The Burning Chambers

by Kate Mosse

  Madame Boussay waved her hand. ‘No need to thank me, dear, no need at all. It is my pleasure to have young people in the house, though it has to be said Aimeric can be, well . . . his voice, so loud. His boots.’

  ‘I own he has much to learn – and I fear Madame Montfort is rather too strict with him – but my brother is flourishing under my uncle’s guidance.’

  Another lie. Monsieur Boussay paid no attention to Aimeric except, occasionally, to criticise him.

  ‘He would have liked a son of his own. What man would not?’

  Minou smiled. ‘Tell me, Aunt, what was my mother like?’

  Madame Boussay looked bewildered. ‘What was she like? Well, she was taller than me. A mass of black curls, she never could get a comb through them, and –’

  Minou laughed. ‘I meant in her character, Aunt. What manner of person. I would love to hear your memories of being children together.’

  ‘Oh, oh, I see. Florence was . . . to speak frankly, it is hard to say. There was a full ten years between us and she was blessed with a sharp wit and great intelligence and I was blessed with beauty, well . . . so I am sure I was a trial to her. And, of course, though we had the same dear, dear mother, when Florence’s father died and Mother married again, I regret to say my dear father had little interest in another man’s daughter and, well . . . not long afterwards, Florence married and was living so far away in Puivert, we saw little of one another.’

  ‘Puivert, you say? Did not my parents live all their married life in Carcassonne?’

  Madame Boussay flustered at her hair. ‘Well, Niece, I hope I have not spoken out of turn, though I cannot imagine how it would matter after all this time. But they married in Puivert, I am sure of it. Your father at that time was in the employ of Lord Bruyère, the Seigneur of the castle. At least I think that was his title. I do muddle things, I know it and my husband chastises me for it. A large estate, so I was told, with excellent hunting. The wedding was in the château itself for I remember the invitation came with a family seal on it – it depicted a horrible creature, a lion with talons. It made me cry.’

  Minou was struck by the description. It sounded very like the seal on the letter now hidden beneath the mattress in her chamber.

  ‘I wanted so much to attend,’ her aunt continued, ‘but I was only ten years old and my father said it was too far to travel. So I wept again, for I had wanted so to be a bridesmaid.’ She frowned. ‘A local woman had to stand in her place as matron of honour. Cécile. Though I can’t remember her family name, I remember it was Cécile, because I thought the name so pretty and I might have it for a daughter of my own one day.’ Her face fell again. ‘Well, that’s all past now.’

  Minou felt the knot of tension in her stomach tighten suddenly remembering her father and Madame Noubel calling each other by their Christian names.

  ‘Might it have been Cécile Cordier, Aunt?’ Minou asked in a level voice, though she felt anything but calm.

  ‘Well, do you know, I think it was. Fancy you knowing that. Anyway, to be quite truthful, I cannot remember how long your parents remained in Puivert after the wedding. Certainly, you were born there.’

  Minou’s throat became dry. ‘Forgive me, Aunt, are you sure? I had always thought – assumed – that I was born in Carcassonne, the same as my brother and sister.’

  Madame Boussay frowned. ‘Again, I might be wrong, but Monsieur Boussay and I had been married some years by then, and God had not seen fit to bless us with children. So when I heard the news of your birth, it stuck with me. I was, of course, so delighted for Florence, but also sad on my own account.’

  ‘I was born in fifteen forty-two. On the last day of October.’

  ‘Well, then, that is right. That’s what I remember. My mother was much alarmed. There were such dreadful stories of flooding in the mountain valleys, and landslides. All this at the moment Florence was delivered; my mother was quite alarmed.’ She flapped her hands and, this time, dropped her fan. ‘But it is such a long time ago now and, of course, life with Monsieur Boussay . . . It is hard to be a wife.’ She paused. ‘And, then, I am sad to say, there was the disagreement between my husband and your dear mother.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Minou saw Madame Montfort had noticed their private conversation and was pushing through the crowd to join them. Knowing they would soon be interrupted, she pressed hastily on.

  ‘What was the cause of the estrangement between them?’

  ‘It was a misunderstanding, no one can persuade me otherwise.’ Her aunt dropped her voice yet lower. ‘Though Florence and I rarely – that is to say, never – saw one another in person after she was married, my dear sister sent me the most beautiful present from Puivert to mark your birth.’

  Minou frowned. ‘How odd that my mother should send you a present. Is it not more customary the other way around?’

  ‘Well, now you say that, of course, I suppose it is. But such a thoughtful gesture. A bible, with the softest leather casing and the most delightful blue ribbon to mark the pages.’ She frowned. ‘Monsieur Boussay took offence at it, on account of it being in the French language, and forbade me to keep it. Well, though, of course, a wife has a duty to obey her husband in all things, I did think just this once – because it was the only gift I ever had from my own poor sister – I might make up my own mind. It is the only time I’ve crossed him because, well . . .’

  Madame Montfort’s shadow fell across them. Her aunt started, like a guilty child.

  ‘How now, Sister?’ Madame Montfort said sharply, looking from one to the other. ‘You appear deep in conversation. What is it that you find of such interest, Salvadora, as to keep you talking together all this time?’

  ‘Sister!’ Madame Boussay stumbled. ‘Well, well. We were . . . That is to say . . .’

  ‘It would be a pity if private matters caused you to neglect your obligations, Salvadora. I wonder what matter has you both engaged so completely?’

  Minou bent down and picked up her aunt’s fan. ‘My aunt dropped this. I was returning it, that is all. One feather has come loose, do you see?’

  The communion bell began to toll and a ripple of anticipation spread through the crowd. The priest, in his purple cope, stepped forward. The other clergymen and laity shuffled to his side. The thurible began to swing, sending little gusts of incense, sour and hot, into the air. Banners were lifted and the congregation fell into line, the men at the front and the women and children following behind.

  All the animals of the ark, Minou thought, giddy with all that her aunt had told her. Two by two by two.

  ‘Which route does the Saint Salvador procession take?’

  ‘We walk from here, back through the gates to Place du Salin,’ Madame Boussay replied quietly, ‘then we follow the line of the eastern walls, out through the Porte Montolieu, then round to make our way back to here. I asked the priest particularly. An hour or so, all told, though there are so many here today – so pleasing to see – it will take longer. And are we not blessed with the weather? There have been years, when—’

  ‘Salvadora!’ Madame Montfort snapped. ‘Try to set a good example. For your husband’s sake, if not on your own account.’

  Minou saw her aunt shrink into herself. She squeezed Madame Boussay’s arm affectionately, and she winced.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I hurt you?’

  ‘It’s nothing, nothing, please,’ she said, pulling away. Her glove and cuff separated widely enough to reveal an ugly black bruise on her wrist.

  ‘Aunt, what on earth happened to you?’

  Salvadora pulled down her sleeve. ‘It is nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I trapped my hand in the lid of the chest when I was dressing, it is nothing.’

  ‘Domine Deus Omnipotens . . .’

  Madame Boussay turned firmly towards the priest and closed her eyes. Madame Montfort displaced Minou, forcing her to walk on her own behind them, but she did not mind. It gave her time to think.

  ‘. . . qui ad principium .
. .’

  The words became notes, and the notes became music. The mummers took up the responses as the column, like a creature waking from a winter sleep, slowly began to move forward with a heavy drumbeat marking time.

  Minou placed her hands against her chest to feel the beat reverberate deep inside her. Tabor and pipe, the rise and fall of voices, the steady tread of feet. She was entranced.

  All around, Toulouse was in bloom. Early geraniums, primroses of yellow and white, and everywhere purple violets. Posies of wild flowers adorned the steps of the churches they passed.

  ‘Is not this wondrous?’ her aunt called over her shoulder.

  ‘It is glorious, yes!’

  ‘I do believe Toulouse must be the most marvellous city on God’s earth,’ she continued, her sweet face pink with delight.

  As they continued, Minou allowed her thoughts to fly free. What should she make of the fact that she had been born in Puivert, but that she had not been told? Or that Madame Noubel – Cécile Cordier as was – had never mentioned she had known her parents for such a long time? Or the gift of a French bible, sent from her mother to her aunt to mark the occasion of Minou’s own birth?

  And within all the surprises of the day, she had an uneasy feeling there was something of even more importance she had failed to register.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  PUIVERT

  A little after noon, Bernard Joubert led Canigou into the village. The old mare had thrown a shoe and was lame again on her front leg.

  He was taken aback at how familiar Puivert remained after so long an absence. He remembered exactly where the track dipped and fell away, where the orchards fanned out on the southern side of the village, where the clamour and strike of the blacksmith’s anvil would be heard and where the baker collected wood for his oven. He saw a thin path, winding up through the woods where, later in the year, acorns would be found.

  ‘Steady, girl,’ he murmured, pulling gently at the bridle and Canigou lumbered to a halt. Her neck went down, her head nuzzling the dry earth. Bernard reached into the verge and dragged up a handful of fresh spring grass and offered his open hand to the grateful mare.

  Puivert was oddly silent. On a Thursday, the village should have been busy with the sound of gossip and trade, wives carrying midday victuals of bread and ale to husbands working in the fields, but there was barely a sound. He felt a spark of alarm. What if plague had returned?

  He glanced around and saw no painted signs on the doors to warn that a house was infected. A little further on, there was a wreath of smoke spiralling white from a chimney, like a twist of cloud. Then the silence was broken with the clinking of bells from a herd of goats on the hillside.

  Still, it was strange.

  Bernard led Canigou up the main street, which was little more than a track. The earth was dry beneath his feet and the only sound was the scuff of the horse’s hooves turning over a stone or two, and the creak of the leather saddlebags.

  He tethered her to a tree on the common ground by the well, then headed for the old white cottage at the far end of the single street. The last time he had been inside was at Toussaint in the year fifteen forty-two. On that first day of the harsh November, the single room downstairs had been warmed by a burning fire.

  Should he have written to old Madame Gabignaud to warn her of his arrival? He had considered it, but caution stayed his hand. Letters could be stolen. He had not even thought to enquire ahead whether she still lived in Puivert. But she was village born and bred and had seen many winters. Where else would she be?

  ‘You’ll get no answer there, Sénher.’

  Joubert turned to see an old man peering at him from over a fence.

  ‘Is this not the house of the midwife?’

  ‘It was,’ the man replied in Occitan, the sound something between a word, and a cough. ‘La levandiera. Mort.’

  ‘Anne Gabignaud is dead?’ Bernard felt his pulse quicken, the possibility of release. If she was dead, that was one less tongue to wag. He frowned, ashamed of such unchristian thoughts.

  ‘When did she die, Monsieur . . . ?’

  ‘Lizier. Achille Lizier, native of Puivert.’

  ‘It is not idle curiosity,’ he hurried on. ‘I knew Madame Gabignaud once.’

  Lizier’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t remember seeing you around here.’

  ‘It was some years ago now.’

  ‘I was away fighting in the Italian wars.’

  ‘It must have been about then when I was here,’ Bernard lied.

  Lizier hesitated, then nodded. ‘No one knows how it happened, only that she was found dead in her bed. Beginning of Lent.’

  ‘This March just gone?’

  ‘The same as I stand here.’ He put his hand to his throat. ‘The life choked out of her.’

  ‘You are saying she was murdered?’

  Lizier grimaced, revealing a mouth of rotten teeth. ‘That’s right. Suffocated. Pillow and slip lying ripped to shreds, like a wild animal had got in there. Pots and pans all over. Oil from her lamp all across the floor.’

  Bernard felt his stomach lurch. Who would murder an old woman? What offence could she have given? Then, with the sense of matters spinning away from him, another question.

  If she had been killed, why now?

  ‘No family to speak of,’ Lizier was saying, ‘but she was one of us. We paid for her to be buried.’ He jerked his head towards the castle. ‘We didn’t take a sou from them.’

  ‘Was it a robbery? An intruder?’

  ‘No one knows, though I will say this. She was worrying over something. Even wrote a letter, though she barely knew how to write. On a discarded piece of paper from the castle, bearing the Bruyère seal even. I gave it to my nephew to arrange the sending of it to Carcassonne.’

  ‘Nobody was arrested for the crime?’

  Lizier shook his head. ‘No, though I say it’s the Huguenots.’

  ‘There are Protestants in Puivert?’ Bernard asked, surprised.

  The man spat again and a fleck landed on Bernard’s boot. ‘Cockroaches. They get everywhere.’ His eyes narrowed suddenly. ‘Where was it you said you hailed from?’

  ‘Limoux,’ Bernard replied, picking a town at random. He had no desire to announce his presence in the village. Even if Lizier did not recognise him, there could be others who might.

  ‘Limoux,’ Lizier grunted. ‘Protestants have taken over there too, nothing but vermin.’ He jerked his head towards the castle. ‘He didn’t stand for it. A devil, he was, heart as black as night, but he kept those sewer rats out of Puivert. None of them around here.’

  Bernard felt the ground shift from under him. ‘Kept them, did you say? He is gone away?’

  ‘He ill-used my daughter,’ Lizier ploughed on. ‘The daughters of other men besides. What father could forgive him that? And my great-nephew is pressed into service up at the castle, more’s the shame. His mother taken by the plague. Two daughters I’ve lost, it’s not right.’ He shook his head. ‘One of the Devil’s own he was, the late Seigneur, no doubt, but he stood firm against heretics. No Huguenots here. Not a one.’

  ‘The Seigneur of Puivert is dead?’

  ‘Didn’t I just tell you so? Buried him a month past. Whole village ordered to attend, but not me. I refused. My daughter took her own life, on account of him. A sinner he was, everyone knew it, though we had to bow and scrape. No more right to call himself master of Puivert than me. A villain, none blacker.’

  Could it be true? Bernard exhaled. The man he had feared for all these years was dead. Did it mean the secret was finally safe?

  ‘Mind you, his wife is no better,’ Lizier continued. ‘Another soul as black as night, though her name proclaims the opposite.’ He tapped his head. ‘Hears voices, they say. Always talking to God.’

  And as quickly as Bernard’s fears had receded, they flowed back with full force.

  ‘His wife died many years past,’ he said carefully. ‘That’s what I heard.’

 
‘His first wife, yes. Now she was a virtuous lady, too good for this world. The scurvy devil married again with indecent haste. That one ran off and left him, though he kept hold of her money. Then a few years past, he took himself a third wife, less than half his age.’

  Bernard turned cold. Who knew what secrets an old goat might whisper to a young bride at night? He glanced up at the castle on the hill above the village, then back to Lizier.

  ‘She’s not even local. Comes from an estate somewhere near Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val.’ Lizier leant closer. ‘She was barely fifteen when she married, having been left destitute when her father died. And needing a husband to claim the bastard she was carrying.’

  ‘She was with child when she married?’

  ‘So they say.’

  Bernard’s head was spinning. ‘Well, how old is the child now?’

  ‘It didn’t live, Sénher. There are those who say her own father was the sire.’ Bernard’s shock must have shown on his face, for Lizier held his hands up in apology. ‘Though I don’t credit it. What father would be so unnatural?’

  Bernard swallowed his distaste. ‘Is the widow provided for? Is there a son to inherit these lands?’

  Lizier lurched closer. ‘There are rumours,’ he said.

  ‘What kind of rumours?’

  ‘How old do you think I am?’ Lizier suddenly said. ‘Go on. Guess.’

  ‘I could not say, Monsieur,’ Bernard said wearily. ‘Older than me, with, I dare say, more than twice the wisdom to match.’

  ‘Ha! I saw the last century and I won’t live to see the next,’ he laughed, then dropped a hand on Joubert’s shoulder. ‘Only one older in the village.’

  ‘I salute you, Lizier.’

  He nodded, satisfied with the compliment. ‘To answer your question, Sénher, there’s no son. No daughter neither, though as the late Seigneur lay dying, they say he talked of a child. But, for good or ill, I’ll tell you this for nothing. The Lady Blanche means to be mistress here in her own right, heir or no heir. Mark my words. And then God help us all.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  TOULOUSE