The Caves of Périgord: A Novel

and around coppices, and came to a brief stretch of rock, and then a sudden drop. The trees below them had grown high enough to block their forward view. Manners checked his compass and edged to his left. The way down seemed easier here and the trees thinner. They scrambled down a dry gully beside a low rock outcrop, and saw farther to their left a patch of green, thick and almost lawnlike, dotted with wildflowers, and tucked neatly between the cliff and the trees. A stream gurgled down the rocks beyond it. A lovely spot for a picnic, thought Lydia, if it only had a view, and picked her way through the undergrowth toward it. One old tree leaned at what seemed an impossible angle, although its branches looked healthy enough.
    “Never seen more solid-looking rock. Not even a hint of a cave,” said Manners, taking a bottle of mineral water from his pack and passing it to her. She drank, sat down on the grass, and began undoing her shoelaces. He looked on, amused.
    “Barefoot in the grass. One of life’s great pleasures,” she said, tucking socks into shoes and putting them behind her. She rose and felt the delicious coolness under her feet, the tickle of grass between her toes. She was feeling distinctly sensual. Was Manners one for making love in the open air? “Come on, Manners, try it.” He laughed and complied, and capered a little for her, spinning around with his hands outstretched in the sun, looking at the rock, the stream, the trees.
    “A glorious spot you found, Lydia,” he called. “The most private place in Périgord.” He looked across to where she now lay outstretched in the sun, her eyes closed. He bent and gathered a small handful of wildflowers, purple and yellow, and went across to kneel and present them to her.
    “For the lady of the glade,” he said, and bent to kiss her. Her arm came around his neck, slipping inside his shirt to caress his chest, and then unbuttoning his shirt. He slipped it off, stretched out beside her, and ran his hand along the length of her from shoulder to knee, and then back up to linger on her throat and cheek. Her eyes remained closed, her lips slightly parted, her hair loose around her cheeks. So very beautiful, he thought. Very slowly, and with all the time in the world, he undressed her, pausing to lay a yellow wildflower here, a dash of purple there, kissing each spot where the flowers glowed against her skin. Fair against the green, and as lush as the grass, she was the loveliest sight he had ever seen, and he told her so, slipping off the rest of his clothes and joining her in this perfect Eden.

CHAPTER 20
The Vézère Valley, 15,000 B.C.
    D eer began with a thick stump of charcoal that he had ground against a stone to a smooth point and traced the first outline of the stag’s head, remembering the way it had pawed the ground and defied him. The first beast they had fought, on the flesh of whose doe and fawn they had lived as the skins dried on the wooden frame he had made. It was the first to be depicted. And he bore its name. That was fitting, and it had been a brave and noble beast. The antlers had been bent toward him, the neck bunched with muscle and the shoulders tensed to charge. He closed his eyes and summoned the image again, to reproduce it on the virgin white wall that stretched before him. The body had been not quite straight toward him, the neck bent. The fawn had been down on its hindquarters and the doe’s head raised to the sky by the shock of his arrow.
    “This is not complete without you and your spear and stamping foot,” he said to Moon, who stood beside him with the two hollowed stones in which he had showed her how to mix the earthen colors. He smiled fondly, admiring her as she stood now and as she had challenged the stag. “But I can never draw the sound of your shout.”
    She dipped a finger into the red earth, addressed herself to the wall, and drew the first outline of his straightened back, his arm bent to the bow, his head slightly forward in concentration. She took more paint for his braced legs and the curve of his buttocks. In her mind, the thrust of his loins did not look right. Surely the line had been straight from his head down his back to his rear foot.
    “Take up the bow again,” she said, and studied him as he modeled the action for her. This time she had it right and she dipped her finger again for the curve of his chest. She wanted this first image of him to be simple, just one silhouette of Deer the