The Caves of Perigord_ A Novel - Martin Walker [35]
“Anyway, I couldn’t possibly accept your kind offer. I don’t like people-paying my way, and this is just another way for you to bestow money on me that I don’t deserve,” she said. “Nor could I get away. I have two sales here in England next week and another one in Milan.”
“Splendid, I’ll need another week to wrap up my father’s affairs with the lawyer, and you can meet me in Les Eyzies on the way back from Milan.”
“Major Manners …” She imagined her mother at her elbow, prodding her to accept, just as she had always accepted invitations on Lydia’s behalf throughout her childhood.
“Lydia, please, call me Philip.”
“Major Manners, I fear this is not a good idea.” So there, Mother. But then, even more forcefully than the thought of her mother came the thought of what Clothilde would say.
“Well, let me put it another way. I’m out of practice at this, Lydia, but I’m also asking you because I enjoy your company and I want to get to know you better. If I am going to fulfill my own responsibility to this piece of rock that my father owned, then I have to know more about it. So in your own terms, and you are the one who made me think this way, then I need your professional services, quite apart from the fact that I also find your company congenial. So please come.”
“Let me think about it,” she temporized, suddenly reminded of Clothilde’s plan to recruit clients by organizing historical tours. The caves of Périgord, good food and wine, an undemanding lecture from Clothilde, it could be an agreeable jaunt for wealthy art lovers with a vague interest in prehistory. And it would be a very useful idea to float at the auction house. A preliminary reconnaissance would certainly be required. She looked at Manners thoughtfully. “In the meantime, if you are serious about doing something about this rock of yours, there is something you could do. The place to start would be your father’s war record, what he did, with whom he worked in France, any clues to the people that he may have met, someone who might have given him the rock or showed him where to find it. As his son, presumably you could get those easily. At least it would be somewhere to start.”
“There’s a good idea,” he said. “But then in a way, I suppose I already started. I wrote off to Malrand when you first told me about the theft, asking if he could shed any light on my father’s time in Périgord. I told him about the rock, and apologized for what seemed to be a pretty shabby bit of souvenir hunting. After all, as President of France, it’s almost his property.”
CHAPTER 5
The Vézère Valley, 15,000 B.C.
Deer knelt on the grassy slope before the cave, his head bowed in submission, as the shapes emerged through the morning mist. The apprentices, after a surprised glance, ignored him. The Keeper of the Bulls came to stand over him, saying nothing for a long moment, and then moved on into the cave. Then came the old man he had been waiting for, the Keeper of the Bison. To his relief, Deer saw that the Keeper of the Horses was with him, the one man he knew who would speak for him.
“I seek your pardon for my clumsiness and anger,” Deer said as the Keeper of the Bison stood before him. The old man leaned on his stick, studying the youth as his breathing eased. Then he hawked and spat to one side. Deer kept down the blaze of anger. The old fool must know that he had simply slipped and fallen, that Deer had not jolted him from his perch. Maybe by now he had convinced himself it really was Deer’s fault. He kept his eyes downcast.
“I collected these, to ease your bruises,” Deer went on, proffering the three kinds of herbs on the flat stone. The old woman had told him what kind to gather, and he had been in the woods before dawn broke to seek them.
Seeing the old man remain immobile, the Keeper of the Horses bent and took the flat stone. “The boy has some sense, after all. These are the same that I was given, when I fell from the honey tree,” he said. “It seems he means it, his apology.”
“Perhaps,” said the old man, studying Deer. “How good do you think