"Exactly what I needed, thank you." She removed her wallet from her back pocket and followed the clerk up to the counter.
As the book was used, the clerk charged her fifty percent off the original price, and then wrapped it up carefully in tissue paper. "Are you a student of medieval architecture, garçon?"
"I just like looking around old places," Nick lied. She tugged on the strap of her camera case. "I take photos of them. Keep the change," she added as he offered her a small handful of coins.
As the clerk handed her the book, his gaze shifted from the short, dark curls of her hair to her smooth cheeks. "You do not look old enough to be a professional photographer."
"It's a hobby." Nick saw something and reached into a recess between the register and the counter. She pulled out an identification card wedged there, which she handed to the clerk. "This yours?"
"Oui," The man frowned as he examined the dusty card. "I lost it a month ago. I have not had time to replace it." He sighed as he tucked it into his pocket. "You have saved me hours of standing in a queue. Merci beaucoup, garçon."
"You're welcome. Have you ever seen a really old house, one where the walls are caving in? It's abandoned, and there are a million marigolds all over the front lawns." She almost bit her tongue after she realized what she was asking. She wasn't interested in that place; it didn't exist.
"Pardonne-moi, je't'en prie. I have not."
"Okay, well, thanks—"
"Tourists are kept from such places, as they are not safe." The clerk tapped the side of his nose with a finger as he thought. "But you may wish to speak of this to Sarmoin, the baker across the street."
She lifted her eyebrows. "The baker?"
"His wife paints." The clerk made this sound like a form of infidelity. "He takes her into the country every Sunday, when his ovens are shut down to cool. There is a painting in the bakery of a place much as you describe."
Nick thanked him and exited the shop quickly. The bakery facing the bookstore had green shutters and SARMOIN's painted in scrolled white lettering on the window. She could see two housewives inside, their market baskets hanging from their arms as they inspected trays of thin, crusty baguettes.
She stepped across the uneven pavement until she reached the door, and there hesitated again. What was she trying to prove? She should be on her bike and headed back to the hostel to pack up her stuff. She couldn't risk staying in the city another night.
What if the place does exist? What if it's all part of this?
Nick opened the door, breathing in deeply of the wondrous scents of dough and yeast and butter as she stepped inside. Two housewives stood fiercely debating the number and type of baguettes to buy for their weekend meals; Frenchwomen took their bread very seriously. The young girl waiting on them gave Nick a look of amused resignation.
A glance at the wall (behind the counter) made Nick's throat tighten before she could ask for the baker. She pointed to the small, unframed painting hung beside a photograph of the pope.
The girl behind the counter gave up on the housewives and smiled at Nick. "May I assist you, monsieur?"
"Is that for sale?" she asked in French, pointing to it.
"I cannot say, monsieur. My mother… One moment, please." The girl disappeared into the back of the shop, and emerged with a thick-bodied man dressed in thin shorts and a flour-spattered T-shirt. "The monsieur wishes to buy Mama's painting, Papa."
The baker stiffened and gave Nick a thorough inspection. "Why?"
"It's beautiful." She stuck to the lie she'd told the bookshop clerk and showed him her camera bag. "I like to photograph places like that."
"It is not for sale," he advised her. "You would not be permitted to photograph the chapel at St. Valereye. The groundskeeper made my wife leave a few minutes after she arrived there. And she had set up her easel on the side of the road, not on the property, you understand."
Nick nodded, ignoring the nervous excitement tightened inside her chest. It was like the things she had found and stashed away—part of them, part of the trail leading to the Golden Madonna. She had to go to St. Valereye and see this chapel. Now. "I'd still like to know where it is."
The baker sighed. "Thirty-two kilometers to the south." He gave her terse directions on which of the back roads to take, and after glancing at her worn jeans and ancient brown leather jacket, added, "There is a village inn at the bottom of the hill there. Give them my name, and they will not treat you like a German."
Nick grinned. "I will. Thank you, monsieur."
To demonstrate her appreciation, and to get a few more minutes to check out the interior of the bakery and see the best way to break in, she bought a bag of mini fruit pastries. She'd come back later, after midnight, and get the painting.
As she walked out of the bakery Sarmoin came from around the back of the shop.
"Boy." Sarmoin looked one way, and then the other before he thrust the small painting at her. "Here, take it."
So much for going back and stealing it. An odd guilt swamped her. "How much do you want for it, monsieur?"
"Nothing. I never want to see it again." He pushed it into her hands, and then grimaced. "I am wrong to tell you dis," he said in thick, broken English. "Do not go chateau. Someding wrong—très mal—dere."
"What do you mean?"
"That chapel…" The baker's English failed him, and he switched to rapid, whispered French. "My wife was there for only a few minutes, and she woke up screaming every night after we returned from seeing it. She burned all but one of the paintings she made of it, and I had to take the last one away. She still has the nightmares."
Nick stared down at the pretty painting with its delicate details. "What frightened her so much?"
"Something in the chapel," Sarmoin said. "What, I do not know. But in her dreams, it hides inside. It watches her; it wants something terrible."
"What does it want?"
He looked miserable. "She says it wants to eat her."
Chapter 3
"We've done Disney, Universal, and Sea World for you guys," a balding, middle-aged man with a sunburned face said as he led four sullen-looking boys into the main entrance of Knight's Realm. "This is something educational. You could write school reports about this place."
"This is going to be dumb." The oldest boy glanced back at the woman wearily following behind them. "Mom, do we have to?"
"It's all about medieval times," she said, and forced a smile. "We'll get to watch knights in shining armor jousting on horses after we eat dinner. Won't that be exciting?"
In the complex's security room, Michael Cyprien watched the family via closed-circuit camera as they paid the admission fees. Many such tourists weary of cartoon and fairy-tale castles flocked to the Middle Ages-themed attraction. In the castle's main guardroom, dining guests feasted on roasted turkey legs and drank ale from pewter tankards while being entertained by court jesters, harp-strumming bards, and the ever-present lady of the castle and her maidens, demurely garbed in silk gowns and dazzling white wimples.
After dining, guests could adjourn to the tourney grounds, where live performances of jousts, duels, and melees provided archaic thrills. College students in faux armor brandished blunted aluminum swords, impressing hordes of schoolgirls as they waged carefully choreographed duels or rode in gleaming splendor atop farm nags outfitted to resemble warhorses. No one had any idea that the silent men overseeing the four main evening shows had actually once lived during the Middle Ages.
Not every visitor appreciated the authenticity or the history surrounding them, however.
"Dad, there's no video arcade," one of the boys wailed as he looked around. "And I left my Game Boy back at the hotel!"
The youngest's gaze bounced from a standing suit of armor to the lances displayed on the stone walls. "Do those things shoot laser beams, Mom?"
"No, stupid," the oldest boy answered for her in a gloomy tone. "They're just long sticks. They ride horses and poke each other with them."
The fourth boy scowled. "So it's going to be really dumb."
Cyprien switched off the sound from the security monitor and watched the children trudge through the turnstile one at a time. It reminded him of when he was a boy, and how he had felt whenever his father had insisted on dragging him and his cousins to a tourney.
You will learn to wield a sword instead of a brush, Michael.
So he had, and now would again.
One of Byrne's guards stepped into the room. "They are ready for you, seigneur."
Michael followed the guard through a private hall and down into the vast underground complex that had been built beneath Knight's Realm. Members of Byrne's jardin occupied many of the combat rooms as they trained and fought practice bouts. Michael went to the master's chamber, where Byrne and the others had gathered.
"Master." Michael's seneschal, Phillipe, was also waiting for him. "Suzerain Jaus has arrived."
"See to his needs." Michael stripped out of his jacket and shirt and removed his footwear. With each movement he made, the scent of dark roses around him grew stronger.
After he took two swords from the weapons rack, he advanced across the sparring room's tile floor to the centered, twelve-foot-wide circle of polished, interlocking stones. He paid no attention to the three watchers standing against opposite walls, or the troubled look his seneschal gave to his opponent before Phillipe bowed and withdrew.
Suzerain Locksley, who also held short swords in both hands, faced him. Like Michael, he stood barefoot and wore only a pair of black trousers. The light but insistent fragrance of bergamot radiated from his skin. "We may engage later, seigneur, if you would see Jaus now."
"Valentin can wait." Michael slowed, shifting to the right as he focused on Locksley's motionless blades.
