Only when they were well past the gates did Ascanio turn the headlights back on. A rubblestone wall, five or six feet high, ran for a long distance along one side of the road, and even when it ended, massive old oaks formed an impenetrable barrier.
“How do we get back there?” David said, and Ascanio pointed to a break in the trees, where a rusty chain had been looped around two trunks, along with a sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. To David’s surprise, he nosed the grill of the Maserati up to the chain and pressed on the gas. There was a screeching sound of metal on metal, a crack and a pop and a flash of white light as one of the headlights blew out, and the chain snapped in two.
With only one light remaining, he maneuvered the car along a bumpy, overgrown track that wound through the trees before eventually opening up to a view of the river. There was an old, cracked, concrete loading dock, and a long wharf beyond that extending into the rolling waters of the Loire. To David, it looked as if this place, too, had been unused for many years.
The moment Ascanio stopped the car and turned off the engine, they were swallowed up by the night. The boot of the car popped open, and Ascanio got out without a word and began to hand David his supplies—a backpack loaded with gear, a flashlight, and one of the plastic jugs of gasoline. He pulled a matching pack over his own shoulders and, like some pirate, he took the harpe—the short sword with its fearsome notched end—and slung it, still in its scabbard, onto his belt. Grabbing the other gasoline jug, he said to Olivia, “Turn the car around, then just wait for us. If we’re not back in a few hours, drive back to Paris.”
“I’m not leaving you here!”
“You won’t be,” he said. “We’ll be dead.”
David’s blood froze in his veins at the casual manner in which Ascanio said it, but he felt as if it were a test, too. Ascanio looked at him, waiting to see him quail, but David would not. He hadn’t come this far to give up now.
Not when Sarah’s life hung in the balance.
Ascanio said, “Come on then,” and took off into the trees. Olivia plucked at David’s sleeve, kissed him hard on the lips, and said, “I will be here.”
David turned, and lugging the plastic jug, picked his way with the flashlight through the dense forest. All he could see of Ascanio was the other flashlight beam, held close to the ground, and he had to struggle just to catch up. There was still no sign of a chateau, but Ascanio was leading them down toward the riverbank. There, they marched along, while the ground began to rise above them into sheer cliffs. David’s boots squelched in the muddy soil, and the gas sloshed in the jug. After several minutes, the clouds passed away from the moon, and high above them, David could see, like the fingers of a giant grasping hand, five black towers.
“I see it,” David said, and Ascanio simply nodded. Waving his flashlight back and forth across the base of the cliff, he revealed a series of caves and crevices worn into the limestone over many millennia.
“Look for five vertical cuts,” he said, making a slicing motion with the hand holding the flashlight.
David trained his beam, too, onto the cliffs and stepping carefully over the rocks and rubble, was the first to find the deep incisions, like hashmarks, chiseled above a cave entrance no bigger than a wagon wheel.
Ascanio shifted his backpack higher onto his shoulders, ducked his head, and vanished into the hole. David quickly followed and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, with steps only four or five inches wide, carved out of the stone. Ascanio was already wending his way up them; David could see the glow of his flashlight, and loose pebbles and dirt skittered down from above. David had to keep his head bent low, his shoulders tucked in, and his feet positioned sideways on the steps in order to get up them. It would have been a difficult climb under any circumstances, but because he was toting the jug in one hand and the flashlight in the other, it became a precarious balancing act, too. One missed step and he could find himself tumbling headlong all the way down the winding passageway.
The air was damp and foul, and every breath felt as if it were being inhaled underwater. Ascanio was coughing, too, but the light from his beam continued to ascend. They were burrowing up through the earth, and by the time Ascanio had stopped and David had managed to catch up to him at the very top, they were both short of breath and drenched with moisture. Ascanio’s flashlight and jug lay on the ground, and he gestured at a round slab of stone.