The Burning Chambers

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ A child was standing in the doorway beckoning to Minou. ‘It’s the student, Prouvaire. He’s worsening.’

  Minou and Piet scrambled to their feet and went back into the chapel. She bent down beside Prouvaire, listened to the plashing in his chest, then looked up at Piet and shook her head.

  ‘His lungs are filled with blood. We did all we could, but his injuries were too bad. It won’t be long now.’

  Piet knelt down beside him. ‘I’m here, friend.’

  Prouvaire opened his eyes.

  ‘Is that you, Reydon?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘What if we are wrong? What if there is nothing waiting for us on the other side? Only darkness?’

  ‘God is waiting for you,’ Minou said. ‘He is waiting to bring you home.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ he said, the word slipping between his lips like a sigh. ‘Would that it was all true. Such wondrous, wondrous stories . . .’

  His face drained of colour and his eyes flickered shut.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Minou said, gently placing a kerchief over his face. ‘I am sorry.’

  Piet bowed his head and said a prayer.

  ‘Does he have family?’ she asked. ‘Is there anyone we should tell?’

  ‘No. His family were his fellow students at the Collège de l’Esquile. They are either fled or dead, like him.’

  ‘What is going to happen to us?’ Minou said, looking around at the huddled groups of women and children and old men. ‘What’s going to happen to them? Even if the fighting stops, they have lost everything. Their homes, their possessions, everything.’

  Piet shrugged. ‘The killing will continue until the talking starts. Tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that.’

  ‘There will be a truce?’

  He nodded. ‘There were too few of us, they were better armed and prepared. We were fighting for the right to be left in peace, but –’

  ‘By attempting to take the city, you became the aggressors not the defenders.’

  Piet smiled.

  ‘Why do you look at me so?’ Minou asked. ‘Is that not what you were going to say?’

  ‘It was exactly what I was going to say, and that’s why I’m smiling. This is the argument I had with Vidal, with my comrades in Carcassonne, in the taverns here in Toulouse. Only Michel Cazès understood. He said that if we took up arms in attack, we would lose.’

  ‘Will you return to the barricade?’

  ‘One last stand?’ Piet said. ‘No. Our commander is a good man. I have no doubt he will negotiate and lay down his arms. He knows it is pointless to continue.’

  ‘Will you return to the almshouse?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s razed to the ground. Everything is gone.’

  ‘Oh, Piet.’

  ‘With no loss of life, we must be thankful for that.’

  ‘Then, what?’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘If you are prepared to leave the safety of this house, Minou, then I will find a way to take you across Toulouse and away. If you will let me.’

  She met his gaze. ‘To Puivert?’

  ‘Yes, but it will be dangerous. Many are being slaughtered outside the walls, as within the city, as they attempt to leave.’

  ‘Alis needs me,’ she said simply. ‘My father and Aimeric also. I would rather try to reach them, and fail, than stay here and do nothing.’

  What Minou did not say – for fear of sounding sentimental or assuming more than Piet might want to give – was that she would rather die at his side than be parted from him again.

  ‘There is someone who can take charge of the house?’ Piet asked, cutting into her thoughts.

  Minou nodded. ‘The bookseller from rue des Pénitents Gris. He is old, and not a man of courage, but he has a care for his neighbours, Catholic and Huguenot.’

  ‘I know him. A good choice. He will take no risks.’ He exhaled. ‘We agree, then? We must attempt to get out of the city?’

  Minou swallowed hard. ‘We are agreed.’

  The ceasefire between Catholic and Huguenot forces came after six hours of vicious fighting on Saturday, 16th May. Antoine de Resseguier from the Parliament acted as mediator between Captain Saux for the Protestants and Raymond de Pavia, commander of the Catholic troops.

  Toulouse was exhausted. Whole districts were burnt to the ground or left in rubble. The city was a charnel house, more than four thousand left dead, massacred in the streets or in their beds. The air was black with flies. Corpses floated down the river Garonne.

  By then, Minou and Piet were gone. Stealing out of the Boussay house at first light, creeping past the blackened shell of the maison de charité, she spied the broken body of Madame Montfort, her clothes torn and her eyes blank to the world, still clutching a few fragments of stolen jewellery to her chest.

  Minou averted her eyes from the suffering as they travelled on to the Porte Matabiau to the north of the city, one of only two gates remaining under Huguenot control.

  Too many dead. Too many souls to pray for.

  As the terms of the truce were being negotiated, Minou and Piet were already at Pech David agreeing a price for two horses capable of covering the distance between the Lauragais and the mountains. Piet had a few coins, and Minou some trinkets taken from the Boussay house.

  By the time the sun set that night, as Mass was being said in the Carmelite church for the deliverance of Toulouse back into Catholic hands, Minou and Piet were crossing the boundary of the lands of the Lauragais into the hills of the Razès.

  Following the old Cathar trail, they rode south, passing other refugees on the road. Bedraggled columns of oxen and carts, traps loaded high with meagre possessions, Huguenots fleeing Catholic troops and neighbours who had once been friends.

  When their horses could go no further, Minou and Piet stopped. In the silence and deep blackness of the night, where there was no one to see them, they fell asleep in one another’s arms.

  PART THREE

  PUIVERT

  Summer 1562

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  PUIVERT

  Wednesday, 20th May

  The altar candles, flickering either side of the silver crucifix, shone a pool of light over the white cloth.

  Blanche bowed her head, her glossy black hair falling forward across her face as she recited the act of contrition.

  ‘God, I am heartily sorry for having offended You, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend You, Lord, who are good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Your grace to confess my sins, do penance, and to amend my life.’

  She felt a pressure on the top of her head as the priest gave her the blessing, then his hand on her elbow helping her to her feet.

  ‘Amen.’

  Carefully, as if she was a priceless and fragile creature, Vidal guided her to the stone bench. The servants had scrubbed, and scrubbed, but the dark lines of dried blood were still visible between the cracks.

  ‘How goes it, lady?’ he said.

  ‘The better for having you at my side, Monsignor,’ she replied, dropping her eyes. ‘I have missed your wise counsel these weeks.’

  Blanche let him take her hand. ‘I would that I had been here sooner. To think of what you have suffered – and with no one at your side.’

  ‘I put my trust in God,’ she said piously. ‘This is His will. That He saw fit to save me, and to spare our child, I am blessed.’

  Vidal moved his hand to her belly and the baby moved. Blanche thought it a disgusting sensation, but she was pleased at the power it conferred on her. Last time she had been with child, fifteen years ago when she was no more than a child herself, it had been different. Of course, it would have been impossible to hide her condition from him now. The moment he arrived at Puivert, she had confessed. His pride was immediate, he could not have been more solicitous. All the same, Blanche detected a measure of distaste when he touched her. br />
  To her surprise, he had expressed no concern about his reputation. Many Catholic priests had clandestine families. Provided they lived quietly, there was no reason for anyone to object. Then again, Vidal was preoccupied with his own legacy. He was ambitious for power and wealth in this world, yes, but he also wanted his memory to live on after he had gone. A son, bearing his name, would give him something of the immortality he craved.

  Blanche’s remaining problem was Minou Joubert. Even if the Will was never found, the precariousness of her own claim to the estate had been laid bare. The child she was carrying might be born dead, might not survive past infanthood. And if she gave birth to a girl, the title of Seigneur of Bruyère and Puivert would not be hers.

  Minou Joubert had to die.

  ‘Do you think Piet Reydon survived the siege?’ she asked.

  ‘Impossible to say. He is clever and shrewd, he knows Toulouse well, but the fighting was fierce. Whole districts were destroyed and one cannot blame pious Catholics for seeking vengeance for the horrors visited upon the city by the Huguenot attack.’

  ‘The Joubert girl fled back into the city too?’

  ‘Yes. The sentries recognised her by her mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown.’

  ‘She must be found, do you agree?’

  ‘I have people searching for them both. If they are still within the city, and alive, my orders are for her and Reydon to be held until I return. I will interrogate them myself. Experience has taught me to be wary of the heavy-handedness of certain inquisitors.’

  ‘You are convinced Reydon handed the Shroud into her safekeeping?’

  ‘He commissioned the copy to be made, he sold the counterfeit to the Huguenots of Carcassonne, he kept the original and, yes, I believe, on the eve of the attack, he retrieved it and gave it to Minou Joubert.’

  He paused and Blanche, recognising his thoughtful expression, wondered what new scheme he was considering.

  ‘There is something that might be done in the interim,’ he began. ‘It is an excellent replica. Few would know it to be false and—’

  ‘Tell me.’ Blanche nodded her encouragement. ‘I would help in any way that I can.’

  Vidal’s hand hovered over her, but this time he withdrew it without touching her.

  ‘You understand I am thinking solely of what is better for our Mother Church and the devout Catholics of Toulouse. So many were murdered, or forced to witness the destruction of their holiest icons.’

  ‘It is the greatest tragedy.’

  ‘With that in mind, it could be said that at this moment in time it would be of great value to the common people if they believed the true Shroud had been found. It would be a sign of our deliverance. I made a vow to return it to its reliquary in the Eglise Saint-Taur. Its miraculous properties are beyond compare and I shall, of course, continue to search. But in the meantime –’

  ‘I understand.’ Blanche smiled. ‘In the meantime, for the comfort of your flock, you might do this kindness and put the substitute in its place.’

  ‘If they think the Shroud has been found and see it returned to its rightful home, it would be a sign that God was on our side.’

  ‘It would be a simple matter, as soon as you do have the true Shroud in your possession, to effect an exchange. No one need know.’

  ‘No one would know.’

  Blanche looked at him, his face in shadow and the rogue streak of white hair almost silver in the candlelight. She wondered if his manoeuvring had been as sure-footed as he claimed. He had made little secret of his ambitions. What if the current bishop had taken steps to block him?

  Time would tell.

  ‘It is an excellent idea, Monsignor,’ she said.

  Alis heard the bell in the village striking for noon.

  Since the incident in the chapel, the nurse had been more careful with her duties. She had moderated the amount of ale she drank, had confiscated Alis’s shoes, and the child was locked in the chamber day and night.

  But two days ago, the tall priest arrived – she had glimpsed him striding through the upper courtyard – and the household was turned on its head. Lady Blanche had withdrawn to the keep, taking all meals there, with her priest-confessor from Toulouse. No one was allowed to disturb them.

  Finally, for the first time in some days, thinking her asleep, the nurse had gone to gossip with the other servants in the kitchens. Alis threw her blankets off, jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

  She had given up expecting anyone to save her. It was on her shoulders. She had decided to run away and find a way home to Carcassonne on her own. Or perhaps to Toulouse to find Minou. She hadn’t decided. She wasn’t sure which city was closer.

  Just after sunset, Alis opened the casement and looked out into the dark. It was an awfully long drop to the grass slopes below, and rough stones jutted sharply out from the fortified walls. She wasn’t sure she could do it. But then she heard Aimeric’s teasing voice in her head, telling her girls were useless, and was determined to prove him wrong.

  Alis thought back to all the times she had watched him misbehaving on the battlements of La Cité, begging him to come down before he was caught. He could climb anything from the highest trees on the banks of the Aude to the sheer walls of the barbican below the Château Comtal. So, what would Aimeric do?

  Aimeric would pick out the strongest rocks in the wall to anchor his feet and the surest gaps to fix his hands. He would plan in his mind, only then work his way down from the window to the ground. His arms and legs were longer, of course, and he was stronger. But Alis thought she could do it.

  In the woods to the north of the château, she heard the screech of an owl out hunting and the baying of a pack of dogs further away towards Chalabre. Alis shut the casement. It was too dangerous to attempt an escape in the dark, but tomorrow?

  She would be ready.

  ‘I have one more sin to confess, Monsignor,’ Blanche said. ‘I pray you will not be angry with me.’

  ‘Angry, how so?’ Vidal said.

  ‘I should have confessed to it too, for I know it to be wrong.’

  Vidal reached out and raised her chin. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I will accept any punishment or penance you impose.’

  ‘Come, Blanche, let’s have no talk of punishment. But, tell me.’

  She looked at him meekly. ‘You remember I have an interest in the Joubert family.’

  ‘I remember,’ he repeated cautiously.

  She smiled. ‘Suffice to say that, on the strength of my interest, when I took my leave of Toulouse I went to Carcassonne.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was most keen to make the acquaintance of Minou Joubert and to invite her to Puivert. In order to accomplish this, I brought the younger girl, Alis, back from Carcassonne with me.’

  Vidal’s expression grew still. ‘I see.’

  ‘The child was there alone in La Cité, in the care of a most inadequate servant. I thought she would be happier here.’

  ‘Did anyone see you?’

  ‘I was careful,’ Blanche said, injecting as much contrition into her voice as she could. ‘I used the carriage of the Bishop of Toulouse, which he had graciously loaned to me.’

  ‘Do you realise what you have done? To take a child against her will?’

  ‘She came willingly enough, though I admit under false pretences. It was only when she realised Minou was not in Puivert waiting for her that she became difficult.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘In the logis, where do you think? I’m not a monster. There is a nurse with her, though by rights I should have dismissed her. She’s a drunkard and allows the girl to roam ungoverned.’

  Blanche hesitated, remembering she owed her life to Alis. It was something else she had not told Vidal. So much blood. The voices in her head had warned her not to. They were quiet now.

  ‘I am astonished you took such a risk.’

  ‘There was no risk. No one saw me in Carcassonne, I made sur
e of it. I wrote to Minou Joubert in Toulouse straight away, but heard nothing in reply. No one here knows the child’s name, no one knows who she is.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you that the letter might not have reached her?’

  ‘I sent it in April. Long before the current disturbances.’

  ‘Is that how you describe it! Thousands died.’

  Blanche reached out for him, but Vidal shrugged her off.

  ‘Deus vult. If God wills it. Isn’t that what the Crusaders cried as they attempted to take back the Holy Land from the Infidel? I am only accomplishing His purpose.’

  ‘How long has the child been here?’ he asked sharply.

  Blanche recoiled, unable to read his mood. ‘Don’t raise your voice to me.’

  ‘Answer me! How long has the girl been held here?’

  ‘Several weeks,’ she said, holding her voice steady. ‘I own, it is taking longer than I anticipated. I have soldiers patrolling the local villages, as far away as Chalabre, searching for strangers in the district. In Puivert itself, there are several whose tongues I have bought. When she comes, I shall know it.’ She stared at him, her black eyes glinting. ‘And Minou Joubert will come for her sister. That I know too.’

  The air seemed to crack between them. The flames from the candles sent elongated shadows dancing across the vaulted ceiling, and glinted on the crucifix in the middle of the altar.

  Suddenly, Vidal was striding towards her and, despite herself, Blanche’s hand went to her belly. She took a step back. Then she felt his hand on the back of her neck and his mouth greedy on her lips.

  ‘You are magnificent,’ he said, breaking away. ‘If Minou Joubert is alive, she will come to Puivert. And she will bring the Shroud with her. Reydon will follow and, this time, there will be no mistakes. In the meantime, I will speak to the child. She might have more to tell.’

  ‘So, you are pleased with me, my lord? There is no penance to be made?’

  ‘None,’ he murmured, easing her chemise from her shoulders. ‘We will absolve one another of our sins.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHALABRE