by Paul Collis
4
His first interviewee was the tavern’s landlord. The man lived closer to the trail than anyone but declared he knew nothing of any wall, of any fortress. If there was a nearby pass over the mountain, he’d never met a single soul who’d used it. ‘Do I look prosperous?’ he asked. ‘No, because the only luck I’ve had since I bought the place is lousy. In the five years I’ve owned it I’ve made more money selling beans and ale to thrifty shepherds than renting beds to travelers. There’s supposed to be lepers living in the hills, and even they don’t visit. No sir, one more season like the last and I’m packing it in.’
Bellanger rode back to St. Jean and, over the next few days, casually questioned various people whose families were part of the town’s fabric; a carter, a teacher, the miller, a shepherd and a butcher, among others. But he received similar responses from all: ‘A wall, you say? An old fortress? No sir, never heard of such a place.’ ‘Nothing up there but rocks and wind, friend. Rocks and wind.’ Which he found odd, as most had proudly admitted to their roots and being acquainted with the surrounding country.
He went to the church but, before he directed any queries to its priest, he studied its windows; the stained glass often commemorated the deeds of benefactors, or a local event of some significance, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The priest, although he’d been baptized in its font and served mass at its altar for the last thirty years, also said he knew nothing. When Bellanger suggested that he was being evasive, he denied it.
These answers left the agent feeling certain that his questions scared them; in every face he’d seen a brief trace of fear immediately covered by a confident smile. Another impression they gave him was that they were more conservative than most people in the provinces; the transformative idea that they were now free and equal citizens of France might have trickled down to them from post-revolutionary Paris, but their world carried on much the same as before the letting of all that blue blood. He concluded that if they were afraid of anyone it would be their traditional landlord, the Baron of St. Jean.
Two days after receiving a request for an audience, the 12th Baron granted him ten minutes of his precious time. Bellanger presented himself as ‘a traveler and explorer, a naturalist of simple curiosity, making notes about the region for a book to aid the adventurous on their journeys’. When he inquired about the hidden valley and its fortress the baron was as evasive as his tenants, and asked him to leave.
The agent stood his ground. He had steered away from his mission’s true course believing that knowledge of the unknown, thrice-denied, non-existent wall might prove to be as important as any mountain pass. But time was precious and he could not afford to waste any more of it; he removed the soft leather case from its pocket and presented the baron with the power behind his solicitations — Napoleon’s direct orders, the warrant with its great seal of the Emperor, and the gold ring that signified the rank of General.
The baron studied the objects. ‘What do they mean? Who exactly are you?’
Bellanger told him. He noted the nobleman’s sudden pallor and his slightly more rapid breathing, but despite his obvious fear the man continued to deny any knowledge of the wall.
‘You are lying, sir, so I will ask my questions again. And if I judge that you have not answered them truthfully, I will arrest you.’
‘With … with what charge?’ the man stammered.
‘Treason.’
‘That’s ridiculous! You’re … you’re no imperial agent. The warrant’s fake, as is the ring!’
The agent regarded the baron with some sympathy; his resistance was not without merit. ‘Look at me,’ he said calmly. ‘Consider my questions. Do I ask for payment in the form of ‘taxes’, or for anything of value? No. I ask only for information, because I am who and what I say I am. Again: answer truthfully or face arrest. And should you resist arrest …’ Bellanger removed the stiletto hidden in his sleeve. ‘… the Emperor’s authority is embedded in its blade’.
The aristocrat’s resistance collapsed. Powerless against the agent’s rank and frightened by his forceful nature and apparent willingness to use violence, he reluctantly told his interrogator everything he knew about the wall. His account of its construction and its purpose was an unbelievable tale, bequeathed by dying fathers to incredulous sons who nonetheless swore sacred oaths of silence, oaths to be broken only when bequeathing it themselves.
Bellanger reacted like most rational and sober men, with blatant skepticism, but the Baron insisted he could prove that what he said was true. He walked over to an ancient wooden chest and unlocked it, and returned with a parchment that he swore was a declaration from his great grandfather, the 9th Baron. Bellanger read the manuscript and dismissed it as fiction, the product of a fanciful mind. The Baron, like most men who have divulged a secret after years of holding it fast, seemed strangely keen to unburden himself of it. Desperate to be believed, he returned to the chest and unearthed more documents, including dozens of century-old bills for building materials. He unrolled an equally aged drawing, skillfully executed, of a horrifying scene; it seemed to Bellanger like a sketch by the mad Dutchman, Bosch, whose hellish work he had once seen copied in a Spanish book of demons.
‘You can see,’ said the baron, ‘the drawing is by a priest — his signature is below the description, next to the date — and he sent it to his Bishop, but my great-grandfather intercepted it. He suggested to his Holy Excellency that the cleric was a sorely troubled soul who might be better off in the confines of a silent Carthusian monastery. A sizeable donation made it happen. The priest never returned.’ Seeing that Bellanger remained unconvinced, the Baron insisted that the church records would bear him out. ‘Also within the records for that year, in the same hand as this drawing, is reference to the blessing of a grave in which many men were buried. Added next to it, in another’s hand, is added ‘Victims of a sudden plague.’ If so, it was a plague unique in history, for it harmed neither woman nor child — only men.’
The agent dutifully recorded this evidence, as well as the Baron’s testimony, then set about revisiting the citizens he’d quizzed previously. One after another, from rich merchant to retired Major, from cleric to constable, when they learned that the Baron had broken his oath they did the same. They all told him the same story — exactly the same story — with a fervor that belied mere superstition. The horrific tale they told him was, of course, impossible. But Bellanger could tell that the townspeople truly believed it. And when he considered the man he’d met beneath the high wall in the mountains, and the strange authority of his confident stance and unblinking gray eyes… Well. Who is to say what is and what is not impossible?
Back in his room at the inn, he could not sleep. If this is what he had to report, then how? How to report something so beyond the bounds of reason? To consign his opinion to ink, or even to recount it to his nominal superior, the State Advisor, risked humiliation — even the end of his career. He decided that, if he was going to be called mad, he would accept the slander from one man only; the man who’d sent him on this mission.