ‘if you don’t want to lose the sump.’
Jay pressed the button to wind up her window and keep out the dust thrown up by their passage down the steep track. She put the blower full on and lifted her blouse with one hand to fan the perspiring skin beneath.
‘Those guards,’ said Merlin, as the track began to level out and driving became easier, ‘are not fooling. Did you see their weapons? Those, my love, are Heckler & Koch MP5s, and a helluva lot of firepower for the gate-house on someone’s private estate.’
That meant nothing to Jay. She peered through the dust-covered windscreen. ‘It’s like a location from a cowboy film. All these cactus plants and no shade anywhere.’
‘There were some trees.’ Merlin pointed to a stump they were passing. ‘Looks like they were felled so as to leave no concealment near the houses. And, by the way, we’re being followed.’
Jay squinted into the mirror on her door.
‘Not behind,’ he nudged her. ‘See the shadow on the ground over to our right? That’s a chopper flying quite low and more or less overhead, I’d say.’
As though on cue, the helicopter dipped just ahead of the windscreen as they reached the bottom of the escarpment. It skimmed along the now level track ahead, leading them to the largest of the guest houses in a storm of dust.
‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Merlin, recognising the ’copter. ‘That’s some toy for a civilian to be playing with. It’s a Messerschmidt Bölkow-Blohm BO 105. They’re fast and very expensive.’
As Jay pulled up, he continued, ‘My God! There’s another blond clone coming out of the house. He matches the two on the gate. How many d’you think Kreuz has got?’
‘Perhaps he breeds them in a secret laboratory down here?’ Jay joked.
The helicopter peeled away, leaving Merlin and Jay stretching in the hot afternoon sun after the long journey south. The journey through the snow-capped Pyrenees and across the bleak, deserted plateau of León had begun in winter and taken them through spring into what felt now like full summer in the Valle de los Cantos, only twenty miles north of the Mediterranean coast.
‘My name is Dieter.’ The soft voice belonged to the guard who was taking their bags out of the boot. He spoke in English with a slight lisp. ‘Dr Kreuz presents his compliments, sir and madam. He invites you to make yourself at home and to join him for dinner in the main house at 19.30 hours.’
‘Fine,’ said Merlin.
‘If you need anything meantime, sir, just pick up the phone and I’ll come right over.’
‘Shouldn’t we say hallo to Dr Kreuz when we’ve unpacked,’ asked Jay, looking around at the semi-desert scenery.
Dieter smiled politely. ‘I’m afraid that is not possible, Madame. The doctor works to a very strict timetable. He has an important meeting this afternoon. He asked me to give you his apologies. And by the way, you should not attempt to go outside after dark. Please wait in the house until I come to escort you to dinner.’
‘Or what?’ Jay was curious.
The guard pointed with one finger to a patch of shade where Jay saw two huge black Dobermans sitting alert, their eyes watching her. ‘At dusk,’ he lisped, ‘The dogs are loosed.’
‘What is this place?’ asked Merlin. ‘You’ve got a snazzy little helicopter flying figures of eight overhead, the guards are armed and there are dogs running loose at night. Is this some kind of concentration camp you guys are running?’
Dieter walked ahead of them, two bags in each hand. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Dr Kreuz has one of the greatest art collections in the world, sir. All the security measures are required by the insurance companies.’
They followed him inside the guest house, designed as a hollow square. On each side a row of rooms provided accommodation looking inward onto the startlingly blue pool which occupied the centre of the square. There were half a dozen sun-loungers scattered on the pool surround and a huge airbed of transparent plastic bobbing on the surface of the crystal clear water.
Dieter put their bags into two adjoining rooms and left.
Jay put her arms round Merlin’s neck. ‘Not sorry you came, now?’
‘Let’s say I’ve still got reservations about our generous host.’
‘Well, relax.’ She pulled his face down and kissed him on the lips. ‘Don’t be contrary. It was me who wanted to stop all the Eleanor nonsense. Then when I decided to come and see these mysterious relics that Kreuz offered to show us, you decided you didn’t want to come.’
‘I just don’t like the guy.’
Jay looked at the pool and the welcome bottle of champagne cooling in an ice bucket in the shade. ‘Kreuz must be a millionaire. D’you think the whole valley belongs to him?’
Merlin’s eyes followed the flight of the BO 105 which dipped out of sight behind the roof ridge. It was making a series of low passes over the hills at the western end of the valley.
‘I should think it probably does,’ he grunted.
Jay slipped from his embrace, kicked off her shoes to sit on the top step of the pool ladder. She dipped a toe in the pool. ‘The water’s so cool and inviting. Let
’s swim.’
Merlin opened the champagne and poured two glasses. He knelt beside Jay on the edge of the pool, handed her a glass and stroked her hair. ‘You look right, drinking champagne by your private pool.’ They chinked glasses. ‘I suppose all you showbiz people live like this the whole time,’ he teased.
‘I’m a musician.’ Jay sipped the cool champagne. ‘I put on expensive dresses to perform. The rest of the time I wonder how I’m going to pay the rent, just like anyone else.’
‘So what are you doing here, Miss French?’
‘Since you came into my life, Mr Freeman, a lot of things have changed.’
‘Put down that glass,’ he said. ‘I want you.’
‘I’m all hot and sticky,’ she warned as Merlin slipped her blouse free of the waistband of her skirt.
*
In his hide above the valley, Kassim’s binoculars gave a close-up of Kreuz’s lean, tanned body intermingled with the softer flesh of the two girls. He had heard that Westerners indulged in many perversions, but this was beyond his most erotic fantasy. Only when Kreuz discarded the girls and lay naked in the sun, did Kassim turn his binoculars to the guest house outside which the red sports car was parked.
He adjusted the focus. Two more naked, entwined bodies became sharp and clear, as though he could reach out a hand and touch them. Kassim hissed and licked dry lips. Truly the unbelievers would have much to atone for when called to their Maker.
Watching Jay and Merlin make love on the transparent air bed floating on the square of blue water, Kassim’s body went rigid with excitement. Through the lenses he watched Merlin kiss Jay’s breasts, then stroke her belly and her thighs, parting the fair pubic hair and opening her lips to the sun and the eyes of the watcher on the hill.
Kassim was so engrossed in their love-making that he paid no heed to the increasingly lower angle of the sun which should have warned him that the time was approaching when the dogs would be loosed. Supine on the sharp stones, he kept his gaze fixed on the couple slowly and languorously making love, shifting his uncomfortable position in sympathy as the air bed rocked to the gentle rhythm of the lovers’ movements.
The Spirit and the Flesh Page 21