Labyrinth

  What did Alaïs think of that?’

  ‘She was delighted for him. It was what he always wanted. In Carcassona, he’d watched the écuyers polishing their masters’ boots and helmets. He had crept into the lices to watch them joust. The life of a chevalier was beyond his station, but it had not stopped him dreaming of riding out in his own colours. Now it seemed he was to have the chance to prove himself after all.’

  ‘So he went?’

  Baillard nodded. ‘Pierre-Roger Mirepoix was a demanding master, although fair, and had a reputation for training his boys well. It was hard work, but Sajhë was clever and quick and worked hard. He learned to tilt his lance at the quintain. He practised with sword, mace, ball-and-chain, dagger, how to ride straight-backed in a high saddle.’

  For a while, Alice watched him gazing out over the mountains and thought, not for the first time, how these distant people, in whose company Baillard had spent much of his life, had become flesh and blood to him.

  What of Alaïs during this time?’

  While Sajhë was in Mirepoix, Harif began to instruct Alaïs in the rites and rituals of the Noublesso. Already, her skills as a healer and a wise woman became well known. There were few illnesses, of spirit or body, which she could not treat. Harif taught her much about the stars, about the patterns that make up the world, drawing on the wisdom of the ancient mystics of his land. Alaïs was aware that Harif had a deeper purpose. She knew he was preparing her - preparing Sajhë too, that was why he had sent him away — for their task.

  ‘In the meantime, Sajhë thought little about the village. Morsels of news about Alaïs reached Mirepoix from time to time, brought by shepherds or parfaits, but she did not visit. Thanks to her sister Oriane, Alaïs was a fugitive with a price on her head. Harif sent money to purchase Sajhë a hauberk, a palfrey, armour and a sword. He was dubbed when he was only fifteen.’ He hesitated. ‘Shortly after that, he went to war. Those who had thrown in their lot with the French, hoping for clemency, switched allegiance, including the Count of Toulouse. This time when he called on his liege lord, Pedro II of Aragon, Pedro accepted his responsibilities and in January 1213 rode north. Together with the Count of Foix, their combined forces were large enough to inflict significant damage on de Montfort’s depleted forces.

  ‘In September 1213, the two armies, north against south, came face to face at Muret. Pedro was a brave leader and a skilled strategist, but the attack was badly mismanaged and, in the heat of battle, Pedro was slain. The South had lost its leader.’

  Baillard stopped. ‘Among those fighting for independence was a chevalier from Carcassona. Guilhem du Mas.’ He paused. ‘He acquitted himself well. He was well liked. Men were drawn to him.’

  An odd tone had entered his voice, admiration, mixed with something else Alice could not identify. Before she could think more of it, Baillard continued. ‘On the twenty-fifth day of June, 1218, the wolf was slain.’

  ‘The wolf?’

  He raised his hands. ‘Forgive me. In the songs of the time, for example the Canso de lo Crosada, de Montfort was known as the wolf. He was killed besieging Tolosa. He was hit on the head by a stone from a catapult, it said, operated by a woman.’ Alice couldn’t help herself smiling. ‘They carried his body back to Carcassona and saw him buried in the northern manner. His heart, liver, stomach, were taken to Sant-Cerni and the bones to Sant-Nasari to be buried beneath a gravestone, which now hangs on the wall of the south transept of the Basilica.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps you noticed it on your visit to the Ciutat?’

  Alice blushed. ‘I . . . I found that I could not enter the cathedral,’ she admitted. Baillard looked quickly at her, but said nothing more about the stone.

  ‘Simon de Montfort’s son, Amaury, succeeded him, but he was not the commander his father was and, straight away, he began to lose the lands his father had taken. In 1224, Amaury withdrew. The de Montfort family relinquished their claim to the Trencavel lands. Sajhë was free to return home. Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix was reluctant to allow him to leave, but Sajhë had . . .’

  He broke off, then stood up and wandered some way from her down the hill. When he spoke, he did not turn.

  ‘He was twenty-six,’ he said. ‘Alaïs was older, but Sajhë . . . he had hopes. He looked on Alaïs with different eyes, no longer the brother to the sister. He knew they could not marry, for Guilhem du Mas still lived, but he dreamed, now he had proved himself, that there could be more between them.’

  Alice hesitated, then went to stand beside him. When she placed her hand on his arm, Baillard jolted, as if he had forgotten she was there at all.

  What happened?’ she said quietly, feeling oddly anxious. She felt as if she was somehow eavesdropping, as if it was too intimate a story to be shared.

  ‘He gathered his courage to speak.’ He faltered. ‘Harif knew. If Sajhë had asked his advice, he would have given it. As it was, he kept his counsel.’

  ‘Perhaps Sajhë knew he wouldn’t wish to hear what Harif had to say.’

  Baillard gave a half-smile, sad. ‘Benlèu.’ Perhaps. Alice waited.

  ‘So. . .’ she prompted, when it was clear he was not going to continue. ‘Did Sajhë tell her what he felt?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Well?’ said Alice quickly. What did she say?’

  Baillard turned and looked at her. ‘Do you not know?’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘Pray God that you never know what it is like to love, like that, without hope of that love being returned.’

  Alice sprang to Alaïs’ defence, crazy as it was.

  ‘But she did love him,’ she said firmly. ‘As a brother. Was that not enough?’

  Baillard turned and smiled at her. ‘It was what he settled for,’ he replied. ‘But enough? No. It was not enough.’

  He turned and started to walk back towards the house. ‘Shall we?’ he said, formal again. ‘I am a little hot. You, Madomaisèla Tanner, must be tired after your long journey.’

  Alice noticed how pale, how exhausted he suddenly looked and felt guilty. She glanced at her watch and saw they’d been talking for longer than she’d realised. It was nearly midday.

  ‘Of course,’ she said quickly, offering him her arm. They walked slowly back to the house together.

  ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said quietly, once back inside. ‘I must sleep a while. Perhaps you should rest also?’

  ‘I am tired,’ she admitted.

  When I awake, I will prepare food, then I will finish the story. Before dusk falls and we turn our mind to other things.’

  She waited until he had walked to the back of the house and drawn the curtain behind him. Then, feeling strangely bereft, Alice took a blanket for a pillow and went back outside.

  She settled herself under the trees. She realised only then that the past had so held her imagination that she’d not thought about Shelagh or Will once.

  CHAPTER 68

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked François-Baptiste, coming into the room of the small, anonymous chalet not far from the Pic de Soularac.

  Marie-Cécile was sitting at the table with the Book of Numbers open on a black padded book rest in front of her. She didn’t look up.

  ‘Studying the layout of the chamber.’

  François-Baptiste sat down beside her. ‘For any particular reason?’

  ‘To remind myself of the points of difference between this diagram and the labyrinth cave itself.’

  She felt him peering over her shoulder.

  ‘Are there many?’ he asked.

  ‘A few. This,’ she said, her finger hovering above the book, her red nail varnish just visible through her protective cotton gloves. ‘Our altar is here, as marked. In the actual cave it is closer to the wall.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean the labyrinth carving is obscured?’

  She turned to look at him, surprised at the intelligence of the comment.

  ‘But if the original guardians used the Book of Numbers for their ceremonies, as the Noublesso Véritable did, shouldn’t
they be the same?’

  ‘You would think so, yes,’ she said. ‘There is no tomb, that is the most obvious variation, although interestingly the grave where the skeletons were lying was in that exact position.’

  ‘Have you heard any more about the bodies?’ he asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘So we still don’t know who they are?’

  She shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ he replied, although she could see her lack of interest bothered him.

  ‘On balance,’ she continued, ‘I don’t think any of these things matter. It is the pattern that is significant, the path walked by the Navigatairé as the words are spoken.’

  ‘You’re confident you’ll be able to read the parchment in the Book of Words?’

  ‘Provided it dates from the same period as the other parchments, then yes. The hieroglyphs are simple enough.’

  Anticipation swept through her, so sudden, so swift, that she raised her fingers as if a hand had wrapped itself around her throat. Tonight she would speak the forgotten words. Tonight the power of the Grail would descend to her. Time would be conquered.

  ‘And if O’Donnell’s lying?’ said François-Baptiste. ‘If she doesn’t have the book? Or if Authié hasn’t found it either?’

  Marie-Cécile’s eyes snapped open, jolted back to the present by her son’s abrasive, challenging tone. She looked at him with dislike. ‘The Book of Words is there,’ she said.

  Angry to have her mood spoiled, Marie-Cécile closed the Book of Numbers and returned it to its wrapper. She placed the Book of Potions on the rest instead.

  From the outside, the books looked identical. The same wooden boards covered with leather and held together with thin leather ties.

  The first page was empty apart from a tiny gold chalice in the centre. The reverse side was blank. On the third page were the words and pictures that also appeared around the top of the walls in the basement chamber in the rue du Cheval Blanc.

  The first letter of each of the pages following was illuminated, in red, blue or yellow with gold surrounds, but otherwise the text ran on, one word into the next, with no gaps showing where one thought ended and another began.

  Marie-Cécile turned to the parchment in the middle of the book.

  Interspersed between the hieroglyphs were tiny pictures of plants and symbols picked out in green. After years of study and research, reading back through the scholarship funded by the de l’Oradore fortune, her grandfather had realised that none of the illustrations were relevant.

  Only the hieroglyphs written on the two Grail parchments mattered. All the rest – the words, the pictures, the colours — were there to obscure, to ornament, to hide the truth.

  ‘It’s there,’ she said, fixing François-Baptiste with a fierce look. She could see the doubt in his face, but wisely he decided to say nothing. ‘Fetch my things,’ she said sharply. ‘After that, check where the car’s got to.’

  He returned moments later with her square vanity case.

  ‘Where do you want it?’

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing at the dressing table. Once he’d gone out again, Marie-Cécile walked over and sat down. The outside was soft brown leather, with her initials picked out in gold. It had been a present from her grandfather.

  She opened the lid. Inside there was a large mirror and several pockets for brushes, beauty appliances, tissues and a pair of small gold scissors. The make-up was held in place in the top tray in neat, organised rows. Lipsticks, eye shadows, mascaras, kohl pencil, powder. A deeper compartment underneath contained the three red leather jewellery boxes.

  ‘Where are they?’ she said, without turning round.

  ‘Not far away,’ François-Baptiste replied. She could hear the tension in his voice.

  ‘He’s all right?’

  He walked towards her and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Do you care, Maman?’

  Marie-Cécile stared at her reflection in the mirror, then at her son, framed in the glass above her head as if posed for a portrait. His voice was casual. His eyes betrayed him.

  ‘No,’ she replied, and saw his face relax a little. ‘Just interested.’

  He squeezed her shoulders, and then took his hands away.

  ‘Alive, to answer your question. Caused trouble when they were getting him out. They had to quieten him down a bit.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Not too much so, I hope,’ she said. ‘He’s no use to me half-conscious.’

  ‘Me?’ he said sharply.

  Marie-Cécile bit her tongue. She needed François-Baptiste in an amenable mood. ‘To us,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 69

  Alice was dozing in the shade under the trees when Audric reappeared a couple of hours later.

  ‘I’ve prepared us a meal,’ he said.

  He looked better for his sleep. His skin had lost its waxy, tight appearance and his eyes shone bright.

  Alice gathered her things and followed him back inside. Goat’s cheese, olives, tomatoes, peaches and a jug of wine were laid out on the table.

  ‘Please. Take what you need.’

  As soon as they were seated, Alice launched into the questions she’d been rehearsing in her head. She noticed he ate little, although he drank some of the wine.

  ‘Did Alaïs try to regain the two books stolen by her sister and husband?’

  ‘To reunite the Labyrinth Trilogy had been Harifs intention as soon as the threat of war first cast its shadow over the Pays d’Oc,’ he said. ‘Thanks to her sister, Oriane, there was a price on Alaïs’ head. It made it hard for her to travel. On the rare occasions she came down from the village, she went in disguise. To attempt a journey north would have been madness. Sajhë made several plans to get to Chartres. None of them was successful.’

  ‘For Alaïs?’

  ‘In part, but also for the sake of his grandmother, Esclarmonde. He felt a responsibility to the Noublesso de los Seres, as Alaïs did on behalf of her father.’

  ‘What happened to Esclarmonde?’

  ‘Many Bons Homes went to northern Italy. Esclarmonde was not well enough to travel so far. Instead, she was taken by Gaston and his brother to a small community in Navarre, where she remained until her death a few years later. Sajhë visited her whenever he could.’ He paused. ‘It was a source of great sadness to Alaïs that they never saw one another again.’

  ‘And what of Oriane?’ asked Alice, after a while. ‘Did Alaïs receive news of her too?’

  ‘Very little. Of more interest was the labyrinth built in the cathedral church of Notre Dame in Chartres. Nobody knew on whose authority it had been built or what it might mean. It was, in part, why Evreux and Oriane based themselves there, rather than return to his estates further north.’

  ‘And the books themselves had been made in Chartres.’

  ‘In truth, it was constructed to draw attention away from the labyrinth cave in the south.’

  ‘I saw it yesterday,’ said Alice.

  Was it only yesterday?

  ‘I felt nothing. I mean, it was very beautiful, very impressive, but nothing else.’

  Audric nodded. ‘Oriane got what she wanted. Guy d’Evreux took her north as his wife. In exchange, she gave him the Book of Potions and the Book of Numbers and the pledge to keep searching for the Book of Words.’

  ‘His wife?’ Alice frowned. ‘But what of — ’

  ‘Jehan Congost? He was a good man. Pedantic, jealous, humourless, perhaps, but a loyal servant. François killed him on Oriane’s orders.’ He paused. ‘François deserved to die. It was a bad end, but he deserved no better.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I was going to say Guilhem,’ she said.

  ‘He remained in the Midi.’

  ‘But did he not have expectations of Oriane?’

  ‘He was tireless in his efforts to drive the Crusaders out. As the years passed, he built up a large following in the mountains. At first, he offered his sword to Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix.
Later, when Viscount Trencavel’s son attempted to regain the lands stolen from his father, Guilhem fought for him.’

  ‘He changed sides?’ said Alice, bewildered.

  ‘No, he . . .’ Baillard sighed. ‘No. Guilhem du Mas never betrayed Viscount Trencavel. He was a fool, certainly, but not, in the end, a traitor. Oriane had used him. He was taken prisoner at the same time as Raymond-Roger Trencavel when Carcassona fell. Unlike the Viscount, Guilhem managed to escape.’ Audric took a deep breath, as if it pained him to admit it. ‘He was not a traitor.’

  ‘But Alaïs believed him to be one,’ she said quietly.

  ‘He was the architect of his own misfortune.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but even so . . . to live with such regret, knowing Alaïs thought he was as bad as — ’

  ‘Guilhem does not deserve sympathy,’ Baillard said sharply. ‘He betrayed Alaïs, he broke his wedding vows, he humiliated her. Yet even so, she . . .’ He broke off. ‘Forgive me. It is sometimes hard to be objective.’

  Why does it upset him so much?

  ‘He never attempted to see Alaïs?’

  ‘He loved her,’ Audric said simply. ‘He would not have risked leading the French to her.’

  ‘And she, too, made no attempt to see him?’

  Audric slowly shook his head. Would you have done, in her position?’ he asked softly.

  Alice thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. If she loved him, despite what he’d done . . .’

  ‘News of Guilhem’s campaigns reached the village from time to time. Alaïs made no comment, but she was proud of the man he had become.’

  Alice shifted in her chair. Audric seemed to sense her impatience, for he started to talk more briskly.

  ‘For five years after Sajhë returned to the village,’ he continued, ‘the uneasy peace reigned. He, Alaïs and Harif lived well. Others from Carcassona lived in the mountains, including Alaïs’ former servant, Rixende, who settled in the village. It was a simple life, but a good one.’ Baillard paused.

  ‘In 1229, everything changed. A new king came to the French throne. Sant-Louis was a zealous man of strong religious conviction. The continuing heresy sickened him. Despite the years of oppression and persecution in the Midi, the Cathar church still rivalled the Catholic Church in authority and influence. The five Cathar bishoprics – Tolosa, Albi, Carcassona, Agen, Razès — were more respected, more influential in many places than their Catholic counterparts.