Citadel

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Sandrine sat cross-legged in the chair and rested her head back. ‘Are you going out?’

  Marianne met her gaze. ‘Not tonight,’ she said, then went back to her book.

  Sandrine couldn’t settle. She swung her legs backwards and forwards, shifted position, picked up her book, put it down again.

  ‘Do you mind if I put on the wireless?’ she said in the end.

  ‘Anything to stop you fidgeting. It’s on the blink, though. Reception comes and goes.’

  Sandrine went over to the highly polished wooden set and began to fiddle with the Bakelite dials, turning each in turn, but with no luck. The rattle of the airwaves cracked and pulsed. The hiss and spit of distant voices, echoing through the mesh of the speaker. Then there was a knock on the front door.

  Marianne was immediately alert. ‘Are you expecting a visitor?’

  ‘No. Are you?’

  Marianne shook her head. The girls listened as Marieta’s wooden clogs clacked along the tiled corridor. Then the chain being taken off the door and the snick of the deadlock, followed by muffled conversation in the hall.

  ‘Madomaisèla Lucie,’ announced Marieta.

  Lucie was wearing a smart red dress with wide sleeves, high heels and a matching bag. Her corn-coloured hair was perfectly waved and set and her lips were a flash of red in her pale face.

  Marianne sighed with relief.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind me calling so late?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Marianne said. ‘You look nice. Have you been out somewhere?’

  ‘Sure thing.’ Lucie pushed off her shoes and began to massage her toes. ‘As a surprise, Max had bought tickets to a concert – our first-year anniversary, you see – and it was wonderful. No problems at all, it was a marvellous evening.’ She turned to Sandrine. ‘Max is a terrific amateur pianist, you know, good enough to be professional really, though he’s so modest.’

  ‘I didn’t think classical music was quite your thing,’ Marianne said.

  ‘Oh well . . .’ Lucie waved her hand airily.

  Marianne smiled. ‘He’s not with you?’

  ‘No, he’s gone home. He doesn’t like leaving Liesl alone at night for long; there’ve been one or two . . . problems. Well, you know.’ Her look deepened. ‘So, seeing as how I was at a loose end, I thought I’d come and see how the patient here was bearing up after this morning. Check she was all right.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Sandrine said. ‘And you were right about the police. No one wanted to listen to me. Kept me waiting for hours. One officer was nice, but that was it.’

  ‘You went to the police station?’ Lucie said quickly. ‘But you said you wouldn’t, you promised.’

  ‘There’s no harm done,’ Marianne said. ‘Sandrine didn’t say anything about you or Max. Really, there’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘What kind of problems has Liesl had?’ Sandrine asked.

  ‘Boys throwing stones, shouting names,’ Marianne said.

  ‘Max says it isn’t serious,’ Lucie said, ‘but I think it’s awful. He’s reported it to the police, but of course they do nothing. It makes me furious.’

  She leant back against the arm of the sofa, suddenly looking tired.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me home earlier,’ Sandrine said, feeling guilty now.

  ‘It’s all right, kid. You’re fine, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Apart from the fact I can’t get the wireless to work.’

  Lucie rubbed her eyes. ‘Want me to take a look?’

  ‘Can you fix it?’

  ‘I can try.’

  She took off her gloves and went over to the cabinet. She crouched down and put her ear to the mesh, then started to adjust the settings.

  ‘Is it broken?’ asked Sandrine.

  ‘No, it’s just hard to pick up a signal. Well, that’s to say, it’s easy enough to get Radio Paris, but not other frequencies.’

  Sandrine sat on the arm of the sofa, watching Lucie work. Voices in French, in German, echoing, then clear, then gone again. A burst of accordion music. Then four notes on a drum. Sharp, staccato, hollow.

  ‘Sounds like Beethoven’s Fifth,’ Sandrine joked.

  Marianne stiffened. ‘God, you’re right!’

  A high-pitched whistling filled the room, like an orchestra tuning up.

  ‘Perhaps it’s your concert, Lucie—’

  ‘Shut up,’ her sister said sharply. ‘Listen!’

  ‘Marianne!’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just that at nine o’clock every night there’s a broadcast from London. It’s how de Gaulle and his supporters communicate with the Resistance. And how they pass on messages to one another in the zone occupée. Lucie’s found it.’

  Sandrine’s heart skipped a beat. ‘How do you know that?’

  Marianne didn’t answer, just sat forward to hear better. Lucie flapped her hand for silence as she tried to tune in. Then, through the hiss and crack of the radio waves, at last a clear voice.

  ‘Ici Londres. Les Français Parlent aux Français.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Lucie.

  ‘Demain, à Carcassonne . . . Tomorrow, in Carcassonne, in the zone non-occupée . . .’

  Sandrine felt she was hardly breathing as she listened to a message she only half understood. She glanced at her sister, at Lucie, and saw expectation, nerves, concentration on their faces. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The English national anthem was played, and another burst of music, then the echo of space and a hissing. London fell silent.

  Lucie leant forward and turned off the wireless.

  ‘It is true then,’ Marianne said under her breath. ‘A demonstration tomorrow for Bastille Day.’

  ‘Did you know about it?’ Lucie asked.

  Marianne flushed. ‘Rumours, nothing definite,’ she said. ‘It’s extraordinary you found the transmission.’

  ‘So that’s what he meant,’ said Sandrine slowly.

  ‘What who meant?’ said Marianne sharply.

  ‘The policeman, the one who listened to me – I think his name was Ramond. He said there was due to be a demonstration in support of de Gaulle.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  Sandrine nodded.

  ‘And he was the officer you talked to about what happened to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good, at least,’ Marianne said, though she didn’t explain.

  ‘Max will want to go,’ Lucie was saying, ‘even though it’s a risk.’

  Marianne’s expression softened. ‘You’d think less of him if he didn’t.’

  Lucie laughed. ‘I know that, I know.’

  Sandrine felt a flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach. ‘I want to go too.’

  Marianne’s reaction was immediate, unequivocal. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘I want to show my support.’

  ‘You’re too young.’

  ‘I’m eighteen!’

  ‘Too young,’ Marianne repeated firmly. ‘I don’t want you getting caught up in anything.’

  Sandrine flushed. ‘You were the one telling me I don’t see what’s going on under my nose. Well, this is my chance.’ She turned to Lucie. ‘May I come with you and Max?’

  ‘No,’ Marianne repeated.

  ‘Look, I know I was an idiot today, but you can’t wrap me up in cotton wool.’

  ‘I am happy for Sandrine to come with us,’ Lucie said carefully, looking at Marianne. ‘Max won’t let anything happen to her.’

  Sandrine turned back to her sister. ‘You see?’

  Marianne didn’t speak. The clock on the sideboard marked the seconds. Finally, she answered.

  ‘All right, but you are to stay with me and do exactly – exactly – what I tell you. Do you hear?’

  ‘You’re going too?’

  ‘Of course. Though quite what Marieta will have to say about it, I can’t imagine.’

  Sandrine grinned. ‘Maybe she’ll want
to come. Wave a placard.’

  There was a moment of silence as they each pictured the scene. Then all three girls burst out laughing.

  Chapter 20

  LOS SERES

  ‘This is as far as I go, monsieur. You’ll be all right from here?’

  Audric Baillard nodded. ‘I will, amic,’ he said, climbing out of the cab. ‘My thanks for your kindness.’

  Baillard watched the muffled tail lights of the lorry growing more and more faint, two pinpricks of weak light in the dark countryside. Then he turned away from the road and began to walk into the hills.

  The world seemed to age with each step he took, following the old shepherds’ tracks as he had done many times before. As so often, the familiar and ancient path brought back memories. At first they were memories of those against whom he had battled during his long life. But as he walked higher into the Sabarthès mountains, at his side were the ghosts of his allies, friends, the women and men of courage who, through the ages, had stood firm against tyranny. If the Codex yet survived to be found, then might he see them again in the even darker hours he knew lay ahead?

  At last Baillard caught the first glimpse of the handful of buildings that made up Los Seres, silhouetted in the dark. His own small stone house was at the heart of the village. As he approached, he could see that no one had been there. No sign that Antoine had sought him here instead. He removed the wooden bar at the front door, propped it against the outer wall, then went inside.

  Stale air rushed to greet him. He took off his hat and his jacket, then lit the oil lamp. The match hissed, sparked, then a flame flared bright and set a pool of yellow light dancing across the polished wooden surface of the table. He went to the cupboard, took out a glass and an old-fashioned bottle with a rubber stopper, and poured himself a measure of Guignolet. The red liquid glinted and danced in the lamplight, sending a rainbow flickering across the bare walls of the house. He frowned, feeling something was not right, then realised it was the sound of the ticking of the clock that was missing. It had run down while he had been gone. He wound it up, let the music of the turning hands fill the silent space, then sat down at the table.

  ‘And there shall come forth . . .’

  The few words that had come down through the ages. One phrase in particular, recorded by a contemporary witness to the conflagration of texts destroyed by the early Christian Church in Gaul.

  Was it a call to arms? An incantation? For all his scholarship and knowledge, Baillard was not certain. He feared the power contained within the words, of what might be set loose. France needed some intervention to help her cause, that was certain. But would the cost be too high?

  ‘Come forth the spirits of the air.’

  As he spoke the words again, Baillard had the sensation of something shifting. Imagination, hope, or something more tangible, he wasn’t yet certain. The boundaries between the known and the unknown world beginning to crack, like ice in a melting river. He had an awareness of movement beyond the black of the mountains and the rock, beyond the fields and the plains.

  Even now, in the caves of the Pic de Soularac, a shifting of bone and spirit. A girl and her lover, her husband, beginning to stir after eight hundred years of sleep.

  ‘A ghost army . . .’ he muttered. ‘L’armada de fantomas.’

  Was it true? Could such things be true?

  Baillard covered his eyes, in the hope that he might see more clearly. That he might hear better the voices trying to speak to him through the depths of recorded time. He almost felt he could hear the stirrings of the dead awakening, the remembrance of blood and sinew and muscle as the land came back to life.

  But after a brief moment of promise, now only silence echoed. The graveyards, once more, were quiet. The time had not yet come. Might, he knew, never come.

  Baillard took his hands from his face and placed them upon the table. Skin as thin as tissue, brown liver spots and ridged with blue veins. He was astonished to find his pulse was racing.

  ‘Vertat . . .’

  He couldn’t allow himself to hope, because if he did and he was mistaken, the despair would weaken him. As rumours of what was happening in the East reached him – a genocide, a rewriting of what it meant to be human – Baillard feared he would not be able to find within himself the strength to fight such evil.

  Outside, the moon continued to rise in a darkening sky above the Pic de Saint-Barthélémy, flooding the mountains in a silver light.

  Chapter 21

  CARCASSONNE

  The windows and shutters of the bedroom were open. The black night sky was lit by ribbons of light from the glow of the full moon. Sandrine lay in her bed beneath the window, listening to the noises in the street and too stirred up to sleep. Comings and goings, men’s voices, the sound of cars and feet on the pavements, the shriek of the last train leaving the station. Sounds of the Bastide, echoing off the stone walls of the old city, the cathedrals and alleyways, the lakes and trees in Square Gambetta.

  Sandrine hated the blackout. No street lamps, no headlights. All official buildings had been issued with swathes of fabric to cover their long, high expanses of opaque glass. Two years after France’s defeat, the blackout wasn’t observed so rigorously in the zone nono now there was no longer the constant threat of German or Italian planes in the skies above Carcassonne. Even so, occasionally a zealous patrolman would knock on their door and tell them a sliver of light was showing through the gap in the shutters.

  In some respects, life wasn’t as bad as it had been during the war itself. There was no curfew in the South. There was rationing, of course, and endless queues, restrictions on travel and identity papers. But provided one didn’t want to go over the demarcation line, it was possible to forget, if only for a moment, that France had been defeated. That, and the hollow absence in the heart of the house where her father had been.

  But now Sandrine felt full of a wild, restless energy. She felt she had been lied to. That, beneath the surface of everyday life, everything was utterly changed. A dreary resignation etched on people’s faces, the accretion of hundreds of tiny indignities. And what she had seen today at the river, at the police station too, signs of a harsher reality. She kicked off the sheet, stretching her long legs and arms to the furthest boundary of the bed, then she heard footsteps on the landing.

  ‘I’m not asleep,’ she called out.

  The handle turned, and Marianne put her head round the door.

  ‘Has Lucie gone?’ asked Sandrine.

  ‘About half an hour ago.’

  ‘You’ve been ages. What were you talking about?’

  Marianne sat down on the chair at the foot of the bed. ‘Max. He’s all Lucie talks about really. About his life before the war, his experiences on the front line, their future plans.’ She paused. ‘She was down tonight, though, not like her usual self.’

  ‘Max seems very nice.’

  ‘Oh, he is. He’s very good for her.’

  ‘Where was he based during the war?’

  ‘Metz, attached to the 42e Corps d’Armée.’

  ‘Is that where Papa was?’

  ‘No, Papa was much further north. Of course, Lucie didn’t know Max then – they only met when he arrived in Carcassonne eighteen months ago. His father, Ralph Blum – you might have heard of him – was a well-known journalist. Anti-fascist, a vocal opponent of Hitler. He sent his family south when Paris fell.’

  ‘Where’s he now, still in Paris?’

  ‘They don’t know. He was arrested last August and sent to the camp at Beaune-la-Rolande. They’ve heard nothing since.’ Marianne sighed. ‘Lucie was talking about how much she wants to get married, but of course Max refuses. He says it will put her at risk.’

  ‘Is he right?’

  ‘Yes, even if they could find someone prepared to marry them in the first place. However, Lucie can’t think about anything else. I’m terribly fond of her, but she seems to believe that rules don’t apply to her.’

  Sandrine thought for a
moment. ‘Lucie told me she’d introduced you and Thierry.’

  ‘That’s true, she did.’

  ‘It made me realise you hardly ever mention him.’

  Marianne went quiet for a moment. ‘What’s there to say? Lots of women in the same boat as me. No sense complaining.’

  Sandrine sat up in bed and put her arms around her knees. ‘Well, are you going to get married as soon as he comes back? Do you love him?’

  Marianne hesitated. ‘We’re comfortable around each other.’

  ‘Not love at first sight?’

  Marianne laughed. ‘I’m not sure that sort of thing exists outside of Hollywood or tatty romans-feuilletons!’

  ‘How did it start? I don’t think you ever told me.’

  ‘Start? He was in our crowd. He’s a cousin of my friend Suzanne. You remember Suzanne? Tall, cropped hair?’

  ‘Yes, I like her.’

  Marianne smiled. ‘Well, Lucie was going dancing and Thierry was there, asked if I’d like to go with him. I did. It was pleasant. We went out again, and I suppose it went from that. You wouldn’t guess to look at him, but he’s very light on his feet. When he was called up, he wanted to make it official. As you know, he proposed. Rather caught me by surprise. He was so keen, I heard myself agreeing.’ She shook her head. ‘But as I said, it’s not on the cards now.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound awfully romantic when you put it like that.’

  ‘Why all these questions?’ Marianne said suspiciously. ‘Is there someone you like?’

  ‘No,’ Sandrine said quickly. ‘No, just curious.’

  The bells of Saint-Michel struck three. The air was cooler now and the rue du Palais was quiet at last, though there were still distant noises of men at work elsewhere in the town. The sound of a nightjar singing, the rasp of crickets in the cracks in the garden wall.

  Marianne stood up. ‘I’m all in.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Sandrine said. ‘About getting married.’

  ‘When Thierry comes home – if he comes home – we’ll see.’ She leant over and kissed Sandrine on the forehead. ‘I promise you one thing, darling. War or no war, when you fall in love, you’ll know.’