Free Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

shades made him look like a Russian revolutionary. Greg looked like a nightclub bouncer.
    Ned, on impulse, took his shades off. He decided he wanted to see this landscape the way people had seen it long ago. He felt a bit silly, but only a bit. He thought about that round tower yesterday above the city, men on watch there, looking out this way.
    He didn’t know what they’d have been gazing east to see, squinting into a rising sun, but someone had feared danger from this direction or they wouldn’t have built the tower there, would they? A more dangerous world than today’s, he thought. Unless you were in the Sudan, say.
    He looked out the window, trying to keep his mind here, not let it drift that way to Africa, across the Mediterranean. Not so far away, in fact.
    Beside him in the middle row of the van, Melanie leaned over and whispered, “Your dad was really pleased with your two ideas, you know. He spent a lot of time getting the baptistry shots.”
    “He always takes his time,” Ned said. “Don’t try to flatter your way out of doom, woman. This is war. Think about snails in your bed.”
    Melanie shrugged. “I like escargot. And actually, if I compare the prospect to some of the men I’ve dated . . .”
    Ned laughed. But then he felt kind of young, again. He also thought, not for the first time, that women could be awfully strange. If the men had been so dorky, why’d she date them, why sleep with them? He looked sidelong at Melanie, almost asked her. If they’d been alone he might have; whatever else you could say about her, Melanie wasn’t evasive. She was funny and direct. And she didn’t actually treat him like a kid, just as part of her job. She’d have answered, he guessed. He might have learned something. He was getting to an age where a few things needed to be figured out, one way or another.
    “There we are!” Steve said, pointing. “Target acquired.”
    Their first clear glimpse of the peak, the upper part of it, above the pine trees between. The road curved again, they lost sight of the mountain, then got it again at the next switchback. Greg pulled over, put on the flashers, and they sat and looked. The triangle of the western face of the Sainte-Victoire rose commandingly above the plain and trees.
    “Well, this is a ‘Cézanne Was Here’ kind of shot,” Melanie said dubiously. “We could probably get permission from the owners of one of these houses to set up on their property.” They’d passed a number of villas on the road.
    “Okay, so, yeah, we know we can do this. What elseis there, if the Man wants to go another way?” Greg said. He didn’t sound excited either.
    “That’s why we’re driving,” said Steve.
    Greg pulled back onto the road. After another few minutes winding back and forth they approached a village and saw a dead-straight double row of trees along another road meeting theirs from the right. A sign said “Le Tholonet.” There was a chateau on their left. It looked like a government building now, with a parking lot in front.
    “Stop a sec,” Steve said. Greg pulled to the side. Steve put his window down, took off his own sunglasses, eyeballing those trees.
    “Plane trees,” Melanie said. “They’re all over down here, to protect the fields and vineyards from the wind.”
    “Ze mistral ! Ze mistral !” Greg cried, in mockhorror. “She has nevair been zo bad as zis year, mes amis ! And ze wolves . . . !”
    “Paradise has curses,” Melanie said. “The wind is one of them here. And that is a terrible accent, Gregory.” She was laughing, though. She had a nice laugh, Ned thought. Nice smile, too. But they were still at war. Mercy was for wimps.
    Melanie leaned towards Ned’s side, looking out his window. “Steve, what are you thinking?”
    “Long shot from the top of that straight road? They’re pretty gorgeous. Barrett didn’t mark any of these, did he? Move us up a bit, Greg?”
    After Greg did, Steve took out a pocket camera and ripped a