Chapter Seven: Correspondence
The rain pelting against the hotel room window seemed to encourage the tears that welled up in Preston's eyes. It was getting late and his strength was failing him. Determinedly, he forced the tears back and focused on the translation of the Third Scroll.
A single clear drop fell onto the paper.
Frustrated, Preston flung the pad back onto the low table and strode to the window. He rubbed his eyes with his fists and stared out of the panes into the dark, watching the wind tossing the rain around.
The door to Preston's room in the Le Hôtel Fluvial opened and Sydney Fox entered.
"Are you ready to go down for dinner?" she asked.
"Sure," Preston muttered, his voice choked up. He made no attempt to move from the window.
Sydney sensed his mood and went to stand beside him.
"What…what if he's…" Preston couldn't complete the question.
"He's not," Sydney insisted.
"You can't be certain," the Englishman protested, turning his grief-stricken face towards her.
"Nigel is fine," she said, firmly. "He –"
She was cut off by Karen coming into the room.
"Syd, Professor Vale is on the phone," the young woman told her.
They went to Sydney's room and she picked up the receiver.
"Hello, Professor," Sydney greeted the aged historian who had given her and Nigel the lead to the whereabouts of the First Scroll of the Tiger.
"Ah, Sydney. Finally, I have tracked you down!" Professor Vale exclaimed, cheerfully.
"I'm sorry, Professor. I had an accident and lost my cell phone in the river."
"Are you alright?" Vale asked, concerned.
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine, thank you. We found the Third Scroll in Bordeaux this afternoon."
"Excellent! Well, keep me informed, Sydney. I've returned home to Orleans. The conference was such a bore, though the new museum has some spectacular pieces." Sydney found herself wishing she'd stayed at the conference, dull or not. "Is Nigel there? I've been reading his research on those Russian artefacts found in Germany."
"Uh..." Sydney discovered her throat to be suddenly choked up and hurriedly cleared it. "No, I'm afraid he isn't here at the moment."
"Oh. Never mind, I'll talk to him some other time. Well, I'll see you soon and we can celebrate the recovery of the Guardian Stone. It will be a great addition to the University of Paris's museum."
"Yes," Sydney said, numbly.
"Goodbye, Sydney."
"Goodbye, Professor."
Sydney put down the receiver. The clatter it made against the base seemed deafening in the silence of the room.
*******
*******
The lamp on top of the grand piano cast a spotlight over Nicole de la Piedra as she played. Leaning against the instrument, Nigel listened carefully to the girl's skilled performance.
"Don't rush," he cautioned.
The girl's face creased with concentration and she bit onto her bottom lip.
"Slower…" Nigel murmured. "Ah, woah! See, now you're on the wrong cord."
Nicole lifted her fingers from the keys and her little chest rose and dropped with a heavy sigh. Nigel slid off his chair and went around to the keys. Nicole slid over to give him room to sit down beside her.
"It's no good rushing the difficult bits," Nigel told her, gently. "Don't think that the mistakes will blend in. You're more likely to go from one error to another."
"What's it supposed to sound like?" Nicole asked.
"I'll show you," Nigel offered, and Nicole stood up so that he could sit centrally on the stool.
Nigel's fingers danced deftly over the keys, calling clear notes from the piano in perfect rhythm. Once he'd completed the double page of music, he sat back and turned to Nicole, who had stood behind him listened and watching intently.
"Ok, now you try." Nigel started to rise, but Nicole placed a light hand on his shoulder.
"Wait." The girl went to the music books stacked on the seat of a nearby chair. She pulled out the one she wanted and flicked through to a page near the back, then came back over to the piano. "Can you play this one?" she asked, sliding the open book into the stand fixed above the keys.
Recognising the title, Nigel nodded and smiled. He put his hands to the keys again and played the complicated piece with the ease and pleasure of someone who had learnt the tune long ago and remembered it. The years that had passed since he had last played the song became insignificant and vanished like the room around him. He was back in the English home of his childhood, the worn and familiar keys of his family's piano under his fingertips. Nicole ceased to bother turning the pages of the music book and simply listened, enthralled by the music and in awe of the man who brought the notes to life.
"You play very well," Nicole praised, enthusiastically, when Nigel had finished.
"Thank you," Nigel replied, a hint of colour rising to his cheeks as the young girl continued to stare at him. "But my older brother plays better…he always beat me in competitions."
Nicole looked thoughtful, her young face again holding wisdom beyond her age.
"Perhaps…but I doubt he puts so much of himself into each note."
"You might be right…" Nigel's forehead creased into a slight frown as he considered the girl's words. "Yet, Preston does get into the music. He wouldn't have gained so many awards if he'd stayed detached."
"Yes, but you pour your soul into the piece. All your emotions ring from it. This is both your merit and your failing."
Nigel smiled, seeing the truth in what the insightful child said.
"Play me something you really enjoy," he requested, standing up.
"Alright."
Nicole positioned herself on the stool and calmly reached for the keys. She sang in Spanish along with the notes she played. The tune was elaborate and passed through many changes of style but always returned to a likeable and distinctive chorus. Her talented voice sung of a woman trapped in a tower and setting a canary free, wishing she could follow the bird. It was a song of hope.
"Amazing," Nigel murmured, after Nicole had finished. "Thank you."
"We must put on a production together," Nicole said. "Once this awful search for the Stone is over, the village will deserve a celebration."
"Maybe…"
Noticing that Nigel's thoughts had drifted back to the relic hunt and the American woman he missed so badly, Nicole reached for the sheet of music she'd been practising.
Suddenly, Francesco de la Piedra burst into the room.
"I've got it! I've got it!" the Frenchman cried, breathlessly. He waved an ancient scroll triumphantly in his hand.
He gave the rolled parchment to a startled Nigel, then sank down onto a chair, breathing heavily. His brown boots were scuffed from the road, and his white shirt was dirtied with sandy dust and had a tear in seam of the left shoulder.
"I managed to take it from the man D'orage had sent to find it," Francesco said, as Nigel carefully unrolled the scroll.
"What about Sydney? Did you see her?"
"No. Armand says she returned from Bordeaux earlier. She must have left the scroll for us to find, like we did for her."
Nigel became engrossed in the writing scrawled by the quill of one of the monks long ago, but a sudden thought made him look up.
"You said you took the Scroll from one of D'orage's men. Why didn't D'orage go to Bordeaux himself?"
"Aah," Francesco replied, mysteriously. He learned forward, smiling slightly and steepling his fingers. "It seems that Monsieur D'orage is currently very ill after his near drowning. He remains inside his expansive grounds in Toulouse and sends his guards to do all the work."
Nigel's gaze fell back down onto the ancient parchment and he nodded with the manner of someone finding what they expected to find.
"What does it say?" Francesco asked, regarding the young Englishman with interest.
"You haven't read it?"
"No, I wanted to get it safely back here. I didn't want to risk revealing it to all and sundry."
"I made some headway with my research of the Stone myth this afternoon…" Nigel rose to his feet and handed the Scroll to the Frenchman.
Nigel limped out of the room with an intrigued Francesco and Nicole rising to follow. He led them along the landing to his bedroom, where maps and texts were spread out over a desk. While the Englishman searched through his papers, Francesco looked down at the Scroll in his hands.
Easily translating the Spanish into English, he read aloud, " 'Go full circle. Homeward is the forth eye. At four o'clock on midsummer's day, the eye will alight. In the labyrinth the gem is guarded.' "
"What does it mean?" Nicole asked Nigel, stepping closer to the desk.
Nigel finally gathered together what he was looking for. He glanced up to make sure he had both of the others' attention, then turned a book around to face them and pointed to the picture spread across the pages it was open on. The image was a photograph of a painting portraying what looked like a brown-coloured maze with a gold star in the centre.
"The myth claims that the Guardian Stone is hidden in a maze of tunnels, a labyrinth," he told them. "This labyrinth is thought to be not far from Toulouse. Hence, the clue says 'Go full circle', back to where we started: Toulouse. 'Homeward is the forth eye', homeward for the monks would be South, towards Spain. Therefore, the labyrinth must be in the mountains south of Toulouse."
"But where in the Southern mountains?" Francesco asked.
"Ah, well. 'At four o'clock on midsummer's day, the eye will alight.' There will be another engraving marking the entrance to the labyrinth and this must be in some sort of recess that the light reaches exactly at that time and date."
"Midsummer has past," the Frenchman pointed out.
"Hmm, yes. But it doesn't matter," Nigel said, smiling. "I've found reference to an engraving that was reported by climbers. An engraving shaped like an eye."
"So you know where the entrance to the labyrinth is?" Francesco asked, excitedly.
"Yes. I know exactly where it is," Nigel said. He pulled a map from under the book and pointed to a spot he'd circled at the base of the Southern mountain range. "There."
"Excellent!" Francesco cried. "Well done, Nigel!"
"What about the end of the clue?" Nicole asked, quietly. " 'In the labyrinth the gem is guarded', guarded by what?"
"Oh…" Nigel's face darkened and he showed them the book with the painting in again. "The Stone is in the middle of the labyrinth. We need to find the way to the centre…without setting off the traps."
"Traps? Booby traps?" Francesco asked, frowning with concern.
"Yes, and there are a lot of them," Nigel said, bleakly. "This book marks out some of them…spikes, water, trapdoors…the full works. The monks were rather proud of their creation and rightly so."
"How will we get past them?" Francesco asked.
"I've managed to piece together the general route to the centre and this book details some of the traps we'll come across. However, really the only thing that'll get us to the Stone is a hell of a lot of luck."
"Hmm…" The Frenchman turned to stare out of the window.
"I need to get this information to Sydney," Nigel said. "To get into the labyrinth unprepared would be suicide."
"Hmm?" Francesco de la Piedra turned around, looking distant. Nigel's words finally sunk in and his eyes focused. "Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Come with me."
Nigel grabbed the research he needed, then the Frenchman led him out of the room and down the stairs. Nicole scampered after them, but on the first floor landing Marietta appeared and took her off to bed. Francesco took Nigel to a thick wooden door on the ground floor. He pulled a key out of his pocket and turned it in the lock, then gestured for Nigel to go in ahead of him.
The room was square and without windows, yet its calm and warm tasteful colouring and decoration managed to stop it from being oppressive. 2' high, ancient bookcases lined the walls and, in the centre of the room, three aged desks were pushed together in a 'L' shape and covered with two computers, two printers, a fax machine, a scanner and a mountain of paperwork. Beside two filling cabinets, stood a photocopier and an overflowing wastepaper basket. A swivel chair with comfortable-looking leather seating was pushed under one of the desks. De la Piedra's study, Nigel presumed.
Francesco locked the door from the inside, then sat down and switched on one of the computers. The machine came to life and he keyed in a password. Then after loading up his email account, Francesco stood up and motioned Nigel into the chair.
Nigel sat down, finding that the chair was indeed very comfortable, and set about typing all he knew into an email to Sydney. He scanned and attached required images, then, after checking he'd included everything, he hit the send button.
Francesco waited until "Message sent" came up on the screen, then reached over and shut down the computer. He went to the door and turned back to Nigel who was staring at the blank screen, lost in thoughts of the woman he'd just emailed and worries about the following day.
"Nigel."
The Englishman snapped out of his musing and wearily got up.
"It is late, mi amigo," Francesco said, as he unlocked the door. His face slowly lit up with excitement, though he smiled wryly. "We must rest well, for I think tomorrow shall offer something of an adventure."