by Olga Wojtas
“I’m sorry, Miss Blaine,” I murmured. “I shall carry out this mission with good grace and diligence, and I hope you will be able to be proud of me again.”
I applied myself to the cooking with renewed vigour and eventually called Madeleine through to eat, the burgers sitting on a nest of lettuce and tomato between slices of baguette, flanked by home-made chips.
She got a fork and poked suspiciously at her burger.
“You lift it up with your hands,” I explained. “It’s basically a sandwich. Invented by the Earl of Sandwich during a card game. Avoiding the need for cutlery.”
She picked up the burger and took a tentative bite.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She gave a non-committal grunt, which I felt was actually quite positive. She just couldn’t bring herself to admit she liked it.
Mentioning the Earl of Sandwich led me to think of the English milord. I was certain he wasn’t the subject of my mission, but he might still be relevant to it.
“Tell me,” I said, “what do you know about the English milord?”
Shrug. “Nothing. I’ve never met him. I don’t even know his name. I hear he’s very seldom in the village. All I know is that he comes from a castle in an English town called Aberdeenshire.”
If I got home without bursting a blood vessel, it would be a miracle. “Allow me to correct you. Aberdeenshire is an administrative county, not a town. Aberdeen is a city. And most important of all, both city and county are in Scotland, and the milord is therefore not English.”
Her lack of interest in what I was saying couldn’t have been more evident. But I was mollified by the way she was chomping her way through the burger, and eating more than her fair share of the chips.
“I don’t suppose you know which castle?” I asked. “Fyvie? Muchalls? Cairnbulg? Balmoral? Slains?”
“Yes, I think that’s the name. That last one you said.”
I ran through the list of Scottish castle owners I had memorised. “1900, Slains Castle, property of Charles Gore Hay, twentieth Earl of Erroll, Lord High Constable of Scotland and chief of the Clan Hay,” I murmured. I resolved to pay him a visit. It’s always nice to meet a fellow Scot abroad, and he could well have useful information.
“I’d like to call on him,” I said. “Can you tell me the best way to get there?”
She gave a short laugh. “The best way is through the forest. But, of course, you cannot go that way.”
“Of course,” I agreed. Then I asked, “Remind me why not?”
She positively sneered at me. “It’s out of bounds. Because of the–”
For a moment, I couldn’t remember the meaning of the French word she said. And then I got it. Sangliers. Wild boar. I could see it would be sensible to stay out of their way – those tusks are quite something. As far as I knew, they were nocturnal, so crossing the forest during the day shouldn’t be a problem – but perhaps if you woke them up, they got quite cranky. I know I do.
“You’ll have to go the long way round, but you’ll never find it yourself,” said Madeleine. “I’ll have to take you.”
I was about to explain that I would have no problem, since I was an experienced orienteer. But while the UK might already have a well-organised system of Ordnance Survey maps, I had no idea what the situation in France was. And I hadn’t seen a compass in my luggage. I had a look in my reticule in case one had now materialised, but there were no new additions. I took out my handkerchief and blew my nose, pretending that was what I had been looking for all along.
“Sorry, I used up the last of the tomatoes,” I said. “I’ll get more tomorrow. But I didn’t find the greengrocer’s on my walk round the village. Where is it?”
“In the next village,” she said acidly.
That didn’t sound at all convenient.
“The cart takes our produce to them, and brings back what we need in return.”
“Well, next time, could they maybe add milk, butter and cheese to the order? I went to the cheese shop, but it was closed.”
Madeleine, who had been reaching for a chip, raised her eyebrows. “But the cart deliveries have been suspended. Surely your friend the mayor told you what was happening?”
I remembered Cart Woman complaining that her business was going down the tubes. And I noted that this was the second time Madeleine had referred to the mayor as my “friend”.
“Your mayor seems perfectly pleasant, but I can’t presume to describe him as a friend,” I said. “I met him only a few minutes before I met you. And he hasn’t told me anything about anything.” I could have added, “except that you’re a widow”, but that always got her riled.
Madeleine ate the last two chips and sat back in her seat with a bland expression. “Tell me, madame, exactly how do you happen to be in our little village?”
This was seriously awkward. I couldn’t see Madeleine falling for the line that Sans-Soleil had starred in Glasgow’s International Exhibition. And she knew that despite the mayor’s best efforts, the village didn’t feature on any list of top French destinations. I would have to take refuge in the truth, albeit not necessarily the whole truth.
“I told you, I’m here on a mission.”
“And may I ask the nature of your mission?”
She would have been great in a police procedural series, the young detective politely asking seemingly innocuous questions and then getting the villain bang to rights. Except I wasn’t a villain.
“I’m here to help someone,” I said.
“May I ask who?”
It would sound totally unprofessional to say, “I’ve no idea.” Instead, I said, “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.”
She nodded. “Of course. I understand.”
Her smile was so sickly, it would have curdled milk had there been any.
“Thank you for such an interesting supper,” she went on. “Would you like some coffee?”
I couldn’t face another milkless hot drink. “Thanks, but I don’t drink coffee so late at night, stops me sleeping. Speaking of which, I think I’ll go to bed, since I’m quite tired after my journey here.”
“I didn’t hear the cart this morning. How did you get here?”
The patrons of the howff had been much less inquisitive.
“I made other arrangements.”
“Which were?”
I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle a yawn. “I’m terribly sorry, I really must go to bed. We can chat more in the morning. I did most of the washing up as I went along, but maybe you won’t mind doing the rest?”
“How can I mind? You’re paying rent, aren’t you?”
“Goodnight, then,” I said, and retired to my room. It was dark now (or rather, a bit darker than it was during the day), but I wasn’t ready to go to sleep. I would soon have been in Sans-Soleil for twenty-four hours and as yet, I had no idea why I was here. The clock was ticking: Miss Blaine had told me on a previous occasion that I had a week to complete a mission. What would happen if I failed had been left unspecified, but I was in no doubt that it wouldn’t be good.
I waited until I was sure that Madeleine had gone to bed and was asleep. Taking care not to make a sound, I crept downstairs to the barn. I didn’t put on my head torch in case I woke the cow, simply taking small exploratory steps in the direction of the outside door. And then I thudded into something. Not something. Someone.
Four
Someone with a voluptuous bosom.
Madeleine made a sound that might have been “oof”, but with such a chic inflection that the word itself radiated voluptuousness.
There was a scratching sound, the smell of sulphur, and the safety match she had lit illuminated the barn. The cow opened a sleepy eye, and closed it again.
“What are you doing here?” Madeleine demanded. She was wearing an ankle-length black cape with a hood.
“I thought I heard a noise outside. I was coming to investigate,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
/>
“Same reason,” said Madeleine.
We stood there for a moment, both aware that we were lying to a person who was lying to us. Madeleine gave a gasp as the match burned down to her fingers. She let it fall to the stone floor, where it fizzled out harmlessly, and lit another.
“It all seems to be quiet now,” she said.
“So it does,” I agreed.
“I think I’ll go back to bed,” she said.
“Yes, I think I will as well.”
She shook the match out, and we climbed the two flights of stairs to the bedrooms in the dark and in silence. She had been really sneaky. She had closed her door loudly when she pretended to go to bed, and hadn’t made a sound when she crept back out.
“Good night,” she said as she reached her room, and even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was glaring at me. I decided to have a good sleep and start my mission properly the next day.
***
We set off after a breakfast of milkless coffee and butterless bread, accompanied down the village streets by sighs of “Ah, Madeleine!”
“Pigs,” she muttered. “I don’t give them the slightest encouragement, and this is how they behave.”
I felt like saying it would be a good idea if she stopped undulating quite so much. And then I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. It was Madeleine’s right to undulate as much as she wanted. She wasn’t the problem, they were.
Perhaps it was precipitated by guilt at my less-than-sisterly reaction, but I found myself turning and yelling, “What do you think you’re looking at? Sling your hooks, you bunch of schemies!”
In my exasperation, I translated directly from the Edinburgh, but my tone must have conveyed my meaning, since the men scarpered and Madeleine gave a small smile.
I’d had problems on my previous mission with a woman with a dangerous cleavage. The problems stemmed from her personality rather than her cleavage, so it was important not to conflate the two. Madeleine couldn’t help having an hour-glass figure. For all I knew, she might be forced to undulate by her unfortunate structure.
We bypassed the road to Paris and reached the edge of the village without further disturbance. To our right was the vast, seemingly impenetrable forest, shadowy and sinister, which bounded the village and reached the back of the town hall.
“The milord lives at the other side of the forest, over there.” Madeleine pointed. “But–”
“I know,” I said. “I can read.”
A hand-made notice was affixed to one of the trees: “Keep Out. Authorised Personnel Only. By Order.”
Madeleine looked at me in a doubtful way. “The other way is dangerous. There is no proper path, and we must negotiate narrow ledges and fast-flowing streams.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “I’m a Munro bagger.”
She stared at me, and I realised that didn’t make a lot of sense in French.
“I’m in the process of climbing all two hundred and eighty-two Scottish mountains over three thousand feet, which is nine hundred and fourteen metres,” I told her. “I’ve done two hundred of them already, including the In Pinn. The Inaccessible Pinnacle.”
I felt like adding that if she could manage the dangers with her sabots and her undulating, I could certainly manage them with my DMs and my core stability.
“Nobody knows this route,” she warned as we set off.
I spotted a contradiction. “Then how do you know it?”
“Nobody has ever taken this route apart from my beloved Sylvain and myself,” she amended as she led the way along a non-existent path with a sheer drop on one side, bounding along like a wee mountain goat. She was pretty good, I had to admit. I was pretty good as well, with a more measured pace like a bigger and more mature mountain goat.
“My Sylvain discovered it when he was on important police business. It led to my village, the only way from this valley to mine.”
She gave a reminiscent sigh. “Nobody from Sans-Soleil had ever visited my village. I didn’t know who he was, where he was from, but as soon as our eyes met, we knew – we had each found the one who would complete us.”
I feared this was heading towards too much information. “That’s nice,” I said as we scrambled across some scree. “Is it far to the milord’s place?”
“No,” she said, swatting away the question as though it was an irritating fly. “We ran hand in hand to the town hall in my village and were married immediately.”
“How is that possible?” I asked, as fragments of rock tumbled into the abyss below us. “Don’t you have to wait?”
“We explained to the mayor that we couldn’t wait,” she said.
Definitely more than I needed to know. “So, when you say not far to the milord’s place, are we talking ten minutes, half an hour?” I asked.
She crossed a fast-flowing stream by jumping effortlessly from rock to rock. “I can’t say. Every step of the journey from my village to Sans-Soleil is imprinted on my heart. But time has no meaning when I am with my Sylvain – all that matters is to be with him.”
I suspected she had been reading a lot of very trashy romances.
“I simply know that when I saw the milord’s castle–”
“Castle?” I interrupted. “The milord lives in a castle?”
“Of course he lives in a castle – he’s a milord,” she said impatiently. “As I walked hand in hand with my beloved Sylvain to begin my new life with him, suddenly I saw the castle, strange and black in a sunless landscape. My beloved told me we were now very close to his village. And I felt a surge of joy to know that this was where I would live out the rest of my days with my dearest.”
“Why couldn’t Sylvain move to your village?” I asked.
“Because he is Sans-Soleil’s police officer. He takes his duties seriously. He would never consider leaving the village.”
I felt like saying he had left the village, and the village seemed to have found a replacement with no problem. I was also offended that his job seemed to take precedence over whatever she was doing.
“Do you work outside the home?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, reaching for a handhold on the rock face to balance herself on the vestigial track. “I look after the cow, I go to the shops, I clean the windows, I paint the window frames.”
I grabbed at the same handhold and hauled myself along. “I mean work that isn’t connected to the home.”
She turned and frowned at me. “Whatever are you suggesting?”
“You play the piano very well,” I said. “You could give concerts.”
She turned to me with a snort. “Ridiculous. All I wish to do is look after my Sylvain.” But just before that snort, I had spotted a flash of interest in her eyes.
“Of course,” I said emolliently. “Looking after your husband is the number one priority.”
I was impressed that I managed to say it without snorting myself. “And thankfully, as you keep saying, he’s not dead. But if, heaven forbid, you were left a widow at some point, you’d need an income, and I hear that concert pianists are quite well paid.”
Another flash of interest, and then she snapped, “I shall never be left a widow, for the instant that my Sylvain dies, my own heart will break in two.”
And with that, she set off again, not so much undulating as flouncing.
“If nobody knows about this route except you and Sylvain, and the forest is out of bounds, how does the milord get to the village?” I asked.
Shrug. “I don’t know. Milords are a law unto themselves.”
We inched our way along a particularly treacherous outcrop and suddenly there was Lord Erroll’s castle. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I had been thinking of the chateaux of the Loire, elegant and landscaped. This could only be described as Gothic, turreted, dark and forbidding. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a bat fly out of one of the narrow, mullioned windows.
“I’m fine from here on in,” I said. “I would invite you to come with me, but we
’ll be speaking English and you would only be bored.”
In fact, I didn’t want her there in case she overheard information germane to my mission. The French often pretend they don’t know other languages when actually they do. It amuses them to see foreigners struggling to speak French. And it enables them to eavesdrop unsuspected.
“How will you find your way back?” she asked.
“I kept my eyes open on the way here,” I responded tartly. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Of course I worry about the village’s distinguished guest,” she said. “I would hate anything to happen to you.” The way she said it suggested the opposite.
“And I would hate to take up any more of your time,” I said. “I accept full responsibility for getting myself home.”
“Perhaps I’ll go back through the forest,” she said. It sounded like a challenge of some sort.
“You do what you like,” I said. “But since the forest is out of bounds, I’ll be going back the way we came.”
She glowered at me, and turned on her heel.
I trudged along the stony path to the castle. The massive wooden door, studded with iron nails, had a Victorian brass bell pull beside it, which I tugged. I imagined a sonorous clang but it just tinkled in a feeble sort of way. I waited to hear heavy footsteps, and the drawing back of massive iron bolts. The drawing back of massive iron bolts happened, but after that, there was only a small nervous cough before the door swung open.
There stood a man about my height but of much flimsier build, dressed entirely in black, a black woollen muffler wrapped round the lower half of his face. He had longish dark hair, which was perhaps why what I could see of his face seemed Sans-Soleil white in contrast. He looked more forty-something than my fifty-something. A young family retainer rather than an old one.
“Hello, I’m here to see the owner,” I said.
He said something through his muffler that I managed to interpret as “That’s me.”
Not the servant, but the master. He would no doubt expect to be addressed as “Lord Erroll”, but I’ve never seen why someone should be given special treatment because of an accident of birth. He came from Aberdeenshire, so I would address him in the vernacular – I speak all of the Scottish languages and dialects apart from Glaswegian. That is, I know how to speak Glaswegian, but I prefer not to. I imagine my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth if I had to say “I have went” or “definATEly”.
