Ysabel (29 page)

“I got it,” Greg said. “It’s on the signs.”

“What is that?” Ned asked. “Up there? Les Baux?”

“Medieval hill town, castle ruins. Pretty spectacular.”

“You’ve been?”

“With your mother, before you were born.”

“On our list?”

“Not for this. Oliver and Barrett have it down for the book. Though it probably
could
be for this, too. Best I gather, the Celts were all over this place before the Romans came.”

“It’s way up there,” Greg said. “Look close.”

They were waiting for the cars ahead of them to turn. Ned looked out the left-side window. What appeared at first to be crumbled rock was actually the smashed-up remains of a long castle wall at the top of the mountain. It blended in almost perfectly.

“Wow,” he said.

His father was looking too. “They used to throw their enemies from those walls, the story goes.”

“Nice of them. When?”

“Medieval times. The Lords of Les Baux they were called. Louis XIII sent cannons up to the castle a few hundred years after. Blew it apart. Thought it was too dangerous for local lords to have a fortress that strong.”

Ned shook his head. The Romans with siege engines at Entremont, same thing here with cannons.

“I thought you told me we were coming to a beautiful, peaceful place.”

His father glanced back. “I’m sure I told you beautiful. I doubt I was so foolish as to say peaceful.”

“Besides,” Greg said in a joking voice, “when do fifteen-year-old dudes want it peaceful?”

“Could use some about now,” Ned said.

They came up to the intersection, waited for the car ahead to go left, and carried on through.

“This next bit here’s called the Valley of Hell,” Edward Marriner said. “Melanie has a note it may have inspired Dante.” He had her notebook, among the other papers he was carrying.

“He was here too?” Greg asked.

“Everyone was here,” Ned’s father replied. “That’s sort of the point. There were popes in Avignon for a while, long story. Dante was an emissary at one time.”

“I can see it,” Ned heard Greg saying. “Valley of Hell, I mean. Look at those boulders.” The landscape had become harsh and barren quite suddenly as they wound a narrow route between cliffs. A few splashes of colour from wildflowers seemed to emphasize, not reduce, the bleakness. It was darker, the cliffs hiding the sun. It felt lonely and desolate. Looking around, Ned began to feel uneasy.

“Barrett has this place down too,” Edward Marriner was saying. “For the landscape. Another side of Provence.”

But his voice had retreated, seemed somehow farther than the front seat. There was something else, inside, pushing it away. Ned took a deep breath, fighting panic. He didn’t feel ill, not like at Sainte-Victoire, but he did feel . . . distant. And really odd.

“Can you stop for a second?” he said.

Without hesitation, without a word, Greg swerved the van onto the shoulder, which was not all that wide.
The driver behind them—close behind them—blasted his horn and shot past. Greg came to a hard stop.

“What is it? Ned?”

His father had turned again and was looking at him. The expression on his face, a mixture of fear and awe, was unsettling. A father shouldn’t have to look at his kid like that, Ned thought.

“Feeling something,” he muttered.

He searched inwardly. Nothing tangible—only a disquiet, like a pulsebeat, a faint drumming.

“Does . . . do we have anything on what’s here? What might have been around this place?”

Edward Marriner pulled a notebook from his leather case on the floor. There were labelled, coloured tabs separating it into sections. His father flipped through, found a page, skimmed it. He shook his head.

“There were quarries for bauxite, which gets its name from Les Baux. Those are finished now. She mentions the Valley of Hell. Dante. A quote from Henry James about driving in a carriage through here. She thought we might use it.”

“Nothing else?”

Greg was looking back at him too. “You feeling sick?”

“Not that. But there’s something.”

Ned shifted to the right side of the van and opened the door. He got out. He stood by the side of the road, trying to understand what he was feeling. Traffic was lighter now, an occasional car went past. Greg had the flashers on. The high cliffs on both sides cast the road into shadow. It was chilly. The wind blew from
the north. Not a mistral, but not comforting, either. Valley of Hell.

“You think she’s
here
?” Greg asked through a rolleddown window.

Ned shook his head. “No. I think what I’m getting is older, from the past. I think I’m feeling something from back then, not from now.”

“But not as bad as before, right?” Greg asked.

Ned looked through the window past his father at Greg, whose face was a lot like Edward Marriner’s now. Fear, and a kind of diffident respect. It was a bit scary to realize it, but they
believed
him.

“Not as bad,” he said. “Just the same sense of something still here. The same kind of . . .” He fought for the words. “Breaking through?”

“You mean from medieval times? The castle at Les Baux?” His father’s forehead was really creased now, Ned saw. The struggle to make sense of this.

Ned thought about it. He walked away towards the cliff and looked up at it. Then he came back and shook his head again. “Can’t tell. I’m no good at this, but I think it goes further back.” He took another breath. “We’ll ask Kate. Or look it up. But I think we can go on. I don’t feel anything here from, like, now. This is just weird, that’s all.”

His dad looked as if he was about to disagree, then he sighed and shrugged. “I’m out of my league,” he said.

Ned got back in and slid the door shut. Greg looked back at him for a second, then put the car in gear and started forward again.

They passed through that closed-in arid canyon in silence, came out of shadow into springtime fields and vineyards and sunlight again. Moments later they saw the Roman arch and a tower on the left side of the road—right beside it.

There was another brown sign pointing towards the ruins of Glanum down an angled, tree-lined path on the other side.

Greg pulled into a gravel parking lot directly in front of the arch. The lot was almost empty. Ned got out. He saw a couple of families spreading an early picnic on the grass beyond. Kids were playing soccer. He felt like an alien watching them, someone from a different world, just intersecting theirs.

Greg walked over to look at the arch, and the taller, oddly shaped structure beside it. Ned’s father stopped beside him.

“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.