The Winter Ghosts - By Kate Mosse Page 0,21

to limp to a standstill. Even so, had seven whole hours really gone by since first I’d arrived at the boarding house? No wonder I was hungry.

My overcoat was hanging on a hook on the wall beside the front entrance. I shrugged myself into it, put on my cap, then I pulled open the heavy door and stepped out into the night.

La Fête de Saint-Etienne

The place de l’Église was deserted. Already there was a hard frost and the ground beneath my feet glistened white. It was very still and very pretty, like glitter on a Christmas card. The flambeaux were burning fiercely.

Holding Madame Galy’s map in my hand, I headed diagonally across the square towards the church and the maze of tiny streets that made up the oldest quartier of the village where she had indicated the Ostal would be found.

I walked past the plane trees, then down a narrow and nondescript alleyway by the side of the church. The cold pinched at my cheeks and my hands, so I walked quickly. In the few moments it had taken me to cross the square, a low mountain mist had descended, shrouding everything in a shifting, diaphanous whiteness. It curled around the buildings and the street corners.

I walked a little faster. The impasse de l’Église led to a labyrinth of winding, cobbled back streets, each apparently identical and giving no indication as to where they might lead. I knew I was heading in the right direction, but though Madame Galy had marked the correct passageways to take, it was not clear which was which. And while people had left their lights burning in houses in the square, here in the old quartier it was very dark indeed. The houses were all shuttered and the windows hidden.

I lit a match and peered at the map, trying to orientate myself in relation to the place de l’Église and the church, before setting off again. I found myself at a crossroads, which was not marked on Madame Galy’s map. I wasn’t usually such a dolt, but the lack of street signs and the slinking mist weren’t making it any easier.

Then I heard voices, fragments of conversation, laughter, splinters of sound carried through the narrow alleyways on the night air. I folded the map and put it in my pocket, deciding to trust my instincts instead. I picked up the pace, following one path, then another, until I saw light ahead and abruptly emerged from the warren of little streets.

Straight ahead of me was a large rectangular building, much like the old wool market in Tarascon. Night had stripped it of colour, but it resembled all the other municipal town halls I’d seen in the southern towns through which I had passed. The ubiquitous pale limestone of the Pyrenees and the sloping roof made it appear both modest and imposing at one and the same time.

A colonnade ran along the front with three high arches. Shallow steps stretched the width of the building. The dust of the passing years seemed to have accumulated in the nooks and crevices of the stone. Substantial wooden double doors in the centre stood open, spilling out a rectangle of welcoming yellow light into the December evening.

Anticipation fluttering in the pit of my stomach, I climbed the steps and found myself in some kind of entrance hall. It was barely warmer inside than out. Ahead of me was a huge door, some ten feet high or more and decorated with carvings of fruit and heraldic symbols, subtle shapes and images on the dark wood.

I took off my coat, marvelling at the seriousness with which the citizens of Nulle approached their annual celebration. For rather than the usual collection of evening jackets and coats and stoles, there were rows of cloaks in plain blues and reds and greens and browns hanging on the black iron hooks. My overcoat looked oddly modern and fussy in such company.

I took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves, then tugged sharply down to straighten my tunic, and walked through the door with as much confidence as I could muster.

The heat hit me. A warm fug of people and roaring fires and conviviality. Noise, too, deafening after the stillness of the old quartier, a cacophony of laughter and chatter, the clattering of dishes and waiters moving to and fro. I stood quite entranced on the threshold, mesmerised by the scene laid out before me. The air was thick with smoke from the open fire burning