Pilgrim's Road

for him.
    The father arrived soon afterwards and seemed amused to find me enjoying the local wine. He demonstrated the correct way to tackle it from a wineskin, biting off the thin stream in mid-air without a drop being spilt. But in spite of his urging I did not believe it was a skill I could acquire without getting a good deal of the stuff down myself in the process. Arriving at the shrine of St James travel worn and a touch threadbare was perfectly in keeping with the journey, but to turn up copiously stained with red wine would definitely be bad form, I decided, and made the weak excuse of not being able to manage even another drop.
    ‘Thanks be to God for wine that maketh glad the heart of man,’ sang the Psalmist, a sentiment I echoed as I walked down the village street, digesting the tortilla before turning in. It warmed the body as well as the heart, and I felt relaxed and happy as I strolled slowly along. It was a lovely clear night, with the stars visible in all their glory. Back at the town hall I discovered that the ground floor was given over to a bar and all eight of the village men were gathered there playing cards. The town’s sello was produced to stamp my certification de paso , a large involved seal in inverse proportion to the size and importance of the village, and then an older stamp was added for good measure. A drink was courteously offered, but I declined it as clearly this was a male sanctuary, and in any case I thought it wise to make for my bed before the cold of the refugio could begin to penetrate. As had become my habit, I read the ‘Office of Compline’ and said my prayers in my sleeping bag.
    I awoke with the first light to a great chorus of twittering birds, and when I poked my head out of the small window I could see flocks of them flitting in and out of the ruined houses. It was a lovely dawn, still and rosy. I set my stove carefully on the floor among the crowded beds, made coffee, and drank it crouched before the low window, not wanting to miss a moment of what was going on outside. The advantage of these early nights with their lack of distractions was that I always awoke at dawn which is a magical hour. Each day began with such a sense of adventure that I could hardly wait to be out on the road. Packing and loading the panniers was the work of a few moments, the drill being so familiar by now. I knew where every item was and could find it in a trice, even in the dark. Then I was out into the bright, cold, fresh-smelling morning.
    The soil looked chalky now under the barest sprinkling of green. Belying the poverty of the land, fat rabbits were running about and sunning themselves by the verges. A quail skittered over the threadbare fields, and from every small coppice, hedge and scrap of stone rose the sound of birdsong.
    Within a few miles of Hontanas a huge arch hung with stonecrop and clumps of fern spanned the road, looking for all the world like the most expensively contrived ruin in a gentleman’s country park. I rode back and forth through it several times before dismounting to examine it more closely. Together with some fragments of wall, it was all that remained of the great Hospital of St Anton, founded in 1146, whose particular speciality was the care of people suffering from ‘St Anthony’s Fire’, or erysipelas, a horrid and painful eruption of the skin, regarded in medieval times as on a par with leprosy and very contagious.
    Continuing the idea of a gentleman’s park the remains of an avenue of fine specimen trees reached out from the arch on either side of the road. Beyond, towering high above the plain, was a gaunt terraced hill crowned with a ruined fortress, and around its lower slopes clung the small town of Castrojeriz. This had been the site of seven pilgrim hospitals in its medieval heyday, and the history of the place was already old by that time. It had been a notable Roman town and before that the stronghold of local tribes. The land round about showed the strain of this long occupation, appearing ancient and eroded, drained of its fertility.
    The town itself was full of character, surprisingly large, and with at least four fine Romanesque churches. As I followed the yellow pilgrim arrows which led me along a lower terrace around the perimeter of the hill, I saw ahead of me a slim figure that for a moment made me think that my eyes were deceiving me. It appeared to be a medieval youth clad in doublet and hose of soft faded tones of ochre and