The Burning Chambers

by Kate Mosse

  And at that moment, Cécile knew where Alis had been taken and why; she knew Bernard’s suspicions were justified. She understood that all the strange, seemingly unconnected events could be traced back to the last day of October nearly twenty years ago.

  Old secrets cast long shadows . . .

  TOULOUSE

  Whispering to one another through the locked door of Aimeric’s chamber, where Madame Montfort had again confined him, Minou finished telling him what she and Piet had agreed. And though she grieved for having to leave Piet, her brother’s joy at learning they were going back to Carcassonne cheered her.

  ‘If we are going home,’ he hissed back, ‘I don’t mind anything.’

  ‘I will get hold of the key to let you out of here.’

  Aimeric laughed. ‘No need. The latch on the casement window is loose. It’s easy to climb out onto the ledge, along the roof of the grain store, and down. I’ve done it plenty of times.’

  ‘Be careful,’ she said sternly. ‘Bring only what you cannot bear to be parted from. I will do the same. We will meet just before seven o’clock in the stables in rue des Pénitents Gris.’

  ‘Will Piet be there?’

  She wished she could tell him yes. The truth was, she didn’t know.

  ‘Don’t be late,’ she whispered. ‘We have this one chance.’

  Minou hurried back to her own chamber. She dragged the nightstand across the floor and wedged it under the handle of the door. At any moment, Madame Montfort might take it upon herself to storm in and demand to know where she had been all afternoon. Minou tilted her head to one side, listening, but the house was oddly quiet.

  Aware of how little time she had, she fetched her old woollen travelling cloak, and a needle and thread. She padded her fingers around the hem of the cloak until she found the fold in the material concealing a hidden pocket, then worked the opening wide enough for her hand. Next, she took the grey square of fabric from Piet’s satchel and laid it out on the table. Though raised a Catholic, she disliked the cult of relics, seeing it as a throwback to superstitious times when women and men knew no better. What holy or transcendent significance could possibly be found in an old splinter of wood or a fragment of torn cloth? But when Minou unwrapped the binding and lifted out the antique material with its unfamiliar stitched lettering, the beauty of the Shroud’s long and deep history moved her to tears.

  She imagined it in the hands of a grieving woman in the Holy Land, or being transported across the sea on a Crusader ship sailing home from Antioch to Marseille, or carried along the old Roman road from Narbonne to Carcassonne to its final resting place in Toulouse. Now, in the glister and shifting of the late afternoon light, Minou understood why Piet, a Huguenot and a man who lived in the modern world, had not been able to bring himself to let this fragment of cloth be bartered or destroyed. He had kept it safe, and had now charged her to do the same.

  She would not fail him.

  Minou removed her hairbrush and glass from their leather casing, rolled the Shroud carefully inside and sealed the lid with melted candle wax. Easing the narrow tube into the seam of her cloak, pushing it round as far as she could, she sewed up the gap in the hem. In her haste, she pricked her fingers, leaving two drops of blood on the green wool.

  Finally, she turned her attention to the bible, comforted by the idea that her mother had once held this same book in her hands. Minou ran her fingers over the leather binding, wrinkled like the skin on the back of an old man’s hand, and smoothed the thin silk ribbon, cornflower-blue, set to serve as a page mark. The painted silver leaf around the bible’s edges seemed to sparkle and shine and, inside, diaphanous pages carried the imprint of a delicate black and red script. The edition looked as if it might be valuable. Her father would know. Distracted from her task for a moment, she again wondered at his silence. She comforted herself that tomorrow, when she and Aimeric arrived back in Carcassonne, she would be able to ask him all the questions that had filled her mind these past weeks. Not least to find out if he had known about this beautiful Protestant bible sent by Florence to her sister.

  Minou held the book up to the light, tilting the pages so that the light fell on them through the window. She turned to the frontispiece and looked at the dedication and the name of the translator – Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples – as well as the year and place of its printing: 1534 in Antwerp. The page was bordered by simple black and white etchings, all scenes from scripture.

  Then she noticed, tucked in a pocket at the back, a folded sheet of parchment. Her heart sped up. Might it be a letter from her mother to her aunt? Hardly daring to open it, for fear it might crumble to dust, Minou placed it on the table and carefully unfolded it.

  No, it was not her mother’s handwriting.

  This is the day of my death.

  And not a letter at all, but a Will.

  As the Lord God is my witness, here, by my own hand, do I set this down. My last Will and Testament.

  Minou’s eye skipped ahead to the name inscribed at the foot of the document: Marguerite de Puivert. Beyond the coincidence of it being her own given name, it meant nothing. Then she saw the two names written below it, and the date, and she turned cold. The thirty-first day of October in the year fifteen forty-two.

  The day of her birth.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Minou folded the Will back inside the bible and pushed it into the lining of her cloak.

  She cast around the chamber. She spied her birthstone, a pink tourmaline brooch, and pinned the hem with it. Then she lifted the mattress, and took the letter with the red seal from its hiding place.

  A sudden hammering on the door made her jump.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called.

  ‘You must come,’ Aimeric shouted, struggling to open the door.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, dragging the nightstand out of the way and Aimeric burst into the room. ‘Why are you here? We agreed to meet at the stables –’

  ‘Come now,’ he said, grabbing her arm. ‘I swear he has gone mad. He’s trying to kill her.’

  Monsieur Boussay took his cane from its usual place behind his chair. His wife took a step away from him.

  ‘No. Please, no. I give you my word. I said nothing, husband.’

  ‘You disobeyed me.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘The boy wanders as he wills through the streets, like a common urchin, and now I discover the girl has been meeting with a known Huguenot in our church in rue Saint-Taur. Aided by you.’ He advanced on her. ‘How do you think that makes me look? That I cannot even control the women under my roof.’

  ‘I am sure you are mistaken,’ she said, backing away from him even though she knew it would do no good. ‘Minou is an honest girl. A dutiful niece. She would not meet a man unchaperoned. I’m sure you are mistaken.’

  ‘Are you questioning my judgement?’

  ‘No, no, of course I would not,’ she stammered.

  ‘You lie. My sister, acting upon my orders, saw them. While you pretended to pray, she was meeting with this heretic in a side chapel.’

  ‘I do not believe it,’ Salvadora said, her voice trembling. ‘Indeed, my sister-in-law, virtuous as she is, does not like Minou and will say—’

  ‘Be quiet, you pathetic hag.’ He brought the stick sharply down on the desk. ‘In these times, when everything is under such scrutiny, you have encouraged your whore of a niece to defy me. You have made a fool of me.’

  Salvadora shrank further back, taking tiny steps as if he would not notice, until she could go no further. He whipped the air with the stick, as if it was a sword, then within three strides he was standing in front of her.

  ‘Husband, I do not. I do everything I can to –’

  He poked the skin beneath her chin. ‘You not only encourage your niece and your nephew to defy me, but you spur them to laugh at me behind my back.’

  ‘Never,’ she said. ‘I would not.’

  He ripped the ruff from her neck, then tore her partl
et open so her flesh was exposed.

  ‘You need to learn what it means to be a loyal wife. An obedient wife.’

  ‘We have to stop him!’ Minou shouted.

  Though Madame Montfort looked shaken, her eyes were bright with defiance.

  ‘She is his wife. It is his right to discipline her in the way he sees fit.’

  ‘Discipline her? How can you stand by and let anyone be treated so vilely, not least such a sweet and gentle woman?’

  Minou made another attempt to get past, but Madame Montfort stood firmly in front of the study door. ‘This is not your business.’

  Freed by the knowledge that they were to leave the Boussay house, Aimeric flew at her. Every punishment, every humiliation he’d suffered at her hands, spurred him on. He knocked her off balance and pulled her hood over her eyes.

  ‘Get away from me, you devil!’ she cried, staggering forward into the wainscoting.

  Minou darted past and tried the handle.

  ‘It’s locked from the inside,’ she said. ‘Give me your keys.’

  But Madame Montfort was already hurrying away down the passageway.

  ‘Shall I go after her?’ Aimeric said. ‘More likely than not she’s gone to fetch Martineau.’

  ‘There isn’t time,’ Minou cried in desperation, rattling the handle again. ‘We can’t get in.’

  ‘I can,’ Aimeric replied, doubling back along the passageway and out to the courtyard.

  ‘Please husband, no . . .’ Salvadora pleaded, then cried out as Boussay brought the stick down across her bare shoulders.

  ‘You allow them to take liberties,’ he said, striking again. ‘You are careless of my reputation with your pitiful gossip, your stupidity.’ He brought a third blow down, this time catching her cheek.

  Salvadora was sobbing, crouched on the floor with her hands over her head, for fear of where the next blow might land. For fear of how long the beating might last.

  ‘Get up,’ he said, kicking her with his foot, ‘you disgusting, foul, feeble-minded hag. Whimpering like a bitch in heat, you disgust me.’

  Minou was astonished none of the servants had come running. She banged on the door, trying to drown out the pitiful sounds of her weeping aunt’s desperate pleas for mercy.

  Then there was a crash, and an ominous silence.

  ‘Aunt,’ Minou shouted, banging louder. ‘Aunt!’

  It seemed an eternity before she heard the turn of the key in the lock. Moments later Aimeric pulled open the study door.

  ‘Brilliant boy,’ she said, rushing into the chamber.

  ‘I think I might have killed him,’ he said, ashen faced.

  She glanced to where their uncle lay slumped over the desk in front of the open window, a trail of red blood dripping down his temple and shards of white pottery scattered around him.

  Minou rushed to her aunt, who was curled in a ball on the floor, her face and chest a mass of bruises, and her arms and hands marked with red stripes where she had tried to protect herself.

  Minou picked up the cane and snapped it over her knee. She cast her eyes around, saw her uncle’s cloak on the back of the door, and put it around her aunt’s shoulders to cover her injuries.

  ‘Dear Aunt,’ she said, ‘it is all right. You are safe now.’

  ‘No,’ she was sobbing, ‘no, you should not be in here. Monsieur Boussay will be angry. It was my fault. I am sure I deserved it, for I should not have provoked him.’

  ‘We must go,’ Minou said, refusing to allow herself to be angry. Not yet. ‘Can you stand, Aunt?’

  She beckoned Aimeric to shield their aunt from the sight of her husband, unconscious and bloodied.

  ‘Monsieur Boussay is so relied upon,’ she muttered in a high, childlike voice. ‘It is to be expected. He always did have a fierce temper. I learnt that soon enough . . .’ Her eyes suddenly flared wide with terror. ‘Where is he? Has he gone? Has the capitoul come to ask his counsel? Is that it? He is so important. In these treacherous times, ever more so.’

  ‘Yes,’ Minou replied, understanding her aunt’s wits had frayed with shock. ‘That is right. He has gone to the Hôtel de Ville with his colleagues. Aimeric brought him the message.’

  ‘So, he is gone away? My husband is gone? He is not in the house?’

  Minou heard the hope in her aunt’s voice and her heart clenched. She saw one of her eyes was swollen and there was a clear crimson scar, a mark of the cane, from her temple to her jaw.

  ‘Monsieur Boussay has gone. He will not need you this evening.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her aunt seemed to collapse in her arms. Aimeric leapt forward, and together they walked her towards the door. ‘If he is gone, then I might rest a while? That would be allowed, I think? No one could blame me.’

  They helped her from the room and into the window seat in the long corridor.

  ‘It is your house, dear Aunt,’ Minou said. ‘You can do whatsoever you wish.’

  ‘What about him?’ Aimeric mouthed, jerking his head in the direction of the study.

  She could see the lace of her uncle’s cravat was rising and falling with each breath and, though Minou wished him dead for his cruelty, she was relieved for all their sakes that he was not.

  ‘Did you take his keys?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then we will lock him in and take the key with us.’

  ‘What about Madame Montfort. She knows we were here.’

  Minou frowned. ‘I don’t know where she’s gone. Help me take Aunt to her chamber. We need warm water and cloth, a little wine. Don’t tell anyone. She would not want her servants to see her like this.’

  ‘There’s no one else here,’ Aimeric said. ‘I was on my way to let you know when I heard Boussay shouting.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I saw the carts being loaded in the kitchen yard. Everyone has gone.’

  Minou stopped. ‘Are you saying that, apart from us, the house is empty?’

  ‘I don’t know about Martineau, but all the other servants have been sent away. I watched them go. Madame Montfort is the only one left. Uncle ordered her to wait to give the soldiers entry to the basement, then she was to follow to a safe house in the quartier Saint-Cyprien across the river.’

  Minou felt a stillness seep through her. ‘Then it’s true. It’s tonight.’

  ‘What’s tonight?’

  ‘It’s why Piet made arrangements for us to leave Toulouse so urgently. There is a Huguenot plan to take the city.’

  ‘So Boussay sent everyone to safety but us. The treacherous, vile, pox-ridden –’

  ‘Never mind that.’ Minou frowned. ‘But it suggests the Catholics know of the planned attack. They will be waiting for them.’

  ‘More than anything, I want to go home. But if what you say is true, I want to stay here with Piet in Toulouse and fight.’

  ‘I will not let you,’ Minou said quickly.

  ‘Don’t you understand, I hate them! Our uncle, the witch Montfort, all the overfed hypocrites who come to this house. I’m ashamed to be a Catholic.’

  Minou sighed. ‘I understand, petit, and your courage and sense of honour do you credit. But Piet has arranged for us to leave, and that’s what we are going to do.’

  On the window seat, their aunt suddenly started to mutter.

  ‘Is he here? Is my husband coming back?’

  Minou quickly moved to her side. ‘No, he’s gone. You are quite safe.’

  Aimeric joined them. ‘What are we going to do? We can’t leave her here.’

  ‘We will have to take her with us,’ she said.

  ‘To Carcassonne? She’ll never come.’

  ‘For the time being, let’s just concentrate on getting her away from the house. Are your belongings packed?’

  Aimeric pulled a face. ‘There is nothing of this house that I would keep, not a single thing.’

  ‘Good, then can you take her to rue des Pénitents Gris. I’ll join you there. There is something I must fetch from my chamber.’


  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  ‘Seize him,’ Vidal shouted again.

  But Piet was quicker. He grabbed the door and smashed it back on its hinges as hard as he could, catching the first soldier flush in the face. He heard the crack of bone and saw blood spurt from his nose as he fell, cursing, to the floor.

  A man was advancing towards him. Dark hair, with a vivid scar on his cheek. Piet stabbed his dagger into the top of his hand, disabling him for long enough to get out of the chamber.

  As he took the stairs two by two by two, Piet realised why the man had seemed familiar in the Fournier house in La Cité. He was also the captain who had raided the boarding house in the Bastide.

  Vidal’s man.

  If he’d had any illusions of his former friend’s intentions, they had been torn to shreds. Thinking of their last conversation in the borrowed house in the rue de Notre Dame, Piet was shocked by how much his own need to be reconciled with Vidal had blinded him.

  He flung open the door to the street, hoping to gull his pursuivants into thinking he had fled into rue des Pénitents Gris, but then doubled back to a door set beneath the stairwell that led down to the series of tunnels beneath the buildings. Vidal knew the university quarter of Toulouse as well as Piet did himself. It was their old stomping ground, these narrow streets and alleyways around the Collège de Foix and the alleyways that linked the humanist college and the maison de charité in rue du Périgord. But the escape tunnels were new. He was relying on Vidal not being aware that the cellars beneath the street were now connected.

  Pushing the spiders’ webs away from his face, Piet made his way down the subterranean passageway. He felt only a cold desire for retribution. Until now, whenever Jean Barrelles had preached from the pulpit that Huguenots should rise up against oppression, Piet had argued for calm. Whenever his comrades had spoken of persecution, he’d responded that not all Catholics were the same. No longer. Now, when the battle started, he would stand on the barricades alongside his Protestant brothers and fight.

  His breath was burning in his throat, from betrayal as much as from exertion. The ground began to slope upwards and he extended his pace, running his hand along the wall to ensure he did not overshoot his destination in the gloom.