Robert Masello - The Medusa Amulet

Even for someone as jaded as Phillip Palliser, it had been a strange day so far.

A car had been sent to his hotel, and the driver-a Frenchman named Emil Rigaud, who looked as if he had spent more than a few years in military service of some kind-had whisked them off to a private airfield just outside Paris, where they had boarded a helicopter and flown south toward the Loire Valley. Palliser, a man who spent a good part of his life flying around the globe, still harbored some reservations about helicopter flight. The din in the cabin, even with the headphones on, was excruciating, and as part of the floor was transparent, he could not help but see the landscape rushing by below his feet. First, the outlying suburbs of the city-a hideous jumble of concrete blocks and crowded highways, much like the wastelands surrounding most metropolitan centers-blissfully followed by snowy farms and fields, then, an hour later, deep, dark forests and valleys.

As they had passed above the town of Chartres, Rigaud had leaned in, and, over his headset, said, “That’s the cathedral, right under us. I told the pilot to ring the bells.”

And when Palliser looked down, it did indeed seem as if the chopper’s rails were about to clip the cathedral’s twin spires. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach and closed his eyes. When he opened them again a few seconds later, Rigaud was looking at him fixedly, with a smile on his face.

The man was a bit of a sadist, Palliser thought.

“Not much farther,” Rigaud said over a burst of static. But his tone conveyed less comfort than regret… at the ordeal coming to an end.

Palliser looked away and concentrated on taking deep, steady breaths. For nearly ten years, ever since leaving the International Art Recovery League, he had undertaken private commissions such as the one he was on now. But none was going to be as lucrative as this. If he could find what his mysterious patron had asked him to find, he could finally take that retirement he dreamt of and even, perhaps, begin his own art collection in earnest. He was tired of being the expert instead of the owner, the detective hired to track down the valuable objets d’art to which other people-most of them philistines-held some spurious claim. It was time to set up shop for himself.

As they approached the steep, rugged walls of a cliff rising from the river, Rigaud’s voice again crackled in his headphones.

“The Chateau Perdu is due south. You will see it soon.”

In all his years, and all his travels, Palliser had never heard of this Chateau Perdu-or lost castle-but he had been sufficiently intrigued by the note left at his hotel to undertake this journey.

“I understand that we share certain interests,” the note had said. “I have long been a collector of art, from all over the globe, and would be delighted to have someone with your discerning eye appreciate, and perhaps appraise, some of it.” Palliser picked up the scent of a commission down the road. But it was the conclusion that sealed the deal. “Perhaps I can even help you on your present mission. After all, even Perseus did not prevail over the Medusa without the help of powerful friends.”

It was that last comment-about the Medusa-that had piqued his interest. The man who had signed the note-Monsieur Auguste Linz-must know something about the assignment Palliser was on. How he’d found out was anyone’s guess, as even Palliser had never met his actual employer on this job. But if this Linz actually knew something about the whereabouts of La Medusa, the ancient artifact that he was seeking, then enduring the helicopter ride would have been well worth the trouble.

Rigaud’s arm lifted, straight from the shoulder, and he pointed past the pilot’s head at a ridgeline where towering old oaks gave way to a grim chateau with pepperpot towers-five of them, Palliser counted-rising from its walls. The day was fading, and here and there lights had come on behind the slitted windows.

A dry moat, like an open grave, surrounded it on three sides; the fourth was just a sheer drop-off to the river far below. But even from this height and distance, Palliser could see that the chateau far predated most of its more famous counterparts. This was not some frilly cupcake, designed for a royal mistress, but a fortress built by a knight back from the Crusades or a duke with his eye on a crown.

The chopper skimmed above the tops of the trees, their branches nearly grazing the bubble beneath Palliser’s feet, before banking slowly and wobbling down onto a sere, frost-covered lawn. A few dead leaves scattered in the wash from the propellers. Palliser removed his headphones, unhooked his shoulder harness, and after Rigaud had climbed out of the hatch, followed him, head bent low, as the blades stopped whirring and the engine died down.

His legs, he discovered, were a tad unsteady.

Rigaud, all in black and his dyed blond hair shining in the late-day sun, strode off, without another word, toward the main gate of the chateau, leaving Palliser, in his cashmere overcoat and his fine Italian loafers, to stumble after him, a leather briefcase holding the facsimiles from Chicago clutched in one hand.

They crossed a drawbridge, under a portcullis, and into a cobblestoned courtyard. A wide flight of steps led to a pair of doors standing open, and Palliser passed through them and into a vast entry hall with a grand escalier sweeping up it on either side. A middle-aged man was just coming down the stairs, dressed in English tweeds as if about to stroll down the lane to his local pub.

“Mr. Palliser,” he said warmly, stepping forward. “I am so pleased you could come.” His English was good, though it carried a Swiss or maybe Austrian accent.

Rigaud stood to one side, as if he were again on some parade ground awaiting review.

Palliser shook his hand and thanked him for the invitation. The man’s skin was both cool and damp, and though his blue eyes were cordial, there was also something in them that made Palliser distinctly uncomfortable. He felt, as Monsieur Linz clung to his hand a moment too long, as if he were being assessed somehow.

“What can we get you after your journey?”

“Perhaps a drink?” Palliser said, still recovering from the helicopter ride. “Scotch, neat?” He could tell already that this place was likely to be a treasure trove of art and antiques. “Followed by a tour of your magnificent home, if you would be so kind? I’m afraid I have never heard of this chateau prior to your note.”

“Few people have,” Monsieur Linz said, clapping his hands. A servant popped up out of nowhere and was dispatched for the drink. “But that’s the way we like it.” With his left arm tucked behind his back-was it shaking, Palliser wondered?-Linz strutted off to begin the tour.

“I should start by saying that the house was built in the early 1200s, by a Norman knight who had pillaged his way through the Holy Lands.”

Palliser silently congratulated himself.

“Many of the things he brought back are here still,” Linz said, waving one arm at a pair of faded tapestries adorning one wall, before ushering Palliser into a baronial hall lined with coats of armor and medieval weaponry. It was a fantastic display, worthy of the Royal Armouries in the Tower of London-swords and shields, bows and arrows, battle-axes, pikes, and spears. Their metal gleamed in the western light flooding through the casement windows. “One can only guess,” Linz said, running one hand along the dull edge of a broadsword, “what horrors they witnessed.”

Witnessed? Palliser thought. These were the very instruments of destruction.

The servant, breathless, appeared at his elbow with a silver tray on which rested a glass of Scotch.