Jesús said, “but you still have not told us the reason why you have come.”
“I’m getting there,” said Petrus, in no way offended, “I’m getting there.”
He drained his glass and looked dejectedly at the empty bottle. Alejandro stood up, went once again to the far end of the cellar, and came back muttering interesting, like the first time.
Petrus read the label and seemed moved.
Jesús leaned closer in turn.
“Nuits-Saint-Georges,” he read, “vin de Bourgogne.”
“I’ve been there often,” said Petrus. “The first time I was quite young.”
The memory pleased him and he smiled to himself.
“And I went back there exactly twenty years ago, right after my visit to the castillo in Yepes.”
He was no longer smiling.
“We chose your fortress as a safe place for our protégée, Maria, whom you heard us speak of just now, the young woman who commands the snow. But when I arrived, your family had just been murdered, and I decided to hide Maria in Burgundy.”
“Do you know who killed them?” Alejandro asked.
“Not yet,” said Petrus, “but everything is linked. If we chose your fortress to accommodate Maria, it was because of a series of corroborating factors. Among other disturbing events, a few days ago we came to discover that the first elf who ever ventured into the world of humans probably came to Yepes. Moreover, the castillo has the same motto as our mists.”
“Mantendré siempre,”1 said Alejandro.
“Which is also the motto of our council,” Petrus said.
“And Maria, what role does she play?” asked Jesús.
“Maria?” echoed Petrus, surprised by the question. “She unites our forces.”
“She’s an elf?” Jesús insisted.
Petrus hesitated for a brief moment.
“We’re not sure what she is,” he replied.
Jesús seemed to be on the verge of asking another question, but the elf raised his hand.
“Now, if you will, the time has come for me to tell you what we hope to gain from our meeting.”
He glanced at his glass.
“Apart from these wonders,” he added. “Of course, it is rather difficult to sum up a war in a few words. But it so happens that the final battle will be fought tomorrow.”
Jesús burst out laughing.
“Wars like that no longer exist,” he said. “This is not Alexander at Gaugamela or even Napoleon at Wagram. There is no final battle.”
“I’m afraid there is,” said Petrus, “and it will be fought tomorrow, and you will be called on to play a part in it—if we manage to get you across the bridge.”
He laughed quietly to himself. He suddenly seemed old, but his gaze was even more beautiful than at the beginning of the story; his eyes a flinty gray, glinting with silver.
“It is time for us to greet our lady and entrust the rest of the story to her,” he said.
He stood up, along with the other two elves, and all three turned to one side and bowed deeply.
In the darkness before them stood the young girl whom the general from Yepes had already seen in his dreams.
Darker than the night
More motionless than stone
The lake where we pray
Book of Prayers
1 I shall always maintain.
WINE
My people live beneath the enchanted earth of Yepes, and there is no more pleasant place for our purpose than the cellar of the castillo, for wine lays in the memory of centuries, stones, and ancient roots.
It should come as no surprise that elves are not familiar with the vine. For those who are together, reality suffices; these are not people of fiction and drunkenness. But the wine of humans is the brother of friendship and fables. It confers upon the whispering of the deceased the turn of phrase that will carry their words a great distance. Through wine, the bitterness of solitude turns sweet, in that exquisite relaxation that causes so much to blossom. It joins the nobility of the land with the chronicles of the heavens, the deep roots of vine stock with the clusters of grapes reaching for the sun—there is nothing better suited to telling the saga of the cosmos.
Still, there was one remarkable exception to the mists’ indifference to the vine: Petrus was an accomplished elf and a master of wines. He could taste the poetry of his world, but he loved the stories of humans above all else, and he would gladly listen to them with a glass in his hand. Thus, he incarnated a bridge between the two worlds, as did all the other providential players in this war.
POETRY
If there is one intoxication shared by humans and elves, it is poetry.
On a day of drizzle or a night of pale