Capcir Spring (5 page)

I sensed too the unquestioning obedience and veneration from those beside her. Somehow I knew they were all in awe of his severe life of extreme asceticism and hardship. He lived a life of self-discipline involving poverty, chastity, fasting and vegetarianism. But I did not feel such great wonder. Something in me rebelled. He was not all holiness. Something was wrong but I could not put her finger on exactly what. He wasn't just a kindly old man. And all the others seemed to be able to tell that I felt like this but more than that he could read my mind. He could tell that I was the one present who was not lost in unquestioning veneration. And he stopped speaking and stared at me. His eyes burned into my face and though I could hardly bear to meet the pain of the gaze I was at the same time transfixed and couldn't bare to look away. And the pain got more and more intense and in a strange way it seemed to create pains in my stomach and my bowels as well as the temples of my forehead. I felt so completely uncomfortable and then the intensity of the moment got all too much and the red and grey of his eyes burned all the other images from my mind until all was red and grey. The red burned in flames of fire and the grey pierced like splinters of ice. Ice and fire. And then there was nothing and I was quite alone.

*****

The warmth was now being felt from the morning sun on the grass and the trees. This is reality. She pulled herself together and asked, trying to make her tone flippant, "What was this holy man of yours wearing?"

"He was dressed like a monk I think," came the reply she expected yet dreaded. "Sort of dark blue habit but there was something about his presence that made his physical appearance irrelevant. It was all centred on the power that came through his eyes. He was truly holy, in touch with the elemental powers of the universe."

Must change the subject thought Mary or I'll be believing my own neuroses and that would never do. I'm supposed to be an academic historian. I am basing my work on real hard evidence in the things that I can feel and see and touch and measure. I'll be talking to the trees next! So I do sometimes use my fertile imagination when I am asleep to recreate the scenes I spend all day trying to reconstruct in a precise academic fashion. That's all it is. This eccentric comes into an ancient chapel and visualises a monk. Isn't that what all old chapels were full of: priests and monks. And lots of them shaved their heads. I must keep the conversation normal. "Are you working in this area long?"

"Probably a couple of weeks. I hope I'll see you here again. I try to meditate regularly and especially when I am working in this area I usually come to this place."

He turned suddenly and made for the path. "I have work to do and must get on with it. See you around" he called as he reached his sack and with one easy movement swung it onto his back.

"Good-bye," she called. And as she watched his lanky frame hiking up the track to the higher woods and heathland trails she regained some of her early morning calm. See you around he had said and she thought, not if I see you first! This was her world and her old stones. And she had to measure more of the cross section levels today. There was no room in her thesis for metaphysical speculations or new age neo-pagan spiritualism. She knew she must get on before the sun got any hotter. She didn't want a repeat of yesterdays embarrassing incident after she fell asleep in the heat of the mid day sun. The ultimate aim is the professorship. Keep that in mind at all time and keep your feet on the ground. With a spirit of determination built on the strength of her own will power she pulled her hi-tech surveying equipment out of her backpack and started work.

*****

Edouard and his wife were due to arrive at eight to eat at 8.30. Mary knew this would give her ample time to have a full day on the site, return home, and write up the most pressing notes, and still have time buy some last minute provisions from the village supermarket before she got the meal ready. The day had worked out according to her plan. The chicken was roasting on the tiny spit rotisserie that seemed to be the standard fitting of all skiing flats.

The apartment was really too small for entertaining but the alternative of a meal together in a restaurant or hotel would have meant a long drive to a nearby town to find somewhere open out of season. When she had suggested at her previous rather formal meeting with Edouard in his office that they had a meal to share their stories in a more informal setting she had hoped for an invitation to his house. Indeed she almost expected it from his helpfulness with all her other requests but for some reason they had wanted to come to her tiny flat.

Pleased that everything was going according to plan, Mary allowed herself the luxury of a shower and the few minutes it took was ample reward she felt for her busy day. As the steaming water removed the sweat and dust and tingled the inevitable bramble scratches she again thought of the mystical meditating hippy that she had seen at the beginning of the day.

She could recall clearly their conversation but however hard she tried to analyse what he said, she could get no further in understanding his point of view.

She felt that she knew something about people with a religious mania and thought that she could recognise the signs but Andre didn't fit into this category either. He was a mystery and would remain so. If he were indeed living his life on the fringes of sanity inhabited by drug addicts and new age travellers then no amount of logical analysis would ever unravel the web of confusions that made up his personal self-understanding.

As she dried herself she eyed the apartment critically and was pleased with the ambience she had created. The maps and diagrams on the walls, the books and files filling the shelves and the more homely feminine touch of the fresh flowers she had collected on her walk back to the car. Here indeed was the image that she wanted to create. The temporary home of an academic who had imprinted her feminine personality on a bland, rented skiers apartment.

Dried and dressed she turned her attention to the sauce and checking the temperature of the wine that was breathing beside the stove.

The bell went at precisely eight and it was John, carrying a bottle of wine. He was no sooner in and had started making small talk when the bell rang again and the other guests arrived. They had brought a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers.

"My dear Maria" exclaimed Edouard "May I present Monique my wife"

"Enchante"

"And this is John. John...?

"Browning" John quickly interjected.

"He is English and is also staying in the village. "

"Another historian?" enquired Edouard.

"I'm just on holiday," John replied. "I am making the most of the excellent walking country, the wonderful scenery and the fine weather in this part of the world."

"So this will be a very good opportunity for us to practice our English tonight" suggested Monique. "The tourist board tells us that we must know English if we are ever to attract the English packaged tourists. At a presentation in the Marie last year the regional tourist chief told us this is where the big money is." Monique was unstoppable. "As well as being interested in local history Edouard is also the chairman of the local chamber of commerce. And he is on the council and is standing for election to mayor later in the year and he runs the ski lift company and has an interest in our family hotel as well". Monique's pride in displaying her husbands business activities and successes was for her like flashing the rich gemstones from her bejewelled fingers.

This, thought John, is probably "Mr Les Angles." "Has your family always lived in these parts?" he asked.

"We have been here for as many centuries as you can trace settlement of the land. We were farmers, woodsmen, traders, smugglers.. you name it if it could be done in a mountainous region near an international border then we have done it. My father worked with you English during the last war guiding escaping prisoners across the mountains into Spain by the routes that only the shepherds and their families know. From him I started my English vocabulary. So that is how I am acquainted with your cor blimey and bloody hell."

Monique tittered, in the way supporting wives titter at an old family joke they have heard many times before.

Edouard was in his fifties. He was short, stocky dark and swarthy with a deep tanned complexion from prolonged exposure to the high altitude sunshine. His appearance and colouring meant he could easily have been mistaken for a Spaniard but with the border was only a stones throw away, the same could be said for many of the locals. His round face was fixed in a permanent smile showing clean white regular teeth and his neatly trimmed moustache moved up and down in line with his smile.

John recognised in Edouard a likeable rogue and was sure he would be good company even if his wife were all show. She was still stunningly attractive in the way that only French women manage in their middle years and giggly in a little girl sort of way that John found irritating. She was perhaps thirty something, perhaps forty something, her deep raven hair piled high on her head. Her clothes achieved the casual look that comes from careful planning for affect without over concern about budget. She was, thought John, a twitterer. Someone who helped conversations along, laughing gasping or sighing at the right point but never interjecting in the flow of the main protagonists.

John quickly struck up a light-hearted banter with Edouard. He prided himself that he was a professional at being nice and getting on with people. He also knew all about French anti-clerical prejudices so he resolved not to reveal too much about himself.

As they started on the main course Mary considered it was time to get down to the real business and so asked, "As you know I am interested, as a historian, in the ancient chapel and settlement at Igessiattes. I wonder if you know any local folk law or stories associated with that place."

An even broader smile swept over Edouard's face as he settled himself into his favourite role of story teller to an eager and appreciative audience. Mary bent over and flicked the switch on her dictation machine to record.

"You have asked the right man." he confirmed. "Not only have I studied local history but my family has lived hereabouts for generations, I would perhaps even say going back to the days of that chapel but I could not prove that. But as well as that I know too all the old wives tales, the legends that have some sort of basis in fact but really over the years no one now knows whether they are true or not. You are a historian. You will be used to such evidence and you must do the assessment. I will just tell you the stories."

"Let me begin with one of the earliest stories of all. Your site is in a little sheltered valley high above the stone village. There is an ancient story of a man who had an illicit affair with a young girl from the village. His wife found then together and we are talking of over 1000 years ago when such violations of property rights were controlled by a different law to the way people think today. The young girl was the village chieftain's daughter and his wife was the cousin of the Chieftains wife. This man had done the unpardonable thing of bringing shame on his family and had insulted the chief of the village. So he ran away. He headed for the hills, coming up and into the woods hoping to escape to a neighbouring valley. Well legend has it that he was swift of foot and he got up as far as this wide part of the valley where the Iglessiettes chapel and ruin is now and the pursuers from the village, who would have been mounted, caught up with him. He put up a fight but he was outnumbered and he was killed. The murderous villagers rode back to the village leaving his body up there for the wild animals to feed on.

"OK so far. A sad story but this is where legend perhaps takes over with its embellishment. The next day the man's wife and the girl who had been his lover went out together to tend the body. They were kin and they both loved the man apparently and the custom would have been to create a cairn of stones to cover the corpse. The two reached the site where the body had been left and there was nothing there. No body, no bones no blood, nothing. This gave the two women a shock. They thought they must have got the directions slightly wrong so they searched around the whole area. Surely even if he had been carried off by a bear or a wolf there would have been a trail left to follow. Further up the valley, in a clearing they came upon the man, sitting on a tree stump talking to some fairy folk. I told you the story was fantastic, but there is more. The chief fairy asked the two women which of them loved him the most. They argued about this because they both loved him deeply in their own way. The fairy saw this and smiled. A man can have two wives in the fairy realm and so the man and the two women disappeared and were all transported to the fairy realm.. And the two women were never seen in the village again."

"But they couldn't agree even there on who loved him the most. And though no human has even been to the fairy realm to see the truth of this sometimes the local people you hear women's screams across the valley. This is the sound carrying in the woodlands in the area around the chapel as the two women continue their eternal battle in fairy land as to which of them loves the man the most."