Loulou lay hidden beneath some roses and all that could be seen of him was the spot of blue on the top of his head, like a disc of lapis lazuli.

The churchwardens, the choristers and the children took up their places around three sides of the courtyard. The priest slowly walked up the steps and placed his great shining orb on the lace altar cloth. Everyone fell to their knees. There was a deep silence in which all that could be heard was the sound of the censers sliding on their chains as they were swung backwards and forwards.

A blue haze of incense floated up into Félicité's room. She opened her nostrils wide to breathe it in, savouring it with mystical fervour. Her eyes closed and a smile played on her lips. One by one her heartbeats became slower, growing successively weaker and fainter like a fountain running dry, an echo fading away. With her dying breath she imagined she saw a huge parrot hovering above her head as the heavens parted to receive her.

THE LEGEND OF SAINT JULIAN HOSPITATOR

1

Julian's father and mother lived in a castle in the middle of a forest, on the slope of a hill.

The four towers at the corners had pointed roofs with lead cladding, and the base of the walls was built on outcrops of rock which fell steeply to the bottom of the moat.

The paving in the courtyard was spotlessly clean like the stone floor of a church. Projecting from the roof were gargoyles, in the shape of dragons with their mouths pointing downwards, which spat rainwater into the cistern below. Every window sill from the top to the bottom of the castle carried a painted earthenware flowerpot planted with either basil or heliotrope.

An outer enclosure, surrounded by wooden stakes, contained an orchard of fruit trees, a flower garden with different varieties of plants arranged in patterns, an arbour with covered walks for taking the air and an alley where the pageboys could enjoy a game of mall.1 In the other half of this enclosure were the kennels, the stables, the bakery, the winepress and the barns. Surrounding it all was a lush green meadow, which was itself enclosed by a thick hedge of thorn.

There had been such a prolonged period of peace that the portcullis could no longer be lowered, grass grew in the moat, swallows made their nests in the loopholes of the battlements and the archer who patrolled the castle walls during the daytime retired to his watchtower the minute the sun became too hot and dropped off to sleep like a monk.

Inside the castle, all the metal fittings gleamed, the bedchambers were hung with tapestries as protection against the cold, the cupboards were crammed with linen, the cellars were piled high with casks of wine and the oak coffers groaned beneath the weight of moneybags.

The walls of the armoury were lined with military trophies and the heads of wild beasts, and in between them were displayed weapons of every age and every nation, from Amalekite slings and Garamantian spears to Saracen brackmards and Norman coats of mail.

The great roasting-spit in the kitchen could carry a whole ox and the chapel was as richly furnished as the oratory of a king. In one secluded corner of the castle there was even a Roman-style bath, but the noble lord refrained from using it, as he considered bathing to be a heathen practice.

He was always to be seen wrapped in a cloak of fox-skin, striding about his domain, dispensing justice to his vassals2 or settling the disputes of his neighbours. In winter he would sit watching the snowflakes fall or have stories read to him. At the first sign of fine weather, he would ride out on his mule along the lanes beside the ripening corn, talking with the peasants and offering them advice. After many adventures, he had taken as his wife a damsel of noble birth.

She was very fair of skin, rather haughty and demure. As she moved about the castle, the tip of her headdress brushed against the lintel of the doorways and the train of her linen dress stretched three full paces behind her. The running of her household was as carefully regulated as that of a monastery. Every morning she would issue tasks to her servants, supervise the making of jams and ointments, spin at her wheel or embroider altar-cloths. After much praying to God, she bore a son.

This was the occasion of great rejoicing and a feast which lasted for three days and four nights. The castle was lit by torchlight and echoed to the sound of harps. The floors were strewn with greenery. There were the very rarest of spices and fowls as fat as sheep. To everyone's great amusement, out of one of the pies there suddenly popped a dwarf. The crowd of guests grew bigger and bigger until there were no longer enough drinking bowls and they had to drink from hunting horns and helmets.

The young mother did not take part in these festivities and lay quietly in her bed. One night she woke up and in a shaft of moonlight that came streaming through the window she saw a shadowy figure moving. It was an old man dressed in a rough smock with a rosary hanging at his side and a beggar's scrip slung over his shoulder. Everything about him seemed to suggest he was a hermit. He approached her bed and without opening his lips said:

‘Mother, rejoice! Your son is born to be a saint!’

She was about to cry out when, as if he were gliding on the moonbeam, he rose gently into the air and disappeared. The singing from the banquet broke out with renewed vigour. She heard the whisper of angels' voices; her head fell back on to the pillow, over which there hung a martyr's bone set in a frame of garnets.

The next day, the servants were questioned but they all swore that they had not seen a hermit.