The Secret Of The Cathars (2011) Read Free Page A

They have promised me that they’ve all got suitable kit.”
    “ I know I can always rely on you, Jo.”
    The comment was unnecessary. They both knew that he wouldn’t let her start any kind of archaeological exploration without proper preparations being made. It was his particular talent. She had found this out when he was seconded to her by the Louvre for her first television series The Archaeological Treasures of the Louvre . That series had been so successful that it had made Jacqueline Blontard a household name throughout the French-speaking world. She had refused to let Jolyon go back to his old job and had insisted that he accompany her on all her subsequent digs. She had appointed him as her technical director on the second record-breaking series, Napoleon’s Archaeological Adventures in Egypt . Now it was unthinkable to each of them that they should start a new project without the other.
    When they had scrambled up the slope and finally reached the remains of the eastern entrance to the castle they climbed over a rough cattle fence, scrambled up the remains of a low wall and found themselves on a small level terrace where they paused to catch their breath. Even though they hadn’t yet climbed to the top of the chateau, they could see the views were magnificent.
    “ Wow! Look at that.”
    Jolyon looked down where she was pointing. Carved rather crudely into the large stone step at her feet was a cross with forked ends within a circle - the symbol of the Knights Templar. Andre felt a tingle run down his spine.
    “ Do you think it’s genuine?”
    She shrugged. “It hardly matters, does it?” She looked at him seriously. “I have every reason to believe there is a lot more evidence here of both the Templars and their predecessors - the Cathars.”
    “ Ah.” He grimaced. “Sounds like your old uncle talking.”
    “ I’m serious, Jo. Nobody else may believe him. But he told me enough when I was a youngster for me to be confident his research notes weren’t a tissue of lies.”
    Andre kept silent. So this was why she had chosen le Bezu. He knew Jacqueline still believed old Albert Blontard had been badly treated by the academic world when he published his ground-breaking exposure of the end of the Cathars. The problem was that the old boy had failed to come up with enough supporting evidence to back up his astonishing claims. He had been ridiculed by his contemporaries and had never been able to get the funding to continue his work. Jolyon swallowed. It looked as though Jackie was hoping to find evidence to support his claims. She was very sensitive about this subject. He would have to be careful in his choice of comments to avoid upsetting her.
    Andre looked round at the scene. The weather wasn’t particularly fine today and there were great banks of cloud hiding the high Pyrenees to the south. They were being driven along by a strong westerly wind. The nearer, lower mountains were clad almost to their peaks in dark forest. But as they looked away to the northwest the sun suddenly came out and lit up the village of Rennes-le-Chateau, about six kilometres away. Jacqueline pointed towards the main centre of fascination with the Cathar legends for the last one hundred and fifty years.
    “ That’s where the famous cleric, Berenger Sauniere, lived in the late nineteenth century.”
    “ Do you mean the poor parish priest who became fabulously wealthy but nobody knows how?”
    “ That’s it.”
    Jolyon looked around him at the remains of the chateau. It was difficult to make out much of the original construction. The mountain itself was spectacular enough. The series of giant rocky teeth which climbed into the low cloud were impossible to scale without full rock-climbing kit. The walls which once linked them into an impregnable stronghold had now mainly crumbled away or been robbed for use in later buildings in the neighbourhood. What remained around the bottom of the sheer rocks was now shrouded in dense