Hel rose and took the old man in his arms. “You were brave, Pierre.”

“But I am the patron when you are not here! And I failed to stop them!”

“You did all a man could do.”

“I tried to fight them!”

“I know.”

“And Madame? She will be well?”

“She will live.”

“And her eyes?”

Hel looked away from Pierre as he drew a slow breath and let it out in a long jet. For a time he did not speak. Then, clearing his throat, he said, “We have work to do, Pierre.”

“But, M’sieur. What work? The château is gone!”

“We shall clean up and repair what is left. I’ll need your help to hire the men and to guide them in their work.”

Pierre shook his head. He had failed to protect the château. He was not to be trusted.

“I want you to find men. Clear the rubble. Seal the west wing from the weather. Repair what must be repaired to get us through the winter. And next spring, we shall start to build again.”

“But, M’sieur! It will take forever to rebuild the château!”

“I didn’t say we would ever finish, Pierre.”

Pierre considered this. “All right,” he said, “all right. Oh, you have mail, M’sieur. A letter and a package. They are here somewhere.” He rummaged about the chaos of bottomless chairs, empty boxes, and refuse of no description with which he had furnished his home. “Ah! Here they are. Just where I put them for safekeeping.”

Both the package and letter were from Maurice de Lhandes. While Pierre fortified himself with another draw at the bottle, Hel read Maurice’s note:

My Dear Friend:

I wadded up and threw away my first epistolary effort because it began with a phrase so melodramatic as to bring laughter to me and, I feared, embarrassment to you. And yet, I can find no other way to say what I want to say. So here is that sophomoric first phrase:

When you read this, Nicholai, I shall be dead.

(Pause here for my ghostly laughter and your compassionate embarrassment.)

There are many reasons I might cite for my close feelings for you, but these three will do. First: Like me, you have always given the governments and the companies reason for fear and concern. Second:

You were the last person, other than Estelle, to whom I spoke during my life. And third: Not only did you never make a point of my physical peculiarity, you also never overlooked it, or brutalized my sensibilities by talking about it man to man.

I am sending you a gift (which you have probably already opened, greedy pig). It is something that may one day be of benefit to you. Do you remember my telling you that I had something on the United States of America? Something so dramatic that it would make the Statue of Liberty fall back and offer you whatever orifice you choose to use? Well, here it is.

I have sent you only the photocopy; I have destroyed the originals. But the enemy will not know that I have destroyed them, and the enemy does not know that I am dead. (Remarkable how peculiar it is to write that in the present tense!)

They will have no way to know that the originals are not in my possession in the button-down mode; so, with a little histrionic skill on your part, you should be able to manipulate them as you will.

As you know, native intelligence has always saved me from the foolishness of believing in life after death. But there can be nuisance value after death—and that thought pleases me.

Please visit Estelle from time to time, and, make her feel desirable. And give my love to your magnificent Oriental.

With all amicable sentiments,

PS. Did I mention the other night during dinner that the morels did not have enough lemon juice? I should have.

Hel broke the string on the package and scanned the contents. Affidavits, photographs, records, all revealing the persons and governmental organizations involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and with the cover-up of certain aspects of that assassination. Particularly interesting were statements from a person identified as the Umbrella Man, from another called the Man on the Fire Escape, and a third, the Knoll Commando.

Hel nodded. Very strong leverage indeed.

After a simple meal of sausage, bread, and onion washed down with raw red wine in Pierre’s littered room, they took a walk together over the grounds, staying well away from the painful scar of the château. Evening was falling, wisps of salmon and mauve clouds piling up against the mountains.

Hel mentioned that he would be gone for several days, and they could begin the work of repair when he returned.

“You would trust me to do it, M’sieur? After how I have failed you?” Pierre was feeling self-pitying. He had decided that he might have protected the Madame better if he had been totally sober.

Hel changed the subject. “What can we expect for weather tomorrow, Pierre?”

The old man glanced listlessly at the sky, and he shrugged. “I don’t know, M’sieur. To tell you the truth, I cannot really read the weather. I only pretend, to make myself seem important.”

“But, Pierre, your predictions are unfailing. I rely on them, and they have served me well.”

Pierre frowned, trying to remember. “Is this so, M’sieur?”

“I wouldn’t dare go into the mountains without your advice.”

“Is this so?”

“I am’ convinced that it is a matter of wisdom, and age, and Basque blood. I may achieve the age in time, even the wisdom. But the Basque blood…” Hel sighed and struck at a shrub they were passing.

Pierre was silent for a time as he pondered this. Finally he said, “You know? I think that what you say is true, M’sieur. It is a gift, probably. Even I believe it is the signs in the sky, but in reality it is a gift—a skill that only my people enjoy. For instance, you see how the sheep of the sky have russet fleeces? Now, it is important to know that the moon is in a descending phase, and that birds were swooping low this morning. From this, I can tell with certainty that…”

The Church at Alos

Father Xavier’s head was bent, his fingers pressed against his temple, his hand partially masking the dim features of the old woman on the other side of the confessional’s wicker screen. It was an attitude of compassionate understanding that permitted him to think his own thoughts while the penitent droned on, recalling and admitting every little lapse, hoping to convince God, by the tiresome pettiness of her sins, that she was innocent of any significant wrongdoing. She had reached the point of confessing the sins of others—of asking forgiveness for not having been strong enough to prevent her husband from drinking, for having listened to the damning gossip of Madame Ibar, her neighbor, for permitting her son to miss Mass and join the hunt for boar instead.

Automatically humming an ascending interrogative note at each pause. Father Xavier’s mind was dealing with the problem of superstition. At Mass that morning, the itinerate priest had made use of an ancient superstition to gain their attention and to underline his message of faith and revolution. He himself was too well educated to believe in the primitive fears that characterize the faith of the mountain Basque; but as a soldier of Christ, he felt it his duty to grasp each weapon that came to hand and to strike a blow for the Church Militant. He knew the superstition that a clock striking during the Sagara (the elevation of the Host) was an infallible sign of imminent death. Setting a clock low beside the altar where he could see it, he had timed the Sagara to coincide with its striking of the hour. There had been an audible gasp in the congregation, followed by a profound silence. And taking his theme from the omen of impending death, he had told them it meant the death of repression against the Basque people, and the death of ungodly influences within the revolutionary movement. He had been satisfied with the effect, manifest in part by several invitations to take supper and to pass the night in the homes of local peasants, and in part by an uncommonly large turnout for evening confession—even several men, although only old men, to be sure.