2- Welcome Back To France
It was a relatively long journey down to the Occitan city of Toulouse. After walking a very long time through the immense maze that was Paris Charles de Gaulle's airport, she had taken a flight connection, before landing at the airport of the French pink city. After an interminable wait to get her luggage back, the young woman passed through the automatic doors of the large hall and found herself immersed in the suffocating heat of the end of the day. A few locks of rebellious hair twirled over her sunglasses. She looked around, as if she was afraid of being eyed, and then turned right towards the huge car park that stretched as far as the eye could see.
After a few administrative checks, and in more than approximate French, Lara picked up the keys to her rental car. It took her a few minutes to spot the SUV she had reserved, slaloming between the other cars. She left Toulouse airport a few moments later, leaving the plains and arid fields behind to head to a much more hilly and green French South-East.
Thinking about it, she had never really had the opportunity to come down to this part of France, which was reputed to be very beautiful and full of history. There were lots of legends regarding this region, kept alive by the presence of numerous castles now in ruins. Many rumours were still circulating about the Templars and the search for the Grail. Lara was not necessarily the most knowledgeable about this French historical period, but like many others, she had of course heard about the crazy theories about the Holy Relic.
The car journey this time was not very long. She followed the GPS which took her to the small village of Lavelanet, wedged somewhere between the Languedoc plateaus and the first mountain ranges of the Pyrenees. A small mountain road, criss-crossing the remote corners of the Occitan hinterland, took her a little further up the plateau. In the distance, the ruins of once large and majestic castles drawn along steep rocky ridges.
It was a really very small village, nestled in the hollow of the rock and wedged against the side of the mountain, amidst fir trees and dry rock. Out of the corner of her eye, Lara saw that the GPS stopped just a few metres from where she was. She manoeuvred the car and parked in what seemed to be the central square of the village. A few hundred meters above, perched on its cliff, stood the ruins of Montsegur Castle, which overlooked the village and its hilly surroundings.
She got out of the car and took out of the trunk two big bags, one for her personal belongings and the other for her equipment. After locking the SUV, she turned her heels towards the large building in the centre of the town, on the other side of the small paved square. An old, rusty, weathered exterior badge read 'inn'. The building didn't necessarily look good from the outside, with its slightly decrepit facade, but after some research in the area before she left, Lara hadn't found any other place to stay as close to Montsegur Castle as she had expected in such a remote corner of France.
With her elbow she pushed the heavy wooden door open, and a small bell rang out. The adventuress found herself in the reception area of a small, cosy, narrow and low-ceilinged hotel, all made of wood. The air was filled with a musky ambient perfume, mixed with alcohol and old worn velvet. It was dark, especially because she had arrived at the end of the day, but an old lamp was shining above her head, as well as on the staircase, which she imagined led to the rooms.
To her right was a room that was obviously used as both a bar and a restaurant. She approached the small, secluded solid wood counter in a corner, glancing around. The place was quiet, and only a background of music, apparently coming from a radio, was playing in the distance.
"Bonsoir!", she heard suddenly.
A man with very short dark hair, in her age, rather muscular, approached the young woman, coming out of nowhere.
"Qu'est ce que je peux faire pour vous?"
"Je veux un chambre pour cette nuit et demain, s'il te plaît", she tried to articulate in more than approximate French.
And then she stood there, staring at him with a sorry look in her eyes. The man sighed noisily, obviously exasperated.
"Encore une qui ne parle pas un mot de français..."
Lara's French was certainly not the most impressive, but at least she understood that the man had just made a more than disparaging reflection on her level of language, which did not fail to offend her.
"English, right?", he added in a Frenchy English.
She approached the counter, looking at the square-shouldered man almost suspiciously.
"How did you guess?"
"You know, the people that are not from here, we can see them quickly, especially the English."
Lara gave him a polite smile. She leaned gently against the solid oak bar, looking around her.
"Guess it means I have to work on my French skills."
"Don't worry, only your accent is horrible."
A slight laugh escaped Lara.
"So, a room for one person for two nights, right?"
"That would be perfect, thank you."
"What name, please?"
"Croft."
The man grabbed a large notebook from under his counter and flipped through a few pages, looking pensive. He wrote down something, before announcing the amount to be paid, which Lara paid immediately. Without a word, he then turned to grab one of the keys hanging on the wall behind his back and handed it to the young woman.
She felt his gaze on her and she felt he was looking at her insistently. Before the discomfort became permanent, Lara took the lead, interrupting the man before he could speak.
"You must have seen me in the newspapers recently, I think."
The man frowned, as if surprised by her words. The young woman, in turn, looked at the marked face of the Frenchman, who, she would have sworn for a split second, was obviously not expecting that. He, so hostile at first, seemed to soften gradually. To Lara's surprise, his face changed expression. She took advantage of this opening, and above all took the opportunity to change subject.
"Do you know what time the ruins of Montsegur are accessible?"
"Actually, it's free and it's accessible all the time. The way is just at the corner of the building, on the left. You are lucky, you will not be disturbed by other tourists at this time of the year."
"Again, that's perfect, thank you."
She took the keys and turned her back on the man.
"Bonne installation, Miss Croft."
As she just started going up the stairs, she heard the man's voice in her back.
"Oh, I forget. We have a restaurant here, if you need for tonight. And breakfast is served from 7.30 am. Do I have to prepare beans and fresh eggs for you?", he said mockingly.
"I'll be fine for tonight, thanks. But regarding tomorrow morning, I'll go for some croissants and orange juice, and maybe some fruits if you have, that will be fine. I hope my compatriots won't mind if I don't do them honour."
The Frenchman nodded with a smile.
"C'est noté, Miss."
With these words, the young woman turned round and walked up the small staircase, strangely disturbed by this more than confusing exchange.
—
She carefully closed the door. She walked into the small room and put the two big bags a little further on the old, worn carpet. The double bed was finally relatively small, and the blankets covering it were thick and plodding. Just imagining herself in it, Lara felt like scratching herself. She took a quick look around, before slipping into the adjoining bathroom to take a shower, just to relax a bit.
Changed into comfortable pyjamas, the adventuress settled down on the bed, Von Croy's notebook in one hand, and a sandwich quickly picked up at the airport in the other. Carefully, she went through her mentor's notes again. Von Croy hadn't really had time to linger here: he just mentioned a possible passage under the ruins of the castle itself, which would have led to a hidden and lore ancient room. But nothing more. She frowned, concentrated. She continued reading, until she came across a page filled with a freehand sketch, with very marked but simple lines. She believed Werner had drawn a portal carved out of a rock, slightly arched. Columns, or perhaps statues, eight in all, framed it on either side.
Knights perhaps?
For it was indeed the first thing that came to her mind. She went back a few pages, her eyebrows still frowning.
Ok, so to sum up, the Templars and the Cathars were at war with each other for almost a century. The Cathars eradicated the Templars in the region, and made some of their castles their strongholds, like the one here
She turned a page to go back over some of Werner's annotations.
The Cathars resisted the repeated attacks of the Inquisition for several decades, so they undoubtedly strengthened the fortresses by digging underground rooms. These rooms must have been full of treasures of the time, relics I imagine... they must have been relatively elaborate and well hidden in order to protect them from the outside.
The young woman had been reading again and again the same lines for a few minutes. She swallowed the last bite of her sandwich. Her brain was desperately trying to make the connection with the Prussian family, to which Von Croy had first turned his attention to. The adventuress massaged her temple pensively with a mechanical gesture.
The Teutonic knights, however, never settled in the region, they were only passing through...
Lara suddenly bent down, grabbed one of her bags and searched for the book she had brought from her personal library, the one she had studied the day before when Winston had joined her in the office. She concentrated on the various historical maps it contained, annotating some things with her own pencil.
Historically speaking, the Prussians never met the teutons... they had no link
She raised her head from the notebook, her lips pursed. She closed the book, letting it slide between her hands. She grabbed Werner's diary again.
Or did they simply use the place as a hiding place, symbolically?
The young woman looked down again at the small leather book. It was at that very moment that she remembered how similar they were, yet so different, she and Werner. He, who had taught her so much, who had always pushed her to the edge, who had made her what she was today. She felt grateful for that, but so alien to him in a way. What had once brought them together and bound them together, had ended up separating them. He was finally nourished only by the need for recognition on the part of his pairs, as she struggled to bring to light the beauty of lost treasures and civilisations, only for the pleasure of discovery.
Looking out of the window, she realised that night had fallen, darkening over this small village. The ideas were running through her head, she felt the weight of the day finally fall on her shoulders.
She had left very early in the morning, leaving Winston, the mansion and the emptiness she had been living in for weeks now. Once again, the last weeks had been desperately long and desperately meaningless since she had returned from Peru, not without a few scratches. Her escapade in South America had been a real breath of fresh air actually. And now she found herself back in France, a country she had tried so hard to avoid until now.
At least I'm not stuck in Paris again
Lara reopened the sketchbook, and stumbled upon the sketch she had seen a few moments earlier. The young woman's eyes stopped at a Latin phrase, which she had not noticed until then, as it was standing over the portal, she imagined it carved into the rock:
Nisi Lux Animae Dirigit
Her vague memories of Latin allowed her to translate, more or less 'Only the light of the soul guides us'.
Her eyes then stopped on a symbol in the centre of the alcove, wedged between the Latin letters: a sort of cross, composed of a vertical line, crossed by three horizontal smaller lines at its top, and whose bottom had an exaggerated "V" shape, giving it the shape of a ancre, or perhaps an arrow. However, Lara did not recognise the Cathar Cross, nor the Templars'. She was convinced she had seen this symbol before, but she was absolutely unable to remember where.
She remained staring stupidly at the words and the mysterious cross traced on the paper, as if a revelation would suddenly strike her. With her fingertips she played with her pencil, trapping it between two impatient fingers. It was only after a few minutes that she realised she was too tired to think about anything tonight, and that she would discover nothing more, and finally decided to put the notebook aside. She repacked her book and notebook in her bag with a vague, almost absent gesture.
When she stood up, once again, her gaze went far out the window and suddenly she found herself in that small hospital room, where she had last seen Kurtis. She saw again with clarity his body lying on that dilapidated bed, the cables spouting from his body, the pallor of his skin. The hospital and medicine smell came back to her nostrils, and also the cold and discomfort, as she was stuck in waiting. And now thinking he might be just dead and gone was strangely impossible for her, as for accepting the strange and unpleasant twinge this thought brought to her. For some reason she liked to think he was just hiding somewhere. She just hoped that, wherever he was, he was now safe and sound. And future would tell if their paths were to cross again someday.
Who knows
Lost in her own thoughts, the young woman eventually fell asleep without even realising it.
—
Somewhere in front of her, she heard a crackling sound. She emerged from very far away, almost with discomfort, as if she had been grabbed by force by the arm and pulled to the surface suddenly.
At first, with difficulty, she wrinkled her still closed eyelids, her strong interior struggling to remain in the sweet sleep in which she had been immersed until then. Then, gradually returning to reality, Lara slowly opened her eyes and moved slightly in the bed.
A quick movement not far from her made her jump, she straightened up suddenly, sliding her hand under the pillow to catch the 9mm she had hidden there. A shapeless and all-black-dressed silhouette, unrecognizable in the darkness, stepped forward really quickly and kicked Lara's arm with the foot: the weapon swirled into the air, before landing heavily a little further into the room, sliding under the bed. The adventurer threw a kick into the thing's direction who was now retreating, but it was already out of reach.
The shape suddenly turned around and plunged towards the open window. As Lara stood up on her legs, she saw the thing sliding skillfully down the gutter and heard it landing almost silently on the pavement some meters below.
The adventuress grabbed her gun, came to the corner of the window and aimed at its target. But as she pulled the trigger, she finally changed her mind, thinking of the attention her action would cause in this small village, especially in the middle of the night. She raised her arm, and panting, watched the form running away at high speed before finally disappearing into an adjacent street.
When the silence had completely returned, the young woman looked around the room: nothing had been touched or moved on the surface. Instinctively, her eyes lowered towards her bag and discovered that it had been moved and was wide open. She rushed over it, and opened it even wider and searched for a few seconds. Her heart slackened as she quickly came across Werner's notebook and her personal notes. Nothing was missing. She stood up, and hands on her hips, sighed loudly, without really realising what had just happened.
Feels like good old times
