by Kate Mosse
The girl jolted awake, her black eyes wide. ‘Who are you? Where is Rixende?’
TOULOUSE
Piet quit his hiding place, and lost himself in the throng of men streaming out of the monastery. His thoughts were buzzing like flies in a jar. Angry, relentless. Was it Vidal who had drugged his wine that night? He had tried to ignore his suspicions, needing to keep faith with his friend and their friendship. For weeks Piet had told himself that though he and Vidal saw the world through different eyes, they both were guided by decency and honour.
He didn’t even know where he was going. Back to the tavern to find McCone and to apologise to Crompton for losing his temper? He couldn’t bear the idea of it. Back to his lodgings in rue des Pénitents Gris? What purpose would that serve?
Piet had little faith the truce would hold. Both the Catholic and the Protestant leaders were aggrieved, believing too much had been conceded to the other side, with too few assurances given to them in return. The city was swamped with weapons and aggression. He did not think either faction would disarm, whatever the terms of the truce. Toulouse was on borrowed time.
He turned his mind to the almshouse. There, at least, he could do some good. He thought of Minou and, suddenly, he felt a sense of purpose, a sense of possibility. How many hours had passed since he had left her? Time had run fast and slow during this long day. He kicked a stone and heard it bounce away along the cobblestones. Just to see her would give him pleasure.
For a moment, Piet allowed himself to dream, then he pulled himself up. There had been a kind of wild liberty during the strange hours of the riot and its aftermath, allowing them to be together. Now, though he doubted the peace would last, things would return to normal for a while. Minou was a Catholic, he was Huguenot. What would be the cost to her character to be seen in his company?
He decided to go to the Eglise Saint-Taur, and tried to put his swirling thoughts in order: Vidal’s surveillance, Michel’s murder, the presence of Crompton and Devereux in Toulouse, and now the opportune killing of the tailor in Daurade. They were each connected to the Shroud.
If the truce held, well and good. If not, this might be the only chance Piet would have to retrieve the precious original from its hiding place.
CARCASSONNE
‘Rixende has gone to fetch more milk.’ Blanche pointed at the spoilt pan. It seemed her guess might be right.
‘From her mother’s house?’ Alis asked.
‘Well, she said she would not be long.’
Alis sat up and threw the blanket off her lap. ‘Then she spoke false. Rixende often goes out when Madame Noubel is not here, then she starts chattering and the hours pass. I don’t mind. She talks too much. It wears me out.’ Suddenly, she remembered she was talking to a stranger. ‘Who are you?’ she asked again.
Blanche smiled. ‘A friend.’
The child looked at her fine clothes and gown, and frowned. ‘You do not look like one of Rixende’s friends.’
Blanche laughed. ‘I am not a friend of your maid, silly, but of your sister. I have come from Toulouse.’
The girl’s demeanour transformed. ‘You’ve come from Minou? Are you to take me to her?’
How easily the child was duped, Blanche thought, sending up a silent prayer.
‘Your sister pines for your company. She would have you join her. Aimeric misses you also.’
Alis frowned. ‘I cannot think he cares. He says girls are dull, a nuisance.’
Blanche folded her hands in front of her. ‘Ah. It is a truth you will learn as you get older, that men say one thing and do another.’
‘Aimeric’s not a man,’ Alis giggled. ‘He’s a stupid boy. Are we to go today?’
‘Indeed, yes.’ Blanche was aware that the maid, or this Madame Noubel, might return at any moment. On the other hand, she could see how Alis was still cautious and could not be hurried. It was essential she came of her own accord. The streets of La Cité were crowded at this time of evening and there were many who might see them. ‘My carriage is waiting in Place Saint-Nazaire.’
‘What did Minou say I should bring with me, Madame?’
‘Your sister has arranged everything for you in Toulouse. Clothes for the city, toys.’
‘Toys? But she knows I do not care for—’
‘I jest,’ Blanche said quickly, realising she had struck a false note. ‘When I suggested we might purchase a doll for you, Minou said you had never been one for such pastimes.’
The girl nodded. ‘I prefer to read.’
‘Indeed. She also has told me how advanced you are for your years. She has many new books waiting for you. But look at us, talking the afternoon away. We have the entire journey to become acquainted.’
‘Might I bring my kitten? If I call, she’ll come straight back.’
‘It would be unkind to confine the creature within a carriage.’ Blanche clapped her hands to distract the child. ‘Come, fetch your things. The sooner we take our leave, the sooner we will be in Toulouse.’
‘I shall bring only my best cloak and gloves, and my medicine. Madame Noubel will be back at dusk. She can prepare a batch for me to take with us, then we will go. Is it a grand carriage?’
‘It is, and pulled by two pairs of horses, but it is a long way. Much as I would like to make Madame’s acquaintance – Minou talks so fondly of her – I fear we cannot wait. We must leave immediately.’
Alis frowned. ‘But I need my medicine. I am not supposed to go anywhere without it.’
‘Minou knows about your medicine, better than anyone, does she not?’ Blanche risked putting her hand on the girl’s thin shoulder. ‘When you are with her, you will not need Madame Noubel.’
Alis’s expression lightened. ‘That is true.’
‘And if we leave now, you will be in Minou’s company before the sun rises tomorrow. Imagine her joy at waking to find you there. On the other hand, if we delay our departure, we will not arrive in Toulouse until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.’
‘But Madame Noubel said I wasn’t to leave the house.’
Blanche pretended to think. ‘We shall leave a letter, explaining our haste. Then she will have no cause to worry. These are Minou’s wishes, after all.’
‘That is true,’ Alis said, though still doubtful.
‘Good, then we are resolved. Fetch your travelling clothes, while I prepare a note. Then we shall be on our way. Quickly now.’
While Alis dressed, Blanche looked around until she found a scrap of paper on which to write. There was a faded drawing propped on the mantle above the fire, a rough sketch in chalk. The reverse side was blank.
With a piece of charcoal from the fire, Blanche wrote ‘MADAME NOUBEL’ on the outside, folded the sheet and put it back on the mantel.
‘There, that is done,’ she said, as Alis came back into the room. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes, Madame.’
Blanche held out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Alis took it.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
TOULOUSE
‘Ready,’ Minou whispered. ‘Whistle if anyone comes.’
At the bottom of the wide staircase, Aimeric put his thumb up. ‘Be quick.’
Minou ran along the corridor on the first floor to her aunt’s chamber and knocked on the door.
‘Aunt,’ she whispered. ‘Aunt, it’s me, Minou. Will you let me in?’
The door opened a crack and a maid peered out.
‘Madame Boussay is not supposed to receive anyone,’ she said. ‘Madame Montfort’s instructions.’
‘But it was Madame Montfort herself who sent me,’ Minou lied.
The door opened a fraction. The maid had been shut up with her mistress for much of the day and she was bored. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble. Madame Montfort’s like a bear with a sore head today.’
‘You won’t,’ Minou said.
At that moment, there was an explosion of laughter in the courtyard and then they heard the sound of Madame Montfort shouting. As the ma
id stepped out further to see what was happening, Minou slipped past her and into the room.
‘Five minutes at the most,’ she said, and firmly shut the door.
Hands shackled behind his back, Oliver Crompton was led blindfolded down the subterranean tunnels. His bare feet plashed on the damp ground. Through the hessian hood, he could smell blood and the stench of the sewers, sulphur and river weed, and feel the chill of the brick walls dripping with moisture.
He knew he was in the inquisitional prison, the notorious labyrinth of vaults and chambers beneath Place du Salin. The oubliettes, a place where a man could vanish from the face of God’s earth. Few who were incarcerated here were ever released. Those who were, it was said, were so ruined by what they had suffered that they might as well be dead.
As the ground sloped down, the stench worsened. A poisonous stink of fear and excrement, nausea and humiliation. Prisoners who had spilled their guts, and those who had not, were incarcerated in the same cells as a reminder of what the torturer’s craft might do to fragile human flesh and bone.
Crompton did not understand how he came to be here. It had to be a mistake. A matter of hours ago, he was pounding the streets, cursing himself for having let Piet’s sanctimonious disdain provoke him. He regretted storming out of the alehouse. He disliked the fellow and the antipathy was mutual but, all the same, they were on the same side. Crompton had swallowed his pride and retraced his steps, intending to apologise and to share the information he had discovered in the quartier Daurade. But by the time he returned to the tavern, Piet was gone.
He had waited a while, then left in search of his cousin, Devereux, instead. As he had turned the corner into rue des Arts, he had been set upon. A hood was thrown over his head, he was tossed into a cart and taken across town.
Crompton stumbled up a step, then was shoved forward. His arms were dragged up behind his back, then the hood was ripped from his head. He blinked, trying to get his bearings, in the flickering light of the torches on the wall. Then his breath froze and his heart pounded.
He was in the rack room, the evidence of previous torture all around. Bloodstains – some fresh, some dried brown – splattered and pooled on the floor, the walls. To his left, the iron chair with its seat of nails, the straps hanging loose from its arms, the spikes bloodied. On the wall to his right, manacles and a choke pear, the vilest of contraptions. Gauntlets that could hold a victim suspended for hours until his own weight pulled bone from socket. Straight ahead, he saw the ropes and the rack itself.
To fight in the streets, to look a man in the eye and face him fairly and square, that Crompton understood. Not this.
In the furthest corner, he saw a desk, an ink horn and a quill. The jolt of seeing such benign commonplace objects in this hellish place made him sick to his stomach. Three men, heavy felt hoods concealing their features, sat ready to record his every word.
‘Why am I here?’
From the shadows, a counter question. ‘Why do you think you are here?’
‘You have the wrong man.’
‘Try again.’
‘I tell you, you have the wrong man,’ he said, trying to steady his voice. ‘I am English, a visitor to Toulouse.’
The inquisitor laughed.
‘By law, I have a right to know on what charge I have been brought here.’
‘Do you know where you are?’
‘Identify yourself, Monsieur, and tell me why I am arrested.’
‘Do you think you are in a position to bargain, you Huguenot dog? No one knows you are here.’
Crompton forced himself to stand tall. He had heard that no man knew how he might react, how his body might resist if stretched or pressed, but he thought himself valiant.
‘I do not know why I am here.’
‘You are a traitor. You are part of a conspiracy against the King.’
‘No! I am loyal to the King.’
The inquisitor waved a sheaf of papers. ‘It is all here. The meetings, the plotting, the traitors with whom you are known to consort.’
‘I have done nothing wrong. You have the wrong man.’
The inquisitor came out from behind his desk, holding a single piece of paper. ‘It says here that, on the twenty-ninth day of February last, you and your fellow conspirators met with another in Carcassonne to buy a relic sacred to the Catholic faith – a priceless relic – in order to fund rebellion against the throne. Do you deny it?’
Crompton’s answer caught in his throat. Whatever he had expected, it was not this. All this over a scrap of material? Indeed, he had all but forgotten about the Shroud. It had left his hands almost as quickly as it had come into them and at a better price than he’d paid.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he blustered. ‘Who accuses me?’
‘Furthermore,’ the inquisitor continued, ‘it is alleged that you, a traitor to your own cause – as well as a blasphemer – arranged for the true Shroud to be exchanged for a counterfeit, the monies raised thereof to be contributed to the levy raised by the Prince of Condé.’
‘Impossible,’ Crompton protested, ‘I saw it myself and—’
He turned cold. He should not have spoken. He should have admitted to nothing.
The inquisitor drummed his long fingers on the table.
‘There are questions I shall put to you. If you have any sense, you will answer freely. If not, my colleagues here will be obliged to jog your memory.’ The tapping got quicker, faster, then stopped. ‘Do you understand?’
‘On my life, I am not a traitor. I swear I know nothing of a forgery.’ His voice tailed away. ‘You have the wrong man.’
‘You are a fool to yourself, Crompton,’ the inquisitor said, then turned to the gaoler. ‘Strip him.’
Crompton fought back, trying to get free from the soldiers, but it was no use. He was dragged naked to the rack, still kicking and jerking as they strapped him down.
‘From whom did you buy the forgery? How was the transaction set up? What are the names of those who aided you in this?’
‘I do not—’
His denial was lost in a scream as the first of the levers was turned, wrenching his arm from its socket.
‘Now, shall we try again? What do you know of the man known as Piet Reydon?’
Aimeric felt Steward Martineau’s hand on the back of his neck, dragging him up from the steps to the cellar into the courtyard itself.
‘I might have known,’ Madame Montfort said, advancing upon them. ‘What are you doing down there? Snooping? Keeping the servants from their work? You are a vile and disobedient boy.’
Aimeric was about to protest when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Minou step out into the courtyard. Knowing she was all right, and that Madame Montfort had not discovered her in their aunt’s room, he smiled with relief.
‘How dare you? How dare you make light of the situation? Do you think you can behave like a peasant in a household such as this? Wait until Monsieur Boussay returns. He will give you such a hiding, I warrant you will not be able to sit down for a week.’
‘Madame!’ Minou said.
The older woman spun round, shocked to see Minou standing there. Madame Montfort glanced at the cellar steps.
‘How did you . . . ?’ she began, then clamped her lips shut.
‘By some ill fortune, the wind blew shut the cellar door and I found myself trapped. I am surprised you did not see it.’ Minou saw the uncertainty in Madame Montfort’s face. ‘However, by luck, my brother heard me cry for help and released me from inside the house. There, through the chapel.’
‘The chapel?’ Madame Montfort exchanged a glance with Martineau. ‘In which case, what is he doing outside now?’
‘I imagine he had gone to check if there was some fault in the lock that the door should have shut with such force, so that another should not suffer the same fate as I. Is that not the way of it, Aimeric?’
Her brother nodded. ‘It is.’
Minou turned back to Madame
Montfort. ‘In other circumstances, I would suggest an apology was in order. But since I am certain you acted in good faith, I am sure it will not be necessary. Aimeric?’
‘No harm done,’ he said.
Minou could hardly believe that they would get away with such defiance, but their plan was working: Madame Montfort kept her temper in check.
‘Let the boy go,’ she said dully.
Martineau released his grip, then wiped his hands, as if touching Aimeric had contaminated him.
‘Now,’ Minou said, ‘if you will excuse us.’
Hooking her arm through her brother’s, she walked them up into the house expecting at any moment to be summoned back. The instant the front door was closed, her legs seemed to turn to water.
‘We will pay for that,’ Aimeric said eagerly, ‘but it was worth it! Did you see her face?’
‘Her expression could have frozen the Aude in summer,’ Minou laughed. ‘But why were you in the courtyard? You were supposed to be keeping watch inside.’
‘I know, but moments after you’d gone, Madame Montfort went into the chapel. To check the door, perhaps, I don’t know. She was in there hardly any time at all. She stormed out and headed towards the stairs. I feared she’d catch you, so I ran out into the courtyard and dropped a pail of water down the steps, to make as much noise as possible, hoping to draw her away from the house.’
‘Well, it worked. You did excellently well.’
He gave a flamboyant bow. ‘Did you have enough time to talk to our aunt?’
‘I think I have put things right between us,’ she said. ‘She had not wanted to give credence to Madame Montfort’s lies, but she is so easily influenced. I have promised we will accompany her to Mass in an hour. She always goes on Friday, but Madame Montfort had refused to allow it in light of the troubles. She feared to defy her sister-in-law.’
‘I’m not going to church,’ Aimeric protested.
‘I would have you with me,’ she said. ‘There is another reason for it. I have learnt that our mother, on the occasion of my birth, sent our aunt a French bible.’