Labyrinth

  If her absence had been discovered at first light, then the men might have been caught.

  And my father would not have left thinking ill of me.

  CHAPTER 20

  In a deserted farm outside Aniane, in the flat, fertile lands to the west of Montpellier, an elderly Cathar parfait and his eight credentes, believers, crouched in the corner of a barn, behind a collection of old harnesses for oxen and mules.

  One of the men was badly wounded. Grey and pink flesh flopped open around the white splintered bones that had been his face. His eye had been dislodged from its socket by the force of the kick that had shattered his cheek. Blood congealed around the gaping hole. His friends had refused to leave him when the house in which they had gathered to pray had been attacked by a small, renegade group of soldiers that had broken away from the French army.

  But he had slowed them down and lost them the advantage of knowing the land. All day the Crusaders had hunted them. Night had not saved them and now they were trapped. The Cathars could hear them shouting in the courtyard, the sound of dry wood catching light. They were preparing a pyre.

  The parfait knew they were facing the end. There would be no mercy from men such as this, driven by hatred and ignorance and bigotry. There had never been an army the like of it on Christian soil. The parfait would not have believed it had he not seen it with his own eyes. He’d been travelling south, on a parallel course with the Host. He had seen the huge and unwieldy barges floating down the river Rhone, carrying equipment and supplies, as well as wooden chests ringed with bands of steel that contained precious holy relics to bless the expedition. The hooves of thousands of animals and men riding alongside created a giant cloud of dust, which floated above the Host.

  From the start, townspeople and villagers had shut their gates, watching from behind their walls and praying that the army would pass them by. Stories of increasing violence and horror circulated. There were reports of farms being burned, reprisals for farmers who had refused to allow the soldiers to pillage their land. Cathar believers, denounced as heretics, had been burned at the stake in Puylaroque. The entire Jewish community of Montélimar, men, women and children, had been put to the sword and their bleeding heads mounted on spikes outside the city walls, carrion for the crows.

  In Saint-Paul de Trois Châteaux, a parfait was crucified by a small band of Gascon routiers. They tied him to a makeshift cross made from two pieces of wood lashed together with rope and hammered nails through his hands. The weight of his body dragged him down, but he still would not recant or apostatise his faith. In the end, bored with the slow death, the soldiers disembowelled him and left him to rot.

  These and other acts of barbarism were either denied by the Abbott of Citeaux and the French barons or else disclaimed as the work of a few renegades. But as he crouched in the dark, the parfait knew that the words of lords, priests and papal legates counted for nothing out here. He could smell the bloodlust on the breath of the men who had hunted them down to this small corner of the Devil’s Earthly creation.

  He recognised Evil.

  All he could do now was try to save the souls of his believers so they could look upon the face of God. Their passing from this world into the next would not be gentle.

  The wounded man was still conscious. He whimpered softly, but a final stillness had come over him and his skin was tinged with the greyness of death. The parfait laid his hands upon the man’s head as he administered the last rites of their religion and spoke the words of the consolament.

  The remaining believers joined hands in a circle and began to pray.

  ‘Holy Father, just God of good spirits, Thou who are never deceived, who dost never lie or doubt, grant us to know . . .’

  The soldiers were kicking against the door now, laughing, jeering. It would not be long before they found them. The youngest of the women, no more than fourteen years old, began to cry. The tears ran hopelessly, silently, down her cheeks.

  ‘. . . grant us to know what Thou knowest, to love what Thou dost love; for we are not of this world, and this world is not of us, and we fear lest we meet death in this realm of an alien god.’

  The parfait raised his voice as the horizontal beam holding the door shut fractured in two. Splinters of wood, as sharp as arrowheads, exploded into the barn as the men burst in. Lit by the orange glow of the fire burning in the courtyard, he could see their eyes were glazed and inhuman. He counted ten of them, each with a sword.

  His eyes went to the commander who followed them in. A tall man, with a pale thin face and expressionless eyes, as calm and controlled as his men were hot and ill-disciplined. He had an air of cruel authority about him, a man used to being obeyed.

  On his orders, the fugitives were dragged from their hiding place. He lifted his arm and thrust his blade into the parfait’s chest. For an instant, he held his gaze. The Frenchman’s flint grey eyes were stiff with contempt. He raised his arm a second time and plunged his sword into the top of the old man’s skull, splattering red pulp and grey brains into the straw.

  With their priest murdered, panic broke out. The others tried to run, but the ground was already slippery with blood. A soldier grabbed a woman by her hair and thrust his sword into her back. Her father tried to pull him off, but the soldier swung round and sliced him across the belly. His eyes opened wide in shock as the soldier twisted the knife, then pushed the skewered body off the blade with his foot.

  The youngest soldier turned away and vomited into the straw.

  Within minutes all the men lay dead, their bodies strewn about the barn. The captain ordered his men to take the two older women outside. The girl he kept behind, the puking boy too. He needed to harden up.

  She backed away from him, her eyes alive with fear. He smiled. He was in no hurry and there was nowhere for her to run. He paced around her, like a wolf watching its prey, then, without warning, he struck. In a single movement he grabbed her around the throat and smashed her head back against the wall and ripped her dress open. She was screaming louder now, hitting and kicking out wildly. He drove his fist into her face, relishing the splinter of bone beneath his touch.

  Her legs buckled. She sank to her knees, leaving a trail of blood down the wood. He bent over and ripped her shift from her body, splitting the material from top to bottom in a single tear. She whimpered as he pulled her skirts up to her waist.

  ‘They must not be allowed to breed and bring others like themselves into the world,’ he said in a cold voice, drawing his knife from its sheath.

  He did not intend to pollute his flesh by touching the heretic. Grasping the blade, he plunged the hilt deep inside the girl’s stomach. With all the hate he felt for her kind, he drove the knife into her again and again, until her body lay motionless before him. As a final act of desecration, he rolled her over on to her front and, with two deep sweeps of his knife, carved the sign of the cross on her naked back. Pearls of blood, like rubies, sprang up on her white skin.

  ‘That should serve as a lesson for any others who pass this way,’ he said calmly. ‘Now, get rid of it.’

  Wiping his blade on her torn dress, he straightened up.

  The boy was sobbing. His clothes were stained with vomit and blood. He tried to do what his captain commanded, but he was too slow.

  He grabbed the boy by the throat. ‘I said, get rid of it. Quick. If you don’t want to join them.’ He kicked the boy in the small of his back, leaving a footprint of blood, dust and dirt on his tunic. A soldier with a weak stomach was no use to him.

  The makeshift pyre in the middle of the farmyard was burning fiercely, fanned by the hot night winds that swept up from the Mediterranean Sea.

  The soldiers were standing well back, their hands at their faces to shield themselves from the heat. Their horses, tethered by the gate, were stamping with agitated hooves. The stench of death was in their nostrils, making them nervous.

  The women had been stripped and made to kneel on the ground in front of their captors, their feet
tied and their hands bound tightly behind their back. Their faces, scratched breasts and bare shoulders showed marks of their ill use, but they were silent. Somebody gasped, as the girl’s corpse was thrown down in front of them.

  The captain walked towards the fire. He was bored now, restless to be gone. Killing heretics was not the reason he had taken the Cross. This brutal expedition was a gift to his men. They needed to be kept occupied, to keep their skills sharp and to stop them turning on each other.

  The night sky was filled with white stars around a full moon. He realised it must be past midnight, perhaps later. He’d intended to be back long before now, in case word came.

  ‘Shall we give them to the fire, my lord?’

  With a sudden, single stroke, he drew his sword and severed the head of the nearest woman. Blood pumped from a vein in her neck, splashing his legs and feet. The skull fell to the ground with a soft thud. He kicked her still twitching body until it fell forward into the dirt.

  ‘Kill the rest of these heretic bitches, then burn the bodies, the barn too. We’ve delayed long enough.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Alaïs woke as dawn slipped into the room.

  For a moment, she couldn’t remember how she came to be in her father’s chamber. She sat up and stretched the sleep from her bones, waiting until the memory of the day before came back vivid and strong.

  Some time during the long hours between midnight and daybreak she had reached a decision. Despite her broken night, her mind was as clear as a mountain stream. She could not sit by, passively waiting for her father to return. She had no way of judging the consequences of each day’s delay. When he had spoken of his sacred duty to the Noublesso de los Seres and the secret they guarded, he had left her in no doubt that his honour and pride lay in his ability to fulfil his vows. Her duty was to seek him out, tell him all that had happened, put the matter back in his hands.

  Far better to act than do nothing.

  Alaïs walked over to the window and opened the shutters to let in the morning air. In the distance the Montagne Noire shimmered purple in the gathering dawn, enduring and timeless. The sight of the mountains strengthened her resolve. The world was calling her to join it.

  She was taking a risk, a woman travelling alone. Wilful, her father would call it. But she was an excellent rider, quick and instinctive, and she had faith in her ability to outride any group of routiers or bandits. Besides, to her knowledge, there had been no attacks on Viscount Trencavel’s lands.

  Alaïs raised her hand to the bruise at the back of her head, evidence that someone meant her harm. If it was her time to die, then far better to face death with her sword in her hand than sit waiting for her enemies to strike again.

  Alaïs picked up her cold lamp from the table, catching her reflection in the black-streaked glass. She was pale, her skin the colour of buttermilk, and her eyes glinted with fatigue. But there was a sense of purpose that had not been there before.

  Alaïs wished she did not have to return to her chamber, but she had no choice. Carefully stepping over François, she made her way across the courtyard and back into the living quarters. There was no one about.

  Oriane’s sly shadow, Guirande, was sleeping on the floor outside her sister’s chamber as Alaïs tiptoed past, her pretty, pouting face slack in sleep.

  The silence that met her as she entered her room told her that the nurse was no longer there. She had presumably woken to find her gone and taken herself off.

  Alaïs set to work, wasting no time. The success of her plan depended on her ability to deceive everyone into believing she was too weak to venture far from home. No one within the household could know that her destination was Montpellier.

  She took from her wardrobe her lightest hunting dress, the tawny red of a squirrel’s pelt, with pale, stone-coloured fitted sleeves, generous under the arm, which tapered to a diamond-shaped point. She tied a thin leather belt around her waist, to which she attached her eating knife and her borsa, winter hunting purse.

  Alaïs pulled up her hunting boots to just below her knees, tightened the leather laces around the top, to hold a second knife, then adjusted the buckle, and put on a plain brown hooded cloak with no trim.

  When she was dressed, Alaïs took a few precious gemstones and jewellery from her casket, including her sunstone necklace and turquoise ring and choker. They might be useful in exchange or to buy safe passage or shelter, particularly once she was beyond the borders of Viscount Trencavel’s lands.

  Finally, satisfied she had forgotten nothing, she retrieved her sword from its hiding place behind the bed where it had lain, untouched, since her marriage. Alaïs held the sword firmly in her right hand and raised it in front of her face, measuring the blade against the flat of her hand. It was still straight and true, despite lack of use. She carved a figure of eight in the air, reminding herself of its weight and character. She smiled. It felt right in her hand.

  Alaïs crept into the kitchen and begged barley bread, figs, salted fish, a tablet of cheese and a flagon of wine from Jacques. He gave her much more than she needed, as he always did. For once, she was grateful for his generosity.

  She roused her servant, Rixende, and whispered a message for her to deliver to Dame Agnès that Alaïs was feeling better and would join the ladies of the household in the Solar after Tierce. Rixende looked surprised, but made no comment. Alaïs disliked this part of her duties and usually begged to be excused whenever possible. She felt caged in the company of women and was bored by the inconsequential tapestry talk. However, today it would serve as perfect proof that she was intending to return to the Chateau.

  Alaïs hoped she would not be missed until later. If her luck held, only when the chapel bell tolled for Vespers would they realise she had not come home and raise the alarm.

  And by then I will be long gone.

  ‘Do not go to Dame Agnès until after she has broken fast, Rixende,’ she said. ‘Not until the first rays of the sun strike the west wall of the courtyard, is that clear? Oc? Before that, if anyone comes searching for me - even my father’s manservant - you may tell them that I have gone to ride in the fields beyond Sant-Miquel.’

  The stables were in the northeastern corner of the courtyard between the Tour des Casernes and the Tour du Major. Horses stamped the ground and pricked up their ears at her approach, whinnying gently, hoping for hay. Alaïs stopped at the first stall and ran her hand over the broad nose of her old grey mare. Her forelock and withers were flecked with coarse white hairs.

  ‘Not today, my old friend,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t ask so much of you.’

  Her other horse was in the stall next door. The six-year-old Arab mare, Tatou, had been a surprise wedding gift from her father. A chestnut, the colour of winter acorns, with a white tail and mane, flaxen fetlocks and white spots on all four feet. Standing as high as Alaïs’ shoulders, Tatou had the distinctive flat face of her breed, dense bones, a firm back and an easy temperament. More important, she had stamina and was very fast.

  To her relief, the only person in the stables was Amiel, the eldest of the farrier’s sons, dozing in the hay in the far corner of the stalls. He scrambled to his feet when he saw her, embarrassed to be caught sleeping.

  Alaïs cut short his apologies.

  Amiel checked the mare’s hooves and shoes, to be sure she was fit to ride, then lifted down an undercloth and, at Alaïs’ request, a riding rather than hunting saddle, then a bridle. Alaïs could feel the tightness in her chest. She jumped at the slightest sound from the courtyard, spinning round when she heard a voice.

  Only when he was done did Alaïs produce the sword from beneath her cloak.

  ‘The blade is dull,’ she said.

  Their eyes met. Without a word, Amiel took the sword and carried it to the anvil in the forge. The fire was burning, stoked all night and all day by a succession of boys barely big enough to transport the heavy, spiky bundles of brushwood from one side of the smithy to the other.

  Alaïs watche
d as sparks flew from the stone, seeing the tension in Amiel’s shoulders as he brought the hammer down on to the blade, sharpening, flattening and rebalancing.

  ‘It’s a good sword, Dame Alaïs,’ he said levelly. ‘It will serve you well, although . . . I pray God you will not have need of it.’

  She smiled. ‘Ieu tanben.’ Me too.

  He helped her mount and led her across the courtyard. Alaïs’ heart was in her mouth that she would be seen at this last moment and her plan would be ruined.

  But there was no one and soon they reached the Eastern Gate.

  ‘God speed, Dame Alaïs,’ whispered Amiel, as Alaïs pressed a sol into his hand. The guards opened the gates and Alaïs urged Tatou forward across the bridge and out into the early morning streets of Carcassonne, her heart thudding. The first challenge was over.

  As soon as she was clear of the Porte Narbonnaise, Alaïs gave Tatou her head.

  Libertat. Freedom.

  As she rode towards the sun rising in the east, Alaïs felt in harmony with the world. Her hair was brushed back off her face and the wind brought the colour back to her cheeks. As Tatou galloped over the plains, she wondered if this was how the soul felt as it left the body on its four-day journey to heaven. This sense of God’s Grace, this transcendence, of all base creation stripping away everything physical, until nothing but spirit remained?

  Alaïs smiled. The parfaits preached that the time would come when all souls would be saved and all questions answered in heaven. But for now she was prepared to wait. There was too much to accomplish yet on earth for her to think of leaving it.

  With her shadow streaming out behind her, all thoughts of Oriane, of the household, all fear faded. She was free. At her back, the sand-coloured walls and towers of the Cite grew smaller and smaller, until they disappeared altogether.