Pilgrim's Road

refurbished chapter-house of an earlier period led off one aisle. It had been adapted some decades before to contain the tomb of Sancho VII, known as The Strong, and famous for his victory over the Moors at the decisive battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The huge marble tomb in the centre of the floor testified to the claim that Sancho was of great height. His corresponding strength was celebrated by two pieces of rusty broken chain hanging on the wall, parts of the chain which had protected the Moorish king’s tent, and which Sancho had hacked through with his great sword. After the battle chains were incorporated into the arms of Navarre.
    Both the funerary church and the tiny pilgrims’ chapel at the entrance were locked, but I was able to have a quick look at the most famous of Roncesvalles’ treasures, ‘Charlemagne’s chess set’. This was by special grace and favour of the young woman who had the key to the treasury and who was reluctant to open it except by special appointment, and then only to large bus parties. Her main job, she said, was getting the fathers’ meals, and she couldn’t be everywhere at once. She had the parlour floor still to finish, but if I could wait she would try and let me in for five minutes after that. Treating it as an exercise in patience (a virtue in which I am sorely lacking) I kicked my heels for half an hour, not daring to stray in case I missed the moment. When I was summoned, she was strict about sparing only the allotted five minutes, and of the rest of the room I had only a vague impression of pictures, monstrances and chalices, bright with gilt and enamel. Charlemagne’s priceless reliquary was enamelled too, squared like a chessboard but with crystal-covered spaces for the fragments of the True Cross it contained, which themselves were in the form of a cross. It was a thing lovingly and skilfully crafted, but that says little about the impact it makes. If it was fashioned for Charlemagne sometime in the eighth century, it was much nearer to the extraordinary events it celebrated than was my century to Charlemagne’s. Easy enough now to be cynical about the many thousands of fragments claimed to be from the ‘True Cross’, but that is also to ignore the deep sense of devotion that such things inspired. It was something of that devotion that I felt I’d glimpsed as I gazed at Charlemagne’s chess set.
    Back in the pilgrim quarters I found I was no longer alone. The other dormitory was bustling with an excited party of twenty or so Spanish men and women of various ages who had just arrived by bus, and who were setting off next day to begin their walk to Santiago. My dormitory was swelled by two Belgians, a woman of my own age who with her niece, Eva, was also planning to walk the five hundred miles to the shrine of St James. But they had already toiled up the Col de Cize route from St Jean-Pied-de-Port and were drenched through and very tired, particularly the older woman, Sophie. They confirmed all Mme Debril had said of the track: it was in a parlous state, two feet under water in places, and it had taken them more than ten hours to complete the ascent. It was a hard trek for a first day, and their feet were blistered. They hadn’t discovered the efficacy of plastic bags either, so most of the contents of their rucksacks which could absorb water were sodden, spare clothes, bread and books included. The dormitory was strewn with their sopping garments and boots, and I thought the most helpful thing I could do would be to light a fire. I’d noticed that the hearth in the kitchen had a pile of brushwood beside it ready, it seemed, for just such a need. But first, in the absence of a glass of restoring wine from Casa Sabina , I offered them a shot of my emergency whisky as a sovereign remedy for warding off chills. The fire was got going after a fashion, and with all the assorted company squashed into the smoky little space drinking tea brewed on our stoves, it was comfortably warm. The Spanish didn’t know much French or English and like most groups at the beginning of a venture they had plenty to talk about among themselves, but they took the trouble to smile at us, and to include us when they passed biscuits or chocolate around, so that there was an atmosphere of conviviality in the refuge.
    The Belgians and I swapped stories in a satisfyingly polyglot mixture of English, French and Dutch. I learned that it was Sophie’s second attempt to walk to Santiago.