The Winter Ghosts - By Kate Mosse Page 0,22

at the far end of the room, a thousand candles scattered light and shadow from metal sconces on the walls, ever shifting, ever dancing. I scanned the hall, hoping to catch sight of Madame Galy, but there were too many people to pick out just one in the crush.

As my eyes adjusted, I got the measure of my surroundings. The hall was twice as long as it was wide with a high, vaulted ceiling. The stone walls were bare, no paintings or photographs or ornamentation of any kind. A long refectory-style table stood across the top of the room and two more lined the walls, each covered with heavy white cloths and surrounded by benches. Only at the top table were there chairs.

Then, floating above the polyphony, a descant to the obligato of the crowd, a single thread of music. The distinctive open chords and plain melody of a vielle. Moments later, a clear, treble voice began.

Lo vièlh Ivèrn ambe sa samba ranca

Ara es tornat dins los nòstres camins

Le nèu retrais una flassada blanca

E’l Cerç bronzís dins las brancas dels pins.

I did not understand the words but I caught their spirit and somehow knew he sang of the mountains, of winter, of the snow and the pine trees. An old ballad in an antique language. All the time he was singing, the music held me in its spell, filling my head with images and emotions that had been long absent. My eyes pricked with tears.

Once, years ago, I’d tried to explain to George what I felt when I listened to a choir sing, when I heard the reverberation of the plainsong in the upper echelons of the cathedral or the stalls of our little country church in Lavant, but he didn’t understand. Music never moved him and although he would sit and listen to me play the piano for hours, I knew his thoughts were elsewhere. He sat there for me, not for himself.

‘Monsieur, soyez le bienvenu.’

The voice startled me back to the present. I turned to see a man with a shock of copper hair and an open, thoughtful face smiling at me.

‘Hello, thank you.’ I held out my hand. ‘Frederick Watson. Madame Galy said I should look in. I’m lodging there for a day or two.’

‘Guillaume Marty.’

Since he did not offer his hand in return, though his expression was welcoming, I let mine drop.

‘Wonderful turnout,’ I said.

‘All who can be are here, yes.’ He nodded. ‘Please. Follow me. I shall find you a place to sit.’

Marty was dressed as a priest or a monk in some kind of religious get-up, but the long green robe did not seem to inhibit him and he moved quickly through the crowds. He wore sandals on his feet and a leather belt around his waist, from which hung a scroll or rolled parchment. He looked utterly the part. Again, I marvelled at the lengths to which the inhabitants of this tiny village had gone to make sure the evening went off well.

As we made our way through the hall, Marty was stopped many times. Two smiling sisters, Raymonde and Blanche Maury, dressed in royal-blue robes with red stitching around the neck and cuffs; Sénher Bernard and his elderly wife; the widow Na Azéma, as she was introduced, her hair covered by a grey veil pinned beneath the chin; Na and Sénher Authier, the latter a large gentleman whose high colour and broad arms suggested eating and drinking were his vocations in life. After several more such introductions, I realised that Na and Sénher were a local form of madame and monsieur. I noticed a woman who looked very like my landlady, and was on the point of waving when she turned and I realised it was not her.

‘Is Madame Galy here?’

‘I do not believe I have seen her.’

The contrast between the feelings of sadness that had come over me when I’d first entered the village and this convivial gathering could not have been more marked. Here, in the Ostal, the sense of community and camaraderie was tangible. Everyone was smiling and nodding as we passed, offering friendship.

Guillaume Marty stopped and indicated I should sit at one of the few remaining spaces on a bench. I threaded myself in, all clumsy elbows and knees. When I turned to thank him for seeing me right, he had already disappeared again, swallowed up by the crowd. I leaned back and glanced up and down the room, but could see the green robe nowhere.

‘Queer that he