She took her Bible from the pocket of her house coat and placed it on the table, her house-worn hand resting on the black leather cover. Last night, as the Tramontana rattled between the hills, she had sat up in bed in her room under the eaves and, by candlelight, turned to the Book of the Revelation of St John the Divine, the last book of the New Testament. A text Marieta both loved and feared, the words had nonetheless brought her some measure of peace.
Her head jerked up as another warning gust sent something scuttling in the road outside. A flowerpot, perhaps? She hoped it wasn’t a tile coming off the roof. Then she realised it was someone knocking on the door.
‘Monsieur Baillard,’ she said quickly, the wish father to the deed.
As she pulled herself to her feet, a jab of pain snaked down her left arm. Marieta ignored it as she hurried to the front door and pulled it open.
‘Perfin . . .’
A wave of disappointment swept through her at the sight of Geneviève Saint-Loup standing on the step, smiling.
‘Bonjorn, Marieta, I heard you were back in Coustaussa. Is Sandrine here?’
Marieta caught her breath. ‘No, she and . . .’ She broke off, not sure what she was allowed to say, not even to Sandrine’s oldest friend. ‘She’s not here.’
Geneviève was frowning. ‘Are you all right, Marieta? You look awfully pale.’
‘Quite fine.’ She made an effort to smile. ‘Madomaisèla Sandrine has gone to Couiza to arrange our permis de séjour.’
‘The new mayor is all right,’ Geneviève said, still looking concerned.
‘Good.’
‘I have a telegram for Sandrine from Marianne. She wants her to telephone as soon as she can.’
‘Is something wrong in Carca . . .?’ Marieta began to say, but another stab of pain stole her words from her. ‘In Carcassonne?’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Geneviève said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘It’s the humidity, nothing more. I’ll be fine as soon as the weather breaks, and it will.’
Geneviève didn’t looked convinced. ‘Well, will you tell Sandrine that Friday’s my day off. The rest of the week she can find me in the post office in Rennes-les-Bains if she wants to come down.’
Marieta shot out her hand and grasped Geneviève’s arm. ‘The post office?’
Geneviève nodded. ‘That’s right, I’ve been working there for six months now.’
‘I sent a letter from Carcassonne to the post office,’ Marieta said urgently. ‘For Monsieur Baillard. Has it arrived, can you recall? Three weeks past.’
‘He had a letter from Tarascon round about that time, but nothing from Carcassonne. I’m sorry.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. I’ve been looking out especially for . . . He came in person.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yes. It was around Bastille Day, then again a few days after that. He said he was going south, then on to Tarascon.’
A wave of relief rushed through Marieta’s tired body. She gave a long sigh.
‘Did he seem well to you?’
‘Yes, he looked in good health, given his age . . .’ Geneviève tailed off. ‘If I see him, do you want me to tell him you were asking after him?’
‘Yes, yes. Tell him . . .’ She hesitated, not sure what to say. ‘Tell him I must see him. That it is urgent. You won’t forget?’
‘No, of course not, but . . . Are you sure you are all right, Na Marieta? Can I get you a glass of water, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps I will lie down,’ she said, keen for the girl to go. ‘You should get off before the storm, è. Thank you for coming.’
Marieta forced herself to stand on the front step and wave while Geneviève disappeared down the hill, then she went back inside. She was light-headed with the relief of knowing that Monsieur Baillard was all right. That he was close at hand. Only now did she realise how much she had been worrying that something had happened to him – injured during the war, or even captured, she didn’t know what. But now, now she didn’t have to worry any more. Geneviève would tell Monsieur Baillard she was here and he would come to Coustaussa.
‘A la perfin,’ she murmured. ‘At last.’
Pressing the heel of her hand to her chest, Marieta lowered herself back on to the same tattered chair at the foot of the stairs. A gust of wind shrieked under the door. She hoped that if the storm reached as far north as Carcassonne, Marianne would close the windows in the kitchen. She remembered she still hadn’t checked the shutters at the back of the house were secure, but she hadn’t the strength to move. She picked up the Bible from the hall table and turned to read from the Book of Revelation.
‘Voici ce que dit celui qui a les sept esprits de Dieu et les sept étoiles: Je connais tes oeuvres. Je sais que tu passes pour être vivant, et tu es mort.’
Some of the words Sandrine had written reminded her of these ancient verses. Marieta didn’t understand how that could be, but had faith Monsieur Baillard would explain.
‘These things say he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I have knowledge of your works, that you seem to be living but are dead.’
Another rumble of dry thunder. Marieta thought the storm was still some way off, but hoped the girls wouldn’t be caught out in the open. Her arm was aching so much, it hurt to hold the Bible steady in her hands.
‘Puis je vis le ciel ouvert,’ she recited. ‘Le ciel ouvert . . . Then I saw that heaven was open . . .’
Marieta felt a sudden sharp pain in her chest, clean and precise. She tried to focus on the spider words written on the thin pages. The Bible fell from her lap to the ground. The tissue-thin pages of the Book of Revelation fluttered, stirred up by the wind, like the wings of a trapped moth battling against the glass to be free.
Chapter 66
COUIZA
Liesl was waiting for Sandrine outside the post office when she came out.
‘Did you get through?’
Sandrine didn’t hear. She was still poleaxed by the sight of Raoul’s face on the poster.
‘Sandrine?’
‘No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid not,’ she said. ‘No one answered.’
‘So, no news,’ Liesl said in a small voice.
‘I’ll try again tomorrow. I want to speak to Marianne anyway, I don’t mind coming back.’
Liesl turned away, busying herself with the strap on her camera case. Sandrine’s heart went out to the girl, realising how hard she was trying not to let her emotions show.
‘What would you say to another ice?’ Sandrine said. ‘Give us an extra push before we head off back up the hill?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘No, but something to drink, at least. It’s the wrong way around, I always think. Downhill when you’re starting out, and uphill when it’s time to go home.’
‘Shouldn’t we get back to Marieta?’
Sandrine glanced up at the glowering sky, then back to Liesl. ‘I don’t want to be caught out in the open,’ she said. ‘Might be better to wait it out here, then go home. Half an hour here or there won’t make much difference.’
They got back to the Grand Café Guilhem, where they’d left their bikes, just as the heavens opened. They sheltered under the awning of the café, but the wind was coming from all angles and they were soaked all the same. Inside, the lights flickered with each tremble of thunder. Sandrine considered going in, but then she noticed two policemen standing at the zinc counter. Liesl was nervous enough as it was. It would be so easy to say the wrong thing or be rattled into letting her real name slip.
‘Are you all right out here?’ she said.
Liesl nodded, understanding, though her face was white.
‘You didn’t have any trouble while I was in the post office?’ Sandrine said, realising she should have asked before.
‘No one took any notice of me.’
Sandrine sighed. ‘That’s good. So, do you think you’ll be happy enough here for the t
ime being? You won’t miss Carcassonne too much?’
‘Until Max comes back, yes.’
A sudden clap of thunder overhead made Liesl jump.
‘Our neighbours in Coustaussa are nice, most of them at least,’ Sandrine hurried on, talking to keep the younger girl’s mind off the impending storm. ‘Monsieur Andrieu, who we met on Wednesday, he owns most of the fields to the north and the large white farm on the edge of the village. You wouldn’t know it. Never throws his weight around. My father’s closest friend was Monsieur Sauzède, one of those very proper, very old-fashioned men, but with a wonderful sense of humour.’
Liesl looked at her. ‘You miss your father?’
‘All the time,’ she said. She took a deep breath, then carried on. ‘Ernestine Cassou, she’s a different matter. Lives in the end house in the rue de l’Empereur with her father. Never without a grievance, as Marieta would say.’
Liesl managed a smile. ‘I admit, I didn’t take to her.’
‘My closest friend is Geneviève Saint-Loup. One of four sisters, she lives in Rennes-les-Bains. I hope you’ll meet her at the weekend. When we were little we spent all of our time in Coustaussa, playing cache-cache in the ruins of the castle with the village boys.’
Liesl looked up briefly. ‘Like the boy who met us off the bus?’
‘Yves Rousset?’ Sandrine said. ‘Yes, him and his older brother, all of their friends. Pierre Rousset was killed at the beginning of the war.’
‘Yves seems nice.’
‘He is nice,’ Sandrine replied, momentarily hearing something lighter in Liesl’s voice. ‘Quiet, but kind. Reliable.’
‘Is he . . .?’
‘The Roussets are decent types. The kind that help if asked, but otherwise mind their own business.’
A torrent was cascading down the street, a mass of swirling black water hurtling into the storm drains and towards the river. Another crack of thunder, followed, hard on its heels, by a white jag of lightning. Liesl’s eyes flared wide with terror.
‘When I was little,’ Sandrine said quickly, ‘Marieta used to tell me the thunder was God rearranging his furniture, dragging a chair across the sky. The lightning was angels turning the lights on and off.’
Liesl clutched her camera even tighter.
‘It won’t last much longer,’ Sandrine said.
The storm was now directly overhead, swallowing Couiza up within the clouds. The driving rain pounded down on the road like sparks from an anvil. Liesl trembled at each new assault, peering out at the furious black sky.
‘This is the worst of it, then it will move on.’
‘To Carcassonne?’
‘Maybe. Limoux, certainly.’
They stood in silence, Sandrine enjoying the relief of being cold and damp after the hot, humid days. The sight of Raoul’s face had brought all those buried feelings back to the surface. The memory of the touch of his hand on her skin. Watching the sun rise over the Cité. She sighed. Where was he? Sitting out the storm like them, or miles away on the Vermilion Coast? In Banyuls or Perpignan?
At first, the shock of seeing the poster when she wasn’t expecting it had driven any other thought from her mind. Now it had had time to sink in, she realised what puzzled her the most was that the reward was so large. It wasn’t unusual these days to see WANTED notices stuck up all over the place – on lamp posts, walls, pinned on the noticeboard outside the Commissariat de Police – offering money for information. But five hundred francs?
So much. Too much.
Another collision of thunder in the sky directly above them, and Liesl grabbed at Sandrine’s arm.
‘I can’t bear it,’ she said in a whisper. ‘It’s so wild, so . . . so angry. I’ve never heard anything like it.’
Sandrine put her arms around Liesl and held her close.
Chapter 67
TARASCON
Aurélie Saint-Loup was sitting on the front doorstep, looking aggrieved.
‘I’ve been waiting for ages,’ she complained.
Baillard bent down to the child’s level. ‘What is it, filha?’
‘My sister Geneviève telephoned from Rennes-les-Bains.’
‘Has a package arrived for me?’ he said quickly.
Even now he hoped Antoine might have managed to keep the package safe before he was captured.
‘A package?’ the little girl asked. ‘I don’t know about that. Geneviève wanted you to know Marieta Barthès is in Coustaussa and asking urgently after you. She sent me to find you.’
Baillard stood up and glanced at Pujol, who’d drawn level. He looked tired, the result of several days of asking questions and getting nowhere. Célestine was coping, but Pierre was not. Pujol felt he was letting his friend down.
‘Marieta Barthès . . .’ Baillard smiled at the thought of seeing her. ‘And the family also?’
Aurélie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, only that it was important. She didn’t think Madame Barthès looked very well.’ The child frowned. ‘Geneviève sounded a bit funny, actually.’
‘Is it possible, Achille?’ Baillard asked.
Pujol took a moment to realise, then his expression altered.
‘You’re not seriously suggesting we go to Coustaussa now, Audric? The storm’s heading that way. The roads will be impassable, you know what those valleys are like.’
‘Marieta is not the sort of woman to make a fuss. If she says it is urgent, then it will be.’ He paused. ‘And if she is ill . . .’
Pujol looked at him, then sighed with resignation. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find a car. And enough petrol to get us there and back.’
They’d been driving for an hour. Baillard had been thinking of a girl he’d loved when he was young. Loved still. Remembering the banners and colours and the towers of the Cité. He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers. He could almost feel the warm metal of his sword in his hand.
The Midi had lost the battle then, but what of now?
‘E ara?’
‘What’s that, Audric?’ said Pujol, peering through the windscreen at the rain.
Baillard shook his head. ‘Nothing, my friend. Talking to myself.’
‘Don’t wonder at it. Clambering all over the hills at four o’clock in the morning, yesterday, the day before, the day before that. We’re too old for it, Audric. I keep telling you, but do you listen?’
Baillard peered out of the window. ‘Where are we?’
‘Just gone through Espéraza. The roads are worse than I was expecting.’
Evidence of the storm was everywhere. Broken branches, pools of standing water, mud the colour of gingerbread where rainwater had cascaded down the hillside. Baillard looked out of the window and saw the land as a living, sentient thing. A sleeping giant brought to life by the whisperings and stirrings of bones in the earth. In the graveyards of the Haute Vallée and the mountains where no tombstone marked the place where warriors had fallen.
‘The glorious dead awakened,’ he murmured.
Could it be true? Could such things yet be true? With every passing day, the evil from the north was coming closer and closer. Such evil.
‘Malfança . . .’
They entered Couiza. A woman in black was sweeping the debris from her steps. She stopped and stared at the solitary car.
The road was carpeted with twigs and leaves. As Pujol negotiated the winding, slippery road up to Coustaussa, Baillard gripped the dashboard. He had faced many perilous situations in his long life, battles for faith and tolerance, survived siege and torture, but the fear in his stomach with the wheels of the car slippery under Pujol’s clumsy touch was just as sharp.
‘Go through the village,’ he instructed, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘Almost out to the other side. Last house.’
A small white dog barked at them, then shot away as they drew up outside the house. The geraniums in the window box looked battered from the storm, their heads bowed and red petals scattered on the sill.
‘Funny-looking thing,’ said Pu
jol, pointing at the brass door knocker.
‘François Vidal told me it was modelled on one of the gargoyles above the north door of the cathédrale Saint-Michel in Carcassonne.’
‘Would have thought it put callers off,’ grunted Pujol. ‘But then perhaps that’s the idea.’
Baillard got out of the car and walked up the stone steps, lifted the brass knocker and rapped three times. He waited, his white panama hat in his hand, knowing Marieta would take her time, even if she was there. After a minute or so, he knocked again. Still nothing stirred in the little house. The dread that had been building in his chest all afternoon took on a life of its own.
He reached for the handle and turned.
Baillard saw Marieta straight away, sitting on the chair at the bottom of the stairs, her grey head bowed against the spindle and the bible on the floor at her feet. A still figure in black.
‘Pujol,’ he shouted, ‘in here!’
Baillard grabbed Marieta’s wrist and felt a flutter of relief when he found her pulse. It was weak and erratic, but there still. He looked at the blue tinge around her lips, at the jagged rise and fall of her chest, and realised what had happened. He loosened her collar and tried to help her to sit up.
‘Her heart,’ he said, as Pujol appeared in the hall behind him.
‘Is she . . .?’
‘No, but she’s very weak.’
Together they laid Marieta on the floor. Baillard put the heel of his hand on her chest, put his other hand on top and interlocked his fingers. Then, using the whole weight of his body, he began to press.
‘One, two, three . . .’
After thirty, he stopped. He tilted Marieta’s head back, lifted her chin, pinched her nostrils, then breathed into her mouth. He paused, desperately watching the movement in her chest, then started all over again.
‘She needs a doctor,’ he said urgently. ‘Madame Rousset, in the blue house on the corner of the rue de la Condamine. She will know.’
‘Got it,’ said Pujol, immediately leaving.