“How much farther?”
“A little farther.”
“It’s getting older and older isn’t it, Fiesole?”
“No, younger and younger, stupid. Look at all the lambs.”
Before us the land piled up into a hillock, breaking the level sweep of sky-line and hiding what lay beyond. The road curved about it in a slow descent.
Fiesole leant past me, shutting off the power. “Let her coast,” she said.
At the bend in the road I jammed on the brakes, halting the car. She slipped her hand into mine; we filled our eyes with the sight, saying nothing.
Sheer against the sky rose a jagged rock and perched on its summit, so much a part of it that it seemed to have been carved, stood a ruined castle. Its windows were vacant; its roof had long since fallen; its walls had been bruised and broken by cannon. It tottered above the valley like a Samson blinded, groping on the edge of the precipice, its power shorn. Round the embattled rock, like children who trusted the old protector, gathered mediaeval houses. Some of them, centuries ago, had wandered off into the snowy orchards and stood tiptoe, as though listening, ready to run back should they hear the tramp of an invading army. Through the valley and into the town a narrow stream darted, flashing like an arrow. Behind town and castle, across the horizon, towered a saffron wall of cloud, tipped along the edge with fire and notched in the center where the molten ball of the setting sun rested. From quaint gray streets came up a multitude of small sounds, like the lazy humming of women spinning. And over all, across orchards and roofs of houses, the grim warden on the rock threw his shadow. It was a valley forgotten by the centuries—a garden without barriers.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Falaise, my darling. I always promised myself that if ever I should love a man, I would bring him to Falaise to love him. Can’t you feel it—the slow quiet, the sense of the ages watching?”