Sandrine glanced at Marieta, enormously relieved to hear that they weren’t going to have to walk up the steep hill with their luggage.
‘That was thoughtful, thank you.’
Sandrine went to pick up her case, but Ernest got there first.
‘We still have standards, mademoiselle. We’re not going to let those criminals in Vichy change everything, è.’
He accompanied them down the platform and through the ticket hall, then loaded the bags on to a bus waiting at the front of the station.
‘The driver should be here any minute,’ he said, tipping his hat. ‘Let me know if there’s anything you need, I’m sure we will be able to come to some arrangement.’
‘I will, of course,’ she said, biting her lip to stop herself smiling at the idea of sweet, honest Ernest being part of the marché noir.
The fierce Midi sun hit Sandrine the moment she stepped out of the shade of the station building. The Tramontana was whipping up the dust, brown clouds of grit and clogged air, scraps of paper and a few dry leaves spiralling in the wind in circles.
‘It’s so humid,’ Liesl said. ‘Will there be a storm?’
Marieta shook her head. ‘Tomorrow, maybe.’
Sandrine could see that Liesl felt terribly out of place. Here, more than in Carcassonne, she looked like a Parisian. A girl who belonged in a white dress and hat strolling along Haussmann’s elegant boulevards. Not in the dusty garrigue of summer in the Languedoc.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked quietly.
Liesl nodded.
Sandrine looked at the other people milling around the square. Women in flowered dresses and children sucking iced lollies, a few old men. A young priest stood a little apart from the others, his complexion like wax, in a black soutane, his nose stuck in a book. At first glance things seemed much the same, but the atmosphere was different. Before the war there were always plenty of summer tourists. Now it was a local crowd. But there was also a kind of watchfulness. As if no one quite trusted anyone any more.
The driver emerged from the café and shambled towards his bus, cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, a newspaper under his arm and his napkin still tucked into his collar. Within minutes, all the fares had been paid and everyone was seated in a muddle of packages and parcels, dogs on laps, children standing between their mothers’ legs, cycles fixed on the rack at the back. The tiny glass windows were tilted open as far as they would go, but it was still stiflingly hot. Two elderly women in hairnets and heavy seersucker dresses wafted paper fans backwards and forwards, sending a welcome draught Sandrine’s way.
The bus wheezed and belched its way out of the station and soon they were on the route de Coustaussa, heading east. Napoleon’s marching trees gave welcome shade from the hot August sun. Neighbour began to chat to neighbour, a whining child was slapped and started to grizzle, an old man carrying a can of cooking oil like a baby in his arms began, softly, to snore.
Sandrine smiled, despite everything. It was hard to believe that anything could ever affect the quiet and tranquillity of this ancient place.
‡
Codex VII
‡
GAUL
COUZANIUM
AUGUST AD 342
Arinius reached the small settlement of Couzanium in the middle of the afternoon. He set up makeshift camp by the river Atax, the same river that flowed through the Carsac plains. Removing his sandals, he dipped his tired feet in the water, letting the current cool his blistered skin. Then he rinsed his handkerchief, thick with dust from the journey. He couldn’t shift the spots of blood. They were faint, barely visible, but still there all the same.
The hour and time of his passing was in God’s hands. Arinius did not know how much time might be given to him. He had seen men die quickly of the illness he carried within him, or survive for some time, in a few cases, for years. He did not know how long the precious text would need to remain hidden. For one lifetime or a thousand? The simple truth was that if he did not ensure the Codex could be found again when the time was right, then it might as well have been consigned to the fires in the community at Lugdunum. He had to survive long enough to achieve these things.
He spread the handkerchief out on a rock to dry in the sun, weighted to stop it blowing away, then sat back to eat. The wine was almost gone, but he ate the last of his cured ham and almonds, then set out to explore the modest collection of dwellings.
In these furthest reaches of the Empire, principles of trade and commerce still held strong. Drawn by the noise, Arinius walked towards the heart of the settlement, where itinerant merchants had set up an informal market in the shadow of the bridge. He perused the stalls – furs and cloth, rabbits for the pot, herbs and strings of red beads.
He knew what he was looking for. First, a small cedarwood box. He would need to wrap it in furs or cloth before he buried it in a dry place, away from the air and the damp. He hoped it would be sufficient. He knew how to mix ink and how to style a quill from a hollow bird’s feather. He was pleasantly surprised to be able to buy what he needed. He couldn’t afford papyrus or a scroll, but he bought a square of spun wool, the length of his arm and the colour of goat’s milk, in a fine weave. Wool would hold an image better and was easier to preserve intact than a wax tablet or wooden board that might crack or warp or burn.
The hours he spent at the market were pleasant, reminding him of the boy he had been. Often he had been called upon to accompany older monks to the forum in Lugdunum, a pair of willing arms and strong legs. Having purchased what he needed, Arinius returned to the river, gathered everything together and walked back to the crossroads.
He was in two minds where to go next. Ahead of him, the mountains. Behind him Carcaso. To either side, green hills and empty space. But the merchant’s comment that there were baths at Aquis Calidis had lodged in his mind. How much good the waters would do his aching bones. Perhaps the healing hot springs would improve his lungs. He would never be cured, he accepted that, but the waters might slow the pace of his illness.
Arinius turned to the east. The road followed the river valley between high hills. Lush pastures, thick wooded forests of beech, holm oak, hazel and chestnut that came right down to the road. High on a hill to his right, on a stark and rocky outcrop, he spied a small hilltop oppidum. Grey stone against the blue of the sky and a landscape scarred through with red iron ore, limestone fissures.
‘A place of beauty,’ he said, feeling his spirits lift. ‘And, God willing, a place of safety.’
‡
Chapter 54
COUSTAUSSA
AUGUST 1942
‘There it is,’ Sandrine said, as the bus shuddered to a halt.
Coustaussa was a pretty hamlet, perched on a ledge in the hillside overlooking the river Salz. There was a small mairie and a war memorial, as well as the ruins of a twelfth-century château-fort that once had kept watch over the valley, built on older Roman remains. The view across the valley was to Rhedae, Rennes-le-Château as it was now known.
Coming up from the main road, it was the ruins of the castle a visitor glimpsed first. Only as one drew closer did the houses and the small seventeenth-century church reveal themselves. There was no café, no boulangerie. The town crier still announced the arrival of the cobbler or the knife-grinder or the baker’s van doing its rounds.
The village’s only notoriety was the violent killing of the village priest, Antoine Gélis, murdered in his presbytery on Hallowe’en 1897. Marieta remembered him from when she was in service in neighbouring Rennes-les-Bains, and one or two of the oldest residents of the village talked of him as a solitary, reclusive man who played little part in the life of the village. Frightened of his own shadow, hiding from ghosts.
The driver opened the concertina doors. Sandrine jumped down, Liesl handed down the bags, then held out her hand to Marieta to help her on the steep metal steps.
Yves Rousset was waiting with his grandmother’s donkey and trap. Sandrine raised her hand in greeting, h
oping it wasn’t going to be awkward. She hadn’t seen him since an uncomfortable kiss in the fields three summers ago.
‘Hello,’ she said in a bright voice. ‘How are you?’
Yves didn’t meet her eye. ‘Nothing to complain about.’
‘This is one of my cousins, Liesl. From Paris.’
He looked at Liesl, clearly seeing no family resemblance, but made no comment.
‘How is Madame Rousset?’ Sandrine said quickly.
‘So-so,’ he said, putting the first of the cases into the trap.
Slowly, the donkey pulled its load up the earth track, Yves holding the reins, Marieta riding in the trap and Sandrine and Liesl walking alongside. Despite the heady green of the valley down by the river, the grass here was brown, dry from lack of rain, and the heavy wheels threw up tiny stones, fragments of twigs and leaf between its spokes.
Their house sat on its own patch of land, slightly below the village and to the south-east. It was one of the larger houses, built from stone and quarry pillaged from the ruins of the castle some eighty years ago. Three narrow, high stone steps led to a tall double front door painted yellow, with the grimacing metal gargoyle she had hated as a child. Yellow-painted window frames either side of the door and planters of geraniums on the sills, with their heads snapped and hanging down. The sign was still broken, the pieces dividing the single word – citadelle – in two. Picking them up, Sandrine made a mental note to ask Yves to mend it.
‘So, here we are,’ she said.
While Liesl and Yves unloaded the baggage, Sandrine hesitated, memories of summers past at her heels. Then she climbed the steps, unlocked the door and went inside. Straight away, the familiar smell of beeswax and polish, the mustiness that permeated the hall from the cellar and kitchen, assaulted her and made her heart strings crack. Remembering her father, polishing his glasses and smiling as Marieta bustled, fussed, complained about the plumbing or the stove smoking or the quality of the bread from the Spanish baker.
Yves brought the bags into the hall.
‘Thank you,’ Sandrine said, still a little uncomfortable.
He met her eye for a moment, then turned to Marieta. ‘My mother invites you to call, once you are settled in.’
‘Tell Madame Rousset I shall be delighted,’ Marieta replied formally.
Leaving Liesl and Marieta for a moment, Sandrine went further into the house. She wanted to reacquaint herself with the feel of it, the smell of it, without anyone looking on.
A narrow central staircase led upstairs to three small bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom, a recent addition. When her grandfather had bought the house, there had been no running water and no electricity. Now they had both, even though the generator often broke down, so they mostly relied on the lamps and still heated the water with an old wood stove fuelled by vine roots and hawthorn prunings. Left alone, the fire went out. Marianne and Marieta grumbled about the inconvenience, but for Sandrine it was all part of the romance of the summer. She wouldn’t change a thing.
The dining room and kitchen were either side of the hall at the front. Quickly, to get it over with, Sandrine opened both doors and looked inside, half expecting to see her father sitting in his usual chair.
It was empty, of course.
She took a deep breath, felt the familiar clutch of her heart. At the same time she realised with relief that she was glad to be here again. She took off her coat and her hat, shaking out her hair, then walked down the corridor. Conscious of the echo of her father in the empty spaces, but not distressed by it.
The sitting room filled the whole of the back of the house, facing north towards the Camp Grand and the stone shepherds’ huts. They’d fallen into disrepair, but she and Marianne had loved playing in the ruins when they were children. For a moment, a snapshot of her and Raoul standing in the twilight in the rue du Palais and looking up at the black and white photographs. Was it ridiculous to hope he would ever come to Coustaussa and see the capitelles for himself?
Absurd to even think of it . . .
This room, too, smelt of her father. His cologne, the mixture of his tobacco and hair oil. Sandrine closed her eyes for a moment, summoning his face to her mind, remembering his smile and his laugh and the way he frowned when he was reading. Then, purposefully, she walked over to the windows and threw them wide, letting the light in.
In the distance, thunder rumbled in the hills.
‡
Codex VIII
‡
GAUL
COUZANIUM
AUGUST AD 342
Arinius rubbed his temples, trying to soothe away the headache pricking behind his eyes. He felt the storm getting closer all the time, like a living, breathing thing at his heels. The clouds were marching fast across an increasingly angry sky.
Another rumble of thunder, a growling in the hills, like an animal waking from its winter hibernation.
The road ran on out of sight. If the merchant had been right about the distance between Couzanium and Aquis Calidis, Arinius realised he was at risk of being caught out in the open when the storm hit. His earlier sense of contentment and calm had gone, chased away by the threatening voice of the thunder. There was nothing to fear from the storm, or so he told himself. Even so, he picked up his pace, all the time looking around for a suitable place to take shelter.
‘Our Father,’ the words keeping pace with the accelerated beating of his heart, ‘who art in Heaven . . .’
On his left, set above a low ridge of hills, Arinius noticed a number of small, plain dwellings. Roofs of thatch and branch, low stone buildings. It was impossible to tell from down below whether it was a village, another watch point to guard the road, or a temple. Here, in the green folds of this ancient river valley, his Christian faith had no hold. The old gods of the Romans and the Volcae before them still held sway. Temples and shrines to Minerva and Pyrène, to Jupiter and Abellios.
Arinius lifted his face to the sky. The day darkened from white to purple, purple to black. Another crack of thunder, then a golden fork of lightning split the black sky. Seconds later, the first drop of water fell, then another and another, patterning the cobbled surface of the road. He pulled his hood up over his head as the rain grew harder, more insistent.
He had to find shelter. Arinius stepped off the road and began to climb, as fast as he could, up towards the woods and the tiny collection of flint shepherds’ huts and villae half hidden in the trees beyond.
‡
Chapter 55
COUSTAUSSA
AUGUST 1942
Sandrine and Liesl helped Marieta clear the supper plates, a scratch meal of fresh vegetables and rice that Madame Rousset had brought for them, then retired to the salon. Low growls of thunder rumbled in the hills and the air had grown cooler.
‘Are you sure there won’t be a storm?’ Liesl said anxiously. ‘It sounds so close.’
‘This house has withstood Midi storms for a hundred years and will cope with a good few more. Try not to worry,’ Sandrine replied.
The evening passed quietly and at nine o’clock they turned in. Marieta was clearly exhausted, Liesl kept yawning and Sandrine herself was struggling to stay awake.
‘I can lock up, Marieta,’ she said. ‘You go to bed.’
‘I’m not having you running around after me, so there’s no cause to go asking.’
‘There’s nothing that won’t wait until the morning,’ Sandrine said firmly. ‘It’s been a long day. I don’t want you up all hours, banging about down here.’
‘I’ll be up in a moment, madomaisèla.’
She put her hand on the old woman’s shoulder. ‘All right. But don’t be too long,’ she said softly. ‘Come on, Liesl, I’ll show you to your room.’
She left Liesl unpacking her clothes and walked to her father’s room. After a deal of soul-searching, Sandrine had decided she would sleep in here. It could not be a shrine. She’d understood the moment she arrived that, if her memories of so many wonderful summers in Coustau
ssa were not to be permanently overlaid with sadness, no corner of the house could be out of bounds.
She took a deep breath, then pushed open the door and walked in. His summer jacket was hanging on a hook. She ran her hands over the chest of drawers, the counterpane on the bed, the collection of curios and ornaments gathered from his travels. A wooden walking stick propped in the corner, an old brooch found in the rubble of the castle ruins, a statue of Joan of Arc in papier-mâché she’d made at school . . .
She undressed and got into the unfamiliar bed. For a while she lay there with her eyes open, looking at the ceiling and listening to the silence. She missed the noises of the city, the rattle of trains and delivery carts, the early morning sounds of the péniches on the Canal du Midi.
The air cooled a little, the wind dropped and Sandrine slept. Tonight, the nightmares didn’t come. Instead her dreams were possessed by armies and war, women and men from antiquity, long hair streaming, swords and insignia gleaming, in a bright landscape that was neither familiar nor yet entirely unknown. Vivid shimmering faces of people she did not know: a woman in a green dress with a red cloak, a monk with a grey woollen cloak around his thin shoulders holding an ancient script in his hands, words like black birds, and a girl with copper curls tumbling down her back. Shadows, shades of people known and yet not known. The rattling of bones in the earth, the shift and movement of the dead awakening.
As the rumbling wind passed over and brought a smattering of light rain, Sandrine half woke and thought of Raoul. The same questions, always the same. Wondering where he was, if he thought of her as she remembered him. Hoping he was safe.
As the hours of night passed, finally the lullaby of the rain sent her into a deep and restful sleep.