Siri Mitchell - Chateau of Echoes

Louis, his son, will be King.

My father will not be pleased.

Louis had been the cause of many problems for his father. He was not permitted to live in France since many years. Even now, he must come from the north, from the Low Country, to take the throne.

I find myself content to be living in Bretagne, for who can tell what this new King will make of France.

May the King live long.

M uch of New Year’s Day I spent wondering whether or not to be thankful for the turn my life had taken the previous year. The week before, I’d wondered if I’d even make it to January.

Cranwell had been a man with a mission. He’d tramped through the forest and identified a fifteen-foot tree that he just had to have. Unfortunately, he didn’t foresee the effort it would require to transport it to the chateau. He’d ended up dragging it through the trees, grass, mud, and gravel, straight through the chateau and up the central stairs.

I nearly cried when I saw the trail of dirt and needles he’d left strung behind him like a sort of demented Hansel. But when I saw what he had done with the tree, I nearly laughed.

Cranwell decided to set it up in my room. He and Sévérine decorated it while I was busy cooking. It would have been a nice surprise except that, being so suddenly brought from the cold into the warmth of the chateau, it dropped all its needles. And because Cranwell forgot it needed water, sap from the trunk seeped all day from the tree directly onto the stone floor.

I hate Christmas.

Of course, Cranwell apologized and Sévérine cleaned up the mess, but the thought of that naked tree laden with luxurious ornaments still made me smile… when I didn’t think about the cost of cleaning all the carpets he’d soiled on the way up to my room.

Cranwell had redeemed himself on Christmas Eve. He’d had a seven-course meal delivered from Fauchon, the gourmet grocery store in Paris. It was fabulous. From the foie gras to the three-chocolate bûche de Noël served with Maury wine. And he had truly excelled when he’d selected the cheese course: eight cheeses which ranged from a mild chevre to a strong Roquefort and came complete with all the right wines.

That evening, we drove into the nearest town and attended midnight mass. I wouldn’t have gone with him except that his heart was set on going to church. Somewhere. Neither one of us understood a word, but the liturgy was so familiar that it seemed as if no one was there to actually hear it, but to experience it. To enter a stone country church lit by candlelight on the holiest evening of the year. To hear a priest intone those precious phrases in so solemn a voice they evolved from mere words into a priceless blessing. To see the incense from the censor spread its fingers out over the congregation. To belong to a ritual so ancient that, more than anywhere else I’d been, it provided a glimpse of a little manger in Bethlehem and a connection with saints both past and present. I could feel my soul relax. And when I felt like God was sitting on the pew beside me, I didn’t have the heart to tell Him to leave.

The wonder on Cranwell’s face at the end of the mass was worth any misgivings I’d had about coming. He looked very humble. At that moment, I was almost able to believe that his conversion had been real. But then I remembered Sévérine.

The moment she returned to the chateau, he bombarded her with questions about Alix. She didn’t even have time to take her coat off. He ran up the stairs when he heard the door slam, and he came back down dragging her behind him.

I poured them both a Lillet and happened to be handing one to Sévérine when Cranwell asked her his question. “Could Alix have been a Jew?”

Sévérine’s face froze, but her eyes registered a dozen emotions before she answered. “Why would you think this?”

“You said her mother was from Provence.”

“Yes, this is true, but not everyone in Provence is a Jew. In fact, there would not have been many left in France at that time. And recall that her father was of noble birth.”

“But her mother was very beautiful.”

“And this makes of her a Jew? I do not understand.”

“I’m just trying out different angles. Maybe that one won’t work. But what if she was?”

“If she was, then she may not have known.”

“Why not?”

“For her own protection. For the advancement of the family. If she was a Jew, the comte de Barenton might never have agreed to marry her.”

At the time, Cranwell’s thought about Alix seemed like a non sequitur. But Sévérine’s answer seemed to satisfy his curiosity. And I was too busy preparing the New Year’s meal to draw any of my own conclusions.

The champagne was my favorite, from a small but prestigious maker. For the meal I had decided on magret de canard with puffed potatoes and French green beans. The appetizer would be foie gras -to serve anything else would have been a huge gaffe. Dessert was still undecided. I pored through my cookbooks trying to find something special. When I saw the recipe for chocolate cheesecake soufflé with Chambord sauce, I knew I’d found my dessert.

The meal was fabulous, and by the time the clock struck midnight and we toasted in the New Year, I was exhausted. Cranwell and Sévérine convinced me that they could handle the cleanup, so I stumbled up the stairs and fell into bed.

During my New Year’s Day reverie, I decided to keep my Italian vacation plans. It wasn’t that the weather was particularly terrible-that January had been one of the warmest on record. It was just that watching Sévérine work her charms on Cranwell was becoming tiring, and I didn’t want to watch anymore. I counted down the days until the fifteenth, when I took the train into Paris and from Paris to Charles de Gaulle Airport.

It wasn’t until the plane lifted off and Paris disappeared beneath gray clouds that I finally felt able to relax.

It didn’t last long.

Once in Rome, I stayed two nights. That first morning I spent pacing up and down the Forum. I bought a slice of pizza from a sidewalk vendor and ate it in the shade of the Basilica of Maxentius. Then I stalked down the ancient streets and stayed what seemed like ages at the House of the Vestal Virgins. Was their life as wonderful as it sounded? It was difficult to tell with everything in ruins, but how easy it would make life to know that you were forbidden to be intimate with a man. I wanted to shove back the rose bush and leap over the crumbled walls. To throw myself into what used to be their courtyard and beg their spirits to take me in.

After, I went to a hill south of Rome and spent an hour eating gelato, draped over the railing, looking down on Rome, envying the anonymous problems of the anonymous people scurrying through the streets.

That evening, I tried to climb the Spanish Steps, but gave up halfway for lack of interest. I even entertained thoughts of eating dinner at the fast-food restaurant just around the corner from the plaza. That’s how depressed I was.

The tragedy was that I loved Rome. I was used to tramping all over the city, losing myself on purpose just to pretend I was a part of its history.

Even eating at La Pergola and La Terrazza held no special thrill. In previous years I had looked forward to the occasions, had looked to them for culinary inspiration. I had divided my time between the masterpieces of world-renowned chefs and hole-in-the-wall mamas and papas, equally satisfied and equally inspired to things both great and small. It is just as difficult to turn out a perfect veal marsala as a perfect gnocchi. But this trip, food didn’t interest me at all.

So depressed, so listless was I, that even the street urchins and gypsy gangs left me alone.