The Price of Glory (42 page)

It was one thing to see it; quite another to reach it, for it was set upon a pinnacle of rock at a height above the surrounding country and flanked by a deep river gorge. It took Nathan almost two hours before he reached the town walls and another half hour before he found a way in through an unguarded gate. He began to climb the steep and winding streets, the houses crowding in so closely he could barely glimpse the sky. There were few people about and those he met rewarded him with a hard, curious stare, their eyes darting away from his, though they responded shyly to his amiable greetings and one of them directed him to the town square, which was almost at its highest point where the church tower rose above the surrounding rooftops. He dreaded the sight of a blue uniform and the familiar demand for
“Papiers!”
for though he had brought the
certificat de civisme
that he had used in Paris and the permit allowing him to journey to Le Havre, neither would pass muster here in Provence—and he could hardly claim to have lost his way. His best hope was that if he was stopped, the official could not read, which was not unlikely, and would be fooled by the official police stamp. If not, his story was that he was an American seaman whose ship had put in at Nice and that he had taken the opportunity to walk in the hills and did not know he needed a permit to do so. But far, far better if he was not asked.

Finally he reached the square. And there was the café, directly opposite the church, with a closed sign on the door and the shutters up.

It looked as if it had been closed for a long time. The notice required by the State—listing all the occupants of the dwelling—was still pasted at the side of the door but the ink was bleached to a dull brown and Nathan could not make out the names.

He looked about him. The place was deserted. Perhaps it was siesta time. Then he saw the old man. He was sitting on a bench under the shade of an umbrella pine next to the water trough in the middle of the square. He seemed to be asleep. Nathan went over to him and sat down beside him. The man stirred, gave a loud snore and woke himself up.

“A fine day,
monsieur,
” Nathan greeted him politely.

The old man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth and whiskers but did not speak. Nathan wondered if he should have called him
Citoyen
.

“Does the café open at all?” Nathan asked, when a few moments had passed in a not quite amicable silence.

“Never,” said the old man.

“Never? Ah. That is a pity.”

The old man said something he did not catch. Possibly it was the dialect. Also the fact that he spoke very deep in his throat and scarcely moved his lips, like the grumbling of a long dormant volcano or the grunting of a pig, Nathan thought, scavenging for acorns in a forest. Nathan did not share these comparisons with the old man, however, but remarked that he had walked up from the coast and would have welcomed a beer, or even a lemonade.

The old man said nothing.

“Is the water fit to drink?” asked Nathan after another lengthy silence. The man gave another grunt which might have been yes or no. Nathan stood up to work the pump and splashed some water over himself. He pulled his shirt out from his trousers and wiped his face with it and then sat down again.

“That is better,” he said. And then, emboldened: “So why is the café never open?”

The old man told him the story. It was so long and told in such an impenetrable
patois
that Nathan lost the thread early on and never took it up, but he gathered it involved a great many deaths for so small a place and much sadness. When he had finished the story, the old man spat in the dust, settling his gnarled hands upon his stick, his chin dropping down upon his chest.

“I knew someone who came here as a child,” Nathan prompted him, before he went to sleep again. “With her father. He was an old soldier. A Scot. His name was Seton. Perhaps you knew him.”

The old man turned toward him and Nathan saw with a shock that he was blind. He said something that sounded like
“guarda-costa”
which was the name of a small Spanish ship-of-war stationed in the Spanish islands of the Caribbean. Nathan had encountered them in Cuba but he doubted if the old man had. Then Nathan realised he must have said, “La Garde Écossaise”—which was the name of the Scottish Guard, an elite regiment formed by the old Valois kings in the 15
^th
century as their bodyguard.

“That is right,” he said. “La Garde Écossaise.”

“The
siegneur,
” the old man nodded. “Yes, I knew him. And his daughter, the little girl—what was her name?”

“Sara. Her name was Sara.”

“That is right. Little Sara.”

Little Sara. This blind, old man is my last contact with her, Nathan thought. This is as near as I am going to get.

“They lived in the
manoir,
the Scottish soldier and his little girl. Yes, I remember. The mother died.” He said something else that Nathan did not catch—apart from a word that sounded like
belle
.

“And is it still there, the
manoir?
”

“Oh yes. It is still there. About two kilometres from here, along the river.” He took one hand off his stick and lifted it with a great effort, pointing blindly down the hill towards the sun. “But the father died a long time ago. And the little girl, she went away. No-one lives there, since before the Revolution.”

And he spat again, into the dust.

Nathan walked down through the steep streets of the town in the direction the old man had indicated. It was only a small detour, he told himself, and then he would begin the long walk back to the ruined abbey. But he wanted to see the place where Sara had been born and where she had lived the first few years of her life. He would tell Alex about it when he next returned home. He wished he had brought his sketchbook with him so he might draw it for him. But perhaps he could do it from memory.

He followed the river, which must be the Vence, for a mile or so until he saw the
manoir
ahead of him. At first glance he thought it was a simple donjon: a fat, round tower with a pointed roof like a witch's hat, but then he saw that there was another tower on the far side, flanked by two wings with smaller, sharper towers at each corner. Not pretty. Too stout, too staunch to be pretty. Too rugged. When he looked upon it he thought more of the old soldier than he thought of Sara. Trees pressed close upon the ivy-clad walls and there were swallows nesting in the eaves. At night there would be bats and owls. It was by no means a ruin, but clearly deserted.

He was about to turn away, for he had little time now to reach the abbey before dark, when he heard something. A sigh in the air, almost like the wind soughing through the pines. And then it came to him that it was singing, and he felt a prickling in his scalp, for it was like the singing of a Siren. He thought of the little girl going into Tourettes with her father in the old carriage they had, singing a country air she had learned. He went closer, as he was meant to, being a sailor, drawn to the Siren's song, on to the rocks. It seemed to come from behind the wall that ran along the rear of the building. Nathan could hear the words now and it was as if he had heard them before, though he could not think where, for it was a song of Provence. A love song.

Je vous aime tant, sans mentir

Qu'on pourrait tarir

La haute mer

Et ses ondes retenir

Avant qu'on puisse me prevenir

De vous aimer.

He took a run at the wall and hauled himself up by the ivy so he could look over.

And there she was. Hanging out washing upon a line.

She stopped singing and looked up and saw him, peering over the wall at her.

“What are you staring at?” she demanded. “Go away. Shoo!” She flapped a hand at him as if he were a hen. “Shoo! Vagabond!”

He scrambled over the wall and dropped down to the other side. “How dare you!” she said. “This is private.” She raised her voice then and shouted back towards the house. Nathan walked over to her but stopped a yard or so away because he did not know what to do next. He thought she was a ghost and that if he tried to touch her or take her in his arms she would melt into the air, or he would be left hugging a sheet like a lunatic out of Bedlam.

She stared at him for a moment. Then she dropped the basket she was carrying and put her hand to her mouth—and he saw that she had recognised him.

There was a shout from the house.

“Dégage! Va-t'-en! Ou je tire.”

Nathan looked up and saw a man in an open window with a gun—a fowling piece—pointing straight at him. He raised his arms hastily aloft and Sara cried out:
“Non, Matthieu, c'est un ami!”
And then Nathan knew it was truly her and not a Siren, not a ghost, but that it was Sara and that at last he had found her.

.  .  .

They sat on a bench in the garden in the evening sunshine.

“Is it really you?” She touched his face with her hand in several places, almost professionally, like an artist feeling the mouldings of a clay sculpture. “You feel as if you are real,” she conceded with a frown.

She looked different. Her hair was cut short and raggedly, like an urchin's, and it was fairer than he remembered it in Paris, almost blonde. And she was thinner than she had been, then, even at the time of the Terror and her face and arms were as tanned as a peasant's. His New York aunts would have recoiled and said she looked like an Indian. Nathan thought she looked beautiful, even more beautiful than when he first saw her in Paris. She smelled of fresh laundry and sunshine.

“I thought you were dead,” he said. “I thought they had killed you.” She brushed a hand across her face as if at a fly. “They nearly did. Many times. But you—what are you doing here?”

“I came to find you,” he said.

She looked at him wonderingly. Then she laughed. Or at least it was half a laugh.

“But—are we not at war?”

“Yes. And I am the captain of a ship-of-war. It is waiting for us on the coast, a few miles from here.”

She shook her head. “This is not real.”

“I will take you there and then you will see.”

“But—how did you find me?”

“I went to the café, where you said you would be waiting for me.”

“It is closed,” she said. “It was closed a long time ago.”

“I know. An old man told me. He told me about this place, too, but he said no-one lived here.”

“He was right. I am a ghost.” Her eyes were sad.

“And what about him?” Nathan jerked his head back at the house. “Is he a ghost?”

“Oh, that is Matthieu, the son of one of my father's old servants. He looks after me and brings me food from the village.”

“Then you are not lovers?” He had to ask.

“What? Me and Matthieu?” She chuckled deep in her throat and he remembered it was one of the things that had made him love her.

“So will you come with me?”

“Oh Nathan, I cannot believe it is you.” “Nat-'an,” she said, as she had in Paris. As her son Alex did. “I had forgotten what you looked like. Until now. I still cannot believe you are real.” She touched his face again and his hair. “My beautiful boy that I knew in Paris.”

He did not quite like the sound of that. Or the sadness in her voice. She spoke of the past as if it was something she had lost forever.

“I told you in Paris,” he said. “You cannot call a man beautiful. It is I who must say that to you.”

“Oh, Nathan, so much has happened since then.”

“I know,” he said.

“I don't think you do,” she chided him gently.

He wondered if he should tell her about seeing her on the beach at Quiberon. But perhaps not. They were his men she had been cursing, as they fired on her people. He suddenly felt the huge distance that was between them.

“I want you to come with me,” he said. “Back to England.”

“To England?”

“To live with me in England.”

“You still want me, after all this while?”

“If you will have me.”

“Oh, Nathan, I wanted so much to be with you. When we were in Paris. Always.”

“But not now.”

“Now, it is not possible.”
Ce n'est pas possible
.

The phrase tore at his insides, so much sadder and more final than it would have sounded in English, like a line from a tragedy by Corneille. He remembered now, the plays by Corneille that she used to read when he knew her in Paris. He thought she had become too attached to tragedy.

“I cannot leave France.” Her voice was quiet but firm.

“Why not? What is in France for you now?” He wanted to shake her out of it, to pull her free from the clutches of Corneille. “There is only sadness for you here.” Sadness and memories.

“Alex is here,” she said simply. “My son.” As if he might have forgotten she had a son. “I have people looking for him in Paris. They will bring him here.” He opened his mouth to speak but she put her finger on his lips. “No, Nathan, listen to me. I cannot leave Alex.” It came out in a rush. “I cannot go and look for him myself. I am an outlaw. I am wanted by the police. If they catch me they will shoot me, or take off my head on the guillotine. They will put him in an orphanage, and if they ever find out who he is, that he is the Comte de Turenne, then he will never leave it alive.”

“He is in England.” Nathan finally managed to get a word in. “He is at my home in England. At my father's home in Sussex.”

She stared at him and her face lost some of its colour. She shook her head slowly. “No. How can that be?”

“Sara, would I lie to you about such a thing? He is with my father in England. Mary told me to take him there—so he would be safe.”

“Alex is safe? In England?” She still seemed doubtful. She clutched at his shirt as if she would shake the truth out of him and he took her hands and held them in both of his.