Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 03 - The School for Psychics (18 page)

Chapter
29.

Nick appeared from over the rise looking like a modern day Heathcliff in winter. He was wearing
blue jeans and an oversize long-sleeved white shirt. The tails were hanging out, flapping in the wind from underneath his down coat. The breeze was ruffling his curly hair and a dramatic, turbulent-looking, gray sky was spitting snow.

He
was headed downhill, carrying an armload of firewood. When he saw Phoebe, it startled him and he dropped a few pieces of wood. One of them landed on his foot and he hopped backwards and winced. She could see he wanted to shout an expletive, but was being manfully reticent.

He had a healthy looking tan and a bit of a windburn. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days either. Getting out of the basement of his house in Cleveland
, even under less than ideal circumstances, had done him a world of good.

Phoebe got out of the car and hobbled toward him on her crutches.
“I was in the neighborhood,” she said.

“Please don’t tell me why,” Nick replied.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I did. Let’s just say I think I might have some job security now.”

Nick stared pointedly at her crutches and
knee-high splint. His expression conveyed his doubts about whether her newfound job security was a positive development.

“So this is Mars?” Phoebe said
, to distract him. One of Nick’s hereditary titles was Prince du Mars. Phoebe found this hilarious.

He smiled and swept into a
grandiose formal bow, “Welcome to my humble home.”

He was gesturing toward a walled cluster of buildings. His place was tiny compared to where
she’d been during the previous week. It was the size of a nice middle class house and yard, but sat on a small island in the middle of a wide moat. A brick wall ran around the edge of the island, enclosing the house and grounds.

The wind
suddenly gusted and nearly blew her down. She remembered his mentioning hurricane force winds blasting in from the North Sea. “Mars ain’t the kinda place to raise yer kids,” she said, “in fact it’s cold as hell.”

He smiled at that, “And yet, look how I turned out?”

“Exactly,” she said.

“I’ve lived in
Cleveland, so this is nothing,” he said, as he stooped to pick up the firewood he’d dropped.

* * *

There was only one way to get into the walled compound without swimming or boating and using some climbing gear. The entrance was by way of a narrow wooden bridge. “This drawbridge looks like it would actually work,” Phoebe said.

“It does!
Wanna see?”

“Not right now.”

There were two delicate round towers with pointed roofs on either side of the main entrance connected by a lodge above the gate. They walked through the arched opening and came into a courtyard. The château was comprised of a charming group of contrasting buildings that were all connected in a row like small townhouses built during sequential eras.

“This is wonderful
!” Phoebe said.

Nick pointed out
the various sections. “A half-timbered manor from the second half of the 15th century, a Renaissance residence wing from the 16
th
century, and an Italian-style gallery with architecturally important
basket-handle
arcades.”

The place
was unexpectedly colorful. The half-timber was stark chocolate and white. The Renaissance section bore a chequered pattern of glazed green brick alternating with pale stone. The Italian part was pink brick and gray flint mixed with cream stone. This was what theme parks wanted to be, but weren’t. It had all the fun features of a château, but was built on a manageable scale.

“Now I see why you weren’t afraid to climb all over
Château St. Cloud,” Phoebe said, reminding him of one of their over-the-top escapades. “You played here as a child, didn’t you?”

Nick’s lips curved into a smile and he nodded to confirm Phoebe’s suspicions.

“But this is like a toy version of St. Cloud,” Phoebe said. “It’s the most livable château I’ve ever seen. It’s wonderful. The scale is much more human.”

“The
château for a man on a budget,” Nick said. “Easier to heat than the more ostentatious piles, but more pretentious than a mere Manor.”

It
was snowing in earnest now. “Thanks for the tour of the grounds, I’m ready to go inside now,” Phoebe said, shivering.

* * *

Nick stacked the wood in an ancient mudroom just inside the door.

The
interior was sparsely furnished in a style that Phoebe was growing accustomed to in these historical buildings. The highly textured construction materials were decoration enough—walls of stone or thick undulating plaster, high ceilings with massive timbers, windows leaded with wavy, bubbly, and eccentrically tinted glass, and floors of pitted stone or softly burnished terra cotta tile. The first room she saw bore lovely partially-restored 16
th
century fresco of a battle scene.

Most of the windows had solid wooden shutters, folded and swung out of the way
, stored in the deep recesses provided by the thick walls. Upholstery throughout the house was faded tapestry in gold and khaki, highlighted with muted blues and reds, or else the lively cotton Souleiado
indienne
block prints.

There
was a dining room with a few old pieces, a hall, and the kitchen where an enormous array of antique copper pots hung from the walls and ceiling. She prayed he had a microwave in there somewhere, or at least some cheese and bread.

At her insistence, Nick helped her up the stairs and
gave her a quick tour. The rooms were furnished with curtained antique alcove beds and charming old tile stoves. Phoebe was relieved to note that the house had modern plumbing.

Nick
led her back to the ground floor and into the room where he spent most of his time. It had a large working fireplace that was in use. There were a couple of upholstered chairs and a couch near enough to the blaze to be comfortable. A hopelessly untidy desk and a Herman Miller chair were tucked into a corner as well.

Phoebe flopped down on the couch with a sigh of relief at being insi
de a warm room and no longer on her feet. She stacked her crutches out of the way and Nick took a chair nearby.

“I know better tha
n to ask what you’ve been up to,” he said. “In light of the crutches, I don’t think I could stand to know. So I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing instead. I’ve been burning through obscene amounts of euros restoring this place. This is not a money pit, it’s a black hole. A death star. Thank God I’m rich.”

Phoebe smiled at his newfound wealth and the rapid diminution of it.

“Is it fun?”

“
Yes, but let’s just say you wouldn’t
believe
how much a yard can grow up in a coupla hundred years.”

Phoebe snorted.

“There are enough moldering piles of stone in my family to keep me occupied for the rest of my life. Thank goodness I’m nearly done with this place and the medieval cottage on the other side of the hill. You’ll love the little cottage. I’ll take you there tomorrow if the snow isn’t too deep. It has a thatched roof! Thank goodness there are still craftsmen around who know how to do that. It’s not easy.”

He smiled. “You know
how they heated it?”

Phoebe shook her head. He looked so happy. It was nice to see him like this.

“The horses and cows were kept safe and out of the weather on the ground floor and the people lived in a loft above them! Apparently animals can put out quite a bit of heat, and heat naturally rises, so there’s no need for expensive duct work.”

“How do you adjust the thermostat?”

“Open a window or buy another cow.”

* * *

It took Phoebe a few minutes to thaw out enough to notice it, but the limestone mantle over the fireplace next to which they were sitting bore a huge carving of some sort of critter. She studied it. It looked like a porcupine. That made sense. It was the perfect symbol for Nick.

This particular porcupine
had many long, sharp-pointed quills. An ornate crown was carved into the limestone so that it hovered above the middle of the porcupine’s back. Some sort of indecipherable motto was scribbled underneath the prickly beast.

Nick
watched Phoebe try to read the inscription.

“It says,
Cominus et Eminus
. That’s Latin for
From Close and From Afar.
”

“That’s pretty vague,” said Phoebe.
“Shouldn’t it be something pious like
I Pray Night and Day
, or fierce like
Do What I Say or I’ll Kill You
?”

“I know it’s not very glamorous or catchy, but
it’s Louis XII’s motto and the rallying cry of
The Order of the Porcupine
.”

“You’re making that up!”

“Unfortunately, I’m not. In French it is rendered as the
Ordre du Porc-Épic.”

As usual Phoebe’s comprehension of French lagged far behind hearing it
,
she thought he’d said
The odor of the epic porker.
Or was it
The stink of the Big Pig
? She decided not to ask.

“It was a chivalric order created in 1394 by Louis I, Duke of Orleans. Later it was merged with the Order of the Golden Fleece and then eventually the name was changed
to the Order of St. Michael.”

Phoebe
marveled at the increase in marketing savvy over the centuries—from naming their club after a smelly hog, to St. Michael, but it took six hundred years for them to get there. Yes, this was clearly Nick’s family. Not a decent sound bite to be had anywhere.

“They had to wear these
hideous necklaces made with three gold chains that had a gold porcupine hanging on a green-enameled flowered
terrace
, whatever that is. There was a ring, too. Gold with a cameo engraved with a …,” Nick started laughing at his own lecture, he couldn’t help himself. He could barely get out the word, “pppporcupine.”

He struggled for composure and added,
“Because of the ring, the group was also sometimes called the
Ordre du Camaïeu
, the Order of the Cameo.”

At this point
Phoebe started laughing, too.

“
It came with a special ceremonial outfit. The historical description is given as an azure velvet coat, lined with crimson satin, ornamented with a cope, which I believe is a cape with a hood, and a mantle, which I think is a cape without a hood, both crimson.

“
Under the coat, the knights wore a
long violet garment
. No further description is available concerning this violet garment, so I must leave that to your imagination.”

“
Hmmmm,” Phoebe said. “A purple dress covered with a red hoodie, a red cape, and a blue velvet coat, and a couple of pieces of statement jewelry … and this was for men?”

“It’s France!” he said, t
hrowing his hands in the air. “What can I say? These are my ancestors.”

They were both giggling uncontrollably by this time.

“I’m sure it was a great honor and very stylish in its day,” Phoebe conceded.

They
stared at the dancing flames in companionable silence, then Nick said, “Did you know that a single porcupine has an estimated 30,000 quills? They can’t actually shoot them out at their enemies like people used to think. That’s what the
near and far
motto refers to. No, porcupines jump on you and skewer you.

“The devils
fling
themselves on you and stab you with their own … selves,” he said. “I guess when you’re packing 30,000 rounds of ammo, it’s no big deal to lose a few hundred on any one opponent. Apparently they’ll grow back.”

“You
seem to know an awful lot about porcupines,” Phoebe said, trying to keep a straight face.

“I spent a lot of Christmas holidays here with not much to do. This was the
most comfortable room in the house and as you can see there’s a big honking porcupine right there on the mantle, staring you in the face if you’re trying to stay warm.” He sighed, “I was just a little boy, so it was hard to think of anything else really.”

H
e glanced over at her and they both started laughing again.

* * *

Nick invited her to stay for the Christmas holidays and Phoebe accepted his offer.

“Want some dinner?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Can you cook?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Can you?”

“
Not very well.”

“Any delis nearby?
” she asked. “Chinese takeout? Pizza?”