Siri Mitchell: Chateau of Echoes

But the next day I was back, armed with a spray can of heavy-duty oven cleaner. I had learned all sorts of tricks as I renovated the chateau’s kitchen. For that room, at least, I’d trusted no one but myself. The oven cleaner smelled worse than a ripe Mont d’Or cheese, but it worked. I had to walk back to the chateau to get a crowbar from the stable-cum-garage, but once levered, the door swung up and I was soon walking down a steep, narrow flight of stairs.

Like stairs on ships, they were narrow and deep. Layers of chill enveloped me on the way down. By the time I’d reached the last step, I was blowing into cupped hands to warm my fingers. Without a flashlight, I couldn’t see much, but I had the impression of a low ceiling and a dead space. Not of any thing dead, but of a space that was not in use.

In climbing back up, I was careful not to touch anything for fear of cobwebs or mice. Thinking still of lawsuits, I let the door drop back with a bang and decided to head home and fix myself lunch. I had a creepy feeling, as if I’d collected an assortment of spiders on my short adventure, so I turned every way I could, trying to get a look at my back. When I couldn’t, I reached around, swatted my back, and did a hokey-pokey sort of dance right there in the old ruins.

Starting out on the trail I’d worn through the meadow, my imagination began to populate the landscape with the people who must have lived there during the region’s long history.

People assume King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table lived, fought, and died in Britain. The Bretons believe that some of the legends actually took place in Brocéliande , this haunting area of Bretagne , or Brittany. To my understanding, which was gained over the course of a four-hour dinner in the company of the Embassy’s cultural attaché, Celtic tribes had bounced from Brittany to Britain and back again so often that historians get whiplash.

Celtic society on the Armorican peninsula of Brittany was all but obliterated by raiding bands of Saxon pirates. And then those same pirates turned their boats toward Britain. The threat of raids and pressure of population groups fleeing in advance of the Saxon menace led to a full-scale evacuation of the southern part of the island. The evacuees came to the depopulated peninsula of France. And when those British came, they attached their name to the land and the population. Brittany, or Bretagne , would forever after be populated by Bretons. But the new residents ran into some of the old residents who had retreated inland, and two families of the ancient Celtic Diaspora reconnected.

Until a new threat came to the peninsula: the Vikings. Once more, the Bretons fell victim to barbarians, and this time, some of them chose to flee back to Britain. And some of those who did not, chose to cross the Channel instead with William the Conqueror. Many of the fine old families in Britain are descendants of a Breton-who may at one time in fact have lived in Britain after having emigrated from Brittany.

So when Brittany declares herself the land of King Arthur, the country of the fairies Viviane and Morgane, she might not be lying. For to whom do the Arthurian legends belong? To the first Amoricans who battled the Saxons? Or to the British who battled the Saxons? Or perhaps the legends are more ancient. Perhaps they were told in whispers that crossed a continent during the dispersion of those original Celts. How many times does a story boomerang before it forgets who first sent it wheeling into the sky? Before it forgets whether it is part of the warp that underpins the fabric of a culture or a fabulous golden thread that has embellished it? Regardless, on one point everyone agrees: Arthur still lives.

I often imagine the lives of those legendary characters, wondering what they must have seen as they walked this land. But this time, my musings felt personal. Not as if I was walking through history, but as though I had walked into it. Turning around, I gave the area one final look before retreating to my chateau.

Three days passed before I felt nervy enough to go back. It’s difficult for me to explain exactly how that cellar made me feel. This is the closest I can get: It had been like walking into a pool of still water. As if by prying open the door, I’d disturbed and set into motion something that had settled for centuries.

Knowing what I do now, I wonder if I imagined all those feelings. If maybe I was using knowledge gained afterward to interpret those past events, but I don’t think so. I think it was God. A God who rules over time and history. A God who can use the diaries of a centuries-dead girl to bring healing to the heart of a modern woman.

When I finally went back, I took the crowbar and a flashlight. It was a beautiful morning. A fog was rising from the grasses and winding through the trees. The sun hadn’t yet beaten its way through the gloom, but it had enough power to light the mist and make it shimmer. It was the sort of fog that puts shadows in motion and makes you think you see things that aren’t there. Or things that haven’t been there for centuries. I always imagine knights on horseback on mornings like this, searching for Marzin, or Merlin, the Magician. Some say he still haunts Brocéliande , imprisoned forever by a fairy’s spell.

The trapdoor was easily pried open, and the flashlight made a friendly circle of cheer in front of me as I descended the stairs. I had a winter hat and gloves on this day to guard against the room’s chill.

The flashlight probed the recesses of the space. After descending the eight-foot shaft of the stairway, I saw a rectangular area no more than twelve feet by thirty feet that had been carved out of the ground and completely lined with fitted stone. The ceiling was about fifteen feet high. The cellar would probably have been used to store food for the chateau, although there was no evidence left of any shelving system.

The space was clean swept. No mice or mouse droppings. No spiders or webs. In fact, there was absolutely nothing in the room. I was disappointed because I’d been so certain I would find something.

My shoulders must have sagged, because the flashlight moved about a foot down the wall opposite me, until it lit the junction with the floor and came to rest on a small chest two feet high and two feet long.

I walked forward and poked at it with the flashlight. It seemed rather heavy for its size. Its top was curved into a half-barrel shape. It was completely covered in leather, which was attached to the wood by rivets. They had been placed to form curving, decorative shapes. I had seen chests of this sort in museums like the Cluny in Paris.

Trying the lid gently, I thought that, like the door above, it might have rusted shut, but it lifted easily, silently, the flashlight revealing the contents. I was enough of an antique lover to know that the twin stacks of books inside were extremely valuable, but I was too much a bibliophile to resist opening the cover of one and turning the vellum pages. I had expected to see an illuminated manuscript with vivid filigree embellishments, but the book was more journal-like, the letters more individual than those made by the first printing presses or even those formed by scribes. They had more personality.

The chest and the books stayed with me for a week before I decided to turn them over to the University of Rennes II, asking only that they keep me informed of what the books revealed. They were quickly devoured by both the Department of Archaeology and the Department of Celtic Studies, which confirmed that half of them were journals, and that they had been kept by a woman named Alix de Montôt from 1459 to 1462. The other half were popular books of the era.

The discovery was reported across France. The importance lay in both the gender of the diarist and the period during which the journals were kept. Women weren’t well educated during the late years of the Middle Ages, and it has been rare for any journal to last five hundred years, let alone the journal of a woman. So, since the first report of the discovery, the university has been inundated with requests from researchers to access the volumes.