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 arid 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.
‘Hey, come down here,’ he invited. ‘This is really neat.’