Paradise Red (10 page)

Raimon throws the straw down. “And what do you intend to do with the Flame if you get it?”

Aimery is smiling brightly, although there is a slight—very slight—hesitation. “I shall bring it to Castelneuf and set it up as a beacon for all Occitanians,” he says in his most churchy voice.

“I don't believe you,” Raimon fires back.

“You don't?” Aimery fills his voice with mild affront.

“No.”

“For goodness' sake, Raimon. What else will I do with the Flame? You don't have a monopoly on loyalty and righteousness, you know. You're not the only one who cares about the Occitan.”

His words are so plausible that had there been no incident with the beam and no hesitation, however slight, Raimon might believe him. After all, Aimery has grown up in the same landscape of silver, green, and gold as he has. Just like Raimon, Aimery too pledged his boyish allegiance to the Occitan and only the Occitan. As boys, both of them were fed the same myths and romances, and both understand the region's obstinate otherness, its desire to hold itself apart from the more mundane world of everywhere else. They have both sung the “Song of the Flame.” The Occitan can never mean nothing to them.

But the grainy face with its blond, concealing beard and palely inscrutable eyes is not the youthful Aimery. That Aimery has been disappearing, little by little, for years and has now
vanished altogether. Raimon knows he is right about that. He considers. “Let me go for it,” he says at last. “Why risk the two of us?”

“I was just going to suggest the opposite. Why don't I go to Montségur and you stay here to supervise the building work,” Aimery replies gaily. “After all, if this old place is to be the home of the Flame, it needs to be carefully prepared. Refortified, with the Flame burning on high and both of us defending it, who will dare launch an assault?” His tone is wholly satirical, but Raimon cannot challenge him. Aimery would denounce Raimon without a qualm. Nevertheless, Raimon is determined about one thing. “I'm going to Montségur,” he says.

“Well then, we'll go together. Funny that your new love will imagine you're going with her. I wonder when you'll tell her the truth?” Aimery grins nastily. “But I have to say, I hope you really have given up on Yolanda because I hear from Sir Hugh that she's quite settled as Lady des Arcis now. She has outgrown you just as I was sure she would. But to put her mind completely at rest I shall send her a message telling her the good news about you and Metta.”

Aimery is playing Raimon like a fish, dipping half in, half out of the truth as it suits him. He strides back into the main kennel and drums his fingers against Farvel before moving toward the door. “Now, huntsman. I'll hold you to that promise of a good crop of puppies, and don't let that old hound die. We need him to flush out the enemy.” He twirls his sword at Raimon.

“I wish you and Sir Raimon Godspeed,” the huntsman says.

Aimery flinches. “Raimon's not quite a ‘sir' yet,” he says crisply.

Raimon follows Aimery to the door. “And why will anybody at Montségur believe you're a real Cathar? Everybody knows that you're a Catholic. They'll need a bit more than your word.”

Aimery laughs and draws Raimon close. “Come on, weaver. Use your brain. They'll believe me because my chateau and lands have been burned by Catholic King Louis. I'm a Catholic victim, don't you see, and victims often convert. Actually, I've already spoken to Sir Roger. He didn't even blink.”

After Aimery has gone, Raimon returns to the brazier and sits for a long time. The dogboys settle beside him, and the huntsman does not shoo them away.

At dinner that night, the hall rings with discussion about the journey. Metta is sitting by her father and looks up immediately when Raimon eventually enters. She has been waiting. “Oh! You're white as a sheet. Come near to the fire!”

Laila is perched on a stool. “Yes, nearer the fire, Raimon.” She smirks, saccharine sweet. “Your poor little self might catch cold, and that would never do.” She scowls at Metta, who blinks and smiles back without any rancor, which makes Laila hate her even more.

Raimon approaches, but only for a moment. He does not even hear Laila. As soon as Aimery is surrounded by others, he leaves again, because if Aimery has sent Yolanda a note, he must send another. He fingers his ring as he hurries to the loft.

It takes him some time to capture a bird, for he is entirely unpracticed, and then spends more time trying to discover some distinguishing mark to indicate where the bird is from. There is none so he must take his chance. He has already written his note. It is very short. “Whatever you hear, I'm keeping
faith.” He does not sign it. There is no need. He binds on the capsule and pushes the bird out.

A quarter of a mile downriver, Aimery, warned by Alain that Raimon had gone to the loft, is standing in the lee of a coppice, a hooded falcon on one arm and a small lantern in the other. It's still just light enough to see, although when the gray bird comes, its camouflage almost fools him. Only her speed gives her away. He grins broadly as he removes the falcon's hood and casts her off. She circles, apparently blind to the pigeon. “Come on, you dimwitted fool,” Aimery mutters as the pigeon speeds on, and the falcon disappears into the clouds. Then, from the clouds, she reappears, only this time homed and plummeting. The pigeon stands no chance against a long hind killing toe fully extended. The falcon and her prey land with a small thump in a heap of dead leaves and by the time Aimery gets there, the pigeon is a mass of bloody plumage. Aimery rummages in the feathers, finds the leather capsule, and reads the contents before tossing both away. “ ‘Keeping faith,' indeed.” He wants to laugh, but the laugh won't come, so he grinds his heel so hard into the blood and bones at his feet that the startled falcon rises into a tree. When she will not come down, Aimery picks up a stone and shouts. Frightened, the falcon takes off, and Aimery, after following her fruitlessly for fully a quarter of an hour, is left to stalk back to Castelneuf quite alone.

The following evening is the last the visitors will spend at Castelneuf. The journey will not be easy, for though winter's grip has eased, the aftermath is treacherous. Spades must be wielded to make the muddy road leading to the river safe enough for carts.

The daylight hours have passed in a tumult of packing and repacking, shoeing and reshoeing horses, filling and emptying sacks and barrels. Nobody knows what to expect at Montségur. Should the travelers take more than the food they will consume on the week's journey, just in case? Or will there be an abundance at the fortress making it a waste of effort to provide more? They scurry around deciding one thing then another.

An hour after dusk the temperature has dropped again, adding an edge to the travelers' appetites.

Raimon has already begun his round of good-byes, and his reception among the household servants has not been good, which is hardly surprising. Like Laila, many think him a faithless turncoat. “At least I've deceived them successfully,” he thinks grimly as the laundress refuses to take his hand. He rolls Yolanda's ring with his thumb. It affords a measure of comfort.

He goes last to the kennels and finds a dismal scene. Farvel has died, and the huntsman's usually steady hands tremble as he sews up his faithful servant's body in a thick pall of straw. The dogboys are weeping. Entering, Raimon sees Farvel's empty stall at once and drops to his knees. The huntsman watches how he kneels, how he holds his head, how his body leans, reading him as he reads his hounds. He starts sewing again before Raimon rises.

At last, he finishes with his needle and gestures to the dog-boys to lay Farvel's body gently on his bed one last time. Their sniffling turns briefly to a howl that fades only when the huntsman reaches for his horn and blows “gone away.” He blows it again and again. In this confined space, the peal is intense enough to wake the dead, which is perhaps his intention, although Farvel never moves.

Raimon cannot delay. He swallows a huge lump in his throat and tries to be matter-of-fact. “You've probably heard that I'm going to Montségur with the visitors.” He dreads disapproval, but the huntsman does not look disapproving. Instead, he does something quite unexpected. He gestures to the dog-boys to leave Farvel and gets them to stand in the most orderly manner of which they are capable, which is about as orderly as a pile of twigs, and only then does he address Raimon in his gruff growl. “I hear what they're saying about you.” Raimon stiffens. “They say you've turned Cathar because of some girl.” Raimon bites his tongue. The huntsman's contempt will be bitter.

But the huntsman has something else in mind. “I don't know about that,” he says. “I only know that a hound on the scent is always to be trusted.” Then he walks with Raimon to
the door and throws it open, thrusting his nose in the air as he gauges the tenor of the night with quick short sniffs, just as Farvel would have done. “Are you on the scent, Sir Raimon?”

For a second, Raimon wonders if the huntsman is scoffing, but only for a second. The huntsman is like Metta. He does not scoff. So he raises his own nose and sniffs, and it is such a relief to answer with absolute truth. “Yes,” he says, “I'm on the scent.”

The huntsman nods. “Good hunting, then.”

At supper, the noise is too plentiful for the troubadours to sing, and anyway, the time for entertainment is over. Gui and Guerau hang up their instruments. Aimery sits on the dais surrounded by his household knights, highly voluble and handing out detailed instructions as to what must happen at Castelneuf in his absence. Nobody knows what to make of his conversion or his decision to go to Montségur, but they barely question him. Some will leave, most will stay, for his interests are their interests. Aimery seems unconcerned.

A quick, fussy Castelneuf knight with a reputation as a panicker is put in charge of the rebuilding and another, slow, methodical, and an enemy of the first, in charge of defense. Their mutual dislike will keep their ambitions at bay. The garrison will be very small, which makes some knights concerned for the chateau's safety. Aimery reassures them. “There's nothing here for King Louis now,” he says, “and Sir Hugh des Arcis will not return. He's my brother-in-law, and besides, the Amouroix is no longer of interest. They're done with us. And if inquisitors come prying when they hear of my conversion, who cares? There's precious little left to burn.”

As a last bit of business he sends Alain to the chapel,
where Simon Crampcross has been lurking all this time hoping to be forgotten. The cleric sweats as he is prodded like a fat cow into the hall, and his eyes swivel between Aimery and the game pies.

Aimery stands. “Ah, priest!” His voice rings out. “Begone! This is a Cathar chateau now, and though you may call me a heretic, I'm proud to say that I've seen the true light.” He scours the room in search of skepticism, but everybody is wisely inspecting their boots.

Simon Crampcross does not argue. With surprising speed for a man of his bulk, he lumbers out, and Raimon is left wondering if this is all part of Aimery's act or whether Simon Crampcross believes his banishment to be genuine. He does not wonder long, however, because something else is brewing.

Laila, her box of tricks open beside her and her top lip curled in anticipation, is lounging against the hearthstones, a plump saffron-colored slipper embroidered with fish scales dangling from one toe. Raimon guesses at once that the slippers were a present from Aimery—perhaps in recompense for Ugly—although how Laila could have accepted slippers as an apology for a dog, Raimon does not know. She is eating a chicken leg, delicately picking at it with small white teeth. Free from any painted artifice today, she has a kind of shocking nakedness about her. When she sees Raimon looking at her, she closes her box, locks it, and very slowly sticks out her tongue.

Aimery, aware of Laila's every breath, coughs and bangs his knife on his platter. “It seems,” he says in a slow drawl, “that for some at least the snow was heaven-sent. My lords, do you lack all powers of observation? Are you blind?” Raimon frowns.
“Gentlemen, can't you sense it?” Aimery can hardly contain his enjoyment. “Love has blossomed in our midst.”

There is a purr of approval. Everybody loves a lover.

“Now, Raimon”—Aimery searches him out—“don't be shy. It doesn't become you. We've all seen how you and Mistress Metta de Salas have grown close, and we all know that tomorrow you will ride together.” He raises his goblet. “I'm sure the whole company wants to wish you well.”

Raimon sees Metta color. Any reluctance on his part will be a humiliation for her. He must sit beside her. Laila pushes her way in too and sits on the opposite side of the trestle, next to Adela, little quivers of excitement erupting beneath her skin. The awkwardness is palpable, and to soften it, Metta makes a gentle joke about the dogboys. Laila laughs harshly and much too loudly, making Raimon prickle all over, his knuckles white against the dark cloth of his jacket.

At what afterward Raimon realizes was a prearranged signal, Laila, fingers flashing, pounces on his leather ring. “Isn't now the time to take that old thing off?” She tugs at it. Speechless, Raimon pulls back, upsetting a flask of wine. Its contents spill everywhere but though her bodice is splashed and ruined, Laila is not deterred. “If you're going to Montségur with Metta, you should wear only her ring!” She will not let go. “That's what real lovers do, isn't it?”

Metta tries to push the conversation elsewhere. “Do all orphan boys go to the kennels, Raimon? Do you have any dog-girls?”

Laila bats her aside, then seizes her hand. “Metta! My dear Metta! Don't
you
think Raimon should wear your ring? After all”—she stands now, to command everybody's attention—“it's
not quite right, really, if Raimon loves you, that he wears a ring in honor of another man's wife.”