Ysabel Read online

  “Feel strange, looking at them?” Edward Marriner said, gesturing at the picnicking group.

  Ned looked at him quickly. “I was just thinking that.”

  His father made another wry face. “Good, we can still share some things.”

  Ned thought about that, the distance it implied. Not just parents and kids growing up. There was more now. He swallowed. “I haven’t changed, Dad. I just . . . I can see some things.”

  “I know. But that’s a change, isn’t it?”

  It was. “I’m scared,” Ned said, after a moment.

  His father nodded. “I know you are. So am I.”

  He put an arm around Ned and Ned let him. His father squeezed his shoulder. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d stood like this.

  His father let him go. Edward Marriner managed a smile.

  “It’s all right, Ned. And it’ll be better when your mom gets here.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “But what can she—”

  “Your mother’s one of the smartest people I know. You know it too. That’s why you asked her to come, isn’t it?”

  Ned hesitated. “Partly, yeah.” He looked down at the gravel by his feet.

  His father said, gently, “You wanted her out of there?”

  Ned nodded, still looking down. After a moment, Edward Marriner said, quietly, “So did I. Very much. We may have cheated a bit, but it was still the right thing to do. Melanie is gone, your mother can help. You’ll see.”

  Ned looked up. “But Aunt Kim? And Mom?”

  His father hesitated. “Ned, people have tensions. History comes back, even our own, not just the big stories. They’ll sort it out, or they won’t, maybe. But I don’t think it’ll . . . control what we have to do here.”

  “You don’t think,” Ned said.

  “Certainty,” his father murmured, “can be overrated.”

  “Whatever the hell that means.” Ned looked away, towards the arch and the structure beside it. Greg was up close now, gazing at them. The soccer kids were laughing beyond.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “That’s the oldest Roman arch in France,” his father said. “Honours Julius Caesar’s conquest here. If you go look you’ll see carvings on it, Gauls in chains, dying. This whole area was in the balance, then after Caesar it’s Roman. The other one’s later, a memorial to Augustus’ grandsons, or nephews, something like that.”

  Ned was thinking about the druid on their roadway the night before. This is not just about the three of them.

  This arch recorded the beginning of something, and the end, he thought.

  His father said, “These two monuments were the only things showing for hundreds of years. The ruins across the way were underground till the eighteenth century. They only started digging Glanum out eighty years ago.”

  “How do you know all that?” Ned looked over at him.

  His father made a face again. “Did my homework, unlike some people I know. I read Melanie’s notes last night. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Figures. Want to write an essay for me?”

  His father smiled, but he didn’t laugh.

  They walked down together towards Greg. Up close, the arch was even bigger, dominating, only the one other tall structure beside it.

  “The asylum where van Gogh committed himself after cutting off his ear is over there,” his dad said, pointing. “Across the field, by the ruins.”

  Ned shook his head. Everyone was here.

  It was true, wasn’t it? Or damn near. He looked up at the arch, walking around it in silence. The carvings on the base and a little higher up were as his father had said. Battle scenes, some eroded or broken off, some pretty clear. Romans on horses hacking down at enemies, or fighting on foot. Gauls fallen, mouths open in a scream. There were chained captives, their heads bowed. He saw a woman in a Greek-style robe, different from the others. He wondered about that. He stepped back, thinking about the power this arch represented.

  Everyone might have been a stranger here once, but did everyone who had come conquer and lay claim? Some visitors, he thought, killed themselves, like van Gogh. Or just went home, like Dante.

  “Were the Romans good?” he asked suddenly.

  His father looked startled. “You expect an answer to that?”

  Ned shook his head. “Not really. Dumb question.”

  “Let’s go across to the excavations,” Edward Marriner said. “You can tell us if there’s anything here that . . .” He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

  Ned knew what he meant.

  “They’ll be closed,” Greg said. “The holiday.”

  “I know. Everything’s closed. I’m assuming Ned can get a read, or whatever, by the entrance.”

  “And if he does?” Greg asked.

  “Then I’ll do what I have to do,” his father said. Ned and Greg exchanged a glance.

  “Come on,” Edward Marriner said.

  He led them across the road, then along a path through trees. The Glanum site had a low wooden gate, which was locked, though it wasn’t especially high. They could see the entrance building about a hundred metres down.

  Edward Marriner looked at his son. “Haven’t done this in a long time,” he said. And placing a foot on the cross beam of the gate, he swung himself up on top, then down the other side.

  “Not bad, boss,” Greg said.

  Ned didn’t say anything, he just followed his father over. They waited for Greg to do the same, which he did, grunting when he jumped down—his chest had to be hurting, Ned knew.

  They went up the path, alone amid morning birdsong, under the mild, bright sky. The low structure ahead was clearly new. Beyond it, visible now to their left, were the ruins.

  Ned moved off the path towards the fence that surrounded the excavated area. In the distance he saw two tall columns. They reminded him of pictures of the Forum in Rome. Well, yeah, he thought.

  The site was bigger than he’d expected. That was one thing.

  But there was no other thing.

  He couldn’t feel anything. At Entremont earlier this morning he had known it was empty, the sense of vacancy had penetrated into him. Here, he just couldn’t tell. He didn’t know.

  He stood by the fence, looking through it at those uncovered stones, and felt nothing but quietness. No awareness of anyone, living or dead, or returned. On the other hand, he knew by now that distance seemed to matter, for him at least.

  He looked back at his father and shrugged. “Nothing I can tell. But I may have to get closer. Maybe I should go in. I can get over this fence with a boost.”

  In the same moment the door of the modern building opened ahead of them, and a guard hurried out, moving with an officious, self-important stride.

  “Oh hell,” Greg said. “Bet a euro and a pack of gum he’s not real happy to be working a holiday.”

  “Double pay,” Ned’s father said. “Or more, in France.”

  Smiling broadly, calling a cheerful hello, he walked to meet the guard.

  “At least we don’t look like vandals,” Greg said. He hesitated. “I think.”

  He combed a hand through his hair and beard and quickly tucked in his Iron Maiden T-shirt. Ned wasn’t sure any of it was an improvement.

  The two of them stayed where they were. Ned was entirely happy to leave this part to his dad. He turned back towards the fence and the site, trying, without success, to sense anything inside.

  He looked over his shoulder. His father was chatting now—looking relaxed, it seemed to Ned—with the guard.

  The guard didn’t look quite so calm, but he wasn’t blowing a whistle or shouting. Ned saw his dad take out his cellphone and dial it. He looked at Greg, who shrugged. Edward Marriner started speaking to someone, then he handed the phone to the guard, who took it, hesitantly. Comically, the man stood up straight as soon as he began speaking.

  Ned looked at Greg again. Greg shrugged again.

  T
he guard said something, then appeared to be listening to whoever was on the other end. It took a while. He nodded his head several times.

  It was very quiet. They could just hear the traffic from the road. Ned tried to imagine this place two thousand years ago, a fully developed Roman town. Walls and columns. Temples and houses. He saw what looked to have been a swimming pool. Did the Romans have swimming pools? He thought they did. Kate would know.

  There was a bird singing in a tree ahead of them. Wildflowers were growing along the fence, pale purple and white. Towards the south, at the far end of the site, the hills rose sharply, framing the ruins. The Valley of Hell was back that way, cliffs coming right to the shadowed road.

  He tried again, still couldn’t register anything within. It was possible, he thought, that even if he did, it might be someone entirely unconnected with what they were doing, with Ysabel and Cadell and Phelan, that story.

  Once you acknowledged—as if he had any choice now—the existence of this other kind of world, who knew what else might be here? Lions and tigers and bears . . .

  “Come on!” his father called suddenly, in French. “This kind fellow’s opening up for us.”

  Ned started over, Greg beside him. The guard had already gone ahead. He was holding the door to the building for them. His manner as they approached was remarkably changed; you’d have to call it deferential.

  “What’d you do?” Ned whispered to his dad. “Bribe him?”

  “That was my next idea. I called the mayor of Aix. She gave me her cell number. I caught her making lunch for guests, but she spoke with this guy. I told her we were idiots to come here on the holiday but asked if she could help out.”

  “And she did?”

  “Obviously. I’m due to take a portrait of her next week.”

  “Was that planned?”

  “You kidding?”

  “I thought the French were supposed to be rigid bureaucratic types.”

  “They are.”

  Ned actually laughed. His father looked pleased with himself, he thought.

  They went in. There was a cash register and ticket counter, a lot of souvenirs—replica jewellery, books, T-shirts, toy soldiers, plastic swords, miniature wooden catapults. Ned saw a big model of the site under protective glass in a sunken area on their left, and laminated posters around the walls showing the excavations at various stages.

  The guard led them to another pair of doors on the far side. He opened one, and smiled.

  “I will escort you,” he said. “I can answer questions if you like, monsieur. I even have some thoughts for photographs. It is a recreation of my own!”

  “I’d be very grateful,” Ned’s father lied. “But first, a picture of you?”

  The guard hastily buttoned his jacket. Edward Marriner framed and snapped a digital shot of him at the open door with the ruins beyond.

  “Merci,” he said. They walked through.

  Ned paused, overlooking the site. It really was large, seemed even more so from here: not so much ahead of them, because the hills to the east came close, but running north-south along the narrow valley. It would have been open to the wind in winter, he thought.

  “The older part is that way,” the guard said, gesturing to their right. “The biggest houses, with their courtyards, are ahead of us, and the marketplace and the baths.”

  “Let me start with the baths and the big houses,” Edward Marriner said. “Greg, will you keep the photo log for me? Ned, you can wander around . . . just don’t get into trouble.”

  That had a bit more meaning than usual. His father was proving unexpectedly good at this.

  He was going to say, I promise, but he didn’t.

  The other three went straight and then veered left, the guard—cheerful now, something to do on a boring day—was gesticulating and talking already.

  Ned went alone to the right, towards the older part.

  It didn’t take long to begin. After no more than twenty steps he felt a pulsing inside. It came and went, then a moment later it was there again, on and off.

  Someone was calling him.

  It would be a whole lot smarter, he thought, to have Greg come over, but he couldn’t think of a good excuse, given that his dad was supposed to be here working with his assistant.

  His heart was beating fast again. He swore under his breath. Then he thought about Melanie, about why they were doing this, and he carried on, alone.

  He passed two tall pillars he’d seen from the fence. The sign at the base said “Temple of Castor and Pollux.” There was a coloured drawing of what it would have looked like two thousand years ago. Tall and handsome, wide steps going up, toga-clad people under a blue sky.

  He felt the pulse again. He could place it now, around a corner to the left, just ahead. Another sign there said “Sacred Spring.” There was one wall still standing on the north side, and open steps, crumbled and moss-covered, leading down towards a dark, shallow pool.

  Cadell was sitting on the steps looking at the water.

  Ned stared at him. He ought to feel more surprised than he did, he thought.

  “Why did you call me?”

  The other man looked up at him and shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest.” He smiled. “I’m not the one who figures everything out. What shall I say? A moment of fellowship? Call it that. You will need to learn to screen yourself, by the way. You are visible to anyone here with any power at all.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know how to do that. But I don’t plan to stick around in your space very long.”

  The man smiled again. “It isn’t mine, it is your own now, too. Are you going to pretend this never happened, after it is over?”

  “Once we get Melanie back, yeah, I am. Maybe not pretend, but I have no interest in staying in this.”

  Cadell gazed over and up at him, the blue eyes bright. He was dressed today in black boots and torn, faded jeans with a bright red polo shirt. Half biker, half tourist. He still had the heavy golden torc around his neck, though the other jewellery was gone. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Ned registered again how big he was.

  “It isn’t really a choice,” the Celt said, gently enough. “Some things aren’t. How did you come to be here?”

  “In a van,” Ned said. A smart-ass line, but he didn’t feel like being polite. “Greg drove. Remember Greg? Your friend almost killed him last night.”

  “I don’t name Brys a friend. I need him for some things.”

  “Sure. Whatever. Are they gone? The spirits?”

  Cadell shrugged again. “Probably. He might not be. I did tell him to leave. Really . . . why did you come here?”

  “Well, why are you here?”

  “Looking for her. Why else am I in the world?”

  The simplicity of that. Ned glanced away for a moment.

  “Well, so are we. Looking.”

  Cadell turned back to the black water below. He’d been gazing at it when Ned came up.

  In the distance beyond the ancient wall, Ned could see his father and Greg with the guard towards the other end of the site. It was a clear day; they seemed small but distinct. His dad was taking pictures, shooting this way. They wouldn’t even hear him if he called. The sunlight was bright on them, but it didn’t fall where Cadell sat, by the wall, looking at the shallow water of the pool.

  The big man gestured. “This part was ours first, up to where we are. That’s the goddess’s spring below us. Glanis, her name was. Glanum’s a twisting of it. Names change, given time. Over that way,” he motioned to his right, “the Romans built after they drove us out.”

  “You lived here? Yourself?”

  Cadell shook his head. “No. The Segobrigae were south, nearer the sea. Another tribe was here, a village. They allowed the Greeks a trading place just behind you, past the Temple of Heracles. That was a mistake.”

  He seemed very calm this morning, disposed to talk, even. Ned tried to picture a Celtic village here, but he couldn’t do it. It was too remo
te, too erased. He kept seeing Romans instead, tall temples like the one across the way, in the picture, serene figures in togas.

  The Greeks here, too, their trading place. Ned said, “Is that why you started looking here? Because you were all in this place?”

  Cadell looked up again. “Started? I have been moving since daybreak. I am leaving in a moment. She isn’t here, by the way.”

  “You thought she might be?”

  “It was a possibility.”

  Ned cleared his throat. “We thought so too.”

  “So it seems.”

  Ned took a chance, pushed a little.

  “There is . . . no way for you to do this thing, this battle, and then release Melanie?”

  Cadell looked at him a long moment. “Is this the woman you love?”

  Ned twitched. “Me? Not at all! She’s too old for me. Why the hell does that matter?”

  Cadell shrugged his broad shoulders. “It matters when we love.” Something in the way it was said. Ned thought about Ysabel, how she’d looked under that moon last night. He tried not to dwell on the image. And if he was shaken by the thought, what must it be like for this man? And for the other?

  He cleared his throat. “Trust me, we care. It matters.”

  Cadell’s gaze was still mild. “I suppose. You were angry in the road. Did you aim for my horns?”

  Ned swallowed. He remembered rage, a white surge. “I didn’t know I could do that. I’m not sure I was aiming at anything.”

  “I think you were. I think you already knew something important.”

  “What?”

  “If you’d killed me there—and you could have—both the others would have been gone.” His expression was calm. “If one of us dies before she makes her choice, or we fight, we all go. Until the next time we are returned.”

  Ned felt cold suddenly. He would have killed Melanie last night, if his hand had sliced lower.

  “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “I think you may have.”

  There was really no way to reply to that.

  Ned said, remembering something else, “I think Phelan was trying to find you, to fight you, before she was even summoned.”

  “Why would he do that?” Eyebrows raised. The question seemed a real one. “She would never have come then.”