Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire Page 7

  But she could see now the worry in his eyes was tinged with understanding.

  The moment hung in the air between them of sadness and inevitability and letting go, until finally he nodded. Not approval, but acceptance.

  Sam turned to Teddy.

  “Let’s go get it then.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the Shadow of the Skulls

  They stood in the shadow of the great Notre-Dame, as Paris slept around them.

  The cathedral towers loomed large in the clear night sky, dark and powerful, while the central rose window watched on like a wary, unblinking eye, waiting for someone to unlock its secrets.

  Now Sam was here, she wasn’t sure how easy that was going to be. It was close to three in the morning. The tall wooden doors were closed and bolted. And although the city streets were mostly devoid of life – with only the occasional drunk tugging his hat at them, before staggering happily down the banks of the Seine – there was a presence here that meant breaking in could be tough.

  A guard, keeping watch.

  “Did you know, those doors are believed to be the work of the devil?” Teddy said, far too amiably for such an hour. Sam figured him nervous. Or possibly over-excited. The whiskey had played its part, certainly. “See that fourteenth-century ironmongery twisting and weaving across the wood. It was made by a man called Biscornet. They say he sold his soul for the talent to create such beauty, but that the doors refused to lock until holy water was sprinkled on them.”

  “Let’s just hope the devil has the night off,” Sam replied, still waiting for the effects of the coffee she’d had to kick in. Her head was beginning to throb, which was probably a good sign.

  The small guard’s hut stood to the side. Smoke slipped from a tin-pot chimney and the burliest white woman Sam had ever seen was sitting inside reading ‘C’est Paris’… what looked to be an erotic magazine.

  “Now that’s a job I’ve always aspired to,” Jess said, nudging Will. He quickly pretended he hadn’t been staring.

  Teddy, on the other hand, was quite blatant with his gushing gaze, except that his was reserved entirely for the cathedral, admiring it like a lovestruck schoolboy.

  “You really think the Osiris Stone is in there?” Sam asked.

  “Not exactly in there. Rather it is buried deep in l’Ossuaire Municipal… the Catacombs beneath Paris herself. This is only the way in.”

  Jess looked between the guard’s hut and the locked cathedral doors. “There isn’t a less obvious way?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Because I did not think you would want to travel through the sewer.”

  Jess considered that for a moment, tugging on her blue neckscarf and glancing down at her pristinely pressed red blouse and skirt. “Cathedral’s fine with me.”

  “Seconded,” Will said, fiddling with the stiffly-starched white collar of his shirt. Even out of his tuxedo he was dashingly dressed.

  Sam meanwhile couldn’t help but feel a touch smug in her scuffed pilot’s jacket, scuffed khaki trousers and, well, scuffed boots. She hadn’t thought to bring any good clothes for this little trip to Paris and now that she considered it she wasn’t even sure she owned any good clothes, but at least she was prepared for what lay ahead. The others might be dressed up perfectly for a night out on the town, but were they really ready for a night under it?

  She grinned to herself at the thought of Will’s face when he realised just how ruined his shirt was going to get. That might be worth the adventure alone.

  “I’m assuming you’ve been here a few times,” she said to Teddy. “Do you know the guard? Can you get us in at such a late hour?”

  Surprisingly, he shook his head. “In the few times Aya has let me slip away here to investigate, I have had little success finding anything during the day. And the last time they let me stay after closing hours… well, I had a small accident. They asked me not to return.”

  “You had an accident?”

  “I broke a few skulls.”

  “How many’s a few?”

  “About three hundred.”

  Sam sighed. “I guess I’ll do the talking then.”

  Without waiting for the others, she strode over to the hut and knocked on the window. The guard inside looked up, but made no effort to move or hide the magazine. A defiant exhalation of cigarette smoke drifted from behind the pages.

  “Please don’t make me do this the hard way,” Sam muttered.

  She knocked again, louder.

  The woman inside gave a low rumbling sigh that rattled the entire hut. But this time she folded her magazine, stubbed out her deteriorating cigarette in an ashtray, and got to her feet. She was so tall that her head disappeared up past the window and all Sam could see now were her thick, powerful limbs moving towards the door.

  It opened in another puff of smoke, blown right into Sam’s face.

  “Oui?”

  Sam tried not to cough.

  “Bonsoir,” she began. It had been a while since she’d had to survive on the Continent, back with her group of soldiers, but she could recall enough. They’d fought across most of the country, working with the Resistance, so she’d had to learn to speak local pretty fast. And now it came back in bits and pieces. Each remembered word striking a long-forgotten memory, like bullets ricocheting off a wall. She continued, in the best French she could muster, “I’m Professor Moxley from the University of Chicago. I’m here to undertake some important research, although I’m afraid we’re a little late as my plane was delayed. However, the Bishop who invited me and my team told us to come at any time.”

  The guard looked Sam up and down distrustfully. “Bishop De Sully?”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, De Sully! That’s the one. Anyway our visit shouldn’t take long. Would it be possible to let us in just briefly?”

  The tall woman smiled. Feeling victorious, Sam smiled back. And when the woman spoke next, it was in excellent English.

  “Professor Moxley, you say?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You’re a woman.”

  Sam’s smile hardened. “That’s right.”

  “And Bishop De Sully invited you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The guard’s smile disappeared.

  “Bishop De Sully doesn’t exist, I made him up.” She pointed a meaty hand towards the rusty plaque on the side of the hut. “Visiting hours for the cathedral are between nine and five. Come back tomorrow.”

  Unfortunately, the guard then noticed Teddy skulking in the background. “You?” she shouted. “I thought I told you never to bother me again with these requests! The cathedral is not your personal playground, Monsieur. Take your ridiculous theories and friends and leave this place before I call the police!”

  The hut door slammed shut, before they all heard a loud “merde!” from behind it.

  Sam strode back to her group, a little annoyed. One of the few times she had taken the non-violent route and look where it had got her.

  “Any other ideas?” she asked.

  “I say we go around the back,” Jess replied. “Should be a window or something we can break to get in there.”

  Teddy stared at her with disgust. “It’s an eight hundredyear old cathedral! These stained glass windows have seen more history than you or I can imagine. Are you really an archaeologist?”

  “Yeah, Jess,” Sam added. “I’m no expert, but isn’t the first rule of archaeology don’t break the priceless artefacts?”

  “Okay, well what do you want to do, Captain Wonderful?” Jess snapped. “Because I don’t see you coming up with any answers yourself. I don’t know exactly what you and that guard spoke about, but clearly you don’t have the charm or charisma for this kind of work. Why are you even here?”

  “To stop you all accidentally burying yourselves alive under Notre-Dame for all eternity in your haste to find ancient treasure.”

  “I am not being hasty! Teddy, Will and I are
scientists and simply approaching this scientifically by ruling out the various options.”

  Sam narrowed her eyes, as the throbbing in her skull seemed to increase. “It’s three o’clock in the morning in Paris, and two of us are half-drunk as we try to break into one of the most historic places on the planet. None of this is scientific.”

  Teddy put a tentative hand on both their shoulders as they squared up. “Perhaps we should go home and come back in the morning for the regular visiting time? I do not wish to cause any hassle for anyone.”

  Sam and Jess both ignored him.

  “Look, I don’t like it,” Sam continued, judging the increasingly fierce look in her sister’s eyes as something that could be used to their advantage. “But we might have to knock the guard out and steal her keys. We can leave her tied up in the hut.”

  “Brilliant,” Jess replied. “You brought some rope, of course?”

  “You’re the scientist. Aren’t you supposed to think of stuff like that?”

  “I already found the first piece of the puzzle, Sam. If you’re tagging along then you need to step up.”

  Sam clenched her fists. “Fine. Forget the rope. I’ll just knock her out harder than I normally would. How’s that?”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Teddy stood rubbing his arms and looking around, as though he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “You in, Teddy?” Sam asked.

  “Oh… well… I do not know if I can sanction actual violence…”

  But Sam had already turned away, heading towards the hut.

  Only to see it was now empty.

  At the entrance to the cathedral, Will was leaning up to give the guard a kiss on both her cheeks, before she returned the gesture with gusto. She then turned and swaggered past the group back to her hut.

  When they reached Will he was rocking back and forth on his heels, whistling jovially beside the now open door.

  “Oh, you are a clever man, Dr Sandford!” Teddy said, walking past with a shaky, relieved laugh.

  “One no woman can resist, clearly,” Jess added, giving his bottom a playful pinch.

  Sam could only scowl as Will’s lipstick-smudged grin grew more smug by the second.

  “Only in France,” she muttered.

  They entered the cathedral and stood for a moment, taking in their surroundings. The high vaulted ceiling, the soft moonlight now filtering in through the intricate, stained-glass windows in the apse.

  Sam breathed in the splendour of one of the finest examples of gothic architecture in the world, seen at an hour very few people would have the chance to admire it. She wished for more time to linger. To softly tread the stone floor as millions had done before her. To enjoy the calm and the serenity this space offered and let it fill her up in the hope it might carry her through the inevitable storm ahead.

  But she couldn’t. Time was never on her side these days and she could only imagine how fast The Nine were closing in on them. It wouldn’t take the bastards long to figure out she’d left the country and track her to Paris. Sadly, she’d have to leave the sightseeing until another day.

  Although, she considered, if Teddy was right there might be far more impressive sights ahead.

  They followed him to an alcove at the rear of the cathedral, where he pulled a wrought iron key from his pocket and unlocked the door in front of them. Inside, he flicked a switch and the lights buzzed on. Sam could see stone steps, spiralling downwards.

  It was a good two storeys below the cathedral when they reached an arch and stepped through into a magnificently ornate crypt. Or at least Sam assumed it must be magnificently ornate. Right now it lay underneath a flood of half-opened boxes of religious paraphernalia and scattered items balanced precariously around the room.

  Jess peered curiously into a tin of white, octagonal sweets. Sam recognised them immediately from her time on the Continent. Pastilles de Vichy was written on the lid. She scowled and scooped it up, sweeping it all into the nearest bin.

  “There is a lot of rubbish here,” she said.

  “Some people have no respect for the past,” Teddy agreed solemnly, moving to the rear wall to stand next to a delicate-looking statue of a weeping widow carved into a hollow. At which point he put his hand on the statue’s head and tried to snap it off.

  “No!” Jess and Will yelled in unison.

  Teddy looked at them in surprise, before they all heard a loud click. A stone door in the back wall began to open. He pushed the perfectly fine statue head – a secret lever – back into place.

  “Do you really think I’m here to run roughshod over history? You lack faith, my friends!”

  Sam grinned as she inched past him and peered into the darkness beyond the door.

  “Faith is one thing. Unfortunately, we also lack torches. I don’t suppose you happen to have any lying about, do you Teddy?”

  He gestured back towards a table, where Will opened one of the boxes and grabbed a couple of large hand torches for her and Jess. American army issue, as far as Sam could tell. Relics from the war, but still in good nick.

  They flicked them on and the two sisters crouched before the secret door, pouring light into the darkness. Sam couldn’t see much down the tunnel. But right in front of them, Jessica’s light passed over a sign hung from the ceiling. The old words were daubed with what looked like blood, and etched with crude skulls.

  “What does it say?” Will whispered, his hand clutching Jessica’s shoulder as though she might be sucked through the doorway at any moment.

  “Bienvenue… dans l’empire de la… mort,” Jess replied, reading aloud in hesitant French.

  “Welcome to the Empire of Death,” Sam translated. Then, under her breath, “Oh, boy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Empire of Death

  It was eerily quiet. Only the constant drip, drip, drip of water from the ceiling, like a clock counting down to some indeterminate fate, and the wet echoes of the group’s footsteps as they trod the path towards it.

  Two streams of torchlight revealed what appeared to be your usual dank, depressing tunnel beneath a city. Just enough room to walk two abreast, in between walls that at first glance were built of neatly stacked white cobbles.

  Will ran his fingers along them.

  “Careful of the ancient human remains there, Will,” Sam said absently. She directed her torchlight up to show that the cobbles were actually hundreds of skulls arranged in rows interspersed with other bones.

  He yanked his hand back as if he’d been bitten, causing Jess to stifle a laugh. “You really aren’t much of a field archaeologist are you?”

  “I just prefer my bones in well-lit museums, that’s all,” he replied.

  Jess reached out to nudge a loose femur back into its hole so she could scrape past. Sam noted she wasn’t perturbed by what she was seeing. Or, if she was, she was certainly covering it up well.

  “So who are all these people?” Sam asked, shivering as a cold drop of water fell into the back of her shirt and rolled down her spine. “They must have done something pretty terrible to have ended up here like this?”

  “It’s not quite as macabre as you think, if I remember my Parisian history correctly,” her sister replied. “Their bodies simply got in the way of progress, right, Teddy? These were all citizens of Paris, moved here in the eighteenth century when the government decided to reclaim the cemeteries for the expansion of the city.”

  “Yes, yes, that is correct. The good, the corrupt, wealthy and poor… they all ended up here. The product of capitalism and growth!”

  “It’s a little creepy,” Will said.

  “It’s archaeology, Dr Sandford,” Teddy replied brightly, shooting the younger man a beard-splitting grin. “As you would know if you got out of your museum once in a while! We are but material remains in the end and this is the proof of it. Whoever you are, whatever you did in life, this is where you end up. It is actually quite fascinating if you think about it like that. There is
a paper to be written on human equality right here, if you are interested?”

  Will laughed nervously. “We’ll have our hands full with the Hall of Records, thanks.”

  “Speaking of which,” Jess said, “how exactly did the millennia-old artefact we’re searching for end up in an eighteenth century French crypt like this? I know the French were the first western country to truly discover Egypt – was it a find from one of Napoleon’s many expeditions there?”

  “Nobody discovered Egypt because it wasn’t lost, my girl. The people were already there, as they had been for thousands of years, and as they still are today. To think otherwise is to take the perspective of empire and colonisation, neither of which do the study of archaeology any favours at all. Archaeology is about objectivity.”

  “That’s fine, Teddy, but like it or not, we are here because of empire and colonisation. We have made incredible advances in our thinking because of such discoveries and the artefacts brought back to our museums over the last hundred years. You can’t dispute that?”

  “I don’t dispute that.”

  Jess waved her torch at Sam, casting her eerie shadow across the rows of bones. “You’ve gone quiet all of a sudden, sis. I thought all this stuff was your soapbox to clamber upon? You who used to take me to Manchester Museum and who once told me the British Museum was your favourite place in the world.”

  “It still is,” Sam called back, kicking aside a bone on the path and hearing it splash in the shallow water running beside them. “I mean, I’m no expert, but I figure ancient things need to be preserved for everyone to enjoy. And, if that can’t be done in the precise spot where the artefacts are found, then, as a good friend once told me, they belong in a museum. But I think there’s a question that needs to follow that. Whose museum? Ask yourself, how would you feel if ships sailed into New York Bay and took the Statue of Liberty with them back to Moscow? Which, by the way, could happen one day. Or what about Stonehenge? What if we woke up to the news that the stones had been moved and were now proudly on display in a museum on another continent under the banner of ‘discovery’? That wouldn’t be right, would it?”

  “When did you get so passionate about this?” Will’s voice piped up, his words echoing through the splashes of water as the path grew a little more flooded in places. Sam didn’t need to look back to know he was desperately hopping between the puddles, trying not to get his fancy brogues wet. “I thought you were a pilot, not a philosopher?”