I took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves, then tugged sharply down to straighten my tunic, and walked through the door with as much confidence as I could muster.

The heat hit me. A warm fug of people and roaring fires and conviviality. Noise, too, deafening after the stillness of the old quartier, a cacophony of laughter and chatter, the clattering of dishes and waiters moving to and fro. I stood quite entranced on the threshold, mesmerised by the scene laid out before me. The air was thick with smoke from the open fire burning at the far end of the room, a thousand candles scattered light and shadow from metal sconces on the walls, ever shifting, ever dancing. I scanned the hall, hoping to catch sight of Madame Galy, but there were too many people to pick out just one in the crush.

As my eyes adjusted, I got the measure of my surroundings. The hall was twice as long as it was wide with a high, vaulted ceiling. The stone walls were bare, no paintings or photographs or ornamentation of any kind. A long refectory-style table stood across the top of the room and two more lined the walls, each covered with heavy white cloths and surrounded by benches. Only at the top table were there chairs.

Then, floating above the polyphony, a descant to the obligato of the crowd, a single thread of music. The distinctive open chords and plain melody of a vielle. Moments later, a clear, treble voice began.

Lo vièlh Ivèrn ambe sa samba ranca

Ara es tornat dins los nòstres camins

Le nèu retrais una flassada blanca

E’l Cerç bronzís dins las brancas dels pins.

I did not understand the words but I caught their spirit and somehow knew he sang of the mountains, of winter, of the snow and the pine trees. An old ballad in an antique language. All the time he was singing, the music held me in its spell, filling my head with images and emotions that had been long absent. My eyes pricked with tears.

Once, years ago, I’d tried to explain to George what I felt when I listened to a choir sing, when I heard the reverberation of the plainsong in the upper echelons of the cathedral or the stalls of our little country church in Lavant, but he didn’t understand. Music never moved him and although he would sit and listen to me play the piano for hours, I knew his thoughts were elsewhere. He sat there for me, not for himself.

‘Monsieur, soyez le bienvenu.’

The voice startled me back to the present. I turned to see a man with a shock of copper hair and an open, thoughtful face smiling at me.

‘Hello, thank you.’ I held out my hand. ‘Frederick Watson. Madame Galy said I should look in. I’m lodging there for a day or two.’

‘Guillaume Marty.’

Since he did not offer his hand in return, though his expression was welcoming, I let mine drop.

‘Wonderful turnout,’ I said.

‘All who can be are here, yes.’ He nodded. ‘Please. Follow me. I shall find you a place to sit.’

Marty was dressed as a priest or a monk in some kind of religious get-up, but the long green robe did not seem to inhibit him and he moved quickly through the crowds. He wore sandals on his feet and a leather belt around his waist, from which hung a scroll or rolled parchment. He looked utterly the part. Again, I marvelled at the lengths to which the inhabitants of this tiny village had gone to make sure the evening went off well.

As we made our way through the hall, Marty was stopped many times. Two smiling sisters, Raymonde and Blanche Maury, dressed in royal-blue robes with red stitching around the neck and cuffs; Sénher Bernard and his elderly wife; the widow Na Azéma, as she was introduced, her hair covered by a grey veil pinned beneath the chin; Na and Sénher Authier, the latter a large gentleman whose high colour and broad arms suggested eating and drinking were his vocations in life. After several more such introductions, I realised that Na and Sénher were a local form of madame and monsieur. I noticed a woman who looked very like my landlady, and was on the point of waving when she turned and I realised it was not her.

‘Is Madame Galy here?’

‘I do not believe I have seen her.’

The contrast between the feelings of sadness that had come over me when I’d first entered the village and this convivial gathering could not have been more marked. Here, in the Ostal, the sense of community and camaraderie was tangible. Everyone was smiling and nodding as we passed, offering friendship.

Guillaume Marty stopped and indicated I should sit at one of the few remaining spaces on a bench. I threaded myself in, all clumsy elbows and knees. When I turned to thank him for seeing me right, he had already disappeared again, swallowed up by the crowd. I leaned back and glanced up and down the room, but could see the green robe nowhere.

‘Queer that he didn’t say goodbye,’ I murmured. ‘Pity.’

I turned my attention to my immediate dinner companions. To my right was a man of about my age, with rough brown hair the texture of straw, thick black brows and dirty fingernails. He sat hunched over the table. His dark tunic, belted at the waist, was stained with grease and red wine and meat, a map of the meals he had eaten. His eyes flickered with curiosity, quickly masked. I smiled and he nodded a half-greeting, but did not speak.

I turned to my left.

If I were a wordsmith I could, perhaps, begin to do justice to my first impressions of the girl who sat beside me. As it is, a plain description will have to do. She was the sort of creature that Burne-Jones or Waterhouse might have painted, exquisite and perfect, and I, untouched by beauty for so long, felt my heart take flight. Her dark hair tumbled in loose curls around a porcelain face, unspoiled by powder or rouge. A wide, pretty mouth, also left as nature intended, made even more appealing by laughter lines at the corners.

She must have felt the intensity of my gaze, clearly, for she turned and stared back at me. Clever, grey eyes rimmed by long lashes. I gawped like an idiot.

‘Frederick Watson,’ I said, finally remembering my manners. ‘Freddie. My friends call me Freddie.’

‘I am Fabrissa.’

That was it, that was all she said. But it was enough. Already, her voice was familiar to me, beloved.

‘What a charming name,’ I said. My brain seemed disconnected from the rest of me. ‘Forgive me, I’m…’

She smiled. ‘It is difficult in unfamiliar company.’

‘Quite,’ I said quickly. ‘One doesn’t know what to expect.’

‘No.’

She fell silent and, thankfully, so did I. I took a mouthful of wine to steady my nerves. It was a harsh rosé, with something of the bite of dry sherry, and it made me cough. She affected not to notice.

I was grateful for the activity around us. It gave me the chance to observe Fabrissa without being too obvious, sending sly little glances her way. Looking, then turning away. Gradually, I took in every detail of her appearance. A long blue dress, fitted at the shoulders and tapered at the waist. Sleeves, wide at the cuff and decorated there, and at the neck, with a repeated pattern stitched of white, interlocking squares. It matched the pattern on her embroidered belt – a girdle, I suppose – which was blue and red against a white background. The overall impression was plain, yet elegant, nothing trying too hard to make a statement. No fuss. Dazzling in its simplicity.

Slowly, we managed to find a way of talking to one another, Fabrissa and I. With the help of the sour, rich wine, my pulse slowed to its usual rhythm. But I was aware of every inch of her, as if she were giving off some kind of electric charge. Her white skin and blue dress and her hair the colour of jet… I felt awkward in comparison, and took refuge in innocuous questions, managing, against the odds, to keep my voice steady and calm.

Servants were circulating with tureens. When the lids were lifted, billows of aromatic hot cabbage and bacon soup were released, steaming leeks and herbs, which they ladled into dust-coloured bowls set at each place.