Travels with my Donkey

preparation for an epic bray; perhaps sensing this, the youths let forth a spontaneous volley of mocking hee-haws. The German waved a long and freckled finger up at them, and with passion and volume I enquired whether they'd like to come down and find out that bestiality could be a two-way street.
    More taunts; louder hee-haws. Gesturing wearily at his tormentors and offering Herr Ginger my effusive thanks, I released Shinto and led him back up to the refugio. He'd stay in the garden. Or rather he wouldn't, because as I led him through the gate the elderly hospitalero trotted speedily up, shaking head and waving hands. 'No, no, no,' he said. 'No, no, no, no, no.'
    In the minimal manoeuvring space this opening gambit allowed, I contorted my recalcitrant features into an approximation of piteous entreaty. 'But please, por favor,' I stuttered.
    'The bad bambinis at the... schoolio.' As he turned away with a shrug, an eavesdropping Frenchwoman called out that it wasn't a school, nor even a young offenders' institute, but a seminary. A college for trainee priests. The sky-directed bellows of incoherent hatred and self-pity that I'd been rather looking forward to died in my throat. I looked back down the lane and at its fundament saw two junior padres idly belabouring a large gas cylinder with lengths of four by two. Another leant against the wall opposite, a coil of sunlit smoke issuing from his cupped hand.
    In dumb astonishment I vacantly prepared for departure, stuffing my humid belongings back into the plastic bags. And so much for the codfish and legumes: the hospitalero didn't even give me my money back.
    The Polizei waved me off and in bone-buckling sun I followed the daubed yellow arrows towards Puente la Reina's cool, narrow main street. It was still early, too early to panic. Time even to visit a church, or at least try to. 'Closed,' mumbled a lanky Australian waiting outside the apparently splendid Iglesia de Santiago. Next to him in the shade was a woman half his size with hair down to her ankles; I'd seen them in the Uterga refugio, rubbing each other's backs with slightly inappropriate enthusiasm. 'They're always closed.' I hadn't seen the inside of a church since Roncesvalles, but now felt less bad about it.
    As the old buildings on either side of the siesta-empty street grew taller, so the shadows darkened. This was the most medieval I'd felt yet, hauling my ass past door after ancient door, beneath crest after regal crest, hoofs echoing off the flagstones. It wasn't hard to imagine the Calle Mayor ringing with the cries of Basque, Navarran and French tradesmen, nor indeed with the clamour of bells, tolled forty times at 10 p.m. each night to guide lost pilgrims to safety, wine and codfish.
    Clip-clop, clop-clip. Despite my inner chortles when he'd said it, I was beginning to understand that Hanno was right: however new it felt to me, this was an ancient way of life, lived out for all but a tiny fraction of humankind's time on earth. You walked in search of food, you walked in search of shelter, you slept and you started again. 'When you adapt to this rhythm,' he'd concluded, 'many ancient, dead parts in the head return to life.'
    Hoping that these weren't the parts responsible for moon worship or human sacrifice I ambled on, past the shuttered shoe shops and jewellers. For the first time flies began to trouble Shinto, clustering horribly around his tear-ducts, and for the first time I fitted him with Hanno's patent eye protector: a sort of sweatband fringed with long strands of red and green suede. The effect was almost worryingly alluring. When Shinto turned to me I saw in his teasingly shielded eyes the seductive, peek-a-boo enigma of a Sultan-beguiling belly dancer.
    I was just wondering if even really dreadful sins would be forgiven at Santiago when it became clear we were no longer alone. From nowhere a great throng of previously unencountered French pilgrims arrived and engulfed us, cooing Gallically over Shinto and patting my back with lunch-dislodging vigour. There were shouts of 'Bravo!' and 'Courage!'; three men scuttled in front, retrieved and assembled enormous cameras and walked backwards before us, snapping manically away paparazzi-style. I had no idea why this was happening, but it all seemed most satisfactory.
    The climax came as the buildings receded and the road became a bridge, the bridge, the Puente built by Reina or Reine unknown. A cheer, a whoop, then a clap of hands which instantly