Moonlit Magic Circles: Château Beychevelle, 1905 – 2022
Marin the Hunchback crouched down behind a large oleander on the banks of the drainage channel, and stared out across the monochrome nocturnal gloom.
The shrub was positioned maybe forty pieds from the clearing at Prat Lahouret where his friend Aubert – like Marin, also a hunchback – had told him the magicians had rid him of his deformity. It had not been easy getting here. He could, he supposed, have walked down from the carriageway, along the banks of the Chenal du Milieu – the channel which carried water away from the Médoc marshes, recently excavated by the men from the Netherlands – but he had feared being seen. And so he had made his way cross-country, scurrying behind the nobleman’s manor house at Beychevelle, after which he had scrambled through the thicket and scrub until he reached the water’s edge. His arms and legs smarted with a tiny thousand scratches and cuts, battle scars inflicted by bramble and gorse, but Marin hardly noticed the pain.
And after all, why should he? This night was to be the beginning of his new life. The magicians had removed the hump from Aubert’s back, and now he stood tall, like a chevalier. Marin was here for a dose of the same.
He relaxed, his breathing softening as he recovered from his arduous expedition through the undergrowth. The light from the full moon glistened intermittently on the surface of the water, catching little crests as it lapped against the muddy banks. In the distance he could hear the repeated screeches of a houre, a female barn owl, a form Marin knew was commonly assumed by the Médoc witches. Surely this meant the magicians were near?
And then, suddenly, there was silence. The nearby waters stilled.
Marin observed seven cloaked silhouettes enter the clearing, and he held his breath as he watched them form a circle; as they came to a halt the silence yielded to a murmuring chant.
It was just as Aubert had described.
This was the moment.
Marin stepped out from behind the oleander, and strode into the centre of the magic circle.
The Magic of Beychevelle
The Médoc has long been a superstitious place, local folklore rich in tales of werewolves (which are, as I am sure you know, transformed wizards) with a penchant for snacking on lost children, witches who take the form of barn owls, and dainty fairies who can slip beneath doors and through keyholes to cause havoc within the home. And of course there were the magicians, wizards or warlocks you might call them, who would gather at Prat Lahouret, a stone’s throw from the Beychevelle residence, to practise their dark craft.
