by Kate Mosse
Had he been drugged?
Vidal swung his legs over the side of the bed. Again, the movement sent his head spinning. It felt like iron, not blood in his veins, and like an old and wounded animal, he could barely move.
Slowly, he stood up. His robes and crucifix were scattered on the floor, where she had pulled them from him in the heat of their lovemaking. He was relieved to see her black dress hanging on the back of the door. Perhaps Blanche had only gone to wash. Then he realised her white underskirt, and the ornate rosary that she always carried, were both missing. When he bent down to pick up his crucifix, he saw her shoes were no longer there.
Had she gone to the dungeon without him? He prayed she had not. Her behaviour had been becoming increasingly alarming. Ungoverned. She was afflicted with some deep melancholy in the one instant, then an ecstasy of equal passion in the next. Was it the baby that so affected Blanche’s wits? Would she return to herself after the birth, or was she changed forever?
No, the affair must end. He would take steps to distance himself from her and from Puivert. He had already intended to go north into the Tarn, before returning to Toulouse. This confirmed that was the right decision.
Once dressed, Vidal made his way down the winding stone stairs of the keep, looking into each chamber in search of her.
‘Lady Bruyère? Blanche? Are you here?’
She was not in the musicians’ gallery, nor the chapel.
He descended another flight and stepped out into the courtyard as the bells of the village church chimed the half-hour. What time was it? From the light, between six and seven o’clock in the morning? The grass glistered with dew, but sun was painting the tops of the towers golden.
Vidal went into the logis. Servants bowed and moved out of his way. Taking the stairs two at a time, his muscles fighting him every step of the way, he burst into the chamber where the child had been held.
An empty chair, the ties cut in half and lying on the floor.
He felt a kind of panic mounting in his chest as he doubled back, trying to run. He staggered from the upper to the lower courtyard, heading for the Tour Bossue, when Bonal came rushing to meet him.
‘Monsignor, I had not thought to see you so early.’
‘What is the hour?’
‘The clock has struck the half after six.’
Vidal paused, a wave of nausea felling him.
‘Have you seen the Lady Blanche?’
‘I thought she was with . . .’ he began, then remembered himself. ‘I thought the lady to be in her chamber, Monsignor.’
‘She was, but is no longer. The girl is gone too.’
Bonal’s eyes narrowed. ‘No one has come through the gatehouse.’
Vidal waved his arms. ‘Where is she? We must find her.’
‘I know not, Monsignor. I can report, however, the grave news that Paul Cordier slipped from the path in the dark and fell. He is not expected to recover.’
Vidal nodded, then another surge of sickness hit him, and he swayed. Bonal stepped forward and caught him only just in time.
‘Is there something wrong, Monsignor? Are you unwell?’
‘I . . . she . . .’ He steadied himself. ‘Fetch the captain. I would have access to the dungeons.’
‘I don’t think I should leave you –’
‘Go!’ Vidal shouted, his voice echoing through the silence of the courtyard.
Bonal bowed, then the sound of raised voices at the gatehouse made them both turn.
‘No. Madame,’ a guard was insisting. ‘If you please. You cannot come in without permission. My lady does not allow –’
Vidal frowned, trying to focus on the short and stout figure striding into the courtyard. A familiar figure, but in unfamiliar surroundings. There was the same look of consternation on Bonal’s face.
‘Forgive me, Monsignor, but is that not the wife of Monsieur Boussay?’
Salvadora Boussay did not like to arrive unannounced.
In Toulouse, there was a correct way to do things and she took great pains not to make mistakes. The wives of the other secretaries at the Hôtel de Ville were quick to judge and it made her husband angry when she embarrassed him. But these were strange circumstances. Madame Boussay put her qualms to one side and, ignoring the continuing protests of the guard at her back, walked towards the keep.
It was only then she realised the courtyard wasn’t empty. There were two men, standing close together. She frowned, then she realised one wore the red robes of a priest, and she was reassured.
Her relief lasted only an instant. If his robes made him look like any other, his hair gave him away. Jet black with a white streak. Momentarily, she weakened. Was her flight known? Had her husband sent Monsignor Valentin to bring her back?
But how would he know she was here? He couldn’t possibly.
The experiences of the past week travelling with her nephew had given her a new strength. She raised her chin. She would brazen it out.
‘Monsignor Valentin,’ she said graciously. ‘What a great surprise to see you here, a very joyous surprise, yes indeed. Are you here to visit Lady Bruyère also?’
To her astonishment, she saw panic flare in the priest’s eyes, though it was quickly masked.
‘You are well met, Madame Boussay. As you say, a surprise.’ He glanced over her shoulder. ‘And your noble husband? Monsieur Boussay is accompanying you?’
‘He is not,’ she said calmly. ‘He is always thinking of my welfare, so thought Puivert would be safer while the situation in Toulouse resolved itself. And you, Monsignor Valentin? Are you avoiding the troubles?’
‘Not at all. The chatelaine is only recently widowed,’ he said. ‘With a child due at any time, there is need for spiritual guidance.’
Madame Boussay inclined her head. ‘Of course. How good of you to come so far to fulfil your duties. It is no wonder my husband speaks so highly of you.’
For a moment, they held one another’s gaze. Both smiled insincerely. The stalemate was broken by his manservant, who had withdrawn during the conversation, reappearing at his master’s shoulder and whispering in his ear.
Vidal’s eyes widened. ‘What did you say?’
‘It appears that the woods are on fire,’ Bonal repeated, not caring to drop his voice. ‘And the nurse says she saw Lady Blanche and the child walking that way before dawn.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
With the soldiers flanking her on either side, Minou walked on through the trees. She could hear the crackle and hiss of green branches burning. The pungent smoke came slinking eerily through the woods like a black mist.
Minou reached the glade, and stopped.
For a moment, her eyes couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. It was like a painting, an arranged tableau, the light and the colours and the style all speaking to an artist’s hand. The early sun filtered through the canopy of fresh spring leaves, a whole spectrum of yellows and greens and silvers. On the far side of the clearing, a line of beech and alder looked like sentinels marking the boundary. Behind them, the rougher brown trunks of the evergreens stood in the deeper forest.
She raised her bound hands to shield her face from the heat of the flames.
In the centre of the glade, the fire was burning. Built on the foundation of a rotting fallen tree, its roots twisted like an old man’s hand, it glowed red in its hollow centre and charred black on the outside. On top of it had been piled branches and hewn planks of old timber, the flames licking and darting between the gaps.
Then Minou heard singing.
‘Veni Creator Spiritus,
Mentes tuorum visita . . .’
The same few words over and again, the battle hymn said to have been sung by the Crusader armies as they massacred the Cathars of Béziers and La Cité.
‘Come, Holy Spirit,
And in our souls take up Thy rest.’
Despite the fierce heat, Minou shivered. She glanced at the soldiers beside her, then saw a wooden stake had been hammered into
the ground. And though it made no sense that such a thing could be happening – on a May morning in Puivert – she understood that a pyre had been built.
A hundred paces beyond the glade to the north, two men and a boy crouched in the undergrowth.
‘Why would anyone be wanting to build a fire here, of all places?’ Bérenger muttered. ‘If the wind changes, the whole woods could go up. It’s so dry.’
‘What can you see?’ Aimeric hissed.
‘Nothing much. The smoke’s too thick.’
‘Someone’s singing.’
‘I can hear it too,’ Piet said; the thin sound carried on the breeze above the cracking of the fire.
The air cleared for a brief moment of clarity.
‘Hold, I can see someone,’ he said. ‘A priest, I think. In white robes. Some kind of special service for Pentecost? What say you, Bérenger? Could it be some older ritual observed up here in the mountains?’
‘We don’t have anything like it in Carcassonne, that’s a fact.’
Piet turned back. ‘In fact, no. It’s not a priest. It’s a woman.’
‘Madame Noubel?’ Bérenger said quickly.
‘I’m sorry, my friend, no. Younger. Black hair.’
Bérenger drew breath. ‘Could it be Blanche de Bruyère? I only had that one glimpse of her in La Cité, but her hair’s as black as a crow’s wing.’
‘And she has someone with her. A child.’ Piet beckoned Aimeric to join him, putting his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Is that Alis?’
Piet felt him tense when he saw the rope around the girl’s neck.
‘Yes, that’s her. My little sister.’
Aimeric’s hand went to his dagger.
‘No,’ Piet said quickly, pulling him back. ‘We will save Alis, but we’ve got to be careful. If we act too soon, we’ll put her in greater danger. We don’t even know how many we’re up against.’
‘There are at least four soldiers,’ Bérenger said. ‘Two are stoking the fire and there are another two, possibly three, to the south. There might be more.’
‘Firearms?’
‘Can’t see. They’re carrying fuel for the fire, and swords, certainly.’
Piet slipped forward between the trees to get a better look, then stopped dead in his tracks. He saw two soldiers with Minou standing between them. Her hands were tied in front of her. As he watched, he saw them drag her to a wooden stake. Anger roared through him, but he forced himself to take deep breaths. Heeding his own advice to Aimeric. To act rashly, precipitately, could see them all killed.
‘Come forward,’ he whispered. ‘Quiet as you can.’
Bérenger and Aimeric crept alongside him.
‘She has Minou too,’ Piet said. ‘So now you’ve got to hold twice as firm. Don’t lose your head now. Your sisters need you. Do you hear?’
Aimeric was pale, but he looked determined. ‘Yes.’
‘We’ll get as close as we can without being seen,’ Piet said. ‘So far as we know, there are no more than four or five soldiers. There are three of us. Not good odds, but not too bad either.’
‘But Minou and Alis are both tied up, and so near the fire.’
‘And the Lady Blanche might be armed too,’ Bérenger said.
‘Even if she is not, there is a madness in her as dangerous as any sword,’ Piet observed quietly.
Desperate, yet powerless to intervene, they watched Blanche walk to where Minou was now tethered, pulling Alis behind her like a dog on a leash. When Alis saw her sister, she cried out and tried to reach out her hands to her. Blanche dragged on the rope and jerked her away.
‘Leave her!’ Minou shouted. ‘Do not hurt her.’
‘I will kill her,’ Aimeric hissed to Piet. ‘I swear to God, I will –’
‘What matters is saving Minou and Alis,’ Piet said roughly. ‘Don’t let anger cloud your judgement.’
‘It will be well,’ Bérenger said solidly, though the doubt shone clear in his voice. ‘Right is on our side.’
‘Let Alis go,’ Minou said. ‘It’s me you want.’
‘You are not in a position to bargain, Mademoiselle Joubert. You have been too slow. Kept me waiting too long.’
Minou’s heart was thundering with fury, but she was determined not to let it show. And though she kept her gaze firmly set on Blanche, alarmed by her over-bright eyes and unnaturally pale complexion, she could not but be astonished by the change in her little sister.
For so many days, Minou had been tortured with images of Alis ill and hungry, paler and thinner with each day passing. The opposite appeared to be true. In the seven weeks she’d been held hostage, Alis had grown taller and stronger. Her cheeks were pink from the mountain air and her curls a black halo around her face. For an instant, the relief of seeing her so transformed gave Minou courage.
‘Where is the Will?’ Blanche said. ‘You must give it to me.’
‘It is not in my possession.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It is the truth,’ Minou said in as steady a voice as she could manage. ‘It is also true that I want none of this. Puivert, the château, the inheritance you are fighting so hard to keep, you can have it all. I will sign over any rights to you in the presence of the notary, the priest, whomsoever you want. I give you my word I will do this, if you only let us go.’
‘Too late,’ Blanche murmured. ‘A time to live, and a time to die.’
‘I do not understand you,’ Minou said.
‘All would have been well if he had stopped talking. My dearly beloved, much mourned late husband, as he lay stinking and rotting and dying in his bed, railing against the world and the Devil waiting to take him. Talking and talking, sinner that he was. I couldn’t stop him. Setting the rumours going. Stealing my inheritance from me.’ She put her hands on her swollen belly and squeezed, as if trying to expel the baby ahead of its time. ‘I forbade the servants to listen, but they would not stop their ears. I had them flogged, but they would not stop talking. I told them his mind was wandering, he was confused. It was this thing inside me – this was the child he meant – but the rumours wouldn’t be stopped. Too many words, too many.’
‘You killed him,’ Minou said in a level voice.
‘A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to kill. Yes, that is it,’ Blanche said, as if it was nothing to take a life.
Minou cast a quick look at Alis, wanting to give her courage.
‘God spoke to me and I obeyed,’ Blanche was saying. ‘As must we all. We are nothing, we are sinners. And then he was buried deep in the ground, his mouth full of earth, and he was no longer speaking. But there was the old woman, you see. Riddled with the sin of pride, she was. Like a cancer. Spreading sinful lies through the village about a Will and a child that she had delivered. Not dead. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. The voices told me.’
‘Anne Gabignaud,’ Minou said. ‘She wrote to warn me.’
Blanche carried on as if Minou had not spoken.
‘A time to get, and a time to lose?’ Blanche pulled Alis to her, who cried out as the rope cut into her neck. ‘Is it time for you to be lost?’ she whispered. ‘For you to lose?’
Instinctively, Minou leant forward but her bonds kept her tied to the post. She was powerless to help. Then, with a jolt, she realised the wind was moving round, sending the smoke billowing towards the beech trees on the far side of the glade. Spots of black ash started to settle on Blanche’s white gown.
‘The wind’s turning,’ Minou cried. ‘Step back from the fire.’
‘It is only through fire we are redeemed,’ Blanche cried.
Minou struggled harder, managing to loosen the ropes a little.
‘She took a long time to die,’ Blanche said. ‘She had more fight in her than her years should allow.’
‘Are you talking of Madame Gabignaud?’ Minou asked again, thinking that if the soldiers heard her admit to murdering the old midwife, then they would surely refuse to serve such a mistress.
&
nbsp; Blanche brought her wild gaze to settle upon Minou again, stepping in closer.
‘More fight than my husband. He was like a mewling baby in the end.’
‘Who had more fight in her?’ Minou tried for the third time.
‘The midwife, don’t you understand anything? She could not keep her mouth shut either. Told me one of my predecessors, your sainted mother, was a heretic. Did you know that? A Huguenot. She saved a Protestant baby! She deserved to die for that alone.’
Without warning, Blanche’s hand suddenly shot out and grabbed Minou round the throat.
Minou struggled frantically, but Blanche pressed tighter, crushing her windpipe. She could no longer breathe.
‘I will not let the child of a Huguenot whore steal my inheritance from me. A time to live, and a time to die. It is the only way. This is the word of God. It is God’s will. It is His will.’
Minou caught Alis’s eye as Blanche’s grip suddenly loosened. ‘My favourite sister,’ she whispered to give her courage.
‘Your only sister,’ the little girl mouthed back.
Then everything seemed to happen at once. Minou kicked out at Blanche’s knees. At the same time, Alis put both hands on the rope and yanked it hard, pulling the end free from Blanche’s hand. She started to run.
‘Stop her!’ Blanche screamed.
The soldiers sprang forward, but Alis was already hurtling for the cover of the woods, trying to get the noose up and over her head as she went.
‘Now!’ Piet yelled.
Piet, Aimeric and Bérenger broke cover and ran roaring into the glade. Piet took on the soldiers stoking the fire. Aimeric ran to help Alis. Bérenger tried to reach Minou.
The wind spiralled and spun in the glade, as the northerly wind swung round, and a strong south-westerly began to blow along the river valley. Smoke was gusting and billowing, swirling in all directions at once.
Then, a spark jumped from the pyre onto the oil-soaked noose carried by one of the soldiers chasing Alis. The rope burst into flames in his arms. He screamed as the fire caught at his beard and hair, trying in vain to beat it out with his hands. Minou could smell the scorch of his skin as he stumbled and fell.