Oliver and Elizabetta arrived at the convent in a state of apparent bliss, as if the previous night’s adventures were but habitual and mundane fare. They had taken a room at a small, unremarkable hotel to which the taxi they flagged at the police station had taken them. By the dull light from the street lamp outside their window, seeping in at the edges of the inadequate drapes, Oliver saw the persistent tension in Elizabetta’s eyes. With his own nerves also frayed, neither of them could find any good reason not to seek comfort in each other’s embrace. They both understood that the day’s extraordinary events were a clear notice that some pleasures should be enjoyed at once.
But bliss can only go so far. The long awaited pleasures of the night were sadly replaced by gnawing anxiety in the morning. After a few minutes alone at the monastery reality began to set in. Abelard was nowhere to be seen. It was almost nine on a sombre day and there were no more feeble excuses they could contrive to reasonably explain Abelard’s absence; he overslept; he stopped for breakfast to feed his notorious appetite; he was still hiding. The gunshots they had heard finally intruded to turn thin explanations into worrying epilogues. But they waited. They did not even dare to descend into the small cells under the convent to admire the celebrated works of Fra Angelico. By 10:00 they had all but given up hope and were heading for the exit. They were walking slowly down the east cloister gallery when they crossed a hooded monk and fell into the annoying repetitive right-hop left-hop, right-hop left-hop, right-hop dance impatient people fall into when they try to get by each other. They had seen him loitering in the cloister for the better part of the last hour. He may have been there when they arrived but had gone unnoticed. At the fifth unsuccessful attempt to get by two muscled arms shot from the extra wide sleeves and seized Oliver in an iron grip. Instinctively Oliver folded his arms inwards to break free against the weak hold of the thumbs and then raised both arms to deliver a blow to his assailant’s shoulders.
“Mercy, please have mercy,” a very familiar voice pleaded before Oliver could bring down his clenched fists. “You wouldn’t strike a man of the cloth, would you,” the monk continued in Abelard’s easily recognizable voice. It didn’t for a moment occur to Abelard that Oliver might take his delay in revealing himself as an unfortunate, ill-considered practical joke until he noticed the bulging jaw bones and snarly lips of an obviously agitated Oliver. He took care to hastily add, “I needed to make sure you were not followed.” That seemed to satisfy Oliver, leaving him to master his outrage.
With a shake of his head Abelard threw back the cowl to reveal a mud caked face with overnight stubble clearly visible where the encrusted dirt had already fallen away. Long embraces, tears and joy followed. Two of their pursuers had located Abelard and had made the mistake of trying to shoot him in the darkness. They quickly emptied their weapons and before they had time to put in fresh clips, Abelard was upon them with his blade. They did not have a chance. He then made ready to spend the night in the wood, planning to make his way to the rendezvous at daybreak. The small crooked crosses he retrieved from around the dead men’s necks confirmed his earlier suspicions that Milly would eventually find it in his interest to work with the Donatello.
His clothes were dirty and torn in several places and he worried about attracting the wrong attention. Just then the horseshoe that seemed to have been permanently lodged up his backside produced a lone monk at the edge of the wood hurrying along the street. Having no quarrel with this hapless servant of the Lord, Abelard asked him politely if he might not borrow his robes for a matter of some urgency. True, intimidation may have played a small role in the monk’s quick and positive response; he did not hide the already bloodied knife and, in the event their meeting would not fall within the confidentiality conventions such meetings between ecclesiastics and lay persons were expected to, he had also covered his face with a cotton scrap torn from his own shirt. As it was late, with no hotel to which to return and too dark to take his bearings, Abelard donned the habit and bedded down in the wood for the night, the generous monk quietly shivering beside him, with warmth but a forlorn hope. At daybreak he reclaimed the rope belt conveniently used to bind the monk and asked him to solemnly promise not to move for another 20 minutes. He set off on foot to the rendezvous. Since monks were known to walk everywhere he reckoned that hailing a cab would arouse suspicion. He moved briskly in the general direction of historic Florence and arrived at the convent less than two hours later, well before Oliver and Elizabetta.
Their baggage was still at the hotel but they thought it safer not to go there. They had no clothes, no car and nowhere to go for shelter. Elizabetta’s mother lived in Florence. They would go there to plan their next move. Her lodging was only a few streets from the convent. They stopped at a café, a little before her building, and huddled in the doorway to monitor traffic in the event her apartment was being watched.
Mother, her sometimes intolerant mother, was in Tunisia, willing to cavort with foreigners as the small necessary price to keep her bones warm. But something was wrong. As Elizabetta turned the key to the apartment, the sound of lock tumblers falling in place seemed to be everywhere. The stairwell door behind them was being slowly pushed open. Elizabetta, wary not to attract attention, slowly twisted her head towards the noise, only to see Abelard standing next to a tall, stocky stranger, wearing a long grey coat with what seemed to be an out of place cherry stain below the neck. Abelard was not constrained by inexperience. He reacted instantly and swiftly. The gunman had but a very short second to peer through the open door before Abelard was upon him. He was already dead by the time Elizabetta saw him falling slowly to his knees and then forward onto his face, the thick carpet muffling the sound as his heavy weapon hit the floor. Abelard, impassive as ever, the bloody knife firmly in his fist, did not give the body a second glance.
"No one could possibly have heard," Abelard said, looking carefully, professionally along both ends of the corridor, ignoring Elizabetta’s evident distress, "let’s go inside. It will be best if someone else finds the body. When the police show up, we saw and heard nothing." They entered, closed and bolted the door, Abelard moving to look out the window and Elizabetta swiftly to the toilet for a quick retch.
Listening to Abelard relate his sordid stories during therapy was one thing. It was unpleasant, but like watching a horror film. The feelings of intense fear, revulsion, terror were all momentary, fading with the session. But this was real. Elizabetta had just watched Abelard swiftly, efficiently and with a remarkable sang-froid, butcher another human being. He operated on remembered experience, driven entirely by ruthless necessity. He revealed no emotion as he ushered them into the apartment, already planning their story for the authorities. He was right, of course, in everything he had done. He had saved their lives, yet it was to no avail for Elizabetta’s emotional mind, the one she used to assess her personal experiences. No matter how much she reasoned there was just not enough logic in the world to wash away the gruesome scene. She took solace in recalling that Abelard was, of his own admission, now repelled by such violence. Although, he could have fooled her. Instinct.
"We cannot stay here very much longer," he said. "They will soon know," he added, dangling the small crooked cross from his fingers.
"My mother also has a house in Lucca, about 70 kilometres west of here," Elizabetta told him in an unnaturally frail voice. "We will be safe there," she said, sounding more of a question than a statement of fact.
"We should leave immediately," Abelard said, "I didn't see anyone else watching this building but it will not be very long before they find their friend," he said, pointing to the door. His swift reaction apparently owed as much to habit as to having first spotted the assassin in the shadows by the staircase doorway in the building lobby.
From the bedroom Elizabetta emerged waving a small plastic card. Her mother kept a spare for emergencies and Elizabetta was sure she wouldn’t mind if it was her daughter’s emergency. They needed clothes and a car. Elizabetta first changed into the b
est fitting garments she could find. Her mother being a bit heavier and shorter, Elizabetta’s hands stuck far out of the sleeves and her waistline disappeared in the excess cloth billowing about her. She then left to shop for everyone. It would have been too dangerous for all three to go out together. She returned with clothes for all and the keys to a rented car. They were ready to head for Lucca and, ultimately, France where they were to connect with Felicity.
The rains had made everything dank and cold, leaving a swampy odour clinging to their clothes. The inside of the car had the same musty smell. They would use the Lucca house to plan and make their next moves. On the road, mulling over their predicament, Abelard had developed a plan which involved lying to his friends, normally not a problem but leaving him this time with a baffling discomfort, albeit, mild.
Oliver had a while back said something, which now set Abelard thinking and scheming. It seems he had kept in regular contact with an old school buddy who now lived in France. Martin Dumouchel had been a very successful investment banker and very quickly made a fortune and even more quickly tired of the constant stress that was the investment banker’s lot. He had taken his winnings and invested in a small exclusive hotel with storied restaurant in the Perigord region of France. Abelard’s curiosity had gotten the better of him on a previous trip to the region and he couldn’t help a short detour to look at Martin’s estate. He at once realized that he already knew the place quite well. Abelard would set his strategy in motion when they got to Lucca.
The house was just off the Piazza San Martino in the old university town. Some of the buildings were familiar to Abelard, who remembers visiting Lucca while in the service of Florence, the two cities being often in dispute. Driving by the church of San Martino Abelard looked wistfully out the window at the Romanesque facade, its superposed galleries, its columns carved with chimerical animal forms. He wondered if they couldn't stop by in the morning to see the famous Volto Santo with Nicodemus' supposedly accurate reproduction of Christ's features.
"Art, my dear, glorious art is all that motivates me. Nothing more," he assured his therapist. Not quite ‘nothing more’. There was apparently another matter. The unrecognizable but by now familiar tune Abelard began humming alerted everyone that he had something delicate to bring up.
“I have been keeping something from you,” he began, standing at the kitchen table like a lecturer before his students. “Very recently, perhaps from all the excitement, some memories have been coming back to me. They have to do with the little cross which the Malvue boys took from me in the cave. It is part of a very much larger treasure, the lost loot of King John the Good also known as John the Stupid, which is buried in Gascony. I now recollect…”
“Hold on,” Oliver broke in, “this sounds suspiciously like the treasure one Abelard de Buch, Gascon noblemen, warrior and mercenary, tried to convince me actually existed. I’m not sure this is a good time to have a relapse Abelard.”
“Elizabetta,” he decided to try another tack, “please tell our friend here that while the totality of my memories may be nonsense, there are almost certainly bits and pieces that are real. It’s only that they are difficult to identify.”
“He’s right about that my dear Oliver,” she said with great tenderness and not without a little apprehension.
“Alright, tell us more,” scepticism larding Oliver’s tone.
“I don’t recall ever actually touching it, but I do remember studying a map, which for inexplicable reasons is engraved in my mind,” he lied, in a flutter free voice, looking them directly in the eyes.
“How did you come by this potentially very beneficial drawing?”
“I just don’t remember. It’s a complete blank.”
“So,” Oliver interrupted, “let me see if I understand. “You are serendipitously in the possession of a very valuable document, the map to a great treasure buried somewhere in Gascony. You have memorized the map but have never actually seen the stash. Did I get this about right?” Oliver’s voice now tinged with some sarcasm.
“Oliver, Abelard” Elizabetta piped in, looking up from the laptop with which she had been busy, is this the cross? She turned the screen towards them and there it was under the heading, Lost Medieval Treasures.
“That’s it,” Abelard responded unable to hide his glee, smug satisfaction writ large in his eyes.
“So, what does that prove? Only that there is, or was, a famous little jewelled cross somewhere on this planet.” Oliver remained obstinate. “So what is it you want us to do, supposing we were willing to give you more credit than we had a moment ago?”
“Right, that’s all I was looking for, some credibility. I would need just a little more trust from you, no more than the little bit you now have in my map. Getting to the treasure will not be easy. I mean it would be really easy except for a small obstacle, which is why I would need some financing. And I can assure you it would be incredibly low risk for the provider of such finance.”
“Let me guess, you want me to introduce you to Martin Dumouchel,” mild disdain again creeping in to taint his words. Abelard felt the edge to Oliver’s voice but remained patient.
“That is all I want. Only an introduction. I will put my business case directly to him. I’ve dealt with enough investment bankers to know they are not naïve. With them it’s not so much the story by itself that is important, although it must have complete credibility, but the risks, clearly and fully enunciated, they would have to take relative to the rewards they might earn. I’m sure he will make his decision based on those considerations alone. You will be entirely absolved from any responsibility. That is what you want isn’t it?” This last question was meant to wound and it did. Oliver did not immediately answer. He withdrew into his thoughts.
“One last question,” he finally said. “What is this obstacle you refer to?”
“The place where the treasure is buried has recently been developed and is covered by a suburban community. I took a quick trip there last year and pinpointed the spot, which has a house right on top.”
“I suppose the house is inhabited.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“What do you propose?”
“That we buy that house as well as the eight houses surrounding it so that the noise and vibration of our digging will not be detected.”
“That’s going to be expensive.”
“Yes, about three to four million euros, all in.”
“I’d be surprised that Martin would go for that.”
“I doubt Mr. Dumouchel would care about the three to four million as such. In his game he cares mainly about potential gains versus losses and whether he is happy with the spread. There are two possible outcomes: we find the treasure and he makes fabulous returns from his percentage; or we find nothing and he loses up to 20% of his investment, which is what I reckon we will have to pay as a premium above and beyond the market value of the houses in order to acquire them all.”
“Hmm, what do you think, Elizabetta?”
“It’s worth a try. But I’m not optimistic. We know Abelard and we are still sceptical because he might just be confusing wishful thinking with facts. No one has ever actually seen this cross, yes even if we know it exists, so we are still relying mainly on the word of one man with, and I’m sorry to have to say this, amnesia and delusional memories. Abelard will have to have something more substantial to pull out of his hat when he sees Mr. Dumouchel. So, what’s the worst that can happen? He’ll say no and we will have had a nice trip. Let’s go for it.”
“Great,” Abelard said, “now we must hurry to meet Felicity.”
*