The Splendour Falls

  “What is this stone, do you know?” I asked my self-appointed guides. “All the buildings here seem to be made of it.”

  Simon proudly supplied the answer. “It’s tufa-stone. Tuffeau in French. It’s the same stone they used to build Westminster Abbey, as a matter of fact.”

  “He’s been reading the guide books,” Paul explained. “It’s just a porous limestone, really. That’s what the cliffs round here are made of.”

  Tufa-stone. I filed the name away in my memory. On some of the buildings it almost looked like marble, hard and smooth and faintly reflective, cut in enormous blocks that had been fitted so expertly one could hardly spot the seams. Coupled with the slate-blue pointed roofs, it gave the town a certain unity of color and style that lovingly embraced the eye. Most of the shutters were open, now—painted metal shutters stained with rust, and older wooden ones, unpainted, that hung unevenly on their hinges, fastened back against the walls of their respective houses by ancient iron latches. I could understand why Simon found his curtain rod such a nuisance. French windows begged to be flung wide—it seemed a crime somehow to keep them closed.

  The rue Voltaire led off the square as well, a narrow cobbled street that cut a line between the cliffs and the river. It was a lovely street, tastefully restored and rich in atmosphere, but I only caught the briefest glimpses of its tight-packed houses as Simon drove us past them at a breathless pace.

  “And here,” he said, coming to a full and sudden stop where a narrow street angled across the rue Voltaire, “is the Great Crossroads. Well, it was a lot greater in the old days, I guess. This,” he told me, pointing up the smaller sloping street, “was how people used to get to the château back then. And that well over there, against the wall, is where Joan of Arc got off her horse when she came to Chinon to see the Dauphin.”

  “Ah.” I smiled. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Joan of Arc—I had in fact been fascinated by her in my younger days, but having lived in France I’d gorged myself on Joan of Arc relics and Joan of Arc books and Joan of Arc historic sites until, in the end, it had produced the same effect as had the one too many Rusty Nails I’d drunk the night of my twenty-first birthday. All these years later, I couldn’t face a Rusty Nail without a shudder.

  Still, so as not to ruin Simon’s tour I dutifully inspected the well and made the proper noises. Satisfied, he turned to lead the way up the tilting little street. “We go up here. Just watch your step, it’s pretty rough.”

  And pretty steep, in spite of the fact that the road bent back upon itself several times in an attempt to soften the grade of the ascent. Halfway up I stumbled on the jutting cobblestones and paused to catch my breath.

  “Small wonder Joan of Arc got off her horse,” I said, between gulps of air. “No self-respecting horse would want to make this climb.”

  Paul laughed and moved steadily past me. “You get used to it.”

  I wasn’t so sure. “Is this really easier than going up the steps?”

  “Yes,” both boys averred, in unison.

  Simon grinned, and pushed the hair back from his face. “Neil goes up and down those steps a few times a day,” he informed me, “for exercise. He says musicians need to keep in shape.”

  “Bully for Neil,” I muttered, and forced my wobbling legs to push onwards. Just when I thought they couldn’t possibly carry me any further, we cleared the final corner and found ourselves gazing out across the rooftops to the gently snaking river. It was a breathless view. The gardens of the closer houses had been terraced upwards to the level of the cliffs, a checkerboard of trees and flowers hemmed by ivied walls turned crimson in the autumn air.

  A final slope, five paces more, and out we stepped onto a modern road that ran along the level of the cliff. Facing us, a cracked and crumbling wall rose starkly up one level more, its sheer bulk draped with clinging clumps of ivy broken here and there by leaning doors that marked the entrance to some long-abandoned dwelling.

  “There’s the château,” said Simon, pointing.

  “Give us a chance,” I pleaded, slumping back against the wall. “Wait till my vision clears.”

  Simon wasn’t listening—he was already several steps ahead, walking with a brisk and purposeful step, but Paul hung back to wait for me. “Not far now,” he promised. “We’re almost there.”

  I glanced after Simon, noticing not the soaring narrow tower that served as gateway to the château, but the alarming slope of the black asphalt road ahead. “More climbing?” I asked, weakly.

  Paul laughed again. “I thought you Brits were used to hills.”

  “Yes, well,” I excused myself, “I’m from the flat part.”

  Simon finally noticed we weren’t keeping up. Frowning, he turned and called, “Come on, you two.”

  Paul shot me a rather paternal glance. “You ready?”

  “Have I a choice?”

  The final approach wasn’t all that bad, as it turned out, mainly because my attention was focused on the strange tower ahead of us. The Tour de l’Horloge, Paul told me when I asked him—the Clock Tower. It was tall and curiously flat, like a cardboard cut-out of a tower, with a blue slate roof and wooden belfry. The bell that chimed the hours, I thought, must hang within this tower.

  A stone bridge spanned the grassy moat that once had barred invaders from the tower’s high arched entrance gate. Today, the wooden doors stood open wide, inviting us to leave the road and cross the narrow footbridge to where Simon waited by the postcards, impatient.

  “They do have guided tours,” Paul said, as we paused at the entrance to pay, “but Simon and I usually just wander around on our own. It’s up to you, though, if you’d rather take a tour…”

  “I hate guided tours,” I assured them, “thanks all the same. Much more fun to wander.”

  And wander we did. I’d always liked castles. I’d expected this one to be little more than a ruin, but many of the rooms and towers had been preserved intact within the shattered walls. One could almost hear the footsteps of brave knights and ladies, kings and courtiers, echoing round the empty rooms. The white stone, bathed in light from mullioned windows, lent a bright and airy feel to the sprawling royal apartments and made them look much larger than they were. From every corner twisting stairs led up to unexpected rooms with hearths and windows of their own, small private sanctuaries where a queen could comfortably retire to do her needlework or dally with her lover… at least, I thought, until the king found out, and had the lover killed.

  In the next tower on, Simon pointed to a large framed painting of the château, just like the view Paul had shown me from the bridge. “That’s one of Christian’s paintings. Pretty good, eh?”

  “It’s marvelous.” I leaned closer, amazed. “Christian did this, really?” It was a bold and sweeping painting in the true romantic style, and he had caught exactly the unusual pale color of the tufa-stone gleaming bright against a stormy violet sky.

  “He’s incredibly talented,” Paul said, beside my shoulder.

  “So I see.” With a vague prickling feeling of being watched, I slid my gaze from the painting to the figure looming in a shadowed recess of the tower wall. Not a real person, thank heavens—just a statue, and a massive one at that. “Good heavens,” I said. “It’s Philippe.”

  Paul looked up as well, at the young heroic face. “Who?”

  “Philippe Auguste. One of the early kings of France. He was the first real French king to own this château, actually,” I went on, recalling Harry’s countless lectures.

  Simon frowned. “Who owned it before?”

  “The counts of Blois and Anjou, I believe. And then the Plantagenets.”

  “What, like the Black Prince, you mean?”

  I smiled. “A little earlier than that. Richard the Lionheart and that bunch. Richard’s brother John was the last to own Chinon.”

  “As in Robin Hood?” Simon checked
, his eyebrows lifting. “Bad Prince John? That guy?”

  “The very same.”

  “Neat.”

  Paul looked at me with quiet interest. “You know a lot about the history of this place, then?”

  My smile grew wider. “Rather. I’m lectured on it constantly. My cousin,” I explained, to both of them, “is something of an expert on Plantagenets. It’s his fault, really, that I’m here at all—he talked me into coming on holiday with him.”

  The brothers exchanged glances. “But he isn’t here,” said Simon, pointing out the obvious.

  “Not yet, no. But then, that’s not unusual for Harry. He does race off on tangents when he’s working on a theory. Which reminds me,” I said, turning, “how does one get to the Moulin Tower?”

  ***

  Someone was coming. Isabelle raised her head, all thought of sleep forgotten, as the heavy stamp of boots on stone drew nearer. Oh, please, she prayed, dear Mother of God, please let it be John.

  Beside her, the old woman Alice roused herself, alarmed. “My lady—”

  “Hush.” The whispered word held urgency. The boots were at the door now. She held her breath.

  A rough knock, and a rougher voice… a voice she knew. “Your Majesty, are you awake?”

  He hadn’t come. She swallowed back the bitter taste of tears and felt in darkness for her gown. He’d promised he would always come, whenever she sent word… with solemn eyes he’d sworn it, always. But the man who stood outside her chamber now was not her husband. She stood, shivering in the velvet gown, and crossed to unbolt the door, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sudden glare of torchlight. The tall man in the passage looked more fierce than she remembered. He frightened her, he’d always frightened her, and yet she’d rather die than have him see it. By force of will she kept her voice composed. “My lord de Préaux.”

  “Majesty.” He knelt, and took her hand. The torchlight traced an old scar on his cheekbone as he raised his head. She saw no mercy in his eyes, no warmth—they were the hard eyes of a ruthless man who made his living by the sword. “You are to rise, and come with me,” he told her. “I am to bring you safely to Le Mans.”

  “John sent you?”

  “Yes.”

  She only had his word, she thought, and the word of such a man was hardly comfort in these troubled times. If he’d turned traitor, like the others…

  Still, she was alone, with John not here—she had no choice but trust. Besides, she thought, de Préaux was a soldier—soldiers had no cause to lie. To take her hostage, he had but to seize her where she stood. And if he desired her dead he’d simply kill her and be done with it. The fact that he’d done neither proved de Préaux spoke the truth.

  She raised her chin. “My lord,” she said, “the rebels do surround us.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “May I ask, how did you… how…”

  “With difficulty.” He stood, impatient. De Préaux never stayed long on his knees. “Do you come or no? I’ve twelve men freezing round the fire in your courtyard. They’ve ridden long and hoped for sleep, but I’d think it less than wise to wait till morning.”

  She shivered in a draught of air that swept along the passage. “What would you have me do?”

  “Dress you warmly, and make haste.”

  “My women…”

  “Only you.” He shook his head. “We have but one horse spare. Your maids must wait.”

  She glanced at Alice. “But my lord—”

  “Queen Isabelle.” He was not moved; his ugly face was resolute. “Upon your life my own life hangs. I am not sent to save the household—only you. It is yourself the rebels seek,” he reminded her, “and once they learn their prize is flown, the castle will be safe. The siege will end.”

  “There is the Treasury, still.”

  “These men have no desire for treasure.”

  No, she thought. They had one cause, and one cause only—to force John to release his nephew Arthur. And so he would, in time. Frowning, she drew back, gathering the folds of her robe about her. “What news of Arthur of Brittany?” she asked, slowly. “Is he well?”

  The eyes that touched hers held a fleeting trace of pity. And then he looked beyond her to where Alice stood in silence by the bed, and for a moment understanding passed between the dark knight and the old woman. “See that your mistress dresses warm,” he said. He bowed and turned away.

  Watching the last faint flickering of torchlight vanish down the twisting stairs, it seemed to Isabelle that every stone around her breathed a sigh of cold despair, as if by sorcery her own bedchamber had become a prison… or a tomb.

  Chapter 6

  From all a closer interest flourish’d up…

  “You’ve done it now,” said Paul, as we watched Simon bounding off away from us.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “That story you just told us, about Queen Isabelle. You mentioned treasure. Big mistake.” With Simon safely out of sight, he rummaged in his pocket for his cigarettes, shifting clear of the shadow cast by the tower at his shoulder. It was in ruins now, the Moulin Tower—an empty hull of stone with dark weeds sprouting in the roofless chambers. And no one walked those chambers, any more. A sign beside the bolted door said sternly: Danger! so we leaned instead against the low lichen-crusted wall that formed the western boundary of the château grounds. Behind our backs the slumbering Vienne flowed seaward, unconcerned.

  Paul cupped the match against the breeze. “Telling a story like that to Simon,” he advised me, “is kind of like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He’s all fired up, now.”

  “He’s only gone to find the toilet, Paul.”

  “Don’t you believe it. Not my brother.” He grinned. “He has the bladder of a camel. No, you wait and see—he’s sneaked off down to the entrance booth to see what he can learn about the tunnels.”

  I looked along the empty path, intrigued. “But he doesn’t speak French.”

  “That wouldn’t stop him.” Stretching his legs out in front of him, Paul dug his feet into the gravel and braced his hands beside him on the sun-warmed stone. “So,” he said, “what happened?”

  “When?”

  “To John and Isabelle. You never finished the story.”

  “Oh, that.” The breeze blew my hair in my eyes and I pushed it back absently. “It’s not the happiest of endings, I’m afraid. John did kill Arthur, or at least he had him killed, depending on which chronicler one reads. The King of France—Philippe—you remember the statue? Well, Philippe went rather wild. He’d raised the boy, you see. He’d been great friends with John’s big brother Geoffrey, Arthur’s father, and when Geoffrey died Philippe took Arthur back to Paris, brought him up. John might as well have killed Philippe’s own son.”

  “So he started a war.”

  I nodded. “A terrible war. It cost John nearly everything. Chinon was one of the first castles to be captured, actually—it fell to Philippe not long after Arthur died.”

  “And Isabelle?”

  I looked up at the Moulin Tower, lonely and abandoned, the green weeds grasping at the crumbled window ledge. “He lost her too, in the end. John had foul moods and jealous rages, like his father. He even followed in his father’s footsteps in another way—kept Isabelle locked up and under guard, just as his mother had been kept.”

  Paul frowned. “How sad.”

  “Yes, well,” I shrugged, “it’s not a fairy tale, I’ll grant you. But then real life never is.”

  He turned his head to look at me, squinting a little against the sun. “You don’t believe, then, in a love that lasts a lifetime?”

  “I don’t believe,” I told him drily, “in a love that lasts till teatime.”

  “Cynic,” he accused me, but he smiled.

  We sat on several moments in companionable silence while Paul smoked his
cigarette, his eyes half narrowed, deep in thought. I couldn’t help but think again how different he was from his brother Simon. One had room to breathe, with Paul.

  “Tragic,” he said, quite out of the blue.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just a kind of game I play, finding the right adjective to suit a place. I try to distil all the feeling, the atmosphere, down to a single word. Château Chinon’s been a tough one, but I’ve got it now—it’s tragic.”

  He’d hit the nail precisely on the head, I had to admit. In spite of all the sunshine and the blue sky, and the brilliant golden walls, the place did seem to be pervaded by an aura of tragedy, of splintered hopes and unfulfilled desires.

  The swift breeze stole the sunlight’s warmth and, shivering, I glanced up.

  “Simon’s coming.”

  “Damn.” Paul stubbed his cigarette against the wall, setting off a shower of red sparks that died before they reached the ground. By the time Simon reached us, the telltale evidence lay crushed deep in the gravel underneath Paul’s shoe.

  “I got a map,” said Simon cheerfully.

  Paul’s eyes were knowing, but he held the innocent expression. “Map of what?”

  “The tunnels, stupid. Now, according to the woman at the gate, there should be something we can see, just over here…” And off he went again, with purpose, heading for a spreading box tree several yards away. “Come on, you two,” he called back.

  With a sigh, Paul straightened from the wall and stretched. “I told you so.”

  I smiled. “Well, not to worry. When my cousin turns up he’ll be glad of the help.”

  It took us some few minutes to find Simon, round the far side of the box tree. At first it seemed he’d vanished into thin air, until we stumbled on the narrow shaft sunk deep into the well-kept lawn. A flight of stairs, worn smooth with age and damp with fallen leaves, descended here to end abruptly at a blank stone wall. And at the bottom of those steps stood Simon.