The Tavernier Stones (44 page)

Authors: Stephen Parrish

BOOK: The Tavernier Stones

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With one exception. The tail of the serpent that rested in the Baphomet’s lap was tipped with a small fairy cross. It was so small, John hadn’t even noticed it before. The cross was the only part of the illustration that appeared in the grille windows.

John lowered the sheet of cardboard and extended his free hand toward the old woman. She first looked at the pistol in her right hand, then at the hammer in her left. She gave John the hammer.

John crossed the room, knelt down in front of the wall, and aimed carefully at the marked tile.

He tapped firmly.

The tile shattered. Pieces dropped tinkling to the floor like shards of glass.

Behind the broken tile was a hollow space. John wiggled jagged remnants from the sides of the square opening and brushed away dust and fallen shards.

Inside the space was a clay amphora.

He reached in and pulled it out. The amphora was decorated in bas-relief with the Michelangelo signet. He carried it over to the primitive altar and nudged the goblets and other artifacts aside. Holding the amphora over the stone slab, he allowed himself a moment to relish the heightening anticipation.

Then he let it go.

The pot burst into hundreds of pieces amid a small cloud of rising dust. When the dust cleared, what remained was a pile of clay fragments mixed with some odd-shaped lumps.

John leaned over the pile and blew. As more dust billowed across the slab, some of the lumps began to appear transparent. He blew again. There was no longer any doubt that many of the objects in the pile weren’t made of clay.

He blew once more, as long and hard as he could. The last of the dust dissipated into the room. Remaining on the surface of the crude altar, exposed among jagged splinters of red clay, were dozens of rough and crudely fashioned jewels.

Pfeffer reached the iron gate at the head of a mob that was growing larger and noisier by the minute. People bunched up behind him, crowding the cobbled platform until there was no room left to stand. Some were still in their night clothes. Many carried crowbars, odd pieces of lumber, shotguns with rusted barrels. One fellow wielded a long-handled ax.

Pfeffer tried the gate, although he already knew it was locked. He rattled it in mock frustration, hoping to channel the mob’s restless kinesis into some kind of purposeful action. But the people only milled and grumbled.

Someone finally suggested kicking the gate in.

Someone else argued against that: a church was not a place to break into, he said; they should go and get the priest.

No, came the counterargument: when witches are about, there is no time to lose.

Sarah dreaded what she was about to do. If her timing was the least bit off, the witch woman would shoot them all. As David approached the pagan altar to join John, Sarah followed him. The witch woman kept her distance from the three—and kept her pistol leveled at them.

No one said anything at first. There was nothing brilliant or scintillating in the pile. And the enormous size of several of the stones made them look like fakes.

But Sarah knew better. She had spent enough time with David to be aware that the larger the stone, the larger its facets tended to be, and the less brilliance and dispersion it exhibited per unit surface area.

David picked up the biggest specimen and held it up to the candlelight. “The Great Mogul diamond,” he said simply, as if he were identifying a piece of common calcite. He rotated the enormous stone in the light, showing off its half-egg shape and numerous flat facets.

He set it down and picked up another. “The Great Table.” It was a tapered, rectangular step cut with a truncated corner. Sarah moved slightly so she could look through the thickest part of the table and see one of the candles behind it; if not for diamond’s high index of refraction, the stone in David’s hand might have been a large chunk of pink windowpane.

He plucked fragments of clay out of the pile and brushed his fingers across the remaining stones. Uncut diamonds, especially well-shaped octahedra and glassies, accounted for a large part of the hoard. Many of the rest were irregularly cleaved fragments, unaltered except for their high polish. Some, including point cuts and variations on the old Indian table cut, were fashioned only partially.

David picked up and inspected four rose cuts, then a massive double rose Sarah immediately recognized from one of Tavernier’s drawings.

He plucked out seven moguls altogether, two of which, about 40 carats each, appeared to be a matching set. “The Tears of Venus,” he said with wonder in his voice.

He spied another large stone in the pile and almost dropped the moguls. “The Ahmadabad!” Snatching up a colorless, egg-shaped diamond, he rubbed his thumb across its polygonal facets and pressed a fingertip reverently to the large natural at its pointed end.

Not all the stones were gigantic: David collected a fistful of carbuncles as he sorted specimens. Sarah also recognized Egyptian emeralds, cornflower sapphires, star corundums.

More than a dozen natural baroque pearls, including one that weighed at least 200 grains, were also in the pile. As were amethysts, spinels, jades.

Everyone in the chamber stared at the lost Tavernier stones in numb disbelief. The images simply would not register in Sarah’s brain, and she could only imagine that the others were struggling with a similar reality. Even the witch woman lost her concentration and allowed her pistol to lower until it pointed at the floor.

That’s when Sarah made her move. She reached over to touch the Great Mogul diamond. The woman didn’t object; she just stood and stared. As Sarah retracted her hand from the altar she secretly palmed one of the amphora’s jagged shards and hid it behind her back. While everyone else continued to gawk at the pile, she inched her way over to the spool on the wall.

The old woman awoke from her trance. “Well, my young friends,” she said, “it’s time to step aside. You now have stories to tell your grandchildren.” She leaned toward the altar, her free hand reaching for the stones, and in so doing passed directly under the bell. At the same time she glanced cautiously at Sarah, as if she were reading her mind.

You hesitate, Sarah told herself, and you die. Taking one more quick step toward the spool, she removed the shard from behind her back and swiped at the remaining strands of rope. Then she closed her eyes. She could tell from the noise what subsequently happened: the bell plunged swiftly and unprotestingly onto the woman’s head, knocking her flat to the floor.

But not before she fired off a shot.

THIRTY-FIVE

PFEFFER DECIDED NOT TO wait any longer—the stones might already be fleeing the premises. The mob was in need of a leader. He flashed his badge and said, “This is an emergency. Help me get through this gate.”

No one moved.

He slammed his bulky frame against the barrier. The effort only made its iron bars rattle. Turning to the mob, he spied a hefty man in suspenders and beckoned him forward. Then a pair that could only have been twins, and weight lifters too. A wiry, nervous-looking man with unkempt hair joined them. The five lined up across the front of the gate. After some forward-and-back rocking motions to get themselves in unison, they hurled their shoulders against the iron bars. The gate shook violently but held.

“
Noch mal
,” Pfeffer commanded. “One more time.”

John noticed Sarah’s arm even before Sarah did. Blood had already stained the sleeve of her shirt and was spreading down toward her left wrist.

“Oh, God, what have we done.” He ran over and pressed his palm hard against the wound but knew he would need a bandage to stop the bleeding. He looked around the room. The old woman was lying on the floor. He squatted next to her and ripped off part of her skirt.

David stood watching.

“Do something!” John commanded. “Sarah’s been shot!”

“Calm down,” David said. “It’s superficial.”

“Superficial? Are you crazy? Blood is dripping from her arm!”

“It’s a scratch. A nick. A graze. Don’t you watch Westerns?”

“No, I don’t.”

Sarah was also taking it very well, John noticed. She waited until he had bandaged the wound, then she applied pressure with her right hand.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”

John could hear battering noises coming from far above. He checked the unconscious woman on the floor and satisfied himself she would pose no further danger. Then he glanced upwards, imagining a hoard of people on the top side of the rock, trying to crash the gate. When those people eventually succeeded, they would discover the open sarcophagus, the worn stone staircase, the descending, sinuous corridor, the three chambers, the lost Tavernier stones—and take them away.

He said to David, “We need to get back up there and stop those people from coming down here.”

“How would we manage that?” David asked. “The sarcophagus lid is broken.”

“I don’t know how. But we have to find a way. If they come down here, we’ll never get out. Not with those.” He pointed at the pile of stones on the altar.

“About those …” David said.

“I’ll pack them while you’re gone,” Sarah said. “Hurry! Before it’s too late.”

David picked up one of the intact amphorae sitting in a corner of the chamber and handed it to her. “Empty this of wine,” he said, “and fill it with gemstones.”

“Right.”

“Don’t leave any behind, especially not this one.” He took the Great Mogul diamond from the altar and pressed it into her hand.

“Of course not. Go!”

“But your arm …” John said.

“Go!”

John and David ran back up the corridor, stooping as the ceiling lowered, turning sideways to squeeze past resistant outcrops in their path.