‘And below the Papal Bedchamber?’ hazarded Louis.
‘The Chamberlain’s room, the lower treasury and, below that, the wine cellar.’
Only in those lower levels, from the Papal Bedchamber down, was there access to the rest of the Palais.
The Chambre du cerf was in the Wardrobe Tower which abutted the Angels Tower and had, again, free access only on its lower levels, most particularly through the Papal Bedchamber which adjoined it.
Mireille de Sinéty had thus been able to move from the Kitchens Tower, which was near the northernmost corner of the Palais, far to the south through the length of the Grand Tinel, passing by, on her left and midway, the Saint John’s Tower before entering first the dressing room, then the bedchamber and finally the Chambre du cerf. She had, no doubt, been heading for the Clementine Chapel and the main staircase which would have taken her down into the Great Audience Chamber. Somehow she had realized the way to freedom had been blocked and that she could no longer flee.
On her knees, she had begun to pray and had been killed while doing so, but by whom? Had it really been the singers? Xavier, eh? demanded Kohler of himself, wishing it was so but finding he had also to ask, Rivaille, Simondi or Renaud? Any or all of whom could so easily have turned back to ruthlessly hunt her down and silence her.
Nino fidgeted. Tied to a long leash, she began to bark. Unfortunately it was a sound that was bound to carry. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Find it for me. There’s a good girl.’
Marie-Madeleine stayed close to Frau von Mahler, but neither of them had said a thing since leaving the house, and Kohler really didn’t know why the former nun was crowding the woman. Comfort maybe, or something else, something she knew that she hadn’t let on. Louis and the Colonel brought up the rear. Their torches winking, all hurried because Nino hurried. All passed quickly under the high and vaulted ceiling of the Great Audience Chamber and went up the main staircase, the sound of their steps harsh in the cold darkness. Another and far narrower staircase soon followed. This the dog raced up, Kohler following as best he could.
Nino didn’t hesitate in the Chambre du cerf. With her muzzle close to the floor, she went on into the Papal Bedchamber and from there up yet another of the steep and narrow flights of stairs. She was panting, was anxious.
They were now in what had once been the upper treasury and directly above the bedchamber. Polychrome timber beams in the ceiling were all that remained of the original decoration but even here, bits of wood and plaster had been plundered and sold off when the Palais had been a barracks.
All of the glazed ceramic tiles were gone, those with their pale green and brown doves, their bounding hares and hunting hawks.
Nino stood rigidly pointing at one of the flagstones in the floor.
‘What is it?’ asked Kohler. The dog gave three short, sharp barks and began to worry the flag.
Prised from the floor, it revealed its hidey-hole. Where once a bag or two of silver and one of gold, or vessels of the same, had been hidden, there were now, at the bottom, both the sickle and the martinet, whose short, black leather thongs lay over the blade of the other.
‘Good girl,’ sighed Kohler, fondling her head. ‘I knew you could do it.’
The blade of the sickle was dark with age and smeared with dried blood. Bits of lavender and winter grass still clung to the wooden haft which had been bound with baling wire. ‘Xavier, Louis.’
‘But why the martinet, Hermann, unless he wanted us to blame Rivaille?’
‘And get free of blame himself. He’d have had to bring it from the mill.’
Louis got down on his hands and knees, and using his handkerchief, gingerly pulled away the thongs to look more closely at the blade. ‘It’s perfect, Hermann,’ he sighed, ‘and exactly as I’d imagined.’
‘Ingrid? My wife …’ began von Mahler, only to realize she had slipped away.
‘Sister …’ began Louis.
‘I’m not a sister, not any more.’
‘Where has Frau von Mahler gone?’
There were tears she couldn’t stop, and Marie-Madeleine knew she must appear very pale and shaken under the blue light from their torches. ‘I … I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.’
Voices rose to fill the Grand Tinel and filter out to rooms and halls and staircases, the song now racing like the wind. ‘Alia caccia … alla caccia …’ To the hunt … the hunt … ‘Subito … Subito …’ Hurry … Hurry … ‘Di qua … qua … qua …’ Over here … here … here … ‘Venite volontieri…’ Come gladly … gladly … ‘Chiamatie li bracchi … bracchi …’ Call the hounds … the hounds …
Deep in the cellar of the Wardrobe Tower and still searching frantically for Frau von Mahler, Kohler let Nino go. Joyously she raced away and soon he could hear her barking high above him in the Grand Tinel.
But then the singing stopped, and for a time he could hear nothing. He shook his torch, cursed the unreliability especially of Gestapo Paris’s batteries these days, and got the thing going again.
A discoloured seepage had frozen to the ancient stone walls, the room square and seemingly vast but also a forest of stout octagonal stone pillars that rose to the arches they supported.
Verdammt! Where the hell had that woman got to? Why had she felt it so necessary to leave? She’d been present during the murder — had she lied about what had happened? If so, others would know of it. Others.
Switching off his torch, he strained to listen but could hear nothing definitive and then …
When he heard a breath escape, he thought it must be her, but moved aside and made no sound. The breath had come from behind one of the pillars — off to his left, he thought, and asked again, Why had she slipped away, if not because she still had things to hide? Had she killed the girl? Had she been able to lie so well until faced with their finding the sickle?
Kohler moved among the pillars until his foot came against, and sought out further, a stone ledge. Something was resting on the damned thing. Something tall and round and of cold metal that was evenly coated with chalky dust.
The thing stood on a low platform, and it was huge but still he couldn’t figure out what it was, knew only that he wasn’t alone.
Feeling always the fine coating of dust, he began to move forward. The walls were at least six centimetres in thickness and it was definitely round. Three stone steps led up the side and stopped him from continuing.
Hearing the breathing again, Kohler turned and waited, and to the feel of the dust on the rim, came the touch of a coarse woollen cassock. A sleeve …
Silently he stepped off the ledge and moved away. The voices of the singers started up and began again to filter throughout the tower. They soared, they raced away, chasing after one another, shifting … constantly shifting, the song in Spanish and about three Moorish girls who had stolen someone’s heart.
Suddenly they stopped, and he strained to hear them.
When he switched on the torch, its ghostly pale blue and slit-eyed white light fell on the Pontiff’s lead bathtub that had defied the centuries.
There was no sign of the cassock, and he knew then that it could well be that others were also hunting for Frau von Mahler.
Lute, recorder, shawm and tambourine were in hand, the tableau the singers presented like a painting of Caravaggio’s, thought St-Cyr. Beatific, pastoral, their costumes magnificent and full of vibrant colours and the play of candlelight, they looked so at ease with one another and their music. Banishing everything else from their minds, as only the truly professional can do, they sang not only for the sheer joy of it but for the group as a whole, as one and immensely proud of it. Their expressions were keen to every nuance, one smiling, another listening attentively for a note or passage which would rise above the others even as their voices chased after it, the centuries retreating from that of the mid-sixteenth to that of the mid-fourteenth.