Timeline - Michael Crichton [19]
The helicopter swung away, and approached the limestone cliffs on the French side, and a small town. The helicopter rose up to the top of the cliffs.
“We come to the fourth and final site,” Marek said. “The fortress above the town of Bezenac. In the Middle Ages it was called La Roque. Although it’s on the French side of the river, it was actually built by the English, who were intent on maintaining a permanent foothold in French territory. As you see, it’s quite extensive.”
And it was: a huge military complex on top of the hill, with two sets of concentric walls, one inside the other, spread out over fifty acres. She gave a little sigh of relief. The fortress of La Roque was in better condition than the other sites of the project, and it had more standing walls. It was easier to see what it once had been.
But it was also crawling with tourists.
“You let the tourists in?” she asked in dismay.
“Not really our decision,” Marek said. “As you know, this is a new site, and the French government wanted it opened to the public. But of course we’ll close it again when we begin reconstruction.”
“And when will that be?”
“Oh . . . between two and five years from now.”
She said nothing. The helicopter circled and rose higher.
“So,” Marek said, “we’ve come to the end. From up here you can see the entire project: the fortress of La Roque, the monastery in the flats, the mill, and across the river, the fortress of Castelgard. Want to see it again?”
“No,” Diane Kramer said. “We can go back. I’ve seen enough.”
Edward Johnston, Regius Professor of History at Yale, squinted as the helicopter thumped by overhead. It was heading south, toward Domme, where there was a landing field. Johnston glanced at his watch and said, “Let’s continue, Chris.”
“Okay,” Chris Hughes said. He turned back to the computer mounted on the tripod in front of them, attached the GPS, and flicked the power button. “It’ll take me a minute to set up.”
Christopher Stewart Hughes was one of Johnston’s graduate students. The Professor—he was invariably known by that name—had five graduate students working on the site, as well as two dozen undergraduates who had become enamored of him during his introductory Western Civilization class.
It was easy, Chris thought, to become enamored of Edward Johnston. Although well past sixty, Johnston was broad-shouldered and fit; he moved quickly, giving the impression of vigor and energy. Tanned, with dark eyes and sardonic manner, he often seemed more like Mephistopheles than a history professor.
Yet he dressed the part of a typical college professor: even here in the field, he wore a button-down shirt and tie every day. His only concession to field work were his jeans and hiking boots.
What made Johnston so beloved by his students was the way he involved himself in their lives: he fed them at his house once a week; he looked after them; if any of them had a problem with studies, or finances, or family back home, he was always ready to help solve the difficulty, without ever seeming to do anything at all.
Chris carefully unpacked the metal case at his feet, removing first a transparent liquid crystal screen, which he mounted vertically, fitting it into brackets above the computer. Then he restarted the computer, so that it would recognize the screen.
“It’ll just be a few seconds now,” he said. “The GPS is calibrating.”
Johnston just nodded patiently, and smiled.
Chris was a graduate student in the history of science—a bitterly controversial field—but he neatly sidestepped the disputes by focusing not on modern science, but on medieval science and technology. Thus he was becoming expert in techniques of metallurgy, the manufacture of armor, three-field crop rotation, the chemistry of tanning, and a dozen other subjects from the period. He had decided to do his doctoral dissertation on the technology of medieval mills—a fascinating, much-neglected area.
And his particular interest was, of course, the mill of Sainte-Mère.
Johnston