On the radio, Kramer was saying, "And if you rebuild part of the town, then you could also rebuild part of the outer castle wall, where it is adjacent to the town. That section there." She was pointing to a low, ragged wall running northsouth across the site.
The Professor said, "Well, I suppose we could. . . ."
"And," Kramer continued, "you could extend the wall to the south, where it goes into the woods over there. You could clear the woods, and rebuild the tower."
Stern and Chris looked at each other.
"What's she talking about?" Stern said. "What tower?"
"Nobody's even surveyed the woods yet," Chris said. "We were going to clear it at the end of the summer, and then have it surveyed in the fall."
Over the radio, they heard the Professor say, "Your proposal is very interesting, Ms. Kramer. Let me discuss it with the others, and we'll meet again at lunch."
And then in the field below, Chris saw the Professor turn, look directly at them, and point a stabbing finger toward the woods.
Leaving the open field of ruins behind, they climbed a green embankment, and entered the woods. The trees were slender, but they grew close together, and beneath their canopy it was dark and cool. Chris Hughes followed the old outer castle wall as it diminished progressively from a waist-high wall to a low outcrop of stones, and then finally to nothing, disappearing beneath the underbrush.
From then on, he had to bend over, pushing aside the ferns and small plants with his hands in order to see the path of the wall.
The woods grew thicker around them. He felt a sense of peace here. He remembered that when he had first seen Castelgard, nearly the entire site had been within forest like this. The few standing walls were covered in moss and lichen, and seemed to emerge from the earth like organic forms. There had been a mystery to the site back then. But that had been lost once they cleared the land and began excavations.
Stern trailed along behind him. Stern didn't get out of the lab much, and he seemed to be enjoying it. "Why are all the trees so small?" he said.
"Because it's a new forest," Chris said. "Nearly all the forests in the Perigord are less than a hundred years old. All this land used to be cleared, for vineyards."
"And?"
Chris shrugged. "Disease. That blight, phylloxera, killed all the vines around the turn of the century. And the forest grew back." And he added, "The French wine industry almost vanished. They were saved by importing vines that were phylloxera-resistant, from California. Something they'd rather forget."
As he talked, he continued looking at the ground, finding a piece of stone here and there, just enough to enable him to follow the line of the old wall.
But suddenly, the wall was gone. He'd lost it entirely. Now he would have to double back, pick it up again.
"Damn."
"What?" Stern said.
"I can't find the wall. It was running right this way" - he pointed with the flat of his hand - " and now it's gone."
They were standing in an area of particularly thick undergrowth, high ferns intermixed with some kind of thorny vine that scratched at his bare legs. Stern was wearing trousers, and he walked forward, saying, "I don't know, Chris, it's got to be around here. . . ."
Chris knew he had to double back. He had just turned to retrace his steps when he heard Stern yell.
Chris looked back.
Stern was gone. Vanished.
Chris was standing alone in the woods.
"David?"
A groan. "Ah . . . damn."
"What happened?"
"I banged my knee. It hurts like a mother."
Chris couldn't see him anywhere. "Where are you?"
"In a hole," Stern said. "I fell. Be careful, if you come this way. In fact . . ." A grunt. Swearing. "Don't bother. I can stand. I'm okay. In fact - hey."
"What?"
"Wait a minute."
"What is it?"
"Just wait, okay?"
Chris saw the underbrush move, the ferns shifting back and forth, as Stern headed to the left. Then Stern spoke. His voice sounded odd. "Uh, Chris?"
"What is it?"
"It's a section of wall. Curved."
"What are you saying?"
"I think I'm standing at the bottom of what was once a round tower, Chris."
"No kidding," Chris said. He thought, How did Kramer know about that?
"Check the computer," the Professor said. "See if we have any helicopter survey scans - infrared or radar - that show a tower. It may already be recorded, and we just never paid attention to it."
"Late-afternoon infrared is your best bet," Stern said. He was sitting in a chair with an ice pack on his knee.
"Why late afternoon?"
"Because this limestone holds heat. That's why the cavemen liked it so much here. Even in winter, a cave in Perigord limestone was ten degrees warmer than the outside temperature."
"So in the afternoon . . ."
"The wall holds heat as the forest cools. And it'll show up on infrared."
"Even buried?"
Stern shrugged.
Chris sat at the computer console, started hitting keys. The computer made a soft beep. The image switched abruptly.
"Oops. We're in e-mail."
Chris clicked on the mailbox. There was just one message, and it took a long time to download. "What's this?"
"I bet it's that guy Wauneka," Stern said. "I told him to send a pretty big graphic. He probably didn't compress it."
Then the image popped up on the screen: a series of dots arranged in a geometric pattern. They all recognized it at once. It was unquestionably the Monastery of Sainte-M
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