by Kate Mosse
Raoul turned left into a narrow dead-end road, rue Petite Côte de la Cité. The houses, two and three storeys high, showed the signs of many families crammed in together. Boarded windows and cracked wooden shutters, crumbling brickwork and peeling paint. The street sloped steeply, leading to a flight of worn stone steps with high flint walls on either side. It led up to the Cité through densely cultivated market gardens. Branches of fig trees, bare of fruit, hung low over the steps and pinpricks of green light from glow-worms illuminated the dark cracks between the stones.
Raoul took the steps two at a time, barely pausing for breath. Sandrine kept pace. Up, up they climbed, following the winding steps round, until suddenly they were out in the open space below the Porte d’Aude, the western entrance into the Cité. Straight ahead were the sheer western walls of the Château Comtal, the Tour Pinte, like a finger pointing to heaven.
For a fleeting instant, Monsieur Baillard came into her mind. Remembering his voice, rich with age and knowledge, telling of how the Tour Pinte bowed down to Charlemagne on Dame Carcas’ orders. The last time, or so he told her, that the powers of the Codex had been called upon. Sandrine shook her head, surprised that she should think such a thing at such a moment. She had no time for fairy tales now. But even so, as she cleared the last of the steps, she couldn’t help casting her eyes, briefly, to the dark sky.
Was Monsieur Baillard up there? Looking down on their endeavours, keeping them safe? Sandrine couldn’t believe in such superstition, in a God that let such things happen, but sometimes she envied Marieta’s simple faith. And she wondered why Monsieur Baillard was so vivid in her memory tonight.
‘Which way?’ Raoul whispered.
Her reflections scattered. ‘Right. Follow the path all the way along, then come back at the Tour du Grand Burlas from the gardens to the south.’
Raoul nodded.
‘Keep as low as you can.’
Sandrine was aware of the patrols on the walls, the great white beams of the searchlights as they swept over the grass and slopes. There was a patch of exposed land between the top of the stone steps and the market gardens. Even today, the south-western corner of the Cité was still rural. Orchards and wooded gardens, pens that once held rabbits and chickens. There was little meat to be had now, except in the dining room of the Hôtel de la Cité or the garrison mess in the Hôtel Terminus, where a portrait of Adolf Hitler looked down from the fireplace in the salle à manger where once the jazz band played.
Raoul covered the distance first, clutching the bag to his chest like a child held close. Waiting for the sign it was safe to follow, Sandrine looked back out over the Bastide. In her mind’s eye she saw the glittering outline of the town in the days before the war, the bars and restaurants and houses all lit up, garlanded about like a string of pearls.
Then, through the silence, the low chug-chug-chug call of an owl. Sandrine smiled, picturing Raoul with his hands cupped round his mouth, breathing the sounds into the darkness, and immediately she set out to join him.
Together they followed the line of the outer ring of fortifications. Here, in the old days, Marieta had told her, the Spanish textile workers laid out their swathes of cloth on the grass to dry, like the huge sails of seafaring boats. The distinctive outline of the Tour du Grand Burlas loomed into view, lit suddenly a ghostly white as the cloud cleared the face of the moon.
This was the most dangerous part of the operation. The Cité was highly guarded, patrolled day and night, but there was a moment at midnight when the watch swapped over. There had been no trouble in this part of Carcassonne for weeks, and after several days of observation, Suzanne had reported that the four Wehrmacht soldiers tended to share a cigarette and pass a few minutes together before the new patrol relieved the old. That was their chance to get in through the postern gate and leave the device in the store at the base of the tower, then get away before the lights were manned once more.
Raoul lowered his bag to the ground, reached inside for a pair of pliers.
‘Can you get to work on that?’ he said, indicating the padlock on the wooden door of the tower.
She gave a mock salute.
‘Very funny,’ he said drily, but his voice cracked with tension.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said.
‘Let’s just get on with it and get away as soon as we can.’
Sandrine manoeuvred the pliers backwards and forwards, twisting the chain until the metal gave and the padlock fell to the ground.
‘Surely they’ll search everywhere before Authié arrives?’ Raoul whispered.
‘Yes, but I’m gambling on them concentrating their efforts close to the hotel. They’ll expect something when he arrives and leaves. If they do find it, then we’ll have to think of something else. Try again.’
Dread suddenly took hold of her, the thought of success and the thought of failure both equally repellent.
‘Are you all right?’
Sandrine pulled herself together. This was how it had to be. Men like Authié forced them to live like this. There was no room for sentiment.
‘Fine,’ she said quickly. ‘Do you have the torch?’
Raoul held the weak beam steady. Sandrine took out the primer and the roll of coarse twine rolled in gunpowder. Next, the detonating cord, treated with a fabric waterproof covering, though it was hardly necessary. It had been dry for weeks. Filled with PETN, it would detonate at about six thousand metres per second. Lastly she took a thin copper tube from the bag, about six centimetres long. One of the ends was open.
‘I haven’t seen one like this before,’ Raoul whispered.
‘It’s a non-electric blasting cap,’ she explained. ‘No idea how Suzanne got hold of it. It goes in the end, here. Then all I have to do is crimp it into place to ensure the main charge blows.’
With deft fingers, Sandrine finished what had to be done. Then she checked and double-checked everything was in place, and stood up.
‘C’est fait.’ All done.
Raoul turned off the torch. Sandrine carefully carried the device into the tower. When she came out, Raoul pulled the door to and reattached the padlock so that it wouldn’t be obvious, from a distance at least, that anyone had been in there.
Another cloud passed across the moon. Raoul suddenly put his hand around Sandrine’s waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her hard on the mouth, seconds before the silver beam of the searchlight lit the grass around the base of the tower.
‘Let me come back and finish it,’ he said, releasing her. ‘You’ve done enough.’
Sandrine shook her head and touched his cheek with her hand. ‘Come on,’ she said.
The soldier on duty in the Tour Grand Canissou was flicking through an American magazine, pin-up girls in bathing suits, pretty in polka dots and bright lipstick. He noticed nothing. Everyone was on duty tomorrow, extra security, but tonight was like any other night. They’d been told to keep an eye out for any unusual activity, but it was as quiet as the grave. He lit a cigarette and looked across at the other towers, thinking about his girl in Michelstadt, wondering how she’d look in a swimming suit like Jinx Falkenburg. He glanced at his wristwatch, seeing that he still had a full four hours before his shift ended.
But the zealous guard in the Tour de Inquisition was looking north out of the ramparts and thought he saw a figure in the shadows below the outer walls, just below the Tour de la Justice. He watched it disappear into the long grasses below the stone barbican that led down towards église Saint-Gimer in the quartier du Barbacane. When the shape was out of sight, he radioed his commander.
‘One person sighted,’ he said down the uneven line. ‘Western sector of La Cité, below the Château Comtal.’
‘Man, woman?’
‘I couldn’t tell.’
‘Very well,’ his commander replied. ‘The order is to investigate anything unusual and report back. If you find something, don’t disturb it. Leave everything in place. We don’t want them to know they’ve been seen.’
To the south-west of the Cité, Raoul and Sandrine followed the narrow footpath leading down to the Domaine de Fontgrande.
‘My uncle worked those vines,’ he said softly. ‘Autumn after autumn, carrying a high wicker basket on his back filled with purple grapes, white grapes. He had a stubby, thick-bladed knife for cutting the vines. Bruno and I loved it, argued all the time about whose turn it was to use it.’ He wriggled his fingers. ‘I still remember that tingling atmosphere waiting for the perfect moment for the vendanges, everyone watching the sky for the harvest to begin, chasing the clouds.’ He paused. ‘Even his dog used to sit and watch the sky.’
Sandrine was struck by the contrast between what they were doing and this unchanging rhythm of the South. Generations of families of the Aude valley living out their lives in the same steady way. Having a place in the world, being part of something bigger than themselves.
This, in the end, was what they were fighting for. To not have this way of life stolen from them. She felt suddenly weak with nostalgia. If everything went according to plan, when she left Carcassonne tomorrow she might never be able to return. Certainly not until the war was over. Whatever the outcome.
As she thought about all the places she would miss, she felt her heart coming unstitched a little, like tiny tears in a piece of cloth. All the lost opportunities, the small dreams that hadn’t had time to come true. In the darkness, she clutched for Raoul’s hand. Found it.
He squeezed, then she let go and they continued to thread their way down the narrow path in the silent darkness. Down past the Moulin du Roi and on to the island that lay between the Aude and one of its smaller tributaries. There was no bridge, but the river was low below the weir and provided they waited until the moon was obscured, it was a good place to cross back to the Bastide. It was common practice not to retrace one’s steps. It cut down the chance, in the event that someone reported them to the authorities, of them being able to give an accurate description.
Raoul crossed first. Sandrine crouched in the reeds and the shelter of the trees that went right down to the water’s edge, alert all the time to any sound, praying not to hear anything. No shouted orders, no report of a gun ringing out, nothing to indicate they’d been spotted. She noticed they weren’t far from where she and Raoul had first met. The place where she had pulled Antoine Déjean from the water and everything had been set in motion. For the third time that night, her thoughts went to Monsieur Baillard. Had he genuinely believed in a ghost army that would march to save the Midi? She supposed that now she would never know.
‘And the number was ten thousand times ten thousand.’
For the first time in many months, Antoine’s words came echoing back into her head, ringing as clear as a bell. And, for a moment, Sandrine thought she heard something, like she had before. A sense of voices calling out to her, somehow just beyond the limits of her hearing, but there all the same in the shimmering silence.
‘A sea of glass . . .’
Then she realised that what she was hearing was the absence of sound. No longer the lap, the ripple, of water, the noise of the river folding in and over upon itself as Raoul made his way across. She focused her eyes into the darkness, looked for his outline on the far bank.
He was safely across. Her turn now. Carefully, her muscles vibrating with anticipation, Sandrine stepped out into the water. The further she went into the current, the faster the water swirled about her legs, harder and fiercer against her calves, her knees, the backs of her thighs. Deeper, colder, and she struggled not to be knocked off her feet, but she was stronger now, and easily made it to the other side.
Raoul held out his hand and helped her up on to the bank. Together, they traced their way through the woods below the cimetière Saint-Michel, where they removed their night clothes. Sandrine took off her slacks, untucked her dress and tried to smooth out the creases, then from Raoul’s bag took her cherry-red shoes. Raoul changed his trousers, took off his pullover and put on a jacket. His felt hat was squashed, but Sandrine pushed it back into shape.
‘There,’ she whispered, as he shoved their damp clothes into the bag and concealed it in the crooked hollow beneath the gnarled roots of a tree. ‘So very smart.’
The curfew was still in place. It was observed rigorously in areas which were considered to be important or sensitive – in Place Carnot near the Milice or Waffen-SS offices, anywhere in the vicinity of any of the German military headquarters – but in quiet residential streets, mostly the patrols allowed the Carcassonnais to go about their business.
‘You look beautiful,’ Raoul whispered.
Sandrine looked at him in surprise. He wasn’t given to paying compliments, even to noticing. Sometimes she felt guilty, silly, for minding about something so unimportant.
‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
He led her towards the café at Païchérou. It was dark inside, with all the chairs tilted forward against the spindly white metal tables. The gates were shut, but they were not locked. He pushed them open a fraction, then pulled her inside.
‘What are you doing?’ she hissed. ‘We don’t want to push our luck.’
‘There’s no one here,’ he said, turning her round to face him and sweeping her into his arms.
‘Someone will see us!’
He paid no attention. ‘Didn’t you tell me your father promised to take you dancing at Païchérou on your twenty-first birthday?’
‘Well, yes,’ she said.
‘In his place, I feel it’s my duty to step in. A little ahead of time, I grant you. But it’s our anniversary, after all.’
She made a half-hearted effort to pull away. ‘Our anniversary?’
‘It’s the thirteenth of July, ma belle. Our two-year anniversary’s today.’
She became still in his arms. ‘I suppose it is,’ she said, a smile touching her lips. ‘Of course, you’re right. It is.’
‘And here we are by the same river. Except it’s not the Aude any more, but the river Seine.’
‘It is?’
‘Why not?’ he said eagerly, bringing the dream to life. ‘This is Paris. Can’t you hear the band? The trumpet, the accordion player with his fingers skating over the buttons? Can’t you hear Piaf? And here we are, dancing in a down-and-out nightclub on the Left Bank, me in my best suit, you – well, beautiful as always, for our second anniversary, with so many more to come. Listen to the band playing a song for us.’
Raoul began to sing under his breath in the darkness. His voice wasn’t strong, but he could hold a tune and the song came from the heart.
‘J’ai dansé avec l’amour, j’ai fait des tours et des tours . . .’
Sandrine followed his lead, moving gently in his arms, hearing in her mind the squashed blue notes of the saxophone, the rattle of champagne glasses and the rustle of silk dresses and beads.
‘. . . elle et moi, que c’était bon, l’amour avait dans ses yeux tant d’amour, tant d’amour.’
For a moment, the memory of the notes hung in the air. Then, he stepped back and pretended to clap.
‘And a round of applause, mesdames et messieurs. Another round of applause for la Môme Piaf and the band.’
For a moment they stood still, safe in their imaginations. The clouds cleared from the face of the moon and they were lit, uniquely, by silver light filtering through the canopy of the lime trees. Sandrine put her hand on the back of Raoul’s neck and drew his face close to hers, kissed him on the lips, then stepped back.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, appalled to find her eyes filling with tears.
Sensing the shift in her mood, Raoul twirled her round. ‘It was my pleasure, Mademoiselle Vidal.’ He nodded. ‘Same time, same place next week, perhaps?’
Sandrine could not answer.
Then his mood changed too. Common sense pushed romance and dreaming back to the shadows again. Carcassonne once more, not the intoxicating per
fume of champagne and the melody of Paris.
‘We should go,’ she said in her everyday voice. Not a voice hoarse with singing or the smoke of an imagined nightclub. She turned towards the gate that they had left ajar.
‘Sandrine,’ he said quickly, catching at her hand. ‘I love you. You know that?’
She stopped. ‘I know.’
‘And when this is over, all of this, I’ll take you dancing every weekend. Every night if you want to.’
Sandrine smiled. ‘Would my feet even stand it?’ she whispered.
‘Better times round the corner,’ he said. ‘Like in all those ghastly English songs they’re always playing.’
They stood together for a last moment, cheek to cheek, then Sandrine stepped back.
‘We must go,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ve been here too long.’
Raoul gripped her hand even more tightly. ‘I mean it, when it’s over, I’m going to show you such a time . . .’
‘We’ll be all right,’ she said, her voice suddenly fierce. ‘We’ll get through, if we can just hold out for a little bit longer. We’ll be fine, you and me. All of us.’
‘Yes?’
She heard the doubt in his voice and her heart cracked a little.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes. Now, come on. You can walk me home, Monsieur Pelletier. And if you’re good, I might even let you come in for a cup of cocoa!’
‘Cocoa!’ he laughed. ‘Now that’s too English for me! In any case, I should go to the bar and see if Bonnet and Yvette are there. Just in case she’s heard anything.’
The smile faded from Sandrine’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s sensible. We should make sure nothing’s changed.’
Together, with thoughts of the day ahead in their minds, they walked quietly, quickly through the sleeping streets of Carcassonne. The unreliable moon lighting their way home.
‡
Codex XX
‡
GAUL
TARASCO
JULY AD 344
Arinius stood with his brother-in-law, watching another sunrise over the Vallée des Trois Loups. Each day the soldiers did not come was a reprieve, though he knew the waiting was making the others careless. They were starting to take the threat less seriously.