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Paul laughed again. “I thought you Brits were used to hills.”
“Yes, well,” I excused myself, “I’m from the flat part.”
Simon finally noticed we weren’t keeping up. Frowning, he turned and called, “Come on, you two.”
Paul shot me a rather paternal glance. “You ready?”
“Have I a choice?”
The final approach wasn’t all that bad, as it turned out, mainly because my attention was focused on the strange tower ahead of us. The Tour de l’Horloge, Paul told me when I asked him—the Clock Tower. It was tall and curiously flat, like a cardboard cut-out of a tower, with a blue slate roof and wooden belfry. The bell that chimed the hours, I thought, must hang within this tower.
A stone bridge spanned the grassy moat that once had barred invaders from the tower’s high arched entrance gate. Today, the wooden doors stood open wide, inviting us to leave the road and cross the narrow footbridge to where Simon waited by the postcards, impatient.
“They do have guided tours,” Paul said, as we paused at the entrance to pay, “but Simon and I usually just wander around on our own. It’s up to you, though, if you’d rather take a tour…”
“I hate guided tours,” I assured them, “thanks all the same. Much more fun to wander.”
And wander we did. I’d always liked castles. I’d expected this one to be little more than a ruin, but many of the rooms and towers had been preserved intact within the shattered walls. One could almost hear the footsteps of brave knights and ladies, kings and courtiers, echoing round the empty rooms. The white stone, bathed in light from mullioned windows, lent a bright and airy feel to the sprawling royal apartments and made them look much larger than they were. From every corner twisting stairs led up to unexpected rooms with hearths and windows of their own, small private sanctuaries where a queen could comfortably retire to do her needlework or dally with her lover… at least, I thought, until the king found out, and had the lover killed.
In the next tower on, Simon pointed to a large framed painting of the château, just like the view Paul had shown me from the bridge. “That’s one of Christian’s paintings. Pretty good, eh?”
“It’s marvelous.” I leaned closer, amazed. “Christian did this, really?” It was a bold and sweeping painting in the true romantic style, and he had caught exactly the unusual pale color of the tufa-stone gleaming bright against a stormy violet sky.
“He’s incredibly talented,” Paul said, beside my shoulder.
“So I see.” With a vague prickling feeling of being watched, I slid my gaze from the painting to the figure looming in a shadowed recess of the tower wall. Not a real person, thank heavens—just a statue, and a massive one at that. “Good heavens,” I said. “It’s Philippe.”
Paul looked up as well, at the young heroic face. “Who?”
“Philippe Auguste. One of the early kings of France. He was the first real French king to own this château, actually,” I went on, recalling Harry’s countless lectures.
Simon frowned. “Who owned it before?”
“The counts of Blois and Anjou, I believe. And then the Plantagenets.”
“What, like the Black Prince, you mean?”
I smiled. “A little earlier than that. Richard the Lionheart and that bunch. Richard’s brother John was the last to own Chinon.”
“As in Robin Hood?” Simon checked
, his eyebrows lifting. “Bad Prince John? That guy?”
“The very same.”
“Neat.”
Paul looked at me with quiet interest. “You know a lot about the history of this place, then?”
My smile grew wider. “Rather. I’m lectured on it constantly. My cousin,” I explained, to both of them, “is something of an expert on Plantagenets. It’s his fault, really, that I’m here at all—he talked me into coming on holiday with him.”
The brothers exchanged glances. “But he isn’t here,” said Simon, pointing out the obvious.
“Not yet, no. But then, that’s not unusual for Harry. He does race off on tangents when he’s working on a theory. Which reminds me,” I said, turning, “how does one get to the Moulin Tower?”
***
Someone was coming. Isabelle raised her head, all thought of sleep forgotten, as the heavy stamp of boots on stone drew nearer. Oh, please, she prayed, dear Mother of God, please let it be John.
