and have stirred up strife all the day long.
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent;
adder’s poison is under their lips.
Custódi me, Dómine, de manu peccatóris;
et ab homínibus iníquis éripe me.
Qui cogitavérunt supplantáre gressus meos.
abscondérunt supérbi láqueum mihi.
Et funes extendérunt in láqueum.
juxta iter scándalum posuérunt mihi.
Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the ungodly;
preserve me from wicked men.
Who are purposed to overthrow my goings:
the proud have laid a snare for me.
And they have spread a net abroad with cords;
yea, and have laid for me a stumbling block by the
wayside.
Every time the words wicked, evil and ungodly fell from his lips he glanced at Abélard, Jean and yes, even his own brother, all huddled like conspirators on an adjacent pew, because he could not reconcile their views with his.
And with the same certainty that told him that Christ was his saviour, he knew that he was right and they were wrong.
He also knew he had to leave Ruac, because they had made their intentions known. They fully intended to partake again of the infusion which they lauded and he reckoned was a devil brew.
The following morning, he was off. For his safety and companionship, Barthomieu had persuaded him to have two younger monks accompany him on the long journey back to Clairvaux. One was Michel, Jean’s infirmary assistant, who had noticed residual tea and had been pestering his master with questions. Better to send him away for a while to cure his curiosity.
Bernard and Barthomieu hugged, though Barthomieu’s grip was the tighter.
‘You will not reconsider?’ Barthomieu asked.
‘Will you reconsider taking that wicked brew again?’ Bernard countered.
‘I will not,’ Barthomieu said emphatically. ‘I believe it is a gift. From God.’
‘I will not repeat my arguments, brother. Suffice it to say, I will take my leave and may God have mercy upon your soul.’
He kicked the flanks of the brown mare with his heels and slowly departed.
Abélard was waiting by the abbey gate. He called up to the rider. ‘I will miss you, Bernard.’
Bernard looked down and deigned to reply. ‘I confess I will miss you too, at least the Abélard I knew, not the Abélard I saw two nights ago.’
‘Judge me not harshly, brother. There is but one road to righteousness, but many paths converge on that road.’
Bernard shook his head sadly and rode off.
That night, three men met in Bernard’s now-empty house, lit some candles and talked about their departed friend. Was it possible, Barthomieu asked, that Bernard was right and they were wrong?
Barthomieu was a man of simple vocabulary. Jean was more skilful as a healer and herbalist than an ecclesiastical scholar. It fell on Abélard to frame the debate. They listened to his elegant dissertation on good versus evil, God versus Satan, right versus wrong, and concluded that it was Bernard who was hide-bound and unseeing, not them.
Having satisfied themselves of their rectitude, Jean produced a crockery jug, pulled out the stopper and poured each participant a generous mug of reddish tea.
Abélard was alone in his room.
A single candle burned on his table, casting just enough light to write on parchment. For a week, a letter to his beloved had lain begun but unfinished. He reread the opening:
My dearest Héloïse,
I have passed these many days and nights alone in my cloister without closing my eyes. My love burns fiercer amidst the happy indifference of those who surround me, and my heart is alike pierced with your sorrows and my own. Oh, what a loss have I sustained when I consider your constancy! What pleasures have I missed enjoying! I ought not to confess this weakness to you; I am sensible I commit a fault. If I could show more firmness of mind I might provoke your resentment against me and your anger might work that effect in you which your virtue could not. If in the world I published my weakness in love songs and verses, ought not the dark cells of this house at least to conceal that same weakness under an appearance of piety? Alas! I am still the same!
He dipped his quill and began a new paragraph.
Some days have passed since I wrote these words. Much has changed in a short time, though not my love for you which burns ever brighter. God has chosen to bestow a gift upon me which I can scarcely believe, yet its truth is manifest. Oh, though I fear writing these words lest their power should fade by the act of committing them to the page, I believe, dear Héloïse, that I have found a way for the two of us to be together again as man and wife.
SIXTEEN
The last day of work at Ruac Cave came and went.
That final night, there was a celebratory dinner of sorts, though spirits were tamped down by the twin catastrophes that had befallen the excavation, a pair of accidents that sent tongues wagging about curses, ill fate and the like.
After Hugo’s funeral in Paris, Luc had returned to Ruac and thrown himself into his work like a whirling dervish, toiling himself into a state of anaesthesia, sleeping only enough to keep going. He became flat and detached, spoke only when spoken to, maintained a professional efficiency with his team but that was the extent of it. Hugo’s death had washed away his usual witty charm like waves washed away letters etched on a sandy beach with a stick.
Matters were made worse by the unannounced appearance at Ruac by Marc Abenheim who parachuted in from Paris, hell-bent on exploiting the tragedy. The weedy martinet arrived and demanded everyone leave the Portakabin so he could speak with Luc privately. Then, like an actuary, he challenged Luc on the odds of one excavation having two fatalities in one season.
‘What are you driving at?’ Luc had spat back.
Abenheim’s voice had an infuriating nasal tone. ‘Lack of discipline. Lack of management. Lack of good sense for inviting your friend to stay at an official Ministry dig. That’s what I’m driving at.’
It was nothing short of a miraculous act of self-restraint that Luc was able to send Abenheim on his way without a broken nose.
When the officious prat drove off, Luc started fuming openly. He’d kept a damper on his anger during Abenheim’s visit but now that he was gone he retreated to his caravan and slammed the door. The first thing that caught his attention was the dent in the wall he’d left the night after Hugo died.
He had a strong urge to punch it again, finish it off by putting his fist right through the blood-stained wall but when he curled his fingers he remembered this was a terrible idea. His cut knuckle had become infected, turned beefy and swollen, and there were red streaks creeping up the back of his hand. He didn’t have the time or inclination to find a doctor. One of the students had a bottle of erythromycin left over from a chest infection and Luc had started popping them a few days earlier. He unclenched his aching fist and kicked a chair instead.
As to Sara, if Luc had harboured any designs on restarting something with her, he had suppressed them, forgotten them, or maybe he never had them at all. He couldn’t remember.
She gave him space and didn’t compel him to deal with his loss. The more he withdrew, the more she rallied, scurrying around the edges of his life, fretting with Jeremy and Pierre about his health and well-being. She knew a little bit about clinical depression.
He’d given her a case once.
The autumn night was cold, drawing people to the fire much the same way that their prehistoric forebears would have gathered. Luc felt he had to address the group one last time, though he didn’t have the appetite for much of a speech.
He thanked them for their tireless work and rattled through a list of their accomplishments. They had accurately mapped the entire complex from the first chamber to the tenth chamber. They had photographed every inch of the complex. They had a first radiocarbon date back from the charcoal outline of one of the bison and it confirmed the suspicion that the cave dated to 30,000 BP. They had begun to understand the geological forces that had shaped the formation of the cave. They had comprehensively excavated the floors of Chamber 1 and Chamber 10. In Chamber 1 they had found evidence of a fire pit and an abundance of reindeer bones and signs of a long occupation of the cave mouth. In Chamber 10 they found more Aurignacian blades and flakes, that lovely ivory bear and phenomenally, the fingertip of a human infant. Although it was the only human bone they had unearthed, it was still a miracle find that would be analysed intensively in the weeks to come. Sara Mallory also had a wealth of pollen samples to analyse over the winter. He said nothing of their plant-gathering and kitchen experiments. No one else needed to know about that bit of fringe work for now.