9:00 PM

AN EERIE FEELING SWEPT OVER MALONE AS HE STROLLED THROUGH the unadorned rooms. Halfway into the palace tour, they'd slipped away and Claridon had led them to an upper floor. There they'd waited in a tower, behind a closed door, until eight thirty, when most of the interior lights had been doused and no movement could be heard. Claridon seemed to know the procedure, and had been pleased that the staff's routine remained the same after five years.

The labyrinth of sparse halls, long passages, and barren chambers was now illuminated only by isolated pools of weak light. Malone could only imagine how they were once furnished, the walls sumptuous with colorful frescoes and tapestries, each full of personages gathered to either serve or petition the supreme pontiff. Envoys from the Khan, the emperor of Constantinople, even Petrarch himself and St. Catherine of Siena, the woman who eventually convinced the last Avignon pope to return to Rome, had all come. History was deeply rooted here, yet only remnants remained.

Outside, the storm had finally arrived and rain soaked the roof with violence, while thunder rattled window glass.

"This palace was once as grand as the Vatican," Claridon whispered. "All gone. Destroyed by ignorance and greed."

Malone did not agree. "Some would say ignorance and greed were what caused it to be built in the first place."

"Ah, Mr. Malone, you're a student of history?"

"I've read."

"Then let me show you something."

Claridon led them through open portals into more trodden rooms, each identified by placards. They stopped in one cavernous rectangle labeled the Grand Tinel, the chamber topped by a wood-paneled, barrel-vaulted ceiling.

"This was the pope's banquet hall and could hold hundreds," Claridon said, his voice echoing. "Clement VI hung blue fabric, studded with gold stars, over the ceiling to create a celestial arch. Frescoes once adorned the walls. All of it was destroyed by fire in 1413."

"And never replaced?" Stephanie asked.

"The Avignon popes were gone by then, so this palace carried no further significance." Claridon motioned to the far side. "The pope would eat alone, over there, on a dais seated on a throne, under a canopy decked with crimson velvet and ermine. Guests sat on wooden benches that lined the walls--cardinals to the east, others to the west. Trestle tables formed a U and food was served from the center. All quite stiff and formal."

"A lot like this palace," Malone said. "It's like walking through a destroyed city, the building's soul bombed away. A world unto itself."

"Which was the whole idea. The French kings wanted their popes away from everyone. They alone controlled what the pope thought and did, so it wasn't necessary that their residence be an airy place. Not one of those popes ever visited Rome, since the Italians would have killed them on sight. So the seven men who served here as pope built their own fortress and did not question the French throne. They owed their existence to the king, and delighted in this repose--their Avignon Captivity, as the papacy's time here came to be called."

Into the next room the space became more confined. The Parement Chamber was identified as where the pope and cardinals would meet in secret consistories.

"This is also where the Golden Rose was presented," Claridon said. "A particularly arrogant gesture for the Avignon popes. On the fourth Sunday of Lent, the pope would honor one special person, usually a sovereign, with the presentation of a golden rose."

"You don't approve?" Stephanie asked.

"Christ had no need for golden roses. Why should popes? Just more of the sacrilege this entire place reflected. Clement VI bought the whole town from Queen Joanna of Naples. Part of a deal she made to obtain absolution for her complicity in her husband's murder. For a hundred years criminals, adventurers, counterfeiters, and smugglers all escaped justice here, provided they paid proper homage to the pope."

Through another chamber they entered what was labeled the Stag Room. Claridon switched on a series of soft incandescent lights. Malone lingered at the doorway long enough to glance back through the previous chamber into the Grand Tinel. A shadow flickered across the wall, enough for him to know they were not alone. He knew who was there. A tall, attractive, athletic woman--of color, as Claridon had said earlier in the car. The woman who'd followed them into the palace.

"--this is where the old and new palaces join," Claridon was saying. "Old behind us, new through that other portal. This was Clement VI's study."

Malone had read in the souvenir book about Clement, a man who enjoyed paintings and poems, pleasing sounds, rare animals, and courtly love. He was quoted as saying, My predecessors didn't know how to be popes, so he transformed Benedict's old fortress into a lavish palace. A perfect example of Clement's material wants now surrounded him as painted images on the windowless walls. Fields, thickets, and streams, all under a blue sky. Men with nets by a green fishpond littered with swimming pike. Brittany spaniels. A young noble and his falcon. A child in a tree. Grasses, birds, bathers. Greens and brown predominated, but an orange dress, a blue fish, and fruit in the trees added dashes of sharp color.

"Clement had these frescoes painted in 1344. They were found beneath the whitewash the soldiers applied when the palace became a barracks in the nineteenth century. This room explains the Avignon popes, especially Clement VI. Some actually called him Clement the Magnificent. He possessed no calling for religious life. Satisfaction of penances, reversal of excommunications, remission of sins, even curtailment of years in purgatory for both the dead and living--all was for sale. You notice anything missing?"

Malone stared again at the frescoes. The hunting scenes were clearly escapism--people doing fun things--with a view that soared and dipped, but nothing particular called out to him.

Then it hit him.

"Where's God?"

"Good eye, monsieur." Claridon's arms swept out. "Not anywhere in this home of Clement VI is there a religious symbol. The omission speaks loudly. This was the bedroom of a king, not a pope, and that was how the Avignon prelates thought of themselves. These were the men who destroyed the Templars. Starting in 1307 with Clement V, who was Philip the Fair's co-conspirator, and ending with Gregory XI in 1378, these corrupt individuals crushed that Order. Lars always believed, and I agree, that this room proves what those men really valued."

"Do you think the Templars survived?" Stephanie asked.

"Oui. They're out there. I've seen them. What exactly they are, I do not know. But they're out there."

Malone could not decide if the declaration was fact or just the supposition of a man who saw conspiracies where none existed. All he knew was that a woman was stalking them who was expert enough to plant a slug above his head into a tree trunk, from fifty yards, at night, in a forty-mile-per-hour wind. She might even have been the one who saved his hide in Copenhagen. And she was real.

"Let's get on with it," Malone said.

Claridon switched off the light. "Follow me."

They walked across the old palace to the north wing and the convention center. A placard noted that the facility was recently created by the city as a way to raise revenue for further restoration. The former Conclave Hall, Treasurer's Chamber, and Great Cellar had been equipped with bleacher seats, a stage, and audiovisual equipment. Down more passageways they passed stone effigies of more Avignon popes.

Claridon eventually stopped at a stout wooden door and tested the latch, which opened. "Good. They still do not lock it at night."

"Why not?" Malone asked.

"There's nothing of any value here besides information, and few thieves are interested in that."

They stepped into a pitch-dark space.

"This was once the chapel of Benedict XII, the pope who conceived and built most of the old palace. In the late nineteenth century, this and the room above were converted into the district's archives. The palace keeps its records here, too."

The light spilling in from the hall revealed a towering room filled with shelving, row after row. More lined the outer walls, one section stacked on top of the other, a railed walkway encircling. Behind the shelves rose arched windows, the black panes peppered by a steady rain.

"Four kilometers of shelving," Claridon said. "A gracious plenty of information."

"But you know where to look?" Malone asked.

"I hope so."

Claridon plunged ahead down the center aisle. Malone and Stephanie waited until a lamp came on fifty feet inside.

"Over here," Claridon called out.

Malone closed the hall door and wondered how the woman was going to gain her entrance unnoticed. He led the way toward the light and they found Claridon standing next to a reading table.

"Lucky for history," Claridon said, "all the palace's artifacts were inventoried early in the eighteenth century. Then, in the late nineteenth century, photographs and drawings were made of what survived the Revolution. Lars and I both became familiar with how the information was organized."

"And you didn't come look after Mark died because you thought the Knights Templar would kill you?" Malone asked.

"I realize, monsieur, you don't believe much of this. But I assure you I did the right thing. These records have rested here for centuries, so I thought they could rest quietly awhile longer. Staying alive seemed more important."

"So why are you here now?" Stephanie asked.

"A long time has passed." Claridon stepped from the table. "Around us are the palace inventories. It will take me a few minutes to look. Why don't you sit and let me see if I can find what we want." He produced a flashlight from his pocket. "From the asylum. I thought we may need it."

Malone slid out a chair, as did Stephanie. Claridon disappeared into the darkness. They sat and he could hear rummaging, the flashlight beam dancing across the vault overhead.

"This is what my husband did," she said in a whisper. "Hiding out in a forgotten palace, looking for nonsense."

He caught the edge in her voice.

"While our marriage slipped away. While I worked twenty hours a day. This was what he did."

A peal of thunder sent tremors through both him and the room.

"It was important to him," Malone said, keeping his voice low, too. "And there might even be something to it."

"Like what, Cotton. Treasure? If Sauniere discovered those jewels in the crypt, okay. Luck like that visits people every once in a while. But there's nothing more. Bigou, Sauniere, Lars, Mark, Claridon. They're all dreamers."

"Dreamers have many times changed the world."

"This is a wild goose chase for a goose that doesn't exist."

Claridon returned from the darkness and dropped a musty folder on the table. Water stains smeared its outside. Inside was a three-inch stack of black-and-white photographs and pencil drawings. "Within a few feet of where Mark said. Thank heaven the old men who run this place change little about it over time."

"How did Mark find it?' Stephanie asked.

"He would hunt for clues on the weekends. He wasn't as dedicated as his father, but he came to the house in Rennes often and he and I dabbled in the search. At the university in Toulouse he came across some information on the Avignon archives. He linked the clues together and here we have the answer."

Malone spread the contents out across the table. "What are we looking for?"

"I've never seen the painting. We can only hope it's identified."

They started sifting through the images.

"There," Claridon said, excitement in his voice.

Malone focused on one of the lithographs, a black-and-white drawing time-tinged, edges frayed. A handwritten notation across the top read DON MIGUEL DE MANARA READING THE RULES OF THE CARIDAD.

The image was of an older man, with the dusting of a beard and a thin mustache, seated at a table, wearing a religious habit. An elaborate emblem was stitched to one sleeve from elbow to shoulder. His left hand touched a book propped upright and his right hand was extended, palm-up, motioning across an elaborately clothed desk to a little man in a monk's robe perched on a low stool with fingers to his lips, signaling quiet. An open book lay in the little man's lap. The floor, which extended from one side to the other, was a checkerboard arrangement, like a chessboard, and writing appeared on the stool where the little man sat.

ACABOCE Ao

DE 1687

"Most curious," Claridon muttered. "Look here."

Malone followed Claridon's finger and studied the top left portion of the picture where, in the shadows behind the little man, a table and shelf stood. On top lay a human skull.

"What does all this mean?" Malone asked Claridon.

"Caridad translates to 'charity,' which can also be love. The black habit the man at the table wears is from the Order of the Knights of Calatrava, a Spanish religious society devoted to Jesus Christ. I can tell from the design on the sleeve. Acaboce is 'completion.' The Ao could be a reference to alpha and omega, the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet--the beginning and end. The skull? I have no idea."

Malone recalled what Bigou supposedly wrote in the Rennes parish register just before he fled France for Spain. Read the Rules of the Caridad. "What rules are we to read?"

Claridon studied the drawing in the weak light. "Notice something about the little man on the stool. See his shoes. His feet are planted on black squares in the flooring, diagonal to one another."

"The floor resembles a chessboard," Stephanie said.

"And the bishop moves diagonally, as the feet indicate."

"So the little man is a bishop?" Stephanie asked.

"No," Malone said, understanding. "In French chess, the bishop is the Fool."

"You are a student of the game?" Claridon asked.

"I've played some."

Claridon rested his finger atop the little man on the stool. "Here is the Wise Fool who apparently has a secret that deals with alpha and omega."

Malone understood. "Christ has been called that."

"Oui. And when you add acaboce you have 'completion of alpha and omega.' Completion of Christ."

"But what does that mean?" Stephanie asked.

"Madame, might I see Stublein's book?"

She found the volume and handed it to Claridon. "Let's look at the gravestone again. This and the painting are related. Remember, it was the abbe Bigou who left both clues." He laid the book flat on the table.

"You have to know the history to understand this gravestone. The d'Hautpoul family dates back to twelfth-century France. Marie married Francois d'Hautpoul, the last lord, in 1732. One of the d'Hautpoul ancestors penned a will in 1644, which he duly registered and placed with a notary in Esperaza. When that ancestor died, though, that will was not to be found. Then, more than a hundred years after his death, the lost will suddenly reappeared. When Francois d'Hautpoul went to get it, he was told by the notary that it would not be wise for me to part with a document of such great importance. Francois died in 1753, and in 1780 the will was finally given to his widow, Marie. Why? No one knows. Perhaps because she was, by then, the only d'Hautpoul left. But she died a year later and it's said she passed the will, and whatever information it contained, to the abbe Bigou as part of the great family secret."

"And that was what Sauniere found in the crypt? Along with the gold coins and the jewels?"

Claridon nodded. "But the crypt was concealed. So Lars always believed the false grave of Marie in the cemetery held the actual clue. Bigou must have felt that the secret he knew was too great not to pass on. He was fleeing the country, never to return, so he left a puzzle that pointed the way. In the car, when you first showed me this gravestone drawing, many things occurred to me." He reached for a blank pad and pen that lay on the table. "Now I know this carving is full of information."

Malone studied the letters and symbols on the gravestones.

"The stone on the right lay flat on Marie's grave and does not contain the sort of inscription normally found on graves. Its left side is written in Latin." Claridon wrote ET IN PAX on the pad. "This translates to 'and in peace,' but it has problems. Pax is the nominative case of peace and is grammatically incorrect after the preposition in. The right-hand column is written in Greek and is gibberish. But I've been thinking about that, and the solution finally came to me. The inscription is actually all Latin, written in the Greek alphabet. When you translate into Roman, the E, T, I, N, and A are fine. But the P is an R, the X becomes a K, and--"

Claridon scribbled on the pad, then wrote his completed translation across the bottom.

ET IN ARCADIA EGO

"And in Arcadia I," Malone said, translating the Latin. "That makes no sense."

"Precisely," Claridon noted. "Which would lead one to conclude that the words are concealing something else."

Malone understood. "An anagram?"

"Quite common in Bigou's time. After all, it's doubtful Bigou would have left a message that easy to decipher."

"What about the words in the center?"

Claridon jotted them onto the pad.

REDDIS REGIS CELLIS ARCIS

"Reddis means 'to give back, to restore something previously taken.' But it's also Latin for 'Rennes.' Regis derives from rex, which is 'king.' Cella refers to a storeroom. Arcis stems from arx--a stronghold, fortress, citadel. A lot can be made of each, but together they make no sense. Then there's the arrow that connects p-s at the top with prae-cum. I have no idea what the p-s means. The prae-cum translates as 'pray to come.' "

"What is that symbol at the bottom?" Stephanie asked. "Looks like an octopus."

Claridon shook his head. "A spider, madame. But its significance escapes me."

"What about the other stone?" Malone asked.

"The left one stood upright over the grave and was the most visible. Remember, Bigou served Marie d'Hautpoul for many years. He was extraordinarily loyal to her and took two years to produce this headstone, yet almost every line in it contains an error. Masons of that day were prone to mistakes, but this many? No way the abbe would have allowed them to remain."

"So the errors are part of the message?" Malone asked.

"It would seem. Look here. Her name is wrong. She was not Marie de Negre d'Arles dame d'Haupoul. She was Marie de Negri d'Ables d'Hautpoul. Many of the other words are also truncated. Letters are raised and dropped for no reason. But look at the date."

Malone studied the Roman numerals.

MDCOLXXXI

"Supposedly her date of death. 1681. And that's discounting the O, since there is no zero in the Roman numeral system, and no number was denoted by the letter O. Yet here it is. And Marie died in 1781, not 1681. Is the O there to make clear that Bigou knew the date was wrong? And her age is wrong, too. She was sixty-eight, not sixty-seven, as noted, when she died."

Malone pointed to the sketch of the right stone and the Roman numerals in the bottom corner. LIXLIXL. "Fifty. Nine. Fifty. Nine. Fifty."

"Most peculiar," Claridon said.

Malone glanced back at the lithograph. "I don't see where this painting figures in?"

"It's a puzzle, monsieur. One that has no easy solution."

"But the answer is something I'd like to know," a deep male voice said, out of the darkness.