The Winter Ghosts - By Kate Mosse Page 0,24

to her in English, or moitié-moitié, a duet in two languages. But, even five years later, I can still taste the tang of the salt pork on my tongue, still savour the rough, woody texture of the broad beans, slippery in oil, still feel the gritty texture of the bread, like crumbled cake, between my fingers.

And still I hear the song in my mind, though I never caught sight of the troubadour. His voice floated through the hall, up into the rafters, into every stone corner and dusty cobweb. I remember marvelling that he could sing for so long, with a tone so even and unbroken, and I believe I said so. I think I might even have tried to tell her of the musical aspirations I’d once had before the War intervened and Father decided it was not a suitable career for his son. But I drew back from such confidences. I wished neither to burden her, nor to reveal myself as a man disappointed in life. Instead, I asked her to tell me the story of the ballad, and when she had, in return I explained the accompaniment, how one note worked upon the other to provide its own harmonies.

So time passed and yet did not move at all. And, for me, enchanted as I was, the world had shrunk to her slim white hands, the promise of her tumbling black hair, her grey eyes and her clear, sweet voice.

‘Are you an honest man?’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

I started, taken by surprise both by the question and the grave tone in which she asked it. It was so different from the lightness of our conversations before that I hardly knew what to make of it.

But I answered. Of course I answered.

‘I would say so,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

Fabrissa then tilted her head to one side in that distinctive way of hers and looked at me.

‘And a man who can tell true from false?’

I paused as I considered how to answer. Ten years of voices in my head, of memories that were more real, more vivid, than the world outside my window. Ten years of living with George at my side. All this would suggest I was very far adrift from reality, that I was incapable of distinguishing true from false. But at that moment, sitting with Fabrissa in the warm companionship of the Ostal, the answer was obvious.

‘Yes. When it matters, then, yes. I am.’

She smiled, a broad and hopeful smile. And I, poor slave, felt a thousand emotions explode inside my head. I was lost. Bewilderingly, heart and soul, lost. Still she stared at me, as if seeking the answer to some question she had yet to ask.

‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘I can see it.’

A whistle slipped silently from between my lips. I felt as though I had passed some kind of test. A modern Gawain setting out from the Round Table, the conditions of his quest met. I was aware of her gaze upon me, weighing up the man I was. I could see she was considering and reflecting, I could see the movement in her eyes. But on the outside she was still, so very still. I tried to be the same, though nerves were sloshing in my stomach like bilge water in a scuppered rowing boat.

The moment stretched between us. The shapes and sounds and smells of the room, all the guests in it, faded away. Then Fabrissa shifted position on the bench and the enchantment was broken.

‘Tell me about him,’ she said.

The ground fell from under me, like a trapdoor beneath the hangman’s noose. A sudden, sharp drop, then the jerk of the rope.

How did she know? I had said nothing. Hinted at nothing. I did not want to talk about George, not even to Fabrissa. Especially not to Fabrissa. I did not want her to see me as the wretch I believed myself to be, but rather the man I had been for the past hours in her company.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, more sharply than I intended.

She smiled. ‘Tell me about George.’

Still I pretended not to understand.

‘Freddie?’ she said quietly. Her hand slid across the rough white cloth, a little closer to mine. Her fingernails were the colour of pearl.

I took a sharp intake of breath. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I . . .’

How to explain? I stumbled for an excuse.

‘It’s all been said.’

‘Maybe only the wrong things have been said.’

Her hand was so close to mine now that we were almost