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“Well, after the initial skirmish, Attila could see he wasn’t going to take the high ground on the rocky shelf. He fell back to await developments. In those days, that meant watching enemy troop movements and opening up a few birds to read their entrails. Attila let his enemies stew for most of the day. When the afternoon was nearly over, he attacked. The battle lasted until dark and left thousands dead on the field in about equal number for both sides. Attila’s horsemen couldn’t overcome the other side’s advantage of holding the high ground. He fell back to his fortified camp. The Roman commander Aëtius got lost in the dark, separated from his Romans, and found shelter with some Visigoths, who had lost track of their own leader, Theodoric. His son Thorismund found his body the next day. Attila, apparently not knowing the poor shape his enemies were in, prepared to make a stand. He gathered a huge pile of the wooden frames of his men’s saddles. If he were to die, he wanted his body thrown on them and burned. But then his men noticed that the Visigoths were leaving the field. They were going home so Thorismund could claim his father’s throne. So Attila left, going east across the Rhine.”
“Perfect,” said Remi.
“Perfect?” said Albrecht.
“That’s where the treasure will be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Sam and I have been thinking about this since we began. The treasures are always buri
ed at some bad moment—a defeat, someone’s death. How did they accomplish that? If we look at the accounts of Attila’s death, there was a huge tent set up for Attila and his retainers, so big that you could ride horses in it.”
“I don’t think I see where you’re going,” said Selma.
“The saddle frames never got burned. They were a distraction, a show. Inside Attila’s huge tent, where nobody could see, there were men digging another crypt, a treasure chamber like the two we’ve found. As soon as the hole was dug, the masons would disappear into the big tent to set the stones. Attila’s trusted palace guards loaded the treasure into the chamber without leaving the tent. They sealed the chamber, covered it, and then struck the tent. Nobody had seen any hole or any digging. As they left, they probably herded their horses across the camp. Nobody but a trusted few knew where the treasure was or even that it existed.”
“I think you’ve figured him out,” said Albrecht. “From Châlons, he went to northern Italy and found new plunder on his way to invading Rome. He was probably already preparing to turn south into Italy the day of the battle. Rome was the biggest prize and probably always was his goal. Everyone knows Attila’s enemies fought him to a standstill at Châlons. What they all forget is that he fought them to a standstill too.”
Sam said, “The sources say Attila delayed his attack until it was nearly night. Maybe he was delaying until his chamber was dug and the stones brought from somewhere—probably the Marne River, which was right near the battlefield.”
“I think you’re right,” said Albrecht. “If you can ascertain where Attila’s tent was erected, you’ll find the treasure chamber under it.”
Their flight from Verona reached Paris in two hours and they picked up their rental car and drove out of the traffic and congestion of the city. Even with Sam’s excessive speed, the one hundred ninety kilometers on the N44 took three hours.
Sam and Remi found their way to Châlons-en-Champagne, then the road to Cuperly, and drove the five additional miles to the tiny hamlet. Late in the afternoon they were among farmers’ fields, various trapezoid shapes so closely interlaced that the land looked as though every inch belonged to someone and was under full cultivation.
“Let’s keep searching from the road until we find the rocky outcropping or we run out of daylight,” Sam said.
“Everything depends on finding that outcropping,” Remi said. “There’s no other feature mentioned in the old story we can use to orient ourselves.”
They drove for miles on D994, La route de Reims, then went north on D977, then north on D931, La voie de la Liberté. They were just northeast of the Marne when they saw the outcropping. From a flat field, it rose abruptly at a tilt, jutting higher as the eye moved from west to east. Sam pulled the car over to the side of the road and Remi took pictures with her cell phone and sent them to Selma.
“There,” she said. “If this isn’t it, then maybe Selma, Pete, and Wendy will be able to match the contours to some geographic source—satellite photos or something—and they’ll be able to set us straight.”
“I’m pretty sure this is it,” said Sam. “If they could have done that, they would have. And we haven’t seen a lot of candidates for the right spot before now.”
Remi climbed up to stand on the seat of the convertible and then put one foot on the top of the door to raise herself a little more. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“What is it?”
“I wish we had binoculars with us. I think somebody has been digging out there in the flat part of the field.”
“Is it east of the outcropping?”
“Yes, and it seems about the right distance.” She pointed at the spot. “Do you think that’s beyond an arrow shot away from the rocks?”
“That would be my guess,” he said. “If people were aiming at me, I’d certainly err on the long side.” He stood on the seat beside her.
“See?” she said. “There and there. And over there.”
There were small mounds of fresh dirt around holes in the vast green field. “That’s just about what it would look like if Bako got here first. The small ones could be test holes, and that big one over there would be something they thought might be the chamber.”
Remi hit a programmed number on her phone and put the call on speaker. “Tibor? This is Remi. I know you’ve been home only a few hours. But has anything changed with Arpad Bako?”
“No,” said Tibor. “He and his security men are still here. It was the first thing I checked when I arrived. Why? Has something happened?”
“We’re in France at the next site and it looks like someone has been digging.”