With his companions hovering over his shoulder, Jean pointed his torch at the paintings of bushes with red berries and five-sided leaves. ‘To my eye, that is the gooseberry bush. The juice of those berries is good for various lassitudes. And these vines, over here. They look to be in the family of possession vines which are said to remedy the ague.’
Barthomieu was inspecting the large bird man on the opposite wall. ‘Have you seen this creature, brothers?’ He poked a finger at the figure’s erect cock. ‘He is as felicitous as the other one. That said, even I know the type of vegetation surrounding him. It is meadow grass.’
‘I agree,’ Jean sniffed. ‘Simple grass. It is of limited value as a medicament although I will use it from time to time to bind a poultice.’
Bernard slowly moved around the chamber, inspecting the walls for himself. ‘I almost tire of saying it but I have never seen a place as singular in all of Christendom. It seems to me…’
There was a crunch underfoot and Bernard lost his balance. He fell, dropping his torch and scuffing his knees.
Abélard hurried over and held out his arm. ‘Are you all right, my friend?’
Bernard started to reach for his torch but retracted his hand as if a serpent was about to strike back and crossed himself. ‘Look there! My God!’
Abélard lowered his torch to better see what had so startled Bernard. Against the wall was a heaped-up pile of ivory-coloured human bones. He quickly drew the sign of the cross against his chest.
Jean joined them and began an inspection. ‘These bones are not fresh,’ he observed. ‘I cannot say how long this poor wretch has lain here but I believe it is no short time. And look at his skull!’ Behind the left ear hole, the back of the vault was crushed and deeply depressed. ‘He met a violent end, may God rest his soul. I wonder if he is our painter?’
‘How can we ever know?’ Bernard said. ‘Whoever he is, it is incumbent upon us to assume he is a Christian and give him a Christian burial. We cannot leave him here.’
‘I agree, but we will have to return on another day with a sack to carry his remains,’ Abélard said. ‘I would not wish to disgrace him by leaving some of his bones here, scattering others there.’
‘Shall we bury him with his bowl?’ Barthomieu exclaimed like a child.
‘What bowl?’ Jean asked.
Barthomieu stuck his torch out until it was almost touching the limestone bowl, the size of a man’s cupped hands, which was lying on the floor between two piles of foot bones. ‘There!’ he said. ‘Shall we bury him with his old supper bowl?’
Long after the bones were interred in the cemetery and a mass for the dead held in the church, Jean revisited the flesh-coloured stone bowl he kept on his reading desk by his bed. It was heavy, smooth and cool to the touch and cradling it in his hands he could not help but wonder about the man in the cave. He himself had a heavy mortar and pestle which he used to grind his botanicals into remedies. One day on an impulse, he retrieved his mortar from the infirmary bench and placed it alongside this man’s bowl. They were not so different.
His assistant, a young monk named Michel, was watching him suspiciously from his corner perch.
‘Do you not have work to occupy yourself?’ Jean asked irritably. The hatchet-faced youth was incapable of minding his own affairs.
‘No, Father.’
‘Well, I will tell you how to bide your time until Vespers. Change all the straw in the infirmary mattresses. The bed bugs have returned.’
The young monk shuffled off with a sour expression, whispering under his breath.
Jean’s cell was a walled-off space within the long infirmary. Usually, by the time he would slip off his sandals and lay his head on the straw, he would be asleep, oblivious to the snores and moans of his patients. Since the day he visited the cave, however, he had slept fitfully, dwelling on the images on the walls and the skeleton in the chamber. Once, in a dream, the skeleton rearticulated, rose and became the bird man. He awoke in an unpleasant sweat.
On this night he lay awake staring at the small candle he left burning on his desk between the two stone bowls.
A compulsion overtook him.
It would not be quieted easily.
It would not wane until he dragged Barthomieu, Bernard and Abélard out with him into the dewy meadows and succulent woodlands that surrounded the abbey.
It would not wane until they had collected baskets overflowing with meadow grasses, gooseberries and possession vines.
It would not wane until Jean had mashed the berries, chopped and ground the plants in his mortar then boiled the stringy pulp into an infusion.
It would not wane until the night the four men sat together in Jean’s cell and one-by-one swilled down the tart, reddish tea.
THIRTEEN
‘That’s it?’ Luc exclaimed.
Hugo had stopped translating. He closed the email attachment and turned his palms upward in a gesture of apologetic futility. ‘That’s all he’s decoded so far.’
Luc impatiently stamped his foot, shaking the portable building. ‘So they made a tea from these plants. Then what?’
‘Hopefully, our Belgian friend will have more for us soon. I’ll send an encouraging message. I’d hate for him to get distracted by something like a Star Trek convention and lose interest.’
‘There was a skeleton, Hugo, and artefacts! But now, no surface finds in the tenth chamber or anywhere else. What a loss!’
Hugo shrugged. ‘Well, they probably did what they said they were going to do. They gave the pre-Christian cave man a Christian burial!’
‘It’s like finding an Egyptian tomb cleaned out by grave robbers. An in situ skeleton from the period would have been of immense value.’
‘They left the paintings for you, don’t forget that.’
Luc started for the door. ‘Send an email to your friend and get him to hurry up with the rest of the manuscript. I’m going to talk to Sara about the plants.’
‘If I were you, I’d do more than talk.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Hugo. Grow up.’
Sara’s caravan was dark but Luc still rapped on the door. There was a muffled ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Luc. I’ve got some important news.’
After a few moments, the Spaniard Ferrer opened the door, shirtless, and cheerfully said, ‘She’ll be right with you, Luc. Want a drink?’
Sara lit a mantle lamp and appeared at the doorway, flushed with embarrassment like a caught-out teenager. Her blouse was one buttonhole off and when she noticed it, all she could do was roll her eyes at herself.
Ferrer gave her a peck on the cheek and took off, remarking without a touch of bitterness that business came first.
Luc asked if she’d be more comfortable if they talked outside but she invited him in and lit the lamp in the sitting area. Its hissing sound broke the silence. ‘Seems like a nice fellow,’ he finally said.
‘Carlos? Very nice.’
‘Did you know him before Ruac?’
She frowned. ‘Luc, why is it I’m feeling like I’m being interrogated by my father? This is a little awkward, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Not for me. I’m sorry it’s awkward for you. That wasn’t my intention.’
‘I’m sure.’ She sipped from a bottle of water. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
‘Our plants. I think they were put to specific use.’
She leaned forward, unwittingly exposing glistening cleavage. ‘Go on,’ she said, and as he repeated the story gleaned from Barthomieu’s manuscript she obsessively twirled strands of hair over and over, tightly enough to make her finger blanch. It was a nervous habit he’d forgotten until just now. During their final night together she’d done it a lot.