Citadel

  Baillard kept working. One, two, three, counting each beat of her struggling heart. His arms grew tired, his shoulders ached, but he didn’t stop. He thought of Harif, who, many years ago, had taught him to save a life this way. Ten, eleven, twelve. He thought of his grandmother, Esclarmonde, who had taught him how to dress a wound. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Of Alaïs, the greatest healer the Midi had ever known. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Harif, Esclarmonde, Alaïs, he kept all three of them close at his side while his aching muscles worked and worked.

  ‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty . . .’

  Finally Baillard felt Marieta’s breathing change. The rasping, tattered gasps yielded to a regular rhythm as her heart returned to normal.

  ‘Peyre . . .’ he muttered, sinking exhausted to the ground beside her. ‘Welcome back, amica.’

  For a few moments Baillard sat quietly in the company of his friend, an old woman now. He realised that the wind had dropped. That there was no longer the sound of rain on the glass.

  Finally he got to his feet and walked into the salon to open the shutters and let the daylight in.

  Chapter 68

  COUSTAUSSA

  Sandrine and Liesl propped their bikes against the gate at the back of the house. It had taken them a long time to get back from Couiza in the wet. Even though the rain had stopped, the steep roads were slippery, covered with detritus and leaves and broken branches.

  As they approached the house, Sandrine saw the shutters were un-secured at the back, banging open in the wind. She frowned.

  ‘That’s odd . . .’

  She dropped her bike on the grass and ran up the path and into the house, Liesl following close on her heels.

  ‘Coucou?’ she called. ‘Marieta?’

  Liesl flicked the switch. ‘The lights don’t seem to be working.’

  ‘The generator often packs up,’ Sandrine said, struggling to keep her voice calm. ‘It’s easy to fix.’

  She heard a noise in the hall. ‘Marieta?’ she called with relief. ‘Marieta, is that you?’

  Sandrine rushed into the corridor, then stopped dead. Marieta was lying on the floor in the hall, with a jowly, heavy-set man standing over her. Without thinking, she flew at the intruder.

  ‘Get away from her,’ she shouted, shoving him out of the way and crouching down beside the unconscious woman. ‘What have you done to her?’

  ‘Mademoiselle, calmez-vous,’ the man was trying to say.

  ‘Marieta, what happened?’

  The old woman shifted. ‘Léonie?’

  ‘It’s me, Sandrine.’

  Marieta’s eyes were milky, unfocused. ‘Léonie?’ she said again.

  ‘Who’s Léonie?’ whispered Liesl, who’d come into the hall behind Sandrine.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  Only now did Sandrine notice that there was a pillow under Marieta’s head and a blanket covering her. Then, a quiet and reassuring voice at her back.

  ‘She will be, madomaisèla.’

  Sandrine swung round to see a second man, in a pale linen suit, coming out of the doorway to the salon.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Monsieur Baillard,’ Marieta was saying, trying to sit up. ‘I apologise, I should have . . . she doesn’t . . .’

  ‘Baillard?’

  Sandrine turned back to Marieta, furious, now she realised she was all right, rather than terrified. ‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I told you not to do too much, and now look, look what’s happened. You’ve worn yourself out.’

  Marieta’s face softened. ‘So you are the one to scold me?’

  ‘Madomaisèla,’ the man in the pale suit said in a steady, calm voice. ‘She’s given us all a scare, but all will be well. She is strong. It is not yet her time.’

  Sandrine glared at him, at Marieta, then burst into tears.

  ‘She’s stable,’ said the doctor. ‘Is there someone who can sit with her?’

  Baillard nodded. ‘We will all be here.’

  ‘Good.’ He began to pack up his bag. ‘She was lucky you were here, Monsieur Baillard, and lucky Geneviève Saint-Loup was worried and telephoned. It might have been a very different story if she’d been here on her own for very much longer.’

  ‘It was a heart attack?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘A mild one, more of a warning. I can’t be sure without an X-ray examination, but I suspect Madame Barthès has been having symptoms for some time.’

  ‘What is her long-term prognosis?’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘She’d be better in hospital, but no reason she shouldn’t make a full recovery.’

  ‘She has no time for hospitals,’ Sandrine said. ‘Nor doctors, come to that.’

  ‘These village types never do,’ he said drily. ‘Nevertheless, I’ll be in to check on her tomorrow. Do you have rations cards and so forth? Marieta certainly won’t be fit to travel for some considerable time.’

  Sandrine nodded. ‘Our papers are in order.’

  ‘That’s one thing at least,’ the doctor said.

  Pujol nodded. ‘I’ll drive you back to Couiza, doctor,’ he said.

  Baillard watched the car pull away, then closed the door and came back inside.

  ‘And now, madomaisèla, if you are not too tired – and Liesl might sit with Marieta for a while – perhaps you and I should talk.’

  ‘She’s been overdoing it,’ Sandrine said, looking into the salon where Marieta was sleeping peacefully on the day bed. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded neatly above the sheet. ‘We’ve all told her, but she won’t listen.’

  ‘No, she never did,’ he said with a gentle smile.

  Sandrine looked at him. ‘You’ve known her a long time, Monsieur Baillard.’

  ‘She told you so?’

  ‘Yes, though not much.’

  Baillard put his head on one side. ‘Did Marieta tell you she sent for me?’

  ‘I knew she’d written to you – I took the letter to the post office myself three weeks ago – but not what she said. And ever since we’ve been here, she’s watched the letter box like a hawk.’

  ‘The missive did not arrive.’

  ‘No?’

  Now Sandrine was looking at him properly, she realised Monsieur Baillard was even older than she’d originally thought from Marieta’s description. A halo of white hair, his face deeply lined, his skin translucent almost, though his eyes were quick and intelligent and clear.

  ‘No,’ he said in his quiet voice, ‘so it’s time you found out why Marieta was so disturbed by what happened. Shall we move somewhere quieter, so we don’t disturb her or your young friend?’

  ‘My cousin . . .’ she began automatically, then stopped. There seemed little point lying to Monsieur Baillard. She smiled. ‘A friend. Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘If you have wine?’

  She led him to the kitchen. ‘My father’s cellar is still untouched,’ she said.

  Choosing a bottle of red Tarascon wine, Sandrine poured two glasses, then sat down in the chair opposite him.

  ‘I am sorry to hear about your father’s death. He was a good man.’

  She smiled. ‘I didn’t know you knew him, Monsieur Baillard.’

  ‘More by reputation than in person, I regret to say. We talked on one or two occasions. He had a profound love of architecture, buildings that tell the story of the past. A passion I also share.’ Again he fixed his steady gaze on her. ‘You miss him greatly.’

  It was a statement rather than a question. Sandrine nodded.

  ‘It’s better, of course, less painful. But here, it’s hard to believe I won’t see him sitting in this chair, reading one of his local history pamphlets, a glass of whisky by his side.’ She laughed. ‘He developed a taste for it after he’d been to Scotland. Filthy stuff, Marieta called it.’

  For a moment, they sat in silence. Sandrine wasn’t sure what to say, how to begin. If she was supposed to begin. Time passed, marked
by the ticking of the clock on the wooden shelf above the big open fireplace.

  ‘So you don’t know why Marieta wrote to you?’ she said.

  Instantly the atmosphere in the room seemed to change, shifting from the memories of old friends and family to something else.

  Baillard placed his glass on the table beside him. ‘I think, perhaps, it would be better if you told me what prompted the letter in the first instance.’

  Sandrine was soothed by his old-fashioned way of talking, by his formal and precise language and calm, steady tone. She felt the knot in her chest begin to loosen.

  ‘So much has happened since then.’

  ‘Stories shift their shape, change character, madomaisèla. They acquire different complexions, different colours, depending on the storyteller.’ He shrugged. ‘Why not simply tell the story as it comes back to you.’

  She took a mouthful of wine, then drew a deep breath. ‘It was the day before the demonstration in Carcassonne. Monday the thirteenth of July . . .’

  Chapter 69

  In the world outside the window, as Sandrine talked, the sounds began to change. Cicadas, nightingales, scuttling hares, mice. In the fields beyond the village, mountain foxes. All around were the light scents of the countryside after a storm, the green perfume of wild rosemary, mint and thyme. The martinets were beginning their nightly courtship, feeding, swooping, spiralling and spinning like dancers in the air. On the outskirts of the village, the beech trees and laurel, wet in the fading day, threw long shadows.

  When Sandrine had finished, she took another mouthful of wine and looked at Monsieur Baillard. He did not move and he did not speak.

  ‘Everything’s happened so fast, one thing after the other,’ she said. ‘Finding Antoine in the river, meeting Raoul, learning what Marianne and Suzanne were doing, trying to keep Liesl safe. So fast.’

  Baillard nodded. ‘I am afraid to tell you that Antoine Déjean has been found.’

  ‘Alive?’ she said, though she had no hope of it.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘Where?’

  ‘In the mountains not far from Tarascon.’

  ‘It was dreadful,’ she said quietly. ‘The moment when he opened his eyes and stared at me, and I realised I could do nothing. I felt useless, quite useless.’

  Baillard nodded. ‘There is an intensity of connection between the living and the dying so powerful, that it makes all that has gone before insignificant. The ancients called this gnosis – knowledge – a single moment of enlightenment, dazzling. For an instant all things are clear, the perfect, ineffable pattern revealed in the time between the sighs of a beating heart. Truth and the spirit, the connection between this world and the next.’

  ‘He’d been tortured.’

  Baillard did not answer. Sandrine exhaled, aware of the heavy beat of her pulse, the thrumming of the blood in her ears.

  ‘This young man, Raoul Pelletier,’ Baillard said. ‘He came to your rescue at the river and you gave him shelter. You helped him get away. Yet he stands accused?’

  ‘He was set up.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I do. Marianne couldn’t understand how I was so sure. It’s true that I know little about him and I don’t know where he is now. But, yes. I do trust him.’

  ‘Completely?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation. ‘With my life.’

  Baillard stared at her for a moment, pressing the tips of his fingers together as he thought.

  ‘It is an old and distinguished name he carries. A very old name.’

  Sandrine watched him, waiting for him to speak again. He sat so still, looking out over the dark garrigue beyond the window and the outskirts of the village, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  ‘Monsieur Baillard,’ she whispered. ‘Why was Marieta so scared? I tried to find out, but she wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘No.’

  She waited a few moments more. ‘Why was Antoine murdered?’

  He sighed. And it seemed to Sandrine that single sound contained all the knowledge of the world, of civilisations, of everything that had been and was yet to come.

  ‘Antoine was killed in his attempt to find – and protect – something of great power, of great antiquity,’ he said. ‘Something that is capable of changing the course of the war.’

  ‘A weapon?’

  Baillard shook his head. ‘No. At least, not in the way you mean, filha.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He had discovered a map that reveals the final resting place of an ancient religious text, a Codex. He was due to deliver the map to me in person some weeks ago, but he never arrived.’

  ‘Where’s the map now?’

  Baillard raised his hands in a gesture of ignorance, then let them fall.

  ‘Even if you find the map, are you sure the Codex itself actually survives?’

  ‘Instinct says it does, but I have no proof.’

  Sandrine frowned. ‘In any case, how did Antoine know what was in the Codex if no one’s even seen it?’

  ‘Fragments are known. My belief is that some verses were—’

  ‘Written on the map itself,’ she jumped in, then turned red. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

  Baillard smiled. ‘I came to that same conclusion myself,’ he said with a momentary sparkle in his eye. ‘Antoine could read Latin and Greek. I am certain he found the map – had sight of it at least. It is the only explanation that serves.’

  ‘I tried to do some research,’ Sandrine said, ‘though it didn’t get me very far. When I badgered her, Marieta finally admitted that the words reminded her of certain lines in the Book of Revelation, but she wouldn’t say any more than that. I went to the municipal library in Carcassonne to see if I could find any mention of such a connection, but it was closed for the summer.’ She paused. ‘Marieta seemed terrified, Monsieur Baillard, even at the thought of it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she right to be?’

  He did not answer the question. ‘The Codex is a Gnostic text, condemned in the fourth century as heretical. The authorship is unknown although, as Marieta told you, the verses are believed to bear some similarity to the only Gnostic text included in the Bible, the Book of the Revelation of St John the Divine.’

  ‘Are there other books that might have been included in the Bible but were left out?’

  ‘The Bible is a collection of writings, not a single unified text.’

  ‘But that’s not right . . .’

  Baillard allowed himself a smile. ‘For the first few centuries of its mission, the Christian Church was under attack – not least from the continued Roman occupation of the Holy Land – so the need to strengthen and unite was paramount. It was important to establish an incontrovertible, agreed holy book. The matter of which texts should be viewed as legitimate, which not, was the subject of much heated debate. The texts chosen to form the Bible were standardised in Greek, then translated into other languages. In Egypt, for example, into the Coptic language of the early Egyptian Christians. As communities developed – monasteries, places of worship – other key texts were translated and disseminated. Often on papyrus, gathered into individual leather-bound books known as codices, to keep them safe.’

  He took another sip of his drink. ‘The orthodox lobby won. A certain interpretation of Christianity triumphed. Despite this, the doctrine of equality under faith never entirely went away, though it was driven underground.’ He paused, a gentle smile lighting his face. ‘In the past, I had many friends who were of the Albigensian faith – Cathars, as they are sometimes called now, although at the time they referred to themselves as bons homes, good men, good women. Some consider them Gnostics and argue that they are the natural descendants of those early Christians.’

  While they had been talking, night had fallen over Coustaussa. Sandrine got up to close the shutters, then lit the old brass lamps as she’d seen Marieta do a thousand times. The hiss and spit of the oi
l, then haloes of yellow light flared and warmed the corners of the room. She glanced across at her guest, realising he had removed himself. Memories of the past, friends lost, in the presence of ghosts. Echoes in the landscape.

  ‘Go on, Monsieur Baillard,’ she said gently.

  He looked up again and nodded. ‘The battles between Gnostic and orthodox thinking lasted some two hundred years – a little more or less in different parts of the world – but the time that concerns us now is the fourth century, when many of the Gnostic texts were destroyed. We have no way of knowing how many priceless works were consigned to the fire, only that much knowledge was lost.’

  ‘How do we know of their existence in the first place?’

  ‘A good question. In AD 367, an edict went out from Athanasius – the powerful Bishop of Alexandria – that heretical texts were to be burned. However, the threat preceded this by some years. Athanasius was a controversial figure – sometimes his views were in favour, sometimes not – but Christian leaders took matters into their own hands well before this edict and ravaged their own libraries.’

  ‘So Gnostics were already taking steps to hide or protect texts they thought were at risk,’ Sandrine said.

  Baillard nodded. ‘According to contemporary records, there was a mass burning of books in 342 in Lyon – Lugdunum as it then was – but some texts were successfully smuggled to safety. To Egypt, to Jordan, and hidden there.’ Baillard paused. ‘Only very recently has it come to light that the Codex considered by the Abbot to be the most dangerous of all the proscribed texts might never have left these shores.’

  ‘And Antoine died because of this,’ Sandrine said quietly. ‘For a book.’

  ‘Not even a book,’ he said. ‘A single sheet of papyrus, seven verses.’

  Sandrine shook her head. ‘Given our situation now, and with everything that is happening, it seems so . . . not irrelevant exactly but . . .’

  Baillard stared. ‘Pujol thinks the same. But the knowledge contained within those seven verses is said to be as powerful, as terrifying, as anything in the Old Testament or the prophecies of Revelation.’

  Sandrine leant forward and met his gaze. ‘What knowledge?’ she asked, surprised to hear her voice so steady when her heart was beating so fast.