The Old Vengeful

reign of Louis XIV, because no one ever called Louis XV or Louis XVI 'great' . . . and a 'wondrous' tower split by an earthquake can only be Enguerrand's— wondrous is exactly what it was, which was why Ludendorff blew it up, the bastard.'

Aske caught Elizabeth's eye a little despairingly, as if to share his conviction that they were even further from any sort of useful answer.

'And . . . that's why we're here?' he prodded Paul cautiously.

'Partly, yes . . .' Paul scanned the landscape ahead, as though he was looking for something in it. 'We're here to re-write a chapter in Elizabeth's father's book, as a result of Miss Irene Cookridge's recent revelations, actually . . . Ah! There he is!'

He pointed up the pathway.

Elizabeth frowned along the line of his finger. 'Who?

Where?'

Why?

'On the seat there. My old friend Bernard Bourienne. He made it!' Paul sounded childishly delighted. 'Come on—'

'Who's . . . Bernard Bourienne?' panted Elizabeth.

'He's a veterinary surgeon from Chateau-Thierry—'

'A what?' exclaimed Aske.

'He's also an enthusiastic amateur historian. In fact, there aren't many professionals who know more than he does about American operations in France in 1918—all the best American bits in my Hindenburg Line book are thanks to dummy3

him . . . and he's pretty good on the Chemin des Dames too.'

'Dear God!' whispered Aske. 'Into the trenches again—with a vet!'

Mercifully, Paul didn't hear him, he was already striding towards the man on the seat. 'I didn't think he'd make it—

Bernard! Well met, mon vieux!'

'Paul!' Bernard Bourienne unwound himself—all six-foot . . .

six-foot-two—six-foot-four—and, with the shock of dark hair on the top of it, matching the bushy eye-brows, finally more like six-foot-six. 'Well met, also, old friend!'

They embraced, in the continental manner which left Elizabeth slightly embarrassed. And then the Frenchman's dark eyes zeroed in on her, stripping her down and reassembling her in a fraction of a second, and yet somehow achieving this without the offence she would have felt in England.

'Bertrand— M'sieur Bourienne—allow me to introduce Mamselle Elizabeth Loftus, daughter of the late Commander Hugh Loftus, VC—'

The shock of hair came down to Elizabeth's level.

'—and my. . . my colleague and fellow historian, Humphrey Aske, of London University.'

'M'sieur.' Bertrand Bourienne gave Humphrey Aske a very brief glance, and then a second and more searching one, as though the first had quivered some sensitive antenna hidden in the tangle of hair.

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'Now, Bertrand—' Paul pre-empted any return civilities '—I hope you've got something good for me, because we're pushed for time, as I told you on the phone last night.' He looked around. 'In fact, it must be almost closing time here, to start with . . . and I'd like my friends to see what's left of Enguerrand's tower before we get chivvied out.'

'Chivvied out?' Bourienne waved the threat away. 'My dear Paul, they do not chivvy me.' He drew himself up to his full height, adding the elongated length of one arm to it in a signal directed towards the gate-house. ' So!'

Elizabeth followed the signal, but could see no sign of movement. Then she looked at the Frenchman and he smiled at her, lifting a finger to silence her as he did so. 'Listen, Miss Loftus.'

For a moment there was total silence, no voices, no sounds, not even any bird-song, which she might have expected in England. Then, out of nowhere—out of the air around her—

there was music . . . not music she could place in any origin of time instantly—not the Musak of the twentieth century . . .

but the sweeter sounds of a distant past, made by unfamiliar instruments and clear in the stillness of the evening.

'Oh—clever stuff, Bertrand,' murmured Paul irreverently.

'One day you'll have to do a Son et Lumiere here—ending with a bloody great 28-ton bang, maybe?'

'Fourteenth century,' said Aske. 'Lute and hautboy—

Enguerrand's background music, perhaps?'

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Influence, thought Elizabeth, putting it all together just as suddenly as the haunting music had filled the open space between the trees and the towers all around her. Paul had said contacts, but that had been what he meant—and that had been Father's complaint in the latter days: I haven't any influence any more— I can't make people do things for me— I don't know the right people . . . This was what Paul had,