Blood game, p.14
Blood Game, page 14
Kris set the box on the table beside her. “Monsieur Dumont from the market said they were a favorite of yours.”
“Open it,” Vilette said, ignoring everything else.
James retrieved the knife from his belt and stepped around Kris. He cut the string around the box.
Vilette Moreau watched him with avid curiosity. He went to fold the knife and she reached out a hand with surprising quickness. Her fingers closed around his hand. She slowly nodded, studying the tattoo of a sword on the inside of his wrist with the number below it.
“The warrior,” she said softly, then patted his hand. “What did Monsieur Dumont send?”
“Chocolate crème pastry,” he replied, lifting the lid.
Vilette clapped her hands together like an excited child. She took hold of his hand again, smiling as she looked up at him. Kris would have sworn she was flirting with him.
“We will have a party,” Vilette declared.
“Sister Margaret Alice, Julie Hennessey, and Vilette Moreau,” Kris whispered.
“Nuns to ninety-year-old women,” she commented as he passed the box to her. “Impressive.”
He made a sound that was probably slightly more civil that what he could have said.
“A party,” Vilette again exclaimed excitedly, then began singing to herself in French.
Was this what Cate found when she was here? A frail old woman, who drifted between fantasy and reality?
The frail old woman angled a look at her.
“Have you slept with him yet?” she asked. She turned, cocking her head, those blue eyes glinting with humor.
“We're...friends.” Kris was too surprised to come back with anything more.
“Sleep with him,” Vilette said with a wink. “You will not regret it.”
Kris sat back in the chair at the other side of the table. Vilette was old, her mind wandered? Now she knew where. She ignored the look James gave her.
“I'll think about it,” was the best she could come up.
“No!” Vilette scolded, then smiled again. “Do not think! Just do!” Those sharp eyes narrowed.
“But I think you are not here to bring me chocolate pastry. You have questions, like the other one who came here.”
Questions, that had to wait until the pastries had been set out on thin china plates with cups of steaming black coffee, and Celine Gerard had left them alone once more.
“You are like her,” Vilette commented, taking a bite of pastry. “The other one—with all your questions. She was also a friend?”
Kris nodded. “We worked together.”
Vilette nodded. “There was an accident. My daughter-in-law spoke of it.” She shook her head.
“So very sad. I liked your friend very much, a strong woman. There was so much more to talk about.”
The fire hissed faintly at the hearth. James placed more wood on it as rain washed the garden room windows. It was like a cocoon, the cold, watery world outside, the warm glow of the fire inside.
“You were interviewed for a magazine article several years ago,” Kris began with what Diana Jodion had told them, hoping she would remember. “When restoration work was done at the abbey at Mont St. Michel.”
Vilette nodded. “There are many stories.” She gave her a look. “Some people do not believe them.” She smiled faintly. “The wanderings of the mind of a foolish old woman, eh?”
She made a gesture, a thin index finger laid alongside her nose. “But I know what is true. What do you want to know?”
Kris took out the photograph Cate had sent her and handed it to her.
“Tell me about the tapestry.”
Vilette studied the photograph for a long time, a faint smile on her lips.
“To tell you about the tapestry I must tell you what I told your friend about my ancestor, Isabel Raveneau, as my grandmother told it to me, and her grandmother told it to her.
“Historians always think that something must be written—written proof for it to be true. But long before stories were written down, they were handed down from one generation to the next—stories that perhaps hold more truth.”
She settled back into her chair and smoothed the lap robe about her.
Whom was Kris seeing now? A descendant of Isabel Raveneau, or the actress playing some part in a story of her own imagination?
“She was called Isa by her father, the Duke of Montfort, a very wealthy and powerful man,” she began.
“There were two daughters. Isa was the oldest, strong-willed, independent with a mind of her own, unusual for a young girl of that time. She was his favorite and perhaps much like the son he had always hoped for.
“She was well educated by private tutors,” she continued. “And the Duke took her with him on his travels, for he had many estates and holdings in both Normandy and Britain. But to tell you about her, I must also tell you about him.” She looked over at James.
“There is cognac in the cabinet,” she angled her head toward a fine old wood cabinet across the room.
“James.” She repeated his name with a look that lingered on him.
“Chocolate and cognac. You must pour it. My hands shake and I would not want to spill it.”
He opened the cabinet and found the decanter, along with a half-dozen small tumblers. His expression was doubtful at the wisdom of the cognac, a dark brow angling up.
Vilette laughed. “You are like him, and the same name—James,” she said with a knowing look.
“Always looking out for others—the protector, guardian, young James of Montfort.”
“You said there were no sons,” Kris reminded her.
“No true sons, but a bastard born to a father who could not acknowledge him, and a debt paid with the favor by another, the Duke of Montfort, who took him in spite of his bastard birth. And from the moment the Duke brought young James into the family, their lives were all changed.” Vilette motioned to James to pour the cognac.
“My daughter-in-law does not approve,” she said with wink. “I am an old woman. What is the worst that could happen? That I might die?” she laughed again, and gestured to the tumbler.
James poured a small amount and her eyes sharpened. He poured another half inch in the glass. She patted his hand.
“How were their lives changed?” Kris asked, forced to wait for an answer as Vilette smiled with obvious pleasure as she took a sip, eyes closed for a few moments. Then they opened and her gaze was sharp.
“Isa was just a child when he was brought to live with them. He was older by a few years, and very handsome,” she added, with a wink at James.
“And aware of his lowly status. Therefore, his fate was whatever he made of himself, and the opportunities given him.”
“Opportunities?”
“He was educated at the university at Notre Dame.”
“A priest?” Kris asked with surprise.
It wasn't uncommon. Throughout history offspring of noble families, usually second sons, devoted themselves to the Church. William the Conqueror's brother, Bishop Odo, had risen through the Church and founded the abbey at Mont St. Michel. Other titled families of Europe, including royalty, were filled with accounts of those who had given their lives to the Catholic Church, including women who became patrons of a particular church and devoted their lives to that calling. But what little she knew about Isa Raveneau didn't mesh with a life of devotion to the Church.
Vilette shook her head. “Not a priest. He was given a commission. It is there in the images she stitched into the tapestry,” she explained. “A knighthood.”
“But how was that possible, considering...?”
“That he was a bastard?” Vilette finished the question.
“It was purchased by his natural father?” James took a guess, causing both women to look over at him.
“It would have been a way of getting rid of him, without the guilt.” He added, “Catholic school—Sister Margaret was an authority on medieval history.”
“Just so,” Vilette replied. “It is said that the commission of knighthood was provided by his natural father, and James was sent to Spain with many others, including two sons of a man called St. Clair on one of the last Crusades to Jerusalem in 1345.”
“They were sent to take the heart of Robert the Bruce to Jerusalem after his death.” James commented with a look from Kris.
“A failed journey that cost many lives, including the two sons of St. Clair,” Vilette added.
St. Clair, or as history along with several books and a well-known film came to know them, the Sinclairs of Roslyn, near Edinburgh.
“1345,” Kris said thoughtfully, remembering studies of the Crusades from college. “Isa Raveneau would have been a young woman then.”
Vilette nodded. “A young woman grown, and very wealthy through both her father's and her mother's families.”
Kris took out the printouts she'd made along with the ones Diana Jodion had provided. She studied the color images of the tapestry.
She was familiar with ambiguities in famous pieces of artwork. That had been part of her early studies in theology. The Mona Lisa came to mind, along with several others from the Renaissance period—images within images, or images that appeared to be one thing but were in fact another, religious images wrapped in alabaster and marble that conveyed an altogether different meaning.
“What about this image?” she pointed out, handing it to Vilette. “This appears to be a woman in knight's armor.”
Vilette nodded. “So you see, and you understand, I think.”
Images within images, or those that appeared to be one thing but were another? A young woman dressed in knight's armor; headstrong, stubborn. Kris realized the only possibility for what she was looking at.
“Isa and James were lovers,” Vilette explained. “But a marriage would not have been accepted by her father. Wealth and titles are power, and he arranged her marriage to another, and sent James away to Spain.”
That was what she was looking at—strength and courage in the expression of the young woman astride the horse. The tapestry was like a series of photographs of a defiant young woman. The question was, what was the truth? Or was the image just the willful imagination of a young woman determined to defy her father. Some things never changed, no matter what century they were in.
“What about the Raveneau name?”
“Her mother's name,” Vilette nodded. “She took her name out of anger when James was sent away. The tapestry was her way of telling the world that she defied her father.”
Did it also explain the reason she lived out most of her life at the abbey once she turned her back on her own family?
Vilette took another sip of cognac. She smiled. “You see the image of a rebellious young woman, like a book or the part in a film, acting out her anger, but it is far more. You see here, this scene.” She pointed to the one with the arbor and the images of the young man and woman.
“You think it is a simple garden scene!” she said emphatically. “And then the young woman kneeling and praying? But no! They spoke vows even though there was no priest to bless them before he was sent to Spain with the others. She defied both her father and the church.”
And the panel with the young woman in knight's armor came after. Not just rebellion against her father, but something more?
“The knights who went there never reached Jerusalem,” Vilette continued. “It is well known that all but a few perished in Spain.” She looked over at James.
“He was taken prisoner there with others, to be ransomed for gold, or left to die.”
Diana Jodion had spoken of it—a story within a story. A young woman of great wealth who rebelled against her father and took her mother's family name, then lived out the rest of her life in seclusion at a remote abbey?
But that wasn't all of it. There was more, in that panel with Isa Raveneau in knight's armor.
“She went after him?”
It was the sort of thing written about in romance novels that they published. But was it real?
Vilette nodded. “She had the means and the ability, and a companion. Supposedly he was a distant cousin of James' who had gone with him to Spain. He was loyal to James, a Scot,” she turned and looked over at James Morgan.
“He escaped and brought word to Isa, and then returned with her to Spain to free him.”
“She bought his freedom?”
Again Vilette nodded. “According to the story my grandmother told, a very dangerous enterprise.” The old woman sat back, the tumbler now empty.
She was tired. It showed in the lines on her face.
“When they returned from Spain, Isa took him to the Abbey Mont St. Michel. The wounds he had received in Spain had not healed. They had a little time together there at the abbey.” She was silent for a long time, her expression sad.
“When he died, she was determined that he would be buried in his own land, in spite of the father who would never claim him, and so she took him home.”
“To Scotland,” James commented.
“Just so.”
“But she returned to the abbey,” Kris added what was known about the history of the tapestry.
Vilette nodded. “Yes, and became a patron out of gratitude for the care they were given by the monks when they returned from Spain. It was there her only child was born, his child.” She pointed to the printouts. “My ancestor.”
“It is all there,” she continued. “In the tapestry—her story, and his.”
This was what Cate had learned after finding that photograph. A lost tapestry, history captured in a black-and-white photograph in those last desperate days of World War II.
“I was told there's a secret in the tapestry.”
Beyond the historic value of the tapestry as an archive, like the Bayeaux tapestry, there was nothing she had told them that was worth the lives of two people. There had to be more. Obviously, Cate had thought so.
Those blue eyes narrowed on her. “Myths, legends, secrets—so many questions, like your friend.”
“Is there a secret?” Kris asked.
Vilette smiled. “It is there in the tapestry, stitched into the fabric, the secret brought back from Spain all those years ago.” That blue gaze watched her.
“What do you believe?” She smiled faintly. “Do you believe in God?”
A question that she'd asked herself many times over the past few years. James Morgan had asked her the same question.
“I don't know,” Kris answered truthfully. “I did, once.” She exchanged a look with him. The truth was she had turned her back on it when Mark died. She felt betrayed by everything she had once believed, by the God she had believed in.
“But not now?” Vilette asked. “Is it not possible that you were sent here when your friend could not return?”
“Sent?” Kris replied. “You talking about destiny? Divine providence?”
“The path you were chosen to follow,” the old woman suggested, sitting back in her chair.
“For your friend, for yourself.” The sharp blue eyes were watchful.
“I am an old woman. I do not have much time left,” she said with a thoughtful expression.
“My son, the others, they do not believe what I know. They think it is only the ramblings of a foolish old woman.” She leaned forward. “You must ask yourself—what do you believe.”
She wanted to believe, all of it, but the fact was the print-outs only showed a portion of the tapestry. Nothing that she'd seen indicated anything about a secret.
“Bring me the box on the table.” Vilette gestured to a small round table beside the hearth. A porcelain box sat beside a vase with a bouquet of dried flowers. It was the size of a small jewelry case, the lid hand-painted with red roses, and looked very old. James handed it to Vilette.
“This was given to me by my grandmother. It is all that I have left of her, but you will see.”
Vilette opened the box, talking to herself in French, impatiently pushing aside several newspaper clippings, one with a photograph of a beautiful young woman, folded letters from a different time when people still wrote letters, and notes yellowed around the edges, the sort of things collected over a lifetime and four husbands, not to mention a career in film, including those early 'art films.' She finally found what she was looking for.
She took Kris’s hand and placed a small medallion in her palm. It was the size of a coin and appeared to be very old, the edges worn smooth. An image was embossed in the soft metal that might have been gold.
“I was going to give it to your friend when she returned,” Vilette explained.
Kris stared at the embossed image on the pendant. It was identical to the images that had been painstakingly hand-stitched into the tapestry, a trinity knot wrapped around a Scottish thistle.
“It has been passed down for many generations,” Vilette said in a soft voice. “James gave it to her. It was all he had from his father. And now, I give it to you.”
There was a sound as the garden room door opened and Celine Martel returned.
“Maman, it is late,” she scolded. “And it is time for your medications.” Vilette frowned.
“Bah! Medication to wake me up, medication to help me sleep, medication to keep me alive. Always it is so.” Vilette winked at them both. “But I prefer the chocolate and cognac.” She laid a hand over Kris’s hand.
“You will tell Isa's story so that it is not lost,” she whispered. Then as her daughter-in-law persisted, she smiled at Kris.
“Did I tell you that I was an actress? In Paris, before the war. Such a wonderful time. So many handsome young men.” And then, “You must come again and we will have pastries from Monsieur Dumont.” A thin hand waved back at them as Celine Martel wheeled her from the garden room.
“Do you believe her?” James asked, as they left the house in Lisieux, the lights of the small enclave amid those infamous hedgerows from a century earlier glistening through the misty rain.
Did she? Or was it all a product of a vivid imagination? Another role Vilette was playing for those last moments in the spotlight? And what about the pendant?
“It doesn't matter what I believe.” Her fingers brushed the cool metal of the medallion in her pocket as they returned to the rental car.
