Page 57 of Blood Game

“But not now?” Vilette asked. “Is it not possible that you were sent here when your friend could not return?”

“Sent?” Kris replied. “You talking about destiny? Divine providence?”

“The path you were chosen to follow,” the old woman suggested, sitting back in her chair.

“For your friend, for yourself.” The sharp blue eyes were watchful.

“I am an old woman. I do not have much time left,” she said with a thoughtful expression.

“My son, the others, they do not believe what I know. They think it is only the ramblings of a foolish old woman.” She leaned forward. “You must ask yourself—what do you believe.”

She wanted to believe, all of it, but the fact was the print-outs only showed a portion of the tapestry. Nothing that she'd seen indicated anything about a secret.

“Bring me the box on the table.” Vilette gestured to a small round table beside the hearth. A porcelain box sat beside a vase with a bouquet of dried flowers. It was the size of a small jewelry case, the lid hand-painted with red roses, and looked very old. James handed it to Vilette.

“This was given to me by my grandmother. It is all that I have left of her, but you will see.”

Vilette opened the box, talking to herself in French, impatiently pushing aside several newspaper clippings, one with a photograph of a beautiful young woman, folded letters from a different time when people still wrote letters, and notes yellowed around the edges, the sort of things collected over a lifetime and four husbands, not to mention a career in film, including those early 'art films.' She finally found what she was looking for.

She took Kris’s hand and placed a small medallion in her palm. It was the size of a coin and appeared to be very old, the edges worn smooth. An image was embossed in the soft metal that might have been gold.

“I was going to give it to your friend when she returned,” Vilette explained.

Kris stared at the embossed image on the pendant. It was identical to the images that had been painstakingly hand-stitched into the tapestry, a trinity knot wrapped around a Scottish thistle.

“It has been passed down for many generations,” Vilette said in a soft voice. “James gave it to her. It was all he had from his father. And now, I give it to you.”

There was a sound as the garden room door opened and Celine Martel returned.

“Maman, it is late,” she scolded. “And it is time for your medications.” Vilette frowned.

“Bah! Medication to wake me up, medication to help me sleep, medication to keep me alive. Always it is so.” Vilette winked at them both. “But I prefer the chocolate and cognac.” She laid a hand over Kris’s hand.

“You will tell Isa's story so that it is not lost,” she whispered. Then as her daughter-in-law persisted, she smiled at Kris.

“Did I tell you that I was an actress? In Paris, before the war. Such a wonderful time. So many handsome young men.” And then, “You must come again and we will have pastries from Monsieur Dumont.” A thin hand waved back at them as Celine Martel wheeled her from the garden room.

“Do you believe her?” James asked, as they left the house in Lisieux, the lights of the small enclave amid those infamous hedgerows from a century earlier glistening through the misty rain.

Did she? Or was it all a product of a vivid imagination? Another role Vilette was playing for those last moments in the spotlight? And what about the pendant?

“It doesn't matter what I believe.” Her fingers brushed the cool metal of the medallion in her pocket as they returned to the rental car.

“It's what Cate believed.”

The story.

But what was the story, she thought, as they left the village and returned to the roadway. A forbidden affair? A headstrong young woman determined to go after the man she loved? And a secret that James of Montfort, a bastard by birth, had brought back from that ill-fated last Crusade?

History was full of such stories. Like King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, stories handed down but neverproven. She brushed the cool metal of the medallion, the raised thistle over the trinity knot in gold.

Faith.

Centuries earlier it had dominated people's lives, giving them something to hold onto, something to believe in and somehow make sense of their world in those early centuries.

Religion had held power—in Rome, the Muslim world, and other cultures. She had studied it in college. In some places, it still held power.

What had the medallion meant to Isa Raveneau? Was it nothing more than a token of lost love? An image she had added to other images in the tapestry?