The Lazarus Vault

by Tom Harper

  A gust of wind blew through the pines. The dead-brown forest shivered: from somewhere up the slope Ellie heard a noise like a small explosion as another tree let go its roots. The grey sky didn’t blink.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Doug had stopped dead. Ellie, watching her footing, walked straight into him and almost knocked him over.

  About ten feet into the lakebed, a flat stone lay embedded in the mud. It didn’t look like much, until you looked beyond it and saw another about three feet further, and another beyond that, a string of dull pearls leading across the mudflat to the church. Too straight and regular to be there by chance.

  ‘Stepping stones,’ Ellie said. ‘But how do you get to the first one?’

  ‘There must be a million dead branches around here.’ Doug ran up to the treeline. He came back almost at once with a quizzical look on his face, dragging a long plank behind him.

  ‘I found this just inside the woods. Someone left us a drawbridge.’

  Ellie gazed around the wasted landscape. ‘Who?’

  ‘Probably not your colleagues.’ Doug threw the plank on to the lakebed. Mud spattered and slopped around it. ‘They wouldn’t want to get their feet dirty.’

  They made their way out into the lake, jumping from stone to stone. As they came closer to the church, Ellie could see a brown line on the tower showing where the lake level had once been. Only the very top of the tower would have showed. She didn’t like to think that where she was walking had once been under twenty feet of water.

  ‘When did this happen?’ she asked aloud.

  ‘The Environmental Impact report was dated a year ago. It sounds as if the church was still submerged then.’

  The last stone was still a little distance from the church. The ground around it looked higher than the surrounding lakebed: they decided to risk it. Mud squelched under their feet, but not far below they felt the hard grip of rock.

  ‘It would have sunk if it wasn’t built on something solid,’ said Doug.

  ‘But who built it?’

  Doug had doubted the file when it called the church ‘Norman’, but in fact it was a textbook example: the crenellated square tower; the concentric arches around the door; the shark’s-tooth pattern that made you feel as if you were being swallowed whole. The door had rotted long ago, though the rusted hinges still grasped out into space. Through the opening, Ellie saw a twin row of columns leading towards a raised stone dais. It reminded her of the Monsalvat vault.

  ‘It’s so well preserved,’ she marvelled. ‘It must be almost a thousand years old, drowned for God knows how long. But all it needs is a new roof and a scrub.’

  ‘The Normans built to last.’

  They walked down the aisle towards the dais. She stared at the capitals on top of the columns. Submersion had softened the carvings to smooth ripples, like the contours of a seabed, but occasionally she could make out the shape of an eagle or a man or some fantastic beast. Were they important?

  At the transept they found more carvings. Stone humps pushed out through the mud that caked the floor: at first she thought they might be fallen masonry, but they were too regular for that. When she bent closer, she could make out the vague outlines of human figures lying flat on their backs.

  ‘Effigies,’ said Doug. He pointed to one, better preserved than the others through some quirk of the stone or the water. ‘That looks like a shield across his chest. They were probably knights.’

  ‘Could there be anything inside?’

  They crouched and tried to lift the stone. Water had defaced the carvings so thoroughly there was nothing to grip: try as they might, they couldn’t move it.

  A noise sounded behind them: not a falling stone or a frightened bird, but the mechanical click of steel. They spun around.

  Half-hidden against the mottled walls, a man in camouflage fatigues stood in the corner and pointed a rifle at them.

  XL

  France, 1142

  ‘A LOT OF people have been looking for you, Peter. You’re lucky we found you first.’

  I assume he’s being ironic. My hands are shackled together above my head and looped over a hook in the wall; I have to stretch my toes just to touch the floor. My legs ache, my arms burn, and half my face is covered in dried blood. It still feels as if my head’s split open.

  My captor sees the disbelief on my face. ‘You don’t know what the others would have done.’

  I squint through the one eye that isn’t crusted with blood. I’m in a round stone chamber. Arched windows ring it, but all I can see beyond is bright blankness. Grey light drills into my skull. It feels high up, a tower. I can’t see a door.

  ‘Who are you?’

  My interrogator steps back. He’s an impressive man: tall, powerful and solid. He’s probably ten years older than me, but there’s a solemnity in his face that’s ageless. He reminds me of my father.

  ‘I belong to a holy order.’

  I can’t think of anyone more different from the reedy, God-bothering monks I lived with.

  ‘A brotherhood. A group of men bound to protect a secret.’

  I spit blood on the floor. ‘What have I got do with it?’

  ‘You’ve been part of it your whole life.’ He folds his arms and stands inches away from me. Even dangled from my hook, I have to look up. His grey eyes hold me like a fist. ‘Your father belonged to our order.’

  He’s too close, his voice too loud. I wish he would curtain off the windows – the light’s killing me.

  ‘My father?’

  ‘The men who killed him were after our secret. The secret we kept on the Île de Pêche.’

  I spin on my hook like a corpse on a gibbet. I know what he’s going to say next.

  ‘You helped Malegant take it. You betrayed yourself and everything your father stood for. You betrayed a secret we’ve kept for generations.’

  My legs give way. I slump towards the floor, but the chains hold me back. They dig into my wrists – my arms almost pull out of their sockets.

  Strong hands clamp around my side and lift me upright. His strength is incredible – he holds me as easily as a child.

  ‘The treasure Malegant stole is beyond all reckoning. We’ve killed men for less, Peter of Camros.’

  At last I realise where I’ve heard his voice before. ‘That night in the fog. In the field of stones. That was you.’

  ‘We heard about Malegant’s plan and came to stop him. We were too late. All we found were corpses.’

  The anguish in his voice cuts me worse than the chains. I can taste salt on my tongue: blood and sea air. No one escapes.

  ‘After the attack, Malegant disappeared. You’re the last man left alive to have seen him.’

  ‘What happened to the others?’

  He ignores me. ‘Malegant’s been looking for you the length and breadth of Christendom.’

  ‘He knew my name,’ I murmur.

  ‘He knew everything about you. It amused him to involve you in his abomination. To rub the salt of your treachery in our wounds. Now that you’ve escaped, he’s terrified you’ll lead us back to him. That’s why you’re lucky we found you.’

  He raises me up to unhook me, and lowers me gently on to the floor. I bury my head in my hands.

  ‘Why don’t you kill me?’ I’m almost pleading with him.

  ‘Because you’ve got what so many men never get – the chance to atone for your sins.’

  Troyes

  My heart skips a beat as we pass through the Porte de Paris inside the city walls. The blood sings in my veins, like the morning of a battle: the world is full of brilliant colours and every sound, every movement, explodes on my senses. It makes me feel sick. I scan the crowds for faces from my nightmares, for the goldsmith with the silver hand, for Malegant.

  I’m by myself, but not alone. Hugh, the knight who captured me, is ahead dressed as a Flemish cordwainer. Two more of his men are behind me, always watching. They could save their energy: there’s no danger I’ll try
to escape. As long as Hugh’s leading me to Malegant, to the secrets he stole from the Île de Pêche and to some answers, I’ll follow him into the jaws of Hell.

  I go to the goldsmith’s quarter and look for the shop under the sign of the eagle. The sign’s changed – it’s a golden cock now – but the clerks are still sitting at their tables out the front, sliding coins across the chequered cloths like chess pieces. A fat man in an ermine cape oversees them, prowling back and forth, checking their counting. Wine splashes out of the cup in his hand as he barks his commands. I tell him I’m looking for Malegant de Mortain.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ he says. He doesn’t notice I’m trembling when I say the name; he’s too busy watching his money.

  ‘How long have you had this shop?’

  ‘Six months.’

  ‘And the man who had it before you?’

  ‘The shop was empty when I took it. A merchant, a Norman, arranged it.’

  I improvise. ‘My family had a cup stored in the vault here. Where can I find it?’

  He shrugs. ‘The vaults were empty when I took over.’

  I drift away, but keep watching. From the corner of my eye I can see Hugh standing in a doorway. He’s pretending to haggle with a man selling fish pies. I concentrate on the goldsmith’s shop. The owner might have changed but the commerce is the same: Italian merchants bring their native coins, and go away short-changed. Some of them leave with even less. They deposit their coins, and take nothing in exchange but a piece of paper.

  I turn my attention to the clerks. Two of them are Italian, bantering with the merchants in their own language. The third doesn’t join in, but keeps his head down and frowns furiously at the accounts. There’s something familiar about him: when the shop closes for lunch, I follow him down the street and accost him in the square outside the church of Notre Dame.

  ‘I saw you at the goldsmith’s.’

  Suspicious eyes watch me closely. Goldsmiths, even their clerks, don’t like strangers prying into their business. I try to smile.

  ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

  I take him to a tavern. Hugh follows us in and takes a table by the door.

  ‘I visited that shop a few months ago, when it was under the sign of the eagle. You were working there then.’

  He doesn’t deny it.

  ‘I want to know about the man who owned it. An old man with sky-blue eyes and a silver hand who sat in the crypt.’

  A look of terror passes over his face. He’s suddenly very aware of the other men in the tavern.

  ‘His name was Lazar de Mortain.’ He stares at the table. ‘I only saw him twice. Most of the time he left his steward in charge.’

  ‘The one-eyed man?’

  The clerk nods. ‘Alberic. He told us what to do.’

  ‘Do you know where he came from?’

  ‘Normandy, I think.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he went?’

  He shakes his head. I change tack. ‘The merchants who give you money and just get paper in return – what are they doing?’

  The question surprises him, but he’s glad to be on less treacherous ground. ‘The papers are bills of exchange. They confirm that the merchant has deposited a certain sum with us. The merchant can go home, take it to our corresponding bank in Pavia or Piacenza, and they will give him the money.’

  ‘If they take in paper and give out gold, won’t they soon end up bankrupt?’

  ‘We’re doing the same in the opposite direction. A French merchant coming home from Italy will give the corresponding bank his money, and bring us the paper. Twice a year, we add up how much we’ve paid out and how much we’ve received. The Italian bank does the same, and then whoever owes the other sends the money. Usually, the difference isn’t much. It saves dozens of merchants all taking gold over the Alps and falling prey to robbers.’

  ‘Did Lazar issue bills of exchange?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But now he’s gone. If I held one of these bills – if I came to you today and demanded the money you owed me, what would you say?’

  ‘Guillermo – the master – would pay you. At Ascensiontide he’d send the bill by messenger to a money-changer in Bruges.’

  I grip the table. ‘So Lazar is in Bruges?’

  ‘No. The man in Bruges is another correspondent.’

  I’m beginning to get lost in this web of money, all these pieces of paper with their promises of riches. No doubt that’s what Lazar intends.

  ‘Do you know how the money finally reaches Lazar?’

  A sly smile spreads over the clerk’s face. ‘When the Bruges moneylender sends us his bills, I enter them in the ledgers. Once, there was a mistake – he sent us a bill that he should have kept. There was no name on it, but I recognised the writing.’

  ‘Did it say where it came from? How it got to Bruges?’

  ‘It came from London.’

  XLI

  Mirabeau site, France

  THE MAN EDGED forward. His red hair grew long and wild, matted into impromptu dreadlocks. Leaves clustered on it like velcro. His face seemed to have deep clefts scored into it, though as he came closer Ellie saw it was actually camouflage paint. His eyes were wide and round like an owl’s. He had a camera slung around his neck.

  ‘Put your hands where I can see them.’

  He spoke English with an accent, German or Dutch. Ellie and Doug put their hands in the air.

  ‘Are you with the Brotherhood?’ she tried. ‘A friend of Harry?’ He didn’t look much like Harry – he looked wild. ‘I’m Ellie. I broke into Monsalvat.’

  Nothing registered. He jerked the gun. ‘Are you with the company?’

  Yes? No? What was the right answer? He didn’t look like a security guard.

  ‘Not any more.’

  The gun barrel inched a fraction higher. She’d never imagined the absolute terror that came from looking down the barrel of a gun. She could almost feel the tension of the finger on the trigger, the tiny movement that was all that stood between life and death.

  ‘I used to work for the company that owns Talhouett. I heard some rumours – I thought they might be doing something bad here.’

  ‘OK.’ He considered that. Ellie began to think he was as confused as they were. But he had the gun.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Joost is my name. I belong to an organisation, the Green Knights. You’ve heard of us?’

  Ellie mumbled something noncommittal.

  ‘We’re an environmental group. You know the old story, right? The Green Knight cuts off your head if you tell lies or do bad things? We do that for companies.’

  ‘You’re spying on Talhouett?

  He tapped the camera. ‘Documenting them.’

  ‘Then we’re on the same side.’ Cautiously, Doug reached into the backpack and pulled out the Talhouett file. The muzzle followed him all the way. Doug tossed it on to the floor between them.

  ‘That’s their file on this place.’

  Joost crouched, angling the gun towards them, and leafed through the file. Under the camouflage and dirt, Ellie saw his face soften.

  ‘This is gold. Geological surveys, invoices, environmental reports. Risk assessments.’

  ‘Risk of what?’ Ellie said. ‘What’s happened here? Where did the lake go?’

  The gun tilted down a bit. ‘Hydraulic fracturing.’ He saw it meant nothing to them. ‘Talhouett have a coal mine here, OK? The concession expires soon – they have to decide if to renew it, but they’ve taken all the coal out of the ground. But they think, maybe there is something else here. You know shale gas?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Natural gas trapped in rocks, like you use for cooking or whatever. But the rocks are impermeable, so you have to break them open to let the gas out. You pump water and chemicals deep into the rock to make a fissure. Hydraulic fracturing. Sometimes it goes wrong.’

  ‘Talhouett have been doing that here?’

  ‘Very secret. Very illegal.
They do not have a permit, but they want to know if there is gas before they renew the concession. But they make a mistake. They drill too deep, they disturb something. Suddenly, the water vanishes.’

  ‘Exposing the church,’ said Ellie. ‘So when Saint-Lazare started sniffing around Talhouett, the Brotherhood got worried he knew about it.’

  ‘So what’s in here that’s so valuable?’ said Doug.

  Ellie looked around the roofless church, the green scum on the walls, the effigies of the knights with their faces washed away. ‘There must be something.’

  Joost jerked the gun. Another bolt of fear flashed through Ellie.

  ‘You think Talhouett have hid something here?’

  ‘They’re desperate to protect it,’ Ellie said. ‘But we don’t know what it is. Something old.’

  Joost considered this. His round eyes drifted to Doug’s back. ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘Something we took from the company.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  A prod from the gun gave them no choice. Doug unshouldered the bag and unzipped it to reveal the square cardboard box.

  ‘What is it?’

  Doug lifted out the cube. His breath fogged the glossy black surface.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘I wish we knew,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, you people. It looks like a bomb.’

  ‘We stole it from the company’s vault. We don’t know what it is. We think there might be a clue in this chapel.’

  Joost’s eyes bulged wide. ‘You guys are crazier than me. If you’re telling the truth. Maybe if we put a bullet in it something happens.’

  He raised the rifle. Instinctively, Ellie moved to put herself between the gun and the box. Joost gave a manic laugh. ‘So it’s valuable.’

  ‘To someone.’ Ellie looked around, wondering desperately where Harry’s friends might be.

  ‘Give it to me.’

  If she’d been braver, or watching the scene play out on TV, she might have wondered if he’d really shoot her. Standing in the cold, muddy chapel on the wrong end of a gun, her heart almost bursting out of her chest, she didn’t doubt it. Even then, she hesitated. Joost squinted down the barrel of the rifle like an old-time gunfighter. She stood stock still, frozen like the stone knights on the floor.