Heart of Gold (34 page)

'Let's go and see Maurice.'

Maurice took some time to answer their banging at
the door. When he did, he listened to their request
uneasily, shifting from one foot to the other. 'No,' he said
when Aubrey finished. 'I cannot allow it.'

'Come now, old chap,' George said. 'Just one brick. It
won't hurt.'

'You don't know this place like I do.' He beat at his
chest with the flat of one hand, to emphasise his point.
'There's been strange smells and sounds coming from
Professor Castillon's rooms after I took that last brick. I
had to board up the door, but that didn't stop the whimpering.'
He looked over his shoulder. 'The place wasn't
happy.'

'We understand,' Aubrey said. 'But this is important.'

'So you say. But so is this place, for me, even if most
people have forgotten it.' He shook his head. 'I wish you
luck.'

He closed the heavy door. The sound of a bolt sliding
home confirmed that he wasn't interested in further
discussion.

Aubrey shrugged. 'A dead end, I fear.'

'Surely not, old man,' George protested. 'A bit of
magic, get this door unbolted, then we can tie him up
and choose a brick. Simple.'

'I think not. Apart from the rights and wrongs of such
action, I'm not sure old Maurice is as helpless as he
looks.' He slapped the wall. 'He's been in this place for a
long time. If magic soaked into the bricks, I wonder what
Maurice has absorbed?'

'Then how are we going to find the Heart of Gold?'
Caroline asked.

Aubrey patted his pocket. 'These fragments have lost
most of their potency, but if we can get somewhere
close to the Heart, they might show us exactly where
it is.'

George brightened. 'Don't forget the wolf. If we hear
it again tonight, I'm sure we can track it down, which
might bring us near enough.'

'Good idea.' Aubrey hummed a little. 'Until then, let's
do some work for Bertie. He's asked me to look at the
Church of the Innocents.'

'Really?' Caroline tilted her head. 'Are you sure that's
the most pressing item on your list?'

'Hardly. But it will give us an excuse to move through
the city. Lacking any better method, we might simply be
fortunate and blunder close to the Heart of Gold. I'll feel
the brick fragments stirring if we do.'

L
UTETIA WAS DOING ITS BEST TO APPEAR NORMAL, BUT ITS
efforts seemed tired and desultory. Even the colours on
the striped awnings of the cafés were muted and dull.
Aubrey thought the scent of corruption was stronger,
rising from the stones beneath their feet. As they went,
he noted more blocked drains and eruptions of rubbish,
almost as if the city were trying to purge itself.

The doomsayers had grown beyond print. While the
crude posters still proliferated, street corners were now
hosting wild-eyed speechmakers. From atop wooden
fruit boxes, each harangued wide-eyed passers-by with a
different horror waiting in store for Lutetia: plague, rains
of blood, famine, flood and – Aubrey's worst nightmare –
hosts of serpents.

They crossed the Meron Bridge, heading toward the
Bankside district. Nothing was moving on the river.
Boats, large and small, were mired in the thick, grey slop
that it had become.

Aubrey stepped back from craning over the bridge,
trying to get a better view of the expanse of the river.
A bicycle bell rang. 'Look out, old man!' George cried
and grabbed his arm, saving him from being run over.

The bicycle rattled to a stop. It was an ancient machine
with a cloth-covered basket hanging from the handlebars.
It was ridden by a small boy, barely large enough
to reach the pedals and certainly too small to remain on
the seat. He was dirty-faced and wore a sock hat that had
once been red.

He frowned at Aubrey, studying his every feature, then
– obviously satisfied he had the right person – dug in the
pocket of his ragged trousers. Aubrey noticed he wore
wooden shoes.

The urchin thrust a scrap of paper into Aubrey's
hand and then mounted the bicycle. He wobbled off,
picking up speed and disappearing into the streets of
Bankside.

'It's from von Stralick,' Aubrey said after he'd scanned
the paper. 'He says to meet him at the intersection of
Kellerman Street and the road to Amelie at noon.'

'As if we're at his beck and call,' George muttered.

'He says he may have news of the artefact we're
seeking.'

I
T TOOK SOME TIME TO FIND THE
C
HURCH OF THE
Innocents. They'd twice circled the massive collection of
Gothic buildings that was the Ministry for Taxation
before George called a stop. 'You said it was around here,
old man. Where?'

'Bertie said it was near the Ministry of Taxation, that
was all. I think he assumed I'd visited it.'

'I hope it hasn't disappeared like the Revolutionary
Monument.'

'If it had, we'd see it boarded up, wouldn't we?'

Caroline reached into her bag with a look of exasperation.'
I thought you knew where you were going. Here.'

She handed him a slim, green-bound book. '
The Green
Guide to Lutetia for Visitors
,' he read.

'Mother helped to write some of the sections. It's very
good.'

'Naturally.'

Aubrey leafed to the appropriate page after finding
the Church of the Innocents in the index. He lifted
his head and stared at the Ministry of Taxation. 'It's
in there.'

George snorted. 'A church in a government complex?'

'It says that this conglomeration began as a palace.
King Pepin built the church as part of it. The complex
grew over the years and swallowed the church.'

'Is it open to the public?' Caroline asked.

'It's supposed to be.' Aubrey eyed the guards standing
at the iron gate leading into the depths of the bureaucracy.'
But with the unrest . . . Let's see.'

The guards were surly when Aubrey and George
approached, but brightened when they realised there was
a beautiful young woman with them. Then they made a
great show of allowing them in and even had a heated
argument over who was going to accompany them
through the maze of buildings.

The Church of the Innocents was dwarfed by the
surrounding offices. It was a blocky, solid stone construction,
more modest than Aubrey would have expected for
a king's private place of worship. When he drew near he
saw its age – thick walls, narrow windows, and a squat
belltower. It was small, but it still had the traditional
cross-shaped layout. When they entered the still, cool
interior, they found they were alone, apart from a young
priest. He pointed the way to the crypt.

Aubrey stood under a lantern that hung from the low
ceiling. The crypt stretched into the shadowy distance,
full not just with the tombs of kings, but the families of
the monarchs – sons, daughters, wives, brothers, sisters,
cousins.

The crypt was well-tended, with no cobwebs or dust.
It had a dry, almost herbal smell, quite unlike the damp
mustiness Aubrey usually associated with underground
chambers.

The tombs were simple marble boxes, with lids carved
into effigies of the deceased. The men were all clad in
armour, with a sword resting on their chests, often with
a shield bearing the owner's coat of arms. The women
were dressed in robes of richness that even the years
could not obscure.

Aubrey was struck by the simplicity of the tombs.
These weren't gaudy monuments to the pride of the
living. They were dignified, solemn resting places. No
statues, pillars, angels or prophets to watch over the dead.
They were not needed.

It was a serene place and Aubrey felt at ease. Here,
death was undeniable, thus unremarkable. It was the
natural closing of a life – a world away from the horror
that the Soul Stealer wrought.

'What are we looking for, old man?' George asked in a
low voice.

Aubrey held Bertie's letter up to the light. 'Prince
Christian's tomb, if it exists. He was some sort of cousin
to Stephen III. I remember reading about him.'

'Cousin,' Caroline murmured. 'Isn't that a euphemism
for "illegitimate child"?'

'Ah, Bertie hasn't made that clear,' Aubrey said. 'But
he's asked us to look for special features on the tomb.'

'Special features,' George said. 'That's a bit mysterious,
isn't it?'

'The letter was rather guarded.'
Which probably means
Bertie thinks this matter is important
, Aubrey thought.

They separated. Aubrey moved along the left-hand
wall. In places, tombs had been set into the stone,
hollowed-out cavities holding the coffins. Names were
inscribed on brass plaques or carved on the sides of the
tombs. The plaques were bright and free of verdigris, a
further sign of the care that had been taken by the
guardian priests.

'I've found him.' Caroline's voice came clear and steadfast
from the far corner of the crypt.

The effigy on top of the tomb was worn and indistinct,
but it was still recognisable as a warrior in chain
mail, long sword by his side, feet crossed and resting
against a small chest. If it weren't for the brass plaque, the
tomb would have been indistinguishable from the others
in this oldest part of the crypt.

'Prince Christian,' George read. He scratched his
cheek. 'He doesn't look like Prince Albert. Are you sure
he's a relative?'

'It'd be difficult for him to look like anyone, with
the features worn like that,' Aubrey said. 'Bertie says that
his research insists that this Prince Christian is his direct
ancestor.'

'And he went mad?'

Aubrey winced. 'I wouldn't put it as bluntly as that, but
he was reputed to be feebleminded, or prone to irrational
rages, or both. Bertie says that Christian was locked away
in a tower when he was only twenty-two, at a monastery
in Fremont. Died there a forgotten man, apparently.'

'At the age of ninety-four,' Caroline pointed out. 'A
respectable age for those times.'

'For any time.' Aubrey squinted at the plaque. 'Ninetyfour?
All the books say he died not long after being
locked up. Hmm.'

'He would have seen so much, living for ninety years
in the fourteenth century,' George said. 'Well, he would
have if he hadn't spent most of it locked up.'

'True. Wars, invasions, the Plague. His father defeated
us, you know, at the Battle of Ballan. Took most of our
Gallian territories before he was killed the next year at
the siege of Tigre.'

Caroline made a peculiar noise.

'What is it?' Aubrey asked her. 'Are you all right?'

She didn't answer the question. 'Who succeeded
Stephen III?'

Aubrey rummaged his memory. 'His son, I think.
Paul II.'

'Who died soon after, mysteriously.'

Aubrey shrugged. 'Well, the only mysterious thing
about it was the exact nature of the poison. And who
among the hundreds of potential suspects was the actual
killer. He was a bad king.'

'So who succeeded him?'

Aubrey tried to remember. The fourteenth century
was a particularly muddy time in Gallia, with a great deal
of back-stabbing, false alliances and betrayals.
Like most of
Gallian history
, he thought,
only more so
.

'One of his brothers,' George said. 'Theodore. That's
the one.' He caught Aubrey's look. 'I haven't been wasting
my time, you know. I picked up a few things while
traipsing around those churches. Quite interesting, all this
stuff.'

'Theodore,' Caroline repeated. 'The same Theodore
who died in the Battle of St Hugo?'

'Yes,' George said.

Aubrey was intrigued. Caroline's eyes were bright and
excited in the lantern light.

'All of this was in the time they called the Year of the
Four Kings, wasn't it?'

'You seem to know your history pretty well,' George
said.

'History is important,' she said.

'The Year of Four Kings ended when Stephen's
brother Armand took the throne, uniting the insanely
arguing family factions,' Aubrey put in, not wanting to be
left out. 'He ruled for ten years, and spent most of it
getting soundly beaten by Albion but not dying in the
process, unlike many of his predecessors.'