September Castle

by Simon Raven

  ‘For Ilyssos, as M’sieur le Directeur knows well for himself, overlooks the Ionian Sea and is situated just above a very handy little harbour called Limenaion in a very comfortable little bay, all of which had much facilitated the Lords of Ilyssos in their nautical adventures over many generations. So the Lady Xanthippe had centuries of seafaring ancestry and had, as a matter of course and case, been born and bred by the sea…a fact of which no one took much account when making the arrangements for her future. A lamentable oversight.

  ‘Anyhow, in due time the Lady was brought to Arques, and Henri Martel de Longueil rode over to welcome and perhaps to woo her – for although he did not approve of mercenary marriages he felt that he could not altogether ignore his powerful cousin’s well-intentioned offer. Besides, he was curious to see this Princess from far Romany. So to Arques one golden September afternoon, trolling his ditties and jingling his spurs –’

  ‘Careful, cher Jean-Marie,’ the Director warned. ‘One must not allow oneself to be carried away.’

  ‘– So to Arques he came and asked permission to wait on the Lady. He found her in grave distress. She missed the sea. As Henri was to write when telling the story later:

  She was a Lady from Grecian land,

  And her delight in her own countrie

  Was e’er on her father’s tower to stand,

  And gaze on the never-resting sea.

  ‘But now, in Arques, she could not see it, although – and this made it much worse – she knew it was not at all far away. Cousin Henri was touched by her predicament. For some reason which the Chronicle does not make very clear he did not like the Lady –’

  ‘The Chronicle?’

  ‘The Chronicle of Avallon. Transcribed by a monk from the spoken narrative of Hubert of Avallon, who escorted the Lady from Greece to Normandy. Generally clear enough but occasionally evasive, and certainly so in this area… “Albeit the Sire of Longueil found her person to be fair and tender, yet did he not relish her company, vowing that another watched him from behind her eyes.”’

  ‘Rather striking.’

  ‘But not easy to interpret. Anyway, though he didn’t care for her he did pity her, and he thought it was a shameful cruelty that she should not be allowed to look at the sea. He tells us in his poem about her – a very odd combination, by the way, of the ballad and the ballade – how she had arrived in the early autumn and called the Castle “September Castle” from the month of her coming. The name suggests a liking for the place, and at first, it seems, she enjoyed herself there…

  …And walked all day upon the wall,

  And laughed with her Maidens merrily;

  But soon her joy began to pall,

  And she spake her heart to her company;

  ‘September Castle is fine and tall

  And many a league is spread out for me;

  But where is the fairest sight of all?

  O where is the never-resting sea?’

  ‘It was about this time, the time when she first began to complain, that Henri had first come to see her. As I say, he didn’t like her, but he was sorry for her and felt she was being badly treated. He advised her to go to the Castellan and ask to be taken on a visit to the nearby cliffs at Dieppe. Although she in her turn did not much like him – once again, the Chronicle is obscure about the reasons for this – she felt his advice was well meant and sensible, and she took it:

  She told her woe to the Castellain:

  Lord of this Castle as ye be,

  Can ye not bring me once again

  To gaze on the never-resting sea?

  ‘But of course Lord of the Castle was exactly what the Castellan was not. He was simply an old and reliable ranker who had been put in charge of the place because his master knew he would obey his orders to the letter. As he now did. His orders said nothing about trips to Dieppe or anywhere else: they said the Lady must be kept close in the Castle, allowed and encouraged to entertain Henri Martel but none other, and that there she should stay until her espousal to Henri – and probably till the day of their marriage, suitable arrangements for which would later be promulgated from above. So although Henri too tried to persuade him, the Castellan was firm: “Sorry, my lord, but it’s more than my job is worth”, the traditional whine of the underdog all down the millennia.

  ‘Still, the Castellan liked Xanthippe’s pretty face, and he hadn’t noticed anything untoward behind her eyes (unlike Henri the poet, very few people did) and he wished to spare her pain and give her hope: so he told the Lady that the Channel was indeed very close and that soon she would be able to see it from the ramparts. When the leaves fell from the Great Oak that stood on the slope North by West of the Castle, the sea would become visible on a clear day. Sheer humbug, of course, lying treacherous humbug, kindly intended but solving nothing, merely delaying disaster and meanwhile feeding it more full of cruelty. The typical stratagem of an ignorant, insensitive, sentimental, sycophantic Jack Martinet.’

  ‘What did Henri Martel make of it?’

  ‘Henri is not much mentioned in the Chronicle at this stage. The Lady had made it clear she didn’t fancy his company and he knew well enough that he didn’t fancy hers; so what with one thing and another, and what with the sickly smell of impending calamity, which Henri’s sharp nostrils would surely have picked up by now, I imagine he made himself pretty scarce. Nothing he could do – except exercise a poet’s appreciation of the scene and prepare to make a ballad of the whole affair later. With this in view he kept in discreet touch, through servants and so on, with events inside the Castle, one of the more melancholy of which must have been the Lady’s display of grief when she finally realized that she had been tricked by the Castellan:

  Then spake the Lady to all her train:

  The leaves have fallen off from the

  Tree, Yet still I look from these walls in vain –

  O Christ for the never-resting sea.’

  ‘After which she pined away and died?’ said the Director, consulting his watch.

  ‘After which she pined away and died. No one could help her and she would not, in any case, be helped:

  Prince, who walkest those walls today,

  Gazing over fair Normandie,

  Pray for the soul of the Kyria

  Who yearned for the never-resting sea.

  ‘I see. The traditional envoi appropriate to a ballade. A ballad with a ballade’s refrain and conclusion. And it is for the sake of this poem that you wish to save Arques?’

  ‘For the sake of the poem. And the poet. And for the sake of the Lady…who is buried in the Castle.’

  ‘Where?’

  Jean-Marie shrugged sadly.

  ‘There was a chapel near the donjon. We know the rough location, though nothing is left of it. The Chronicle implies that there was…some kind of shrine to her.’

  ‘Now utterly vanished?’

  ‘Yes. The shrine and everything in it. Except the Lady. She is still there.’

  ‘Dust and ashes.’

  ‘The tower she stood on, when she realized that although the leaves had fallen she would never see the sea – that is still there too.’

  ‘Is it indeed? You know,’ said the Director carefully, ‘there is one aspect of all this which intrigues me. It is hinted at in that passage of the Chronicle which explains, or fails to explain, why Henri disliked Xanthippe…because, he vowed, “another watched him from behind her eyes”. There is something, something pas honnête, about this lady. Something “fishy”, as the English would say, the uncovering of which, if only it turns out to be as truly disgusting as I hope it will, would make my reputation – and, just possibly, yours.’

  And so when Jean-Marie Guiscard came to Cany-Barville three days later to examine the damaged misericord he was able to cause the Marquis great annoyance by announcing that it had been decided, after all, to commence operations at Arques-la-Bataille in ‘quinze jours’ to the day.

  Ivan Barraclough descended some steep and narrow stone steps and stood
in the darkness on a little quayside underneath the ramparts of Dubrovnik. Twelfth Night, he thought: ‘This is Illyria, Lady.’ ‘And what shall I do in Illyria?’ What indeed…if once I am found out?

  Nothing can be proved, thought Ivan, as an operatic moon sailed out from behind a turret above him. That fat Greek with the winkle-picking shoes cut his own throat in his own house a whole day after I parted from him, twenty-four hours, at least, after I left Ioannina in the Land Rover. But…his friends will know that he met me. He is…he was…the head of Ptolemaeos’ wide and intricate Greek network, and he will have maintained, to judge from his air of self-importance, many men at his HQ. These, his staff officers, his sycophants, his bodyguard, he would certainly have informed of the exact circumstances of our rendez-vous. ‘I have received instructions from the Fat Pharoah,’ he would have told them: ‘I am to look for the Kyrios Barraclough in the restaurant on the island, and give him a message. I do not trust this message. Some of it is too simple to need saying. Some of it is obscure. Watch closely for my return from the island…which should be by the boat after the boat that brings the Kyrios, as he will expect us to separate for the sake of discretion. I shall humour him in this. But if I am not on the boat after his boat, act at once.’

  And the friends, watching from the Old Fort, watching the landing stage for the boats from the island, would have seen himself, Ivan, disembark from one such boat late in the afternoon, climb into his Land Rover which was parked under the walls of the Fort, and drive away on the road to the west. So then: ‘He will come by the next boat,’ the friends would have said; ‘and if he does not, we must act.’ But sure enough, there he would have been to reassure them, the Fat Angelos with the pointed shoes, disembarking from the next boat half an hour later.

  ‘How was it?’ the friends would have asked. ‘How was it Stratis/Theodore/Andrea?’ – Whatever the fellow’s name was, for Ivan had not enquired.

  And Stratis/Theodoros/Andreas would have shaken his head dully and started for home.

  ‘What is the matter, Stratis/Theodore/Andrea? Why are you silent? Has the Fat Pharaoh discovered that we know his secret, that we too are on the search?’

  And now the Messenger (Stratis, Theodoros or Andreas) would have answered. ‘There is nothing of substance to report,’ he would have said, for so Ivan had instructed him. Then he would have gone home, gone in, and shut his friends out; and some twenty-four hours later his wife/daughter/son/catamite/concubine/cook/maidservant, seeking him out for whatever purpose, would have found him with his throat cut.

  And then the friends would have said: ‘It is something to do with the meeting he had on the island. Now we must act. We must find this Barraclough and question him. We have friends in the Army and the Police. Let them see to it that he cross no border.’

  Anticipating some such danger, Ivan had abandoned the route which he had originally planned (and which would have taken him west to Igoumenitza and then by the ferry to Corfu) and soon after leaving Ioannina had branched off the road for Igoumenitza and set course north by east for the town of Niki. There he had crossed the border into Yugoslavia many hours before the Messenger would have killed himself, many hours before the Messenger’s friends would have sought aid from official confederates or started in pursuit. His intention was to drive north-west through Yugoslavia, to cross the top of Italy from east to west, and to proceed along the south coast of France to Saintes-Maries, where he would wait for Lord and Lady Canteloupe to arrive. Ideally he would have driven straight up the centre of Yugoslavia by Belgrade and Zagreb; but the one place on his original list which he must visit, among the many which he could afford, albeit reluctantly, to miss, was Dubrovnik. Surely there could be no risk in taking the longer road west to Dubrovnik and then north up the coast? And surely he could linger a few hours in Dubrovnik without danger? The Messenger’s friends, even when alerted by the Messenger’s death, could not conceivably trace him now.

  So he had thought…until, leaving his favourite fish restaurant in the middle of Dubrovnik, he had known that he was being followed by a youngish man who wore a sea captain’s hat, a dark blue roll-necked sweater, gum boots and black jeans. Ivan, who knew Dubrovnik well, had dodged into a complex of alleyways and had now come to the tiny quay (barely larger than the Eton Fives’ Court which it somewhat resembled) under the ramparts. Either he had lost the follower, in which case he could attend to his business in Dubrovnik and leave that very night; or the man in the captain’s hat would be upon him at any minute. Would he be peaceful or violent? Inquisitive or threatening? Conciliatory, reproachful or vindictive? ‘This is Illyria, Lady,’ Shakespeare’s land of idyll and fantasy…until a man is found out. Then: What shall he do in Illyria?

  Ptolemaeos came into the kitchen where Jo-Jo was cooking the dinner.

  ‘Out of bounds,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘You don’t come in here without invitation – any more than I come to your study without your say so first.’

  ‘Come to the study.’

  ‘The food will spoil. We’re going to have a Gratin des Queues des Écrevisses. I caught them in Quy Fen.’

  ‘Put them by. We can have something cold later. Come to the study.’

  And so Jo-Jo came five minutes later, after she had sadly ‘put by’ her Queues des Écrevisses.

  ‘Telephone call from des Veules-les-Roses,’ Ptolemaeos said. ‘The French authorities are, after all, going to excavate and restore September Castle.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘“Quinze jours.” A fortnight.’

  ‘So you’ll have to speed the whole thing up?’

  ‘I can’t speed up Ivan. We’ve lost him. He should be in Corfu, at the Corfu Palace Hotel. I telexed just now. They telexed back. He didn’t arrive to take up the booking.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I think I know – roughly. I asked him to do something rather tricky for me as he came through Ioannina, something which may have got him into trouble. If so, he’ll have changed his route. God willing, he’ll get to Saint-Gilles to meet Tullia and Canteloupe on the day arranged, but until then, prettikins, he may be anywhere. So speeding him up is impossible.’

  ‘Then they’ll just have to move faster than they would otherwise have done after they all meet at Saint-Gilles.’

  ‘Easier said than done. Come and sit on Uncle’s lap and let him explain.’

  Jo-Jo pulled off her slacks and went to sit on Uncle’s lap. ‘From Saint-Gilles up to Dieppe,’ said Ptolemaeos, tickling Jo-Jo’s thighs round the hem of her knickers, ‘they can indeed move faster. They can be there in a day. But even so by this time “fifteen days” will have been reduced to nine; and the whole trouble is that what has to be done in Dieppe and the Castle itself cannot be speeded up, will if anything slow itself down, and at the most optimistic estimate conceivable requires eight days. So the margin, you see, is very narrow.’

  ‘I do see,’ said Jo-Jo, gently scratching the inside of Ptolemaeos’ right calf. ‘Now tell me exactly what it is that has to be done.’

  Ptolemaeos drew breath.

  ‘We were going to leave that until later,’ he said.

  ‘So we were. But then we had plenty of time, or so we thought. Now we know the heat’s on, and you’re going to need all the help, every little bit, that you can get. So start by telling a girl what’s cooking. Come on, Ptoly: what’s on the menu?’

  ‘Écrevisses for one thing.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly. Those are – were – for our dinner.’

  ‘I’m not being silly. Be patient, and sooner or later we shall come to the Écrevisses in all this.’

  ‘So you’re going to tell?’

  ‘Yes. I would have done anyway, fairly soon. Why not now? I need to relieve my tensions,’ said Ptolemaeos, plucking a tiny hair from her flesh.

  ‘Yow. Shall you also tell Baby and Canty?’

  ‘As to that, we’ll see. I may have to now it’s crisis time. You can judge whether I should.’

  ‘I’d te
ll Baby everything. She’s that cute up top and as tough as a jack-boot.’

  ‘You haven’t heard what there is to tell yet.’

  ‘Fire away then.’

  ‘You load my cannon.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jo-Jo, nimbly manipulating its breech.

  ‘Clever little gunner. Yes…just…like…that. And stop at once when Uncle tells you, or it might go off by mistake. So where were we?’

  ‘At the beginning.’

  ‘Ah yes. Well, little powder-monkey, one autumn long ago Uncle went with his old college chum, Ivan Barraclough, to the Abbey at Vezelay to look at the pretty (if much restored) Romanesque carvings, and thence to a museum nearby; and in the museum, on display, was a beautifully bound and illuminated manuscript volume of the Chronicle of Avallon, being the story, as told to a learned monk by Hubert of Avallon, of how the said Messer Hubert brought the Despoina Xanthippe of Ilyssos from Glarentza, or Clarence, in the Principality of Achaea in the land of Romany to the Castle of Arques in Normandy, wherein this Lady pined and died – all of which you know well enough already, and most of which was well enough known to Uncle and Ivan at that time. But what they didn’t know, and were never meant to know, was that there existed a supplementary or appendicial volume of the Chronicle. This fact emerged only by accident and through the light-headedness of the Curator, whom Uncle and Ivan invited to dinner at the excellent local inn as a means of thanking him for allowing them to look right through the manuscript of the Chronicle, which was normally confined to its glass case. This Curator, rendered irresponsible by many glasses of heavy Burgundy, which he would never have drunk had he not been flattered by the hospitable and deferential attentions of the two milors Anglais –’