Kate Mosse - The Winter Ghosts

Against the wishes of his father, Guillaume persuaded the mechanic to drive on to Miglos rather than return to Tarascon. He climbed down from the road to the plateau and saw footprints on the mountain path. Given the lateness of the hour and the temperature, which was now little above freezing, he was certain they were mine.

‘But once I was down there, monsieur, it wasn’t clear where you had gone after that. The ground was too hard, ice not earth, so no tracks. And there were many routes you might have taken.

‘I could hear my brother calling me from the road. They were all impatient, certain it was a wild goose chase. I admit I was starting to doubt, too. The light was fading. I knew it was unwise to carry on searching. But I also knew that, if you had not returned to Nulle, you would not survive the night out there alone. Then I saw…’

Guillaume stopped, his cheeks red.

‘What, Guillaume?’ I said urgently. ‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t rightly know, monsieur. Someone. I swear to you, on my life, I saw someone waving to attract my attention.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘A woman?’

He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure. I was too far away. All I saw was a flash of blue, a long blue coat. I thought it could be you, monsieur, if you had changed your clothes at your motorcar before setting out.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

Guillaume held my gaze for a moment, his honest eyes flickering with doubt, then he looked away.

‘I climbed up to the place you… the figure… had been, but there was no one there. I didn’t know what to make of it. Then I saw, not footprints exactly, but marks on the ground, leading towards the cliff face. When I took a closer look, I saw the opening into the cave hidden beneath the escarpment. ’

‘It’s lucky for me that you did, Guillaume,’ I said quietly.

‘I called up to my father and Pierre, who-’

‘They could see you?’

‘No, they were too far away. And by now it was nearly dark. But they could hear me. It was very cold, very still. The noise carries in winter when only the evergreens are in leaf.’

‘Yes, I see.’

‘I found the rubble in the passageway where you had broken down the wall, then followed you down into the cave, then the cavern beyond.’ He stopped. ‘My father always said, but…’ He licked his dry lips. ‘I had to think about you, monsieur, how to get you out and to a doctor. You were unconscious, barely breathing. I couldn’t think of the others. Not then.’ He met my gaze. ‘And you are sure it could not have been you that I saw?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘It’s just that… you were lying there covered in a blue cloak. It was odd, the exact match to the dress of the… the body of a woman. Dressed in a long blue robe, the same colour as… You were lying beside her.’ He hesitated. ‘The same blue I… the person waving to me.’

I realised that was the crux of it. Guillaume did not want to believe his father’s superstitious tales were true and I did not blame him for that.

‘Probably just a trick of the light,’ I said.

Guillaume nodded. I had not reassured him, but he was grateful the matter was settled and would not be talked of again. He fished in his pocket.

‘And there was this, monsieur,’ he said.

He held out to me the sheet of parchment I’d picked up in the cave, then forgotten about in the horror of discovering the mass grave.

‘You were holding on to it so tightly, I thought it must be important.’

He leaned forward and put it on the bed beside me. The coarse weave was yellow against the white, white sheets.

Gratitude flooded through me. ‘Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.’ I picked it up. ‘Did you read it?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s in the old language.’

‘Occitan, but surely…’ I stopped, realising he might not be able to read. I had no wish to embarrass him. ‘If you hadn’t stuck with it, Guillaume, well… I owe you my life.’

And you, Fabrissa, I added under my breath. And you…

‘Anyone would have done the same,’ he said gruffly, standing up. The feet of the chair scraped on the linoleum. He was not a man to make anything of his own heroism, and now he had discharged his duty he was eager to leave.

I knew he was wrong. Although George told me of the towering acts of courage he had witnessed, not every man had it in him to put his life on the line for another.

‘Better get off,’ he said.

‘It was good of you to come. If there’s anything you need, any way I can thank you for-’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘My father said to pass on our thanks to you. He said he thought you would know what he meant.’

I hesitated, then nodded. ‘I think I do,’ I said. ‘Give my regards to him. And to Madame Galy.’

‘I will.’

He put his cap back on his head and turned to go.

‘Merry Christmas to you, Guillaume.’

‘And to you, monsieur.’

He lingered for a moment, his broad frame filling the doorway and blotting out the light from the corridor beyond. Then he was gone.

I held the parchment close to my face, too nervous to open it even though I knew I would not be able to read it. But I knew it was meant for me. A letter from Fabrissa to me. No, not me. Whoever it was that heard the voices in the mountain and came to bring them home.

I opened it flat. The handwriting was scratched and uneven, lines overlapping one another as if the author had run out of ink or light or strength. I still couldn’t distinguish one word from the next, but this time my tired eyes found a date at the bottom of the page and three initials: FDN.

Was ‘F’ for Fabrissa? I wanted to believe so, certainly. But as to the rest? It would have to wait. I would have to wait.

I lay back on the pillows.

There was no rational way to explain any of it. Only that it had happened. For a moment, I had slipped between the cracks in time and Fabrissa had come to me. A ghost, a spirit? Or a real woman displaced from her own time to that cold December? It was beyond my comprehension, but now I understood it did not matter. Only the consequences mattered. She had sought my help and I had given it.

‘My own love,’ I said.

Because of her, I had faced my own demons. She had freed me to look to the future. Not endlessly trapped in that one moment when the clocks stopped on 15 September 1916. Not stuck on 11 November 1921 at the memorial to the Royal Sussex Regiment in Chichester Cathedral, unable to bear, for one second longer, not knowing where George had fallen. Not condemned to watch champagne spill and drip, drip from the table of an expensive restaurant in Piccadilly.

I closed my eyes. Around me, the noise of the hospital. The squeak of wheels in a distant corridor. And somewhere, out of sight, the sound of voices singing carols for Christmas.

*

‘And so,’ Freddie said, ‘here I am. I had not been able to come before.’

He sat back in his chair, his hand cupped around the tumbler of brandy. Saurat looked at him.

The shadows had lengthened while they had talked. The late-afternoon sun, shining through the metal grille across the window of the bookshop, cast diamond-shaped patterns on the floor inside the bookshop.

Saurat cleared this throat. ‘And for the past five years?’

‘I returned to England. Not straight away, but when it was clear there was nothing…’ Freddie broke off. ‘Then, of course, the Slump, and all that followed. My few stocks and shares became worthless overnight. I had no option but to find a way of earning a living. I rented rooms in a house and got myself a job with the Imperial War Graves Commission in London. Modest enough, but sufficient for my needs.’