Guy Gavriel Kay - Ysabel

Ysabel

By Guy Gavriel Kay

ForLinda McKnight and Anthea Morton-Saner

Thereis one story and one story only

Thatwill prove worth your telling,

Whetheras learned bard or gifted child;

Toit all lines or lesser gauds belong

Thatstartle with their shining

Suchcommon stories as they stray into.

ROBERTGRAVES

Thewoods came to the edge of the property: to the gravel of the drive,the electronic gate, and the greentwisted-wire fence that kept out the boars. The dark trees wrappedaround one other home hidden along theslope, and then stretched north of the villa, up the steep hill intowhat could properly be called a forest.

Thewild boarsanglierforaged all around, especially inwinter. Occasionally there might be heard the soundof rifle shots, though hunting was illegal in the oak trees andclearings surrounding such expensive homes.The well-off owners along the Chemin de lOlivette did whatthey could to protect the serenity of theirdays and evenings here in the countryside above the city.

Becauseof those tall eastern trees, dawn declared itselfat any timeof yearwith a slow, pale brightening,not the disk of the sun itself above the horizon. If someone werewatching from the villa windows orterrace they would see the black cypresses on the lawn slowly shifttowards green and take form from the topdownwards, emerging from the silhouetted sentinels they were in thenight. Sometimes in winter there wasmist, and the light would disperse it like a dream.

Howeverit announced itself, the beginning of day in Provence was a gift,celebrated in words and art for twothousand years and more. Somewhere below Lyon and north of Avignonthe change was said to begin: adifference in the air above the earth where men and women walked, andlooked up.

Noother sky was quite what this one was. Any time of year, any season:whether a late autumns cold dawnor midday in drowsy summer among the cicadas. Or when the knife ofwindthe mistralripped downthe Rhone valley (the way soldiers had so often come), making eacholive or cypress tree, magpie, vineyard,lavender bush, aqueduct in the distance stand against thewind-scoured sky as if it were the first,the perfect, example in the world of what it was.

Aix-en-Provence,the city, lay in a valley bowl west of the villa. No trees in thatdirection to block the view from thishigh. The city, more than two thousand years old, founded by Romansconquering heresurveying andmapping, levelling and draining, laying down pipes for thermalsprings, and their dead-straightroadscould be seen on spring mornings like this one crisplydefined, almost supernaturally clear.Medieval houses and modern ones. A block of new apartment buildingson a northern slope, andtuckedinto the old quarterthe bell tower of the cathedral rising.

Theywould all be going there this morning. A little later than this, butnot too much so (two alarm clocks hadgone off in the house by now, the one woman was already showering). You didnt want to linger of a morning, not with what they were here to do.

Photographersknew about this light.

Theywould try to use it, to draw upon it as someone with a thirst mighthave drawn from an ancient wellthenagain at twilight to see how doorways and windows showed and shadoweddifferently when the light came from thewest, or the sky was blood-red with sunset underlighting clouds,another kind of offering.

Giftsof different nuance, morning and evening here (noon was too bright,shadowless, for the cameras eye).Gifts not always deserved by those dwellingor arrivingina too-beautiful part of the world, whereso much blood had been shed and so many bodies burned or buried, orleft unburied, through violentcenturies.

Butas to that, in fairness, were there so many places where theinhabitants, through the long millennia, couldbe said to have been always worthy of the blessings of the day? Thisserene and savage corner of France wasno different from any other on earthin that regard.

Therewere differences here, however, most of them long forgotten by thetime this mornings first light showedabove the forest and found the flowering Judas trees andanemonesboth purple in hue, both withlegends telling why.

Thetolling of the cathedral bells drifted up the valley. There was nomoon yet. It would rise later, throughthe bright daylight: a waxing moon, one edge of it severed.

Dawnwas exquisite, memorable, almost a taste, on the day a tale that hadbeen playing out for longer than anyrecords knew began to arc, like the curve of a hunters bow orthe arrows flight and fall, towardswhat might be an ending.

Nedwasnt impressed. As far as he could tell, in the half-lightthat fell through the small, high windows, theSaint-Sauveur Cathedral of Aix-en-Provence was a mess: outside, wherehis fathers team was setting upfor a pre-shoot, and inside, where he was entirely alone in thegloom.

Hewas supposed to feel cool about being by himself in here. Melanie,his fathers tiny assistant, almost ridiculouslyorganized, had handed him a brochure on the cathedral and told him,with one of her winks, to head on inbefore they started taking the test digitals that would precede thereal photographs for the book.

Shewas being nice to him. She was always nice to him, but it drove Ned abit crazy that with everything else shehad to deal with, Melanie stillobviouslymade mentalnotes to find things for the fifteen-year-oldtag-along son to do.

Keephim out of the way, out of trouble. She probably knew already wherethe music stores and jogging tracks andskateboard parks were in Aix. Shed probably known before theyflew overseas, googling them and makingnotes. Shed probably already bought a deck and gear on Amazonor something, had them waiting at thevilla for just the right time to give them to him, when he lookedcompletely bored or whatever. She wasperfectly nice, and even cute, but he wished she didnt treathim as part of her job.

Hedthought about wandering the old town, but hed taken thebooklet from her instead and gone into thecathedral. This was the first working day, first set-up for a shoot,hed have lots of chances later to explorethe city. They were in the south of France for six weeks and hisfather would be working flat out almostthe whole time. Ned figured it was just as easy to stick around theothers this morning; he was still feelinga bit disoriented and far from home. Didnt have to tell anyonethat, though.

Themayors office, in the city hall up the road, had beenpredictably excited that they were here. Theyd promisedEdward Marriner two uninterrupted hours this morning and another twotomorrow, if he needed them, to capturethe facade of their cathedral. That meant, of course, that any peoplewanting to go in and out to pray fortheir immortal souls (or anyone elses) were going to have towait while a famous photographerimmortalized the building instead.

AsGreg and Steve unloaded the van, there had even been a discussion,initiated by the city official assignedto them, about men going up on ladders to take down a cable that randiagonally across the street in front ofthe cathedral to the university building across the way. Nedsfather had decided they could eliminatethe wire digitally if they needed to, so the students werentgoing to be deprived of lights in theirclassrooms after all.

Niceof us, Ned had thought.

Pacingback and forth, his father had started making crisp decisions, theway he always did when finally onlocation after the long buildup to a project. Ned had seen him likethis before.

BarrettReinhardtthe publishers art director for the bookhadbeen here in Provence two months ago,preparing a list of possible photographs, emailing jpegs back toEdward Marriner in Montreal, but Nedsfather always preferred to react to what he saw when he got to aplace he was shooting.