The Third Uncle

Chapter Eleven: A Reunion

Chapter Eleven: A Reunion

  The courtyard was in an enclosed, and partially covered cloister of the Église St-Etienne-du-Mont. Dawn’s pale light reflected off the damp, smooth cobbles, flickering over the rain, which trickled down the uneven walls.

  Gaspard was fond of the cloister, it was a tranquil and private place where he could think ... and bathe. 

                                           He adored baths. 

  He rolled his lean torso round and around in the long stone basin, sinking deeper into the cool water with a contented sigh. He watched the rain as it poured from the mouths of the familiar and grotesque battered stone dragons and gargoyles protruding from the roof above. He inhaled the sweet smell of the court’s lone chestnut tree that lazily stretched up into the morning drizzle, and he dozed in a perfect moment of quietude.

  Sometimes the best mornings were the ones where your senses possess you, stretched out and relaxed in a bath. Gaspard flexed his shoulders, his stress dissolved into the air. With his eyes closed he listened to the uneven percussion of the raindrops falling over the different surfaces, it was a perfect symphony. 

  Perfect, that is, until a goat, tethered in the corner, and unconcerned by the poetic quietude, stomped a hoof and bleated. Gaspard opened an eye and scanned the court for the disturbance. The goat was protected from the rain by the same overhang as he, so it ought not be disturbed by the wet. 

  It bleated again. 

 Gaspard sighed and opened his other eye, and with as little effort as possible, shifted his weight and turned his head round in the direction of the black and white caprine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bleat!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Gaspard, smiling. Your breakfast is being robbed ... well, don’t expect me to do anything about it. This, Monsieur Goat, is La France, and we must fight to protect the things we love!’ He raised an arm up out of the water and mimicked a sword thrust with his wash cloth, spraying the air. ‘Fight!’ Gaspard smirked, yawned, and sank back into the cooling bath.

  ‘Bleat?’

  He ignored the goat. 

  The silver surface of the water reflected the shapes around him like a mirror. He watched the uneven edge of a cloud float along the water, pass his shoulder and disappear between his toes. The goat, taking his advice to heart, struck out at the invaders - two cats that were boldly helping themselves to its morning repast. They had appeared in the early hours of the morning, just after he had put Francesca to sleep upon his most comfortable (he couldn’t stress this point enough) upholstered leather chair. This conclusion came as a result of having slumbered upon it many times after a late night of ... applying his oeuvre around the sleeping city. He yawned and stretched his long limbs over his head, causing a small shower of drops to fall around him.

  Francesca was going to be grateful for this kindness of his, he was sure of it. She had arrived here for their appointment in a confused and hysterical mess of sobs and tears, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that he managed to extract her from her horse and to get her to go to sleep. 

  She told him a fantastic, horrific tale of the evening that sounded like ... he shook his head, pushing his hair from his forehead. Gaspard sighed, like this was Leo’s territory, he wasn’t sure what to do. It sounded like the mirrors ... he  paused, mid-thought, and held his hand over the still bath water and watched its reflection meld with his palm as he lowered it into the water. Napoleon must have broken through, is what must have happened, but who was the apparition she encountered?  This creature’s measure of violence was new, even for him.