Labyrinth

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alaïs whispered. ‘It all seemed to happen so fast. I know I should have — ’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Our Lord Trencavel, and . . .’

  Oriane heard her hesitation. ‘Our father did confess his sins and receive the last rites?’ she demanded. ‘He died in the Church?’

  ‘Our father did not die unshriven,’ Alaïs replied, choosing her words with care. ‘He made his peace with God.’

  She has guessed.

  ‘What does it matter?’ she cried, appalled by Oriane’s callous acceptance of the news. ‘He is dead, sister. Does it mean nothing to you?’

  ‘You have failed in your duty, sister,’ Oriane jabbed with her finger. ‘As the elder, I had more right to be there than you. I should have been there. And if, in addition to this, I discover you allowed heretics to paw over him as he lay dying, then make no mistake about it, I will make sure you regret it.’

  ‘Do you feel no loss, no regret?’

  Alaïs could see the answer in Oriane’s face. ‘I feel no more for his passing than I would for a dog in the street. He did not love me. It is many years since I allowed myself to be hurt by the fact. Why, now, would I grieve?’ She took a step closer. ‘It was you he loved. He saw himself in you.’ She gave an unpleasant smile. ‘It was you he confided in. Shared his innermost secrets with.’

  Even in her frozen state, Alaïs felt colour fly to her cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’ she said, dreading the answer.

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ she hissed. ‘Do you really think I do not know of your midnight conversations?’ She took a step closer. ‘Your life is going to change, little sister, without him to protect you. You have had things your own way far too long.’ Oriane darted out a hand and grabbed Alaïs by the wrist.

  ‘Tell me. Where is the third book?’

  ‘I do not know what you mean.’

  Oriane slapped her with her open hand.

  Where is it?’ Oriane hissed. ‘I know you have it.’

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, sister. He must have given it to you. Who else would he trust? Tell me where it is. I mean to have it.’

  A chill ran down Alaïs’ spine.

  ‘You can’t do this. Someone will come.’

  ‘Who?’ she demanded. ‘You forget our father is no longer here to protect you.’

  ‘Guilhem.’

  Oriane laughed. ‘Of course, I forgot that you are reconciled with your husband. Do you know what your husband really thinks of you?’ she continued. ‘Do you?’

  The door flew open and slammed against the wall.

  ‘That is enough!’ Guilhem shouted. Oriane immediately dropped her wrist as Alaïs’ husband strode across the room and gathered her into his arms. ‘Mon cor, I came as soon as

  I heard the news of your father’s death. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘How touching!’ Oriane’s harsh voice broke the intimacy between them.

  ‘Ask him what brought him back to your bed,’ she said spitefully, not taking her eyes from Guilhem’s face. ‘Or are you too afraid to hear what he has to say? Ask him, Alaïs. It’s not love or desire. This reconciliation is because of the book, nothing more.’

  ‘I warn you, hold your tongue!’

  ‘Why? Are you afraid of what I might say?’

  Alaïs could feel the tension between them. The knowledge. And immediately she understood.

  No. Not that.

  ‘It’s not you he wants, Alaïs. He seeks the book. That’s what brought him back to your chamber. Can you really be so blind?’

  Alaïs took a step away from Guilhem. ‘Does she speak the truth?’

  He swung round to face her, desperation flashing in his eyes.

  ‘She’s lying. I swear, on my life, I care nothing for the book. I have told her nothing. How could I?’

  ‘He searched the chamber while you slept. He cannot deny it.’

  ‘I did not,’ he shouted.

  Alaïs looked at him. ‘But you knew there was such a book?’

  The alarm that flickered in his eyes gave her the answer she feared.

  ‘She tried to blackmail me to help her, but I refused.’ His voice cracked, ‘I refused, Alaïs.’

  ‘What hold did she have over you that she would make such a request?’ she said softly, almost in a whisper.

  Guilhem tried to reach for her, but she backed away from him.

  Even now, I would that he denied it.

  He dropped his hand. ‘Once, yes, I . . . Forgive me.’

  ‘It’s a little late for remorse.’

  Alaïs ignored Oriane. ‘Do you love her?’

  Guilhem shook his head. ‘Can’t you see what she’s doing, Alaïs? She’s trying to turn you against me.’

  Alaïs was dumbstruck that he could believe she would trust him ever again.

  He held his hand out. ‘Please, Alaïs,’ he pleaded. ‘I love you.

  ‘Enough of this,’ said Oriane, stepping into her line of vision. ‘Where is the book?’

  ‘I do not have it.’

  ‘Who does?’ said Oriane in a threatening voice.

  Alaïs held her ground. ‘Why do you want it? What is it that is of such importance?’

  ‘Just tell me,’ she snapped, ‘and this will all end here.’

  ‘And if I will not?’

  ‘It is so easy to sicken,’ she said. ‘You nursed our father. Perhaps the illness is already within you.’ She turned to Guilhem. ‘You understand what I’m saying, Guilhem? If you go against me.’

  ‘I will not allow you to harm her!’

  Oriane laughed. ‘You’re hardly in a position to threaten me, Guilhem. I have enough evidence of your treachery to see you hanged.’

  ‘Evidence of your own designing,’ he shouted. ‘Viscount Trencavel will not believe you.’

  ‘You underestimate me, Guilhem, if you think I have left grounds for doubt. Dare you risk it?’ She turned back to Alaïs. ‘Tell me where you have hidden the book or I shall go to the Viscount.’

  Alaïs swallowed hard. What had Guilhem done? She didn’t know what to think. Despite her anger, she couldn’t bring herself to denounce him.

  ‘François,’ she said. ‘Our father gave the book to François.’

  A look of confusion flickered in Oriane’s eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come.

  ‘Very well. But, I warn you sister, if you are lying you will regret it.’ She turned and walked to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To pay my respects to our father, where else? However, before that, I will see you safely to your chamber.’

  Alaïs raised her head and met her sister’s gaze. ‘That is quite unnecessary.’

  ‘Oh, it’s entirely necessary. Should François not be able to help me, I would wish to be able to talk with you again.’

  Guilhem tried to reach for her. ‘She’s lying. I have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘What you have or have not done, Guilhem, is no longer any concern of mine,’ she said. ‘You knew what you did when you lay with her. Now, just leave me be.’

  With her head held high, Alaïs walked along the corridor and into her chamber, with Oriane and Guirande behind her.

  ‘I will return presently. As soon as I have spoken to François.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Oriane shut the door. Moments later, as Alaïs had feared, the key was turned in the lock. She could hear Guilhem remonstrating with Oriane.

  She shut her ears to their voices. She tried to keep the poisonous, jealous images from her mind. Alaïs couldn’t stop thinking of Guilhem and Oriane entwined in one another’s arms, she couldn’t protect herself from the thought of Guilhem whispering to her sister the intimate words he had spoken to her, pearls she’d kept close to her heart.

  Alaïs pressed her trembling hand to her chest. She could feel her heart thudding hard against her ribs, bewildered and betrayed. She swallowed hard.

&n
bsp; Think not of yourself.

  She opened her eyes and dropped her arms to her side, her hands clenched in fists of misery. She could not allow herself to be weak. If she did, then Oriane would have taken everything of worth from her. The time for regret, for recrimination, would come. Now, her promise to her father, keeping the Book safe, mattered more than her breaking heart. However difficult, she had to put Guilhem from her mind. She had allowed herself to be imprisoned in her room because of something Oriane had said. The third book. Oriane had asked where she’d hidden the third book.

  Alaïs ran to the cloak, still hanging over the back of her chair, and snatched it up and patted along the hem where the book had been.

  It was no longer there.

  Alaïs slumped down on the chair, desperation welling inside her. Oriane had Simeon’s book. Soon, she would know she had lied about giving a book to François and return.

  And what of Esclarmonde?

  Alaïs realised Guilhem was no longer shouting outside the door.

  Is he with her?

  She didn’t know what to think. It didn’t matter anyway. He had betrayed her once. He would again. She had to lock her wounded feelings in her battered heart. She had to get out while she had the chance.

  Alaïs tore open the lavender bag to retrieve the copy of the parchment in the Book of Numbers, then cast a final look around the chamber she’d thought to be her home forever.

  She knew she would not be back.

  Then, with her heart in her mouth, she went to the window and looked out over the roof. Her only chance was to get out before Oriane came back.

  Oriane felt nothing. In the flickering candlelight she stood at the foot of the bier and looked down on her father’s body.

  Commanding the attendants to withdraw, Oriane bent down as if to kiss her father’s head. Her hand closed over his and she slipped the labyrinth ring from his thumb, hardly believing Alaïs had been so stupid as to leave it on his hand.

  Oriane straightened up and slipped it into her pocket. She rearranged the sheet, genuflected before the altar and crossed herself and then left in search of François.

  CHAPTER 60

  Alaïs put her foot on to the ledge and climbed out on to the sill, her head spinning at the thought of what she was about to attempt.

  You will fall.

  If she did, what did it matter now? Her father was dead. Guilhem was lost to her. In the end, her father’s judgement of her husband’s character had proved to be true.

  What more is there to lose?

  Taking a deep breath, Alaïs carefully lowered herself over the sill until her right foot found the tiles. Then, muttering a prayer, she braced her arms and legs and let go. She dropped with a small thump. Her feet slipped from under her. Alaïs hurled herself forward as she skidded down the tiles, desperately trying to gain purchase. Cracks in the tiles, gaps in the wall, anything to stop her plummeting down.

  It seemed like she was falling forever. Suddenly, there was a violent jerk and Alaïs came to an abrupt halt. The hem of her dress had snagged on a nail and was holding her fast. She lay quite still, not daring to move. She could feel the tension in the cloth. It was of good quality, but it was stretched as tight as a drum and could tear at any moment.

  Alaïs glanced up at the nail. Even if she could reach up that high, it would take both hands to untangle the material, which had wrapped itself several times round the metal spike. She couldn’t risk letting go. The only option was to abandon the cloak and try to crawl back up the roof, which joined the outer wall of the Château Comtal on the western side. She should be able to squeeze through the wooden slats of the hourds. The gaps in the defences were narrow, but she was slight. It was worth trying.

  Careful to make no sudden movements, Alaïs reached up and shredded the material until it began to tear. She pulled, first one side, then the other, until she ripped a square from the skirt. Leaving a pocket of material behind, she was free once more.

  Alaïs brought up one knee and pushed, then the other. She could feel drops of sweat forming at her temples and between her breasts, where she’d stowed the parchments. Her skin was sore from rubbing against the rough tiles.

  Bit by bit, she pulled herself up until the ambans were in reach.

  Alaïs put her hands out and grasped the wooden struts, which felt reassuringly solid between her fingers. Then she drew her knees up so that she was almost crouching on the roof, wedged into the corner between the battlements and the wall. The gap was smaller than she’d hoped, no deeper than the stretch of a man’s hand and perhaps three times as wide. Alaïs extended her right leg, twisted her left leg under to anchor herself firmly, then pulled herself up through the gap. The purse with the copies of the labyrinth parchments was awkward and kept tangling between her legs, but she kept going.

  Ignoring her aching limbs, she quickly stood up and picked her way along the barricade. Although she knew the guards would not betray her to Oriane, the sooner she got out of the Château Comtal and to Sant-Nasari, the better.

  Peering down to make sure there was no one at the bottom, Alaïs quickly shinned down the ladders to the ground. Her legs buckled under her as she jumped the last few rungs and she cracked down on her back, knocking every last gasp of air out of her.

  She glanced towards the chapel. There was no sign of Oriane or François. Keeping close to the walls, Alaïs passed through the stables, pausing at Tatou’s stall. She was desperate to drink, to give her suffering mare water, but what little there was went only to the warhorses.

  The streets were filled with refugees. Alaïs covered her mouth with her sleeve to keep out the stench of suffering and sickness that hung like a fog over the streets. Wounded men and women, the dispossessed cradling children in their arms, stared blankly up at her with hopeless eyes as she passed.

  The square in front of Sant-Nasari was filled with people. With a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one had followed her, Alaïs opened the door and slipped inside. There were people sleeping in the nave. In their misery, they paid little attention.

  Candles burned on the main altar. Alaïs hurried up the north transept to a little-visited side chapel with a small plain altar where her father had taken her. Mice ran for cover, their tiny claws scuttling over the flagstones. Kneeling down, Alaïs reached around behind the altar, as he’d shown her. She paddled her fingers over the surface of the wall. A spider, its hiding place disturbed, darted over the exposed skin of her hand, then was gone.

  There was a soft click. Alaïs slowly, carefully, eased out the stone and slid it to one side, then stretched her hand into the dusty recess behind. She found the long, thin key, the metal dull with age and disuse, and put it into the lock of the wooden latticed door. The hinges creaked as the wood scraped over the stone floor.

  She felt her father’s presence strongly now. Alaïs bit her lip to stop herself breaking down.

  This is all you can do for him now.

  Alaïs reached in and pulled out the box, as she had seen him do. No bigger than a jewellery casket, it was plain and undecorated, with a simple clasp. She lifted the lid. Inside was a sheepskin pouch, as it had been when her father showed her this place. She gave a sigh of relief, only now realising how much she feared Oriane would somehow have been here before her.

  Aware of what little time she had, Alaïs quickly concealed the book beneath her dress and then replaced everything exactly as it had been. If Oriane or Guilhem knew of the hiding place, it would at least delay them if they believed the casket was still in its place.

  She ran back through the church, her head covered by her hood, then pushed open the heavy door and was swallowed up in the tide of suffering people milling aimlessly through the square. The sickness that had claimed her father spread quickly. The alleyways were filled with decaying and decomposing carcasses - sheep and goats, even cattle, their swollen bodies releasing foul-smelling gas into the foetid air.

  Alaïs found herself heading for Esclarmonde’s house. There
was no reason to hope she would find her there this time, having failed so many times in the past few days, but she could think of nowhere else to go.

  Most of the houses in the southern quartier were shuttered and boarded, Esclarmonde’s included. Alaïs raised her hand and knocked on the door.

  ‘Esclarmonde?’

  Alaïs knocked again. She tried the door, but it was locked. ‘Sajhë?’

  This time she heard something. The sound of feet running and a bolt being shot.

  ‘Dame Alaïs?’

  ‘Sajhë, thank God. Quick, let me in.’

  The door opened just wide enough to allow her to slip inside.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she said, hugging him tight. What’s been happening? Where’s Esclarmonde?’

  Alaïs felt Sajhë’s small hand slip into hers. ‘Come with me.’

  He led her through the curtain to the room at the back of the house. A trap door was open in the floor. ‘You’ve been here all along?’ she said. She peered down into the dark and saw a calèlh was burning at the bottom of the ladder. ‘In the cellars? Has my sister been back — ’

  ‘It wasn’t her,’ he said in a quavering voice. ‘Quick, Dame.’ Alaïs went down first. Sajhë released the catch and the trap door clattered shut above their heads. He scrambled down after her, jumping the last few rungs to the earth floor.

  ‘This way.’

  He led her along a damp tunnel into a small hollowed-out area, then held the lamp up so Alaïs could see Esclarmonde, who was lying motionless on a pile of furs and blankets.

  ‘No!’ she gasped, running to her side.

  Her head was heavily bandaged. Alaïs lifted the corner of the padding and covered her mouth. Esclarmonde’s left eye was red, everything covered by a film of blood. There was a clean compress over the wound, but the skin flapped loose around the crushed socket.

  ‘Can you help her?’ said Sajhë.

  Alaïs lifted the blanket. Her stomach lurched. There was a line of angry red burns across Esclarmonde’s chest, the skin yellow and black where the flames had been held.

  ‘Esclarmonde,’ she whispered, leaning over her. ‘Can you hear me? It’s me, Alaïs. Who did this to you?’

  She fancied she saw movement in Esclarmonde’s face. Her lips moved slightly. Alaïs turned to Sajhë. ‘How did you get her down here?’