The Tenth Chamber Read Online Free PDF

place.’
    ‘Anything stolen?’
    ‘Nothing. The idiots probably didn’t even know we restore books. What’s the last thing an ignorant crook is interested in? Books! And that’s what they found, lots of them. Poetic justice, but they made a mess.’
    Luc commiserated about the stress his friend seemed to be under but finally raised both palms towards the ceiling and said, ‘So? What’s the deal? What’s so special I’ve got to drop everything and drag my ass to Paris?’
    ‘I need to pick your brain.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘This.’
    Hugo went to his credenza and picked up a small muslin-wrapped parcel. They sat together on the sofa. Hugo cleared a space on the coffee table where he made a show of slowly unwrapping the book. The leather looked redder and more lustrous than the day Hugo had first seen it at the abbey. The haloed saint on the cover was more vividly three-dimensional. The silver bobs, corners and endbands along with the dual clasps had a touch of their period shine. And of course, the book was much lighter now, bone dry. ‘I got this in a few weeks ago. It suffered a lot of water damage but my people sorted it out.’
    ‘Okay . . .’
    ‘It’s from the Dordogne, the Périgord Noir, your stomping ground.’
    Luc raised his eyebrows in mild interest.
    ‘Ever hear of a little village called Ruac?’
    ‘On the Vézère, right? I may have poked around it once or twice. What’s there?’
    Hugo proceeded to tell Luc about the abbey and its fire, employing a touch of drama and showmanship, purposely building to a storyteller’s climax. After he had finished with a boastful account of the excellence of his company at manuscript restoration he said, ‘I’d like you to thumb through it and give me a first impression, okay?’
    ‘Sure. Let’s have a look.’
    Luc held the thin light book in his calloused hands, opened the cover, took note of the fourteenth-century date on the flyleaf and started turning the pages.
    He let out a low whistle. ‘You’re kidding me!’ he exclaimed.
    ‘I thought you’d be interested,’ Hugo said. ‘Carry on.’
    Luc paused on each page only long enough to register a first impression. Although he couldn’t read the text, he could tell the scribe had a competent, practised hand. The manuscript was done in a stylistically boxy script, two columns per page, employing a rust-coloured ink that retained a lovely coppery glint. There were prickings around the edge of the pages that had been employed to keep the lines straight and true.
    But it wasn’t the text that interested him. What had him captivated were the bright and bold illustrations decorating the borders of several pages.
    Particularly the iconic ones, the images which were his life’s blood.
    The black bulls. The roe deer. The bison.
    Wildly animalistic and beautifully rendered in blacks, earthy-reds, browns and tans.
    ‘This is unmistakable polychromatic cave art,’ he murmured. ‘Upper Paleolithic, very similar in execution and style to Lascaux but these aren’t from Lascaux or any site I’ve seen.’
    ‘And you’ve seen them all, I imagine,’ Hugo said.
    ‘Of course! This is what I do! But you know, what’s far more incredible is the date here: 1307! The absolute first credible mention in recorded history of cave art is from 1879 at Altamira, Spain. This is five centuries earlier! I’m not saying that man hadn’t laid eyes on these caves earlier than the nineteenth century but no one ever thought to write about it or reproduce any images. Are you certain this is really from 1307?’
    ‘Well, I haven’t subjected it to forensic dating, but the vellum, the bindings, the ink, the pigments all cry out fourteenth century.’
    ‘You’re sure?’
    Hugo laughed and parroted back, ‘This is what I do!’
    Luc buried himself back in the book. He sought out one particular page and rotated the manuscript for Hugo to see.
    Hugo snorted, ‘I knew that would interest you. It’s quite the image,