Down the hall, a troop of guards marched past. Rachel stared in despair at the second in line. Gray, hands bound behind his back, trudged past. He glanced into her cell. Spotting her, his eyes widened in surprise. He tripped a step.
“Rachel…”
Gray was shoved forward by Raoul, who leered into the cell and held up something on a chain as he passed.
A gold key.
Despair settled completely over Rachel.
Nothing now stood between the Court and the treasure at Avignon. After centuries of manipulation and machination, the Dragon Court had won.
It was over.
3:12 A.M.
AVIGNON, FRANCE
KAT DID not like any of this. There were too many civilians around. She marched up the steps toward the main entrance to the Pope’s Palace. There was a flow of people into and out of the gateway.
“It’s a tradition to hold the play inside the palace,” Vigor said. “Last year, they did Shakespeare’s The Life and Death of King John. This year it’s a four-hour production of Hamlet. The play and party lasts well into the morning. They hold it in the Courtyard of Honor.” He pointed ahead.
They fought their way through a group of German tourists exiting the palace and crossed through the arched entry. Coming from ahead, voices echoed off the stone wall in a mix of languages.
“It will be hard to conduct a thorough search with all these people,” Kat said with a frown.
Vigor nodded as a snare-beat of thunder rumbled across the sky.
Laughter and clapping echoed.
“The play should be nearly over,” Vigor said.
The long gateway ended at an open-air courtyard. It was dark, except for the large stage on the far side, framed by curtains and decorated like the throne room to a great castle. The backdrop was in fact the very wall of the far courtyard. To either side rose lighting towers, casting spots upon the actors, and towering speakers.
A crowd gathered below the stage in seats or sprawled on blankets on the stone floor. From the stage, a few figures stood amid a pile of bodies. An actor spoke in French, but Kat was fluent.
“I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!”
Kat recognized one of the last lines of Hamlet. The play was indeed rounding toward the end.
Vigor drew her to the side. “The courtyard here divides two different sections of the palace—the new and the old. The back wall and the one to the left are a part of the Palais Vieux, the old palace. Where we stand and to the right is the Palais Neuf, the section built later.”
Kat leaned closer to Vigor. “Where do we begin?”
Vigor pointed to the older section. “There is a mysterious story connected to the Pope’s Palace. Many historians of the time report that at dawn on September 20, 1348, a great column of fire was seen above the old section of the palace. It was noted by the entire town. Many of the superstitious believed the flame heralded the Great Plague, the Black Death, which started about the same time. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was some manifestation of the Meissner field, a flux of energy being released when whatever secret was sealed here? The appearance of the flame might mark the exact date the treasure was buried.”
Kat nodded. It was something to follow.
“I pulled down a detailed map from the Internet,” Vigor said. “There’s an entrance into the old palace near the Gate of Our Lady. One seldom used.”
Vigor led the way to the left. An archway opened. They ducked inside as a great peal of lightning split the sky overhead. Thunder boomed. The actor on the stage stopped in mid-soliloquy. Nervous laughter tinkled through the audience. The storm might end the play early.
Vigor motioned to a stout door off to the side.
Kat dropped and set to work with her lockpicks, while Vigor shielded her work with his body. It did not take long to free the latch. Kat clicked it open.
Another flash of lightning drew Kat’s eye back to the courtyard. Thunder cracked and the skies opened. Rain fell heavily from the low clouds. Cries and cheers erupted from the audience. A mass exodus began.
Kat shouldered open the door, held it for Vigor, then closed it behind them.
It bumped closed with a solid snap of the latch. Kat relocked it.
“Do we have to be worried about security?” she asked.
“Sadly, no. As you’ll see, there’s nothing really to steal. Vandalism is the greater concern. There might be a night watchman. So we should be cautious.”
Nodding, Kat kept her flashlight off. Enough light filtered through the high windows to illuminate a ramp leading up toward the next level of the castle.
Vigor led the way up. “The private apartments of the pope lie in the Tower of Angels. The rooms were always the most secured area of the palace. If something was hidden, we should probably wind our way there.”
Kat pulled out a compass and kept it fixed in front of her. A magnetic marker had led them to Alexander’s tomb. It might here, too.
They traversed several rooms and halls. Their footsteps echoed hollowly through the vaulted spaces. Kat now understood the lack of real security. The place was a stone tomb. Denuded of almost any decoration or furniture. There was no evidence of the opulence that must have once frilled the palace. She tried to picture the flow of velvet and fur, the rich tapestries, the lavish banquets, the gilt and the silver. Nothing remained but stone and timbered rafters.
“After the popes left,” Vigor whispered, “the place fell into disrepair. It was ransacked during the French Revolution, serving eventually as a garrison and barracks for Napoleon’s troops. Much of the place was whitewashed and destroyed. Only a few areas still retain some of the original frescoes, such as the papal apartments.”
As Kat walked, she also sensed a strange conformation to the place: halls that ended too abruptly, rooms that seemed oddly small, staircases that dropped to levels without doors. The thickness of walls varied from a few feet to some eighteen feet thick. The palace was a true fortress, but Kat sensed hidden spaces, passages, rooms—features common among medieval castles.
This was confirmed when they entered a room Vigor designated as the treasury. He pointed to four places. “They buried their gold under the floor. In subterranean rooms. It was always rumored that other such vaults were yet to be discovered.”
They crossed other rooms: a large wardrobe, a former library, an empty kitchen whose square walls narrowed down to an octagonal chimney over a central firepit.
Vigor finally led them into the Tower of Angels.
Kat’s compass had not twitched a beat, but she concentrated more fully now. Worry mounted. What if they didn’t find the entrance? What if she failed? Again. The hand holding the compass began to shake. First her failure with Monk and Rachel…