"Uh-huh" But then he remembered some of the things the old guy had said, before he died. Some of the nonsense rhymes. "Yale in France, has no chance." Something like that.
"Where is it?" he said.
"Somewhere in southwest France, near the Dordogne River."
"Dordogne? How do you spell that?" Wauneka said.
DORDOGNE
"The glory of the past is an illusion.
So is the glory of the present."
The helicopter thumped through thick gray fog. In the rear seat, Diane Kramer shifted uneasily. Whenever the mist thinned, she saw the treetops of the forest very close beneath her. She said, "Do we have to be so low?"
Sitting in front alongside the pilot, Andr Marek laughed. "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe." But then, Marek didn't look like the sort of man to worry about anything. He was twenty-nine years old, tall, and very strong; muscles rippled beneath his T-shirt. Certainly, you would never think he was an assistant professor of history at Yale. Or second in command of the Dordogne project, which was where they were headed now.
"This mist will clear in a minute," Marek said, speaking with just a trace of his native Dutch accent. Kramer knew all about him: a graduate of Utrecht, Marek was one of the new breed of "experimental" historians, who set out to re-create parts of the past, to experience it firsthand and understand it better. Marek was a fanatic about it; he had learned medieval dress, language and customs in detail; supposedly, he even knew how to joust. Looking at him, she could believe it.
She said, "I'm surprised Professor Johnston didn't come with us." Kramer had really expected to deal with Johnston himself. She was, after all, a high-level executive from the company that funded their research. Protocol required that Johnston himself give the tour. And she had planned to start working on him in the helicopter.
"Unfortunately, Professor Johnston had a prior appointment."
"Oh?"
"With Franois Bellin, the minister of antiquities. He's coming down from Paris."
"I see." Kramer felt better. Obviously, Johnston must first deal with authorities. The Dordogne project was entirely dependent on good relations with the French government. She said, "Is there a problem?"
"I doubt it. They're old friends. Ah, here we go."
The helicopter burst through the fog into morning sunlight. The stone farmhouses cast long shadows.
As they passed over one farm, the geese in the barnyard flapped, and a woman in an apron shook her fist at them.
"She's not happy about us," Marek said, pointing with his massive muscular arm.
Sitting in the seat behind him, Kramer put on her sunglasses and said, "Well, it is six o'clock in the morning. Why did we go so early?"
"For the light," Marek said. "Early shadows reveal contours, crop marks, all that." He pointed down past his feet. Three heavy yellow housings were clamped to the front struts of the helicopter. "Right now we're carrying stereo terrain mappers, infrared, UV, and side-scan radar."
Kramer pointed out the rear window, toward a six-foot-long silver tube that dangled beneath the helicopter at the rear. "And what's that?"
"Proton magnetometer."
"Uh-huh. And it does what?"
"Looks for magnetic anomalies in the ground below us that could indicate buried walls, or ceramics, or metal."
"Any equipment you'd like that you don't have?"
Marek smiled. "No, Ms. Kramer. We've gotten everything everything we asked for, thank you."
The helicopter had been skimming over the rolling contours of dense forest. But now she saw outcrops of gray rock, cliff faces that cut across the landscape. Marek was giving what struck her as a practiced guided tour, talking almost continuously.
"Those limestone cliffs are the remains of an ancient beach," he said. "Millions of years ago, this part of France was covered by a sea. When the sea receded, it left behind a beach. Compressed over eons, the beach became limestone. It's very soft stone. The cliffs are honeycombed with caves."
Kramer could indeed see many caves, dark openings in the rock. "There're a lot of them," she said.
Marek nodded. "This part of southern France is one of the most continuously inhabited places on the planet. Human beings have lived here for at least four hundred thousand years. There is a continuous record from Neanderthal man right up to the present."
Kramer nodded impatiently. "And where is the project?" she said.
"Coming up."
The forest ended in scattered farms, open fields. Now they were heading toward a village atop a hill; she saw a cluster of stone houses, narrow roads, and the stone tower of a castle rising into the sky.
"That's Beynac," Marek said, his back to her. "And here comes our Doppler signal." Kramer heard electronic beeps in her headphones, coming faster and faster.
"Stand by," the pilot said.
Marek flicked on his equipment. A half dozen lights glowed green.
"Okay," the pilot said. "Starting first transect. Three two one."
The rolling forested hills fell away in a sheer cliff, and Diane Kramer saw the valley of the Dordogne spread out beneath them.
The Dordogne River twisted in loops like a brown snake in the valley it had cut hundreds of thousands of years before. Even at this early hour, there were kayakers paddling along it.
"In medieval times the Dordogne was the military frontier," Marek said. "This side of the river was French and the other side was English. Fighting went back and forth. Directly beneath us is Beynac, a French stronghold."
Kramer looked down on a picturesque tourist town with quaint stone buildings and dark stone roofs. The narrow, twisting streets were empty of tourists. The town of Beynac was built against the cliff face, rising from the river up to the walls of an old castle.
"And over there," Marek said, pointing across the river, "you see the opposing town of Castelnaud. An English stronghold."
High on a far hill, Kramer saw a second castle, this one built entirely of yellow stone. The castle was small but beautifully restored, its three circular towers rising gracefully into the air, connected by high walls. It, too, had a quaint tourist town built around its base.
She said, "But this isn't our project"
"No," Marek said. "I'm just showing you the general layout in this region. All along the Dordogne, you find these paired, opposing castles. Our project also involves a pair of opposing castles, but it's a few miles downstream from here. We'll go there now."
The helicopter banked, heading west over rolling hills. They left the tourist area behind; Kramer was pleased to see the land beneath her was mostly forest. They passed a small town called Envaux near the river, and then climbed up into the hills again. As they came over one rise, she suddenly saw an open expanse of cleared green field. In the center of the field were the remains of ruined stone houses, walls set at odd angles to one another. This had clearly once been a town, its houses located beneath the walls of a castle. But the walls were just a line of rubble, and nearly nothing of the castle remained; she saw only the bases of two round towers and bits of broken wall connecting them. Here and there, white tents had been pitched among the ruins. She saw several dozen people working there.
"All this was owned by a goat farmer, until three years ago," Marek said. "The French had mostly forgotten about these ruins, which were overgrown by forest. We've been clearing it away, and doing some rebuilding. What you see was once the famous English stronghold of Castelgard."
"This is Castelgard?" Kramer sighed. So little remained. A few standing walls to indicate the town. And of the castle itself, almost nothing.
"I thought there would be more," she said.
"Eventually, there will be. Castelgard was a large town in its day, with a very imposing castle," Marek said. "But it'll be several years before it's restored."
Kramer was wondering how she would explain this to Doniger. The Dordogne project was not as far advanced as Doniger had imagined it to be. It would be extremely difficult to begin major reconstruction while the site was still so fragmented. And she was certain Professor Johnston would resist any suggestion to begin.