The Lost Castle

by Kristy Cambron

  “Titus—tell me, please. The truth. Are you the castle’s owner?”

  He sighed, an audible show of regret. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but non.”

  “But you know who the owner is?”

  “I do.”

  “Then can you tell me? Or at least appeal to him on my behalf? I haven’t told Quinn the reason why, but I think my grandmother may have visited here once, enough that it changed her entire life. It would have been in 1944, and though I can’t show you what I’m talking about, I have a photograph of her. And I need to know if it was taken here. She’s not well, and . . . can’t tell me any longer. The only way I’ll unlock that part of her story—of our story together—is to see it from the inside. And I know the answers I’m looking for are at the castle ruins.”

  Lines deepened around his eyes, weighted by his smile. “I thought it may be something like that.”

  Ellie squeezed her hand upon his arm. “So you’ll help me? You’ll appeal to the owner on my behalf?”

  He shook his head, sinking her heart. “I cannot do that. But I will still help you.”

  “How?”

  He winked, his eyes focused as if scanning the depths of the woods in front of them. “I know how to get you inside.”

  EIGHTEEN

  APRIL 23, 1944

  LES TROIS-MOUTIERS

  LOIRE VALLEY, FRANCE

  Like “resistance,” “team” must have been a loose-fitting term for Julien.

  By the time he’d closed the false front of the shelving unit and locked the door behind them, he proceeded down the hall at a more agile pace than she’d seen him lead before. Vi followed, needing quick steps to keep up. The sound of voices—conversation, maybe even a radio?—carried through a door toward the end. And curiously enough, she thought she heard the cooing of birds echoing somewhere in the depths of the dark hall, though that would have been more than odd. Improbable really, for the confines of an underground tunnel.

  There was no knock or pronouncement; Julien just stormed through the door as brazen as could be.

  A man sat before a tabletop of machinery, his back to them, nose down, nursing a cigarette and intently focusing on something he heard over a wire. Julien clapped him on the shoulder and pulled the headset back at the same time, causing the man to jump nearly out of his skin. He hopped up, dancing on his feet, trying to avoid a singe from the cigarette dropped in his lap.

  Watching a man of at least fifty hopping about and cursing in French, all the while brushing ash from his trousers, made Julien come alive with laughter. So much that Vi bit her lip through the same.

  “That was the last of the Dunhills.” The man twisted his heel over the butt, grinding smoking tobacco against the stone floor. Ever the professional it seemed, he stooped and picked it up, scooting the remnants into an ashtray on the desk. “I’ll have to go back to rolling my own. And it will be your responsibility to scrub the ash from the floor again.”

  Julien ignored his cheek, announcing, “Professeur. Do look smart. We have a visitor.” He motioned for her to come in.

  Vi stepped into the center of the makeshift bunker. Where above floors was provincial, the real cover was for the vineyard’s rogue communications operation happening belowground.

  Radio equipment . . . ticker-tape printing and maps pinned to the walls . . . shelves teeming with books and paper files . . . and rolled maps that appeared weathered and worn at the edges. They made up a treasure trove of information, all packed into the space. And to her great surprise, Vi recognized what looked identical to a German Enigma-1 coding machine sitting on a writing desk in the back of the room. And she had heard a radio. It hummed from the headset the man had discarded on the desk—a transmission continuing on without him.

  The man owned a bushy gray mustache and steely hair tucked under a black Basque beret, and though his suit coat and trousers were of worn herringbone, he’d paired them with the amiable polish of a pinstripe shirt and navy bow tie.

  “This is Lady, our Brit. The new team member I was telling you about. Lady, this is Pascal—our communications specialist. He only has two rules in the bunker: a gentleman should always wear a tie, and he insists we uncivilized scamps in the Maquis resistance address him as le Professeur.”

  Pascal ignored the barb of Julien engaging in a mock bow, instead greeting her by tipping his hat and offering a congenial nod. “Mademoiselle.”

  Vi had to suppress a smile. It was fair to say she liked the professor from the start.

  “He was a theology professor at the University of Paris at Sorbonne until ’39. But we got lucky when Hitler moved in and he escaped west, stopping here with us. He runs operations in the bunker, seeing to our transmissions, getting information in and out.”

  “And you may note, mademoiselle, that this one does not wear a tie. But I hold that against him alone. You, however, may call me Pascal.”

  Julien rolled his eyes heavenward at the confirmation of being called a scamp, as if he’d been privy to the song and dance on more than one occasion. He let it go, back to the business of scanning the room, as if only then noticing that Pascal was manning the command station alone.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Brig is tinkering with the explosif plastique again. I told her to take it away from the estate house. I don’t trust her not to blow us all sky high until she knows what she’s doing.”

  Julien sighed. “I’ll talk to her again. And Camille?”

  “Feeding her pigeons. We’ll need them soon.” Pascal flitted his gaze over to Vi.

  “It’s alright.” Julien confirmed it with a steady nod. “Lady can be trusted.”

  “Very well.” Pascal issued a nod in her direction, which she took to mean as No hard feelings, but he had to ask. “Elder took a team out to set up for a retrieval run.”

  Julien’s eyes brightened, and he leaned over the desk, scanning what Pascal had scrawled on his notepad. “We’ve had another transmission then?”

  “Just picked up on it. They said, The Sleeping Beauty is awake.” Pascal turned to Vi. “That’s the SOE code for our team—because of the castle. We listen for it, knowing that the missive is for us when the name comes through.”

  “Oh, right. Brilliant.” Vi nodded, nonplussed but acting as if all of it came as not the slightest surprise.

  She was familiar with codes from the Special Operations Executive office and transmission from the BBC broadcast Radio Londres. What came as a revelation was that Julien’s team had tapped into the anti-German broadcasts rivaling Radio Paris and the Vichy government Radiodiffusion Nationale—both propaganda-laden broadcasts that were under strict government control. How they’d managed it in a cellar buried in the heart of wine country was no small feat. Not only had they connected to transmissions from Charles de Gaulle’s France Libre government while it was still exiled in London, they were actively using the transmissions.

  “Another supply drop this week.” A satisfied smile built across Julien’s face. “That makes two this month. We’ve never had them that close. Have you heard any chatter?”

  “Much more than usual. Transmissions coming in a near-steady stream. That’s why I didn’t leave when you tripped the door. Something is definitely in the works. And the Boches have stepped up attacks on border towns suspected of harboring resistance fighters.”

  Vi’s heart squeezed. That was exactly the kind of thing they didn’t need.

  “Then that’s why the drops are increasing. The Brits think we may have a fight coming and want to arm as many of us as they can.” He scanned the notes on the desktop. “How many drops, did they say?”

  “I counted seven fox in the grove, so I called on Elder right away.”

  “Magnifique, Professeur. We’ll need the larger team.” Julien looked to her. “Elder is our general, of sorts. He stirs the men in the forest anytime we have a wire. If there’s a supply drop or an offensive, he’s the man in charge of the operation.”

  Vi issued a look of
what she hoped he’d read as exasperation, for the half-truth he’d given her upstairs. “The men who you mentioned are off fighting, hmm?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t lie. I just neglected to say everything where any ears might overhear. In addition to Elder and le Professeur here, we have Camille, who sends missives out by carrier pigeon, if necessary, to communicate with the teams at Loudun and the surrounding countryside. And Brigette—or ‘Brig’—is our ever-daring explosives specialist. She’s a fourth-generation powder monkey, and though we need her, she does have the ability to stir one’s insides with her cavalier ways. You’ll meet them all soon. But in the meantime, while you’re here . . . we thought a linguist may be of some assistance with the wires.”

  Vi furrowed her brow, trying to remember if she’d let that bit of knowledge slip. “Did I say I was a linguist?”

  “Of course. You must have for me to know it, right?”

  Julien shifted his glance from Vi back to Pascal, who paused, excitement blooming in a smile spreading wide across his face. He eased down into the wooden swivel chair at the desk, it creaking as he leaned back and folded his hands across his vest.

  “What? What is it?” Julien eyed him, waiting.

  “In addition to a linguist, we’ll be up one more guest. I have reason to believe Victoria will be arriving with the next drop.”

  “Finally. Bien.” Julien exhaled, his relief apparent, and nodded Vi to the door. “We’d better be off then. And, Professeur, mind you keep a keen eye on the light, would you? Next time someone trips the cellar door, it may not be a friend.”

  Pascal looked high to the corner of the room and a line of wires that led to a bulb. It blinked for a series of seconds, then shone bright, more than the desk lamp that illuminated a halo around his work space.

  “Oui. But as I said, a transmission was coming through and I couldn’t stop. Not when we’ve been waiting for Victoria for weeks. What would you have me do?”

  Julien rolled his eyes. “And if I’d been an SS guard? I’d have stopped you from listening fast enough.”

  “Well, you weren’t. So do be off.” Pascal shoved by him, absorbed in getting back to his transmissions. He turned to Vi briefly and slipped the headset back over his head with a respectful nod. “Bienvenue, Dame,” was the short team welcome she received before Pascal fell back into his world of transmittals and hand-rolled cigarettes.

  Julien tipped his shoulders in a shrug. “He’s dedicated. I’ll give him that.”

  “I’d say he is. But . . .” She scanned the room again, their headquarters of no mean size, but notable impact nonetheless. “I didn’t expect anything like this.”

  “Good. We’re holding our cover well, then. You weren’t supposed to. No one knows, unless they’re a part of the team.”

  “Marie?”

  He nodded. No explanation required there. “She knows.”

  There was a little evidence that made sense, given the ongoing hostility that Marie seemed intent to share only with her. She was a part of the team, and a steadfast fighter at that.

  Vi turned her gaze down to his shin. “And your leg?”

  “I wish I could say that was all an act. Though I am a bit more nimble on my feet than one with a leg damaged by childhood polio should be. Looks worse than it is functional. And that makes it a savior. If they think I can’t run, then I’ll be able to when it’s necessary.”

  “I see.” And she did. It made sense now, the savior aspect of it all. “So what now? Because while I admit I’m impressed with the operation you have going on here, I’m still not clear on everything. Who’s Victoria?”

  “Come on.” He tipped his head to the door. “Let’s walk to the end of the tunnel so you see where the rabbit hole leads. Then it will make sense.”

  “And at some point, I’ll understand all of this.”

  “You will when you meet Gertie.” He winked, holding the door for her. “She’s Victoria’s sister—and together, they’ll be the most important members of our team.”

  Julien pushed the dory far enough into the water for it to bob on a half float but still be stabilized on the edge of the bank. “After you.” He held out a hand for her.

  Vi took it and climbed in, ignoring the slight shiver that his touch sent the length of her arm. Julien let go almost as quickly, and she brushed the thought away as she settled on the plank seat, chalking it up to the sense of unease she’d feel in anyone’s presence after running so long on her own.

  He eased in behind her, pushing them from the bank.

  “So, this Gertie. She’s out here?”

  He nodded, cutting the oars into the water with a steady stroke. “She’s at the ruins, yes. It’s her home, for now at least. And when Victoria joins us, they’ll be out here together. Helping us fend off the Boches in the woods.”

  Vi turned to stare him down, a thought pricking at her senses. “Tell me the truth. The music? The gunshots in the grove? That wasn’t our enemies in gray, was it?”

  “You’re very astute. I had to explain it away somehow. Most of our men are farmers. Laborers turned resistance fighters. They’ve never had to shoot a weapon in their lives and now we’ll be asking them to go against trained soldiers with submachine guns. Target practice is typically over when the music plays. I signal back if there’s any threat on the road to the castle. The deepest part of the woods is the only place the shots won’t be heard from the outside, so we have to watch it all the time. And we’re always concerned with enemy fire, so the caution you saw wasn’t an act.”

  “But that’s why you were at the cottage that day. Keeping an eye on the grounds. And you saw me go into the chapel.”

  “Saw you pick the lock and break in, you mean? I did.” He smiled, a slight twinkle in his eye. “Though one day, I’ll have to ask your real name, Lady. Just for kicks, because I know you’re too stubborn to tell me on your own.”

  Vi ignored his cheek, or tried to, by scanning the evergreen depth of woods and murky water that surrounded them. “So we came in at the back of the grove.”

  “That’s right. This is part of the moat. It carries back from the castle ruins, cutting the thicket in half.” He pointed out in front of them. “See? We’ll come out behind it, and the chapel will be on your left. Then the long stone wall with the arch and gate—it borders the vineyard at the back.”

  “And the road cuts out, making the bottom of a cross on the opposite side. It leads out to the bridge over the creek, and the high points on the ridge overlook that. The ridge holds the cottage, and the underground tunnel from the estate house leads there.”

  “You already know your way around. That’s good. Keep that map in your head, Lady. We may need it.”

  Vi’s breathing hitched as Julien rowed them around the bend in the water.

  It had been all trees, a canopy of blossoms, leaves, and limbs, and the subtle sounds of nature along the water until . . . Looking as if it had simply dropped out of the sky, a clearing opened up and the castle slept, smack-dab in the center island of it all.

  “I suppose I don’t need to tell you we’re here.”

  “No, you don’t. I’ve seen her before.” Vi breathed out, still amazed she could be awestruck by the view. “But she’s still breath-taking every time.”

  It had only been possible to see the ruins from afar last time. But in that moment, being so close, knowing she’d walk through its walls turned into some kind of magic she couldn’t explain.

  Julien rowed them across the wide moat, then tied a rope round a crumbled stone mast when they’d reached the castle’s side.

  “Lady?” He’d climbed out, somehow without her notice, and waited on the landing, his hand extended over the water. The lip from boat to ledge was small, but Vi nodded and leaned in to him, borrowing his strength to lift up and over.

  A stone gave her trouble, lodging under her oxford on the first step to the terrace. It wasn’t a full stumble, but Julien caught her against him, holding tighter t
han she’d expected. His grip was solid, the fit of his palms natural as his fingers wrapped around both of her hands and steadied her on her feet.

  He looked down on her. “Alright there?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Vi swallowed hard. Looking away from those eyes. So sure he could see the awakening of something within her, and that it must have shown in a blush upon her cheeks.

  He squeezed her hand, then let go on a nod.

  Whatever magic beheld the place faded as Julien fell back into the business nature of their visit. He’d say, “Watch your step,” or “Low ceiling,” when she’d need to duck under something, leading her on, obviously not as affected as she.

  The castle had remarkable bones, centuries later, stretching out all around them.

  Windowsills, engraved and once lavish, had their edges dulled from years of exposure to the elements. The sky poked through the clouds overhead, mingling freely where the roof should have hemmed them in. The ghost of what it once was still lingered, and Vi could imagine how great it might have been, in etchings and arches, and the shell of grand rooms now covered over with thick ivy and moss, and a clear blue sky.

  They ducked through an archway, and though it took a bit of attention to hold his hand and climb up surefootedly, Vi followed Julien through a turret to an open-air courtyard. Young trees had taken root in cracks in the floor, growing up to form a bower of green, in which birds had made their sanctuary. Tiny wings stirred as they walked through, Julien leading her to a sun-drenched tarp covering something in the center, a metal barrel cutting up high, glinting in the patches of sun.

  “Julien . . . what is this?”

  “You’re standing in what once was the grand ballroom, and for some time after that, a library.” He winked and swept the tarp off the biggest weapon she’d ever seen close up. “And this is our guest of honor. Lady, meet Gertie.”

  “Gertie is a machine gun?”

  “A 20mm antiaircraft weapon, actually—the Tarasque Type 53 T2 to be exact. She’s French, but we gave her a British name because she’s going to join in the fight when the rest of the chaps get here. And if all goes well, Victoria will join us soon. She’s Gertie’s twin, from some neighbors in Loudun. We’re waiting for her to arrive because she’ll give us a critical point of defense at the cottage. That way, we can do what we need to once the call goes out, and the ridge will help us defend against any attacks down below.”