Labyrinth (49 page)

Without thinking, Will moved to touch the side of her face. He felt he knew exactly how smooth and cool her skin would feel, as if it was a gesture he’d made a thousand times before. Then the memory of the way she’d withdrawn from him in the cafe pulled him up short and he stopped, his hand a hair’s breadth from her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he started to say, as if Alice could read his mind. She was staring at him, then a brief smile flickered across her taut and anxious face.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stumbled. “It’s…”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, but her voice was soft.

Will gave a sigh of relief. He knew she was wrong. It mattered more than anything in the world, but at least she wasn’t angry with him.

“Will,” she said, a little sharper this time. “My bag? It’s got everything in it. All my notes.”

“Sure, yes,” he said immediately. “Sorry. I’ll get it. Bring it to you.” He tried to focus. “Where are you staying?”

“Hotel Petit Monarque. On the Place des Epars.”

“Right,” he said, running back up the steps. “Give me thirty minutes.”

Will watched her until she was out of sight, then went back inside. There was a sliver of light showing under the study door.

Suddenly the door to the study opened. Will sprang back out of sight between the door and the wall. Francois-Baptiste came out and walked towards the kitchen. Will heard the pass door swing open and shut, then nothing.

Will pressed his face to the gap so he could see Marie-Cecile. She was sitting at her desk looking at something, something that glinted and caught the light when she moved.

Will forgot what he was supposed to be doing as he watched Marie Cecile stand up and lift down one of the paintings hanging on the wall behind her. It was her favourite piece of art. She told him all about it once, in the early days. It was a golden canvas with splashes of bright colour showing French soldiers gazing upon the toppled pillars and palaces of ancient Egypt.
“On Gazing Upon the Sands of Time - 1799‘
, he remembered. That was it.

Behind where the picture had been hanging was a small black metal door cut into the wall with an electronic keypad next to it. She punched six numbers. There was a sharp click and the door opened. From out of the safe, she lifted two black packages and carefully put them on the desk. Will adjusted his position, desperate to see what was inside.

He was so caught up that he didn’t hear the footsteps coming up find him.

“Don’t move.”

“Francois-Baptiste, I—”

Will felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressing into his side.

“And put your hands where I can see them.”

He tried to turn round, but Francois-Baptiste grabbed his neck and led his face flat against the wall.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe
?” Marie-Cecile called out. Francois-Baptiste jabbed him again.

“
Je m’en occupe
,” he said. Everything’s under control

Alice looked at her watch again.

He’s not coming.

She was standing in the reception of the hotel, staring at the glass doors as if she could conjure Will out of thin air. Nearly an hour had passed since she’d left rue du Cheval Blanc. She didn’t know what to do.

Her purse, her phone, car keys were all in her jacket pocket. Everything else was in her rucksack.

It doesn’t matter. Get away from here.

The longer she waited, the more she started to doubt Will’s motives.

The fact he’d appeared out of nowhere. Alice went over the sequence of events in her mind.

Was it really just coincidence they’d bumped into each other like that?

She’d told no one at all where she was going.

2>Then why hasn’t he come? 2>

At half-past eight, Alice decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She explained she wouldn’t need the room after all, scribbled a note for Will in case he came, giving her number, then went.

She threw the jacket on the car’s front seat and noticed the envelope sticking out of the pocket. The letter she’d been given at the hotel, which she’d forgotten all about. Alice pulled it out and put it on the dashboard to read when she stopped for a break.

Night fell as she drove south. The headlamps of the oncoming cars shone in her eyes, dazzling her. Trees and bushes leaped ghost-like out of the darkness. Orleans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, the signs flashed by.

Cocooned in her own world, for hour after hour, Alice asked herself the same questions over and again. Each time, she came up with a different answer.

Why? For information. She’d certainly handed that to them all right. All her notes, her drawings, the photograph of Grace and Baillard.

He promised to show you the labyrinth chamber.

She’d seen nothing. Just a picture in a book. Alice shook her head. She didn’t want to believe it.

Why did he help her get away? Because he’d got what he wanted; rather, what Madame de l’Oradore wanted.

So they can follow you.

CHAPTER 56

Carcassona

AGOST 1209

The French attacked Sant-Vicens at dawn on Monday the third of August.

Alais scrambled up the ladders of the Tour du Major to join her father to watch from the battlements. She looked for Guilhem in the crowd, but could not see him.

Now, over the sound of sword and battle cry of the soldiers storming low defensive walls, she could just make out the sound of singing floating across the plain down from the Graveta hill.

2>“Vent creator spiritus 2>

Mentes tuorum visita!“

“The priests,” Alais said aghast. “They sing to God as they come to slaughter us.”

The suburb began to burn. As smoke spiralled up into the air, behind the walls, people and animals scattered in panic in all directions.

Grappling hooks were hurled over the parapet quicker than the could cut them down. Dozens of scaling ladders were thrown the walls. The garrison kicked them down, set them alight, but held in place. French foot soldiers swarmed like ants. The more who were cut back, the more there seemed to be.

At the foot of the fortifications on both sides, the injured and dead bodies were stacked one on top of another, like piles of firewood. With every hour that passed, the toll grew greater.

The Crusaders rolled a catapult into place and began their bombardment of the fortifications. The thuds shook Sant-Vicens to its foundations, relentless, implacable in the storm of arrows and missiles thrown from above.

The walls began to crumble.

“They’re through,” Alais shouted. They’ve breached the defences!“

Viscount Trencavel and his men were ready for them. Brandishing sword and axe, two and three abreast they charged the besiegers. The massive hooves of the warhorses trampled all in their path, their heavy steel shoes shattering skulls like husks and crushing limbs in a mass of skin and blood and bone. Street by street, the fighting spread through the suburb, moving ever closer to the walls of the Cite itself. Alais could see a mass of terrorised inhabitants flooding through the Porte de Rodez into the Cite to escape the violence of the battle. The old, the infirm, women and children. Every able-bodied man was armed, fighting alongside the soldiers of the garrison. Most were cut down where they stood, clubs no match for the swords of Crusaders.

The defenders fought bravely, but they were outnumbered ten to one.

Like an inrushing tide breaking on the shore, the Crusaders stormed through, breaching the fortifications and demolishing sections of the walls.

Trencavel and his chevaliers were desperate not to lose control of the river, but it was hopeless. He sounded the retreat.

With the triumphant howls of the French echoing in their ears, the heavy gates of the Porte de Rodez were opened to allow the survivors back into the Cite. As Viscount Trencavel led his defeated band of survivors in single file through the streets back to the Chateau Comtal, Alais looked down in horror at the scene of devastation and destruction below. She had seen death many times, but not on this scale. She felt polluted by the reality of war, the senseless waste of it.

Deceived also. Now she realised how the
chansons a gestes
she had so loved in her childhood had lied. There was no nobility in war. Only suffering.

Alais descended the battlements to the courtyard and joined the other women waiting at the gate, praying that Guilhem was among them.

Be safely delivered.

At last, she heard the sound of hooves on the bridge. Alais saw him straight away and her spirit leaped. His face and armour were stained with blood and ash, his eyes reflected the ferocity of the battle, but he was unharmed.

“Your husband fought valiantly, Dame Alais,” said Viscount Trencavel, noticing her standing there. “He cut down many and saved the lives of many more. We are grateful for both his skill and courage.” Alais flushed. Tell me, where is your father?“

She pointed to the northeastern corner of the courtyard. We witnessed the battle from the
ambans, Messire.“

Guilhem had dismounted and handed the reins to his
ecuyer
.

Alais approached him shyly, not sure of her reception. “
Messire
.‘

He took her pale white hand and raised it to his lips. “Thierry fell,” he said in a hollow voice. They’re bringing him back now. He’s badly wounded.“

“
Messire
, I am sorry.”

We were as brothers,“ he continued. ”Alzeu too. Barely a month separated us in age. We stood for each other, worked to pay for our hauberks and swords. We were dubbed the same Passiontide.“

“I know it,” she said softly, drawing his head down to hers. “Come, let me help you, then I will do what I can for Thierry.”

She saw his eyes glistened with tears. She hurried on, knowing he did not want her to see him cry.

“Guilhem, come,” she said softly. Take me to him.“

Thierry had been taken to the Great Hall with all the others who were wounded. The lines of dying and injured men were three deep, and the other women did what they could. With her hair wound into a plait over her shoulder, she looked no more than a child.

As the hours passed, the air in the confined chamber grew more putrid the flies more persistent. For the most part, Alais and the other women worked in silence and with steady determination, knowing that it would be little respite before the assault began anew. Priests stepped between the lines of dying and injured soldiers, hearing confession, giving last rites. Beneath the disguise of their dark robes, two
parfaits
administered the
consolament
to the Cathar believers.

Thierry’s injuries were serious. He’d been struck several times. His ankle was broken and a lance had pierced his thigh, shattering the bone inside the leg. Alais knew he had lost too much blood, but for Guilhem’s did everything she could. She heated a decoction of knitbone root and leaves in hot wax, and then applied it in a compress once it had cooled.

Leaving Guilhem to sit with him, Alais turned her attention to those who had the best chance of survival. She dissolved powder of angelica root in carduus water and with the help of scullions from the kitchen carrying the liquid in pails, she spooned the medicine into the mouths of any who could swallow. If she could keep infection at bay and their blood stayed pure, then their wounds had a chance of healing.

Alais returned to Thierry whenever she could to refresh the dressings, even though it was clear there was no hope. He was no longer conscious and his skin had taken on the blue-white taint of death. She put her hand Guilhem’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It won’t be long now.”

Guilhem only nodded.

Alais worked her way to the far end of the hall. As she passed, a young
chevalier
, little older than she was, cried out. She stopped and knelt down beside him. His child’s face was creased with pain and confusion, his lips were cracked and his eyes, which had once been brown, were tortured with fear.

“Hush,” she murmured. “Do you have no one?”

He tried to shake his head. Alais smoothed his brow with her hand and lifted the cloth that covered his shield arm. Immediately, she let it drop.

The boy’s shoulder was crushed. Fragments of white bone jutted through torn skin, like a wreck at low tide. There was a gaping hole in his side. Blood was flowing steadily from the wound, creating a pool where he lay.

His right hand was frozen around the hilt of his sword. Alais tried to ease it from his grasp, but his rigid fingers would not let it go. Alais ripped a piece of material from her skirt and plugged the deep wound. From a vial in her purse, she took a tincture of valerian and dropped two measures on to his lips to ease the pain of his passing. There was nothing else she could do.

Death was unkind. It came slowly. Gradually, the rattling in his chest grew louder as his breathing became laboured. As his eyes darkened, his terror grew and he cried out. Alais stayed with him, singing to him and stroking his brow until his soul left his body.

“God take your soul,” she whispered, closing his eyes. She covered his face, then moved on to the next.

Alais worked all day, administering ointment and dressing wounds until her eyes ached and her hands were streaked red with blood. At the end of the day, shafts of evening sunlight broke through the high windows of the Great Hall. The dead had been taken away. The living were as comfortable as their injuries permitted.

She was exhausted, but thoughts of the night before, lying once more in Guilhem’s arms, sustained her. Her bones ached and her back was stiff from bending and crouching, but it no longer seemed to matter.

Taking advantage of the frenzy of activity in the rest of the Chateau Comtal, Oriane slipped away to her chamber to wait for her informer.

“About time,” she snapped. “Tell me what you have discovered.”

“The Jew died before we learned much, although my lord believes that he had already given his book into your father’s safekeeping.”

Oriane gave a half smile, but said nothing. She had confided in no one what she had discovered sewn into Alais’ cloak.