by Kate Mosse
The sound reverberated around the woods, abrupt and harsh, as the bullet was discharged towards the keep. A white-backed woodpecker flew up into the sky in a startle of wings.
The assassin watched the whore sway, then saw the blossoming of red on green as she fell. He exhaled, then relaxed his shoulders. He could not be sure she was mortally wounded, but it was a palpable hit. Thanks be to God, his shot had found its target.
Slowly he let his arm drop. He took a deep breath, surprised to find his palms were damp. Then time rushed back. There was not a moment to lose. He had to put as many leagues between Puivert and himself before the alarm was raised.
The assassin stepped back into the cover of the woods, restless now to be gone. He gathered his meagre belongings, dismantled the pistol and placed it in his leather satchel, and kicked over the flattened leaves and bracken where he’d slept. He picked up the sack, stiff with dried blood, then dropped it back to the ground. It was a good haul, but the stench of decay was seeping through the hessian and, though the skins would keep for a while yet, the meat was already turning putrid.
He turned and headed for the track through the woods that would take him first to Chalabre, then north some ten leagues to the Catholic safe house in Carcassonne, where he would receive his reward.
As he ran low through the army of beech trees and silver birch, the assassin wondered again if the cardinal might allow him to keep the pistol. It was costly, but had he not fully earnt it in God’s service?
* * *
‘Steady,’ Minou murmured to her mare. The report of a gun, close at hand in the still afternoon, had startled the animal. She had nearly been thrown. ‘Steady now, steady.’
Minou had listened out for a second shot, but none had come. She hadn’t given permission for a hunt – and she did not think Piet would have done so without telling her – and, besides, the poachers of the Pyrenees still preferred a knife or bow and arrow to any kind of firearm. It was odd.
As soon as she had quietened her horse, Minou continued gently on towards the castle, still rehearsing what she was going to say to Piet. She hated there to be discord between them. Her anger at being unfairly criticised had given way to a desire for conciliation. Her father was right. If they could talk their troubles away, all would be well.
It wasn’t long before the outline of the keep came into view, then the long, low curtain of grey wall between the towers of the château de Puivert.
Nothing was stirring. The low arched gate that led into the kitchen gardens was closed, though she could hear the usual household sounds beyond the walls.
She patrolled the length of the northern walls, her watchful gaze switching between the château and the woods. Looking for something out of place, evidence of a gun being fired. She turned and this time, when she drew level with the outside of the Tour Bossue, she spied something in the undergrowth. Minou dismounted. The bay would not come near, so she tethered the animal then walked forward alone.
A dirty hessian sack was lying beneath the trees. Minou untied the neck and recoiled from the stench of the rotting flesh. She tipped the contents out on the ground. Several rats and two rabbits, one with its belly sliced open. Why would a poacher leave behind his spoils, meagre as they were?
Minou crouched down and ran her fingers over the leaves, noting how the grass was flattened in places. A single crust of bread, bone hard. Someone had sat here long enough to leave his mark.
As she stood, she heard banging. Steady, rhythmic, repetitive, the music of wood against stone? Minou raised her head and saw how the door that led onto the roof of the keep was ajar, swinging backwards and forwards in the wind.
Her first reaction was impatience. The top of the tower was so exposed to the elements – the harsh breath of the Tramontana, the driving rain, the snows in winter – that the door was always supposed to be kept secured. Then she wondered. Since no one else but her ever went up there, why was it now unlatched?
Leaving her horse, Minou hurried through the arched gate into the kitchen gardens, then, with a mounting sense of unease, she ran to the keep and up the stairs, her cloak flowing behind her.
On the roof, the wind cracked and blustered. Minou paused in the doorway, then her blood turned cold.
‘No…’
She was unwilling to trust the evidence of her eyes, but there was no doubt. Someone was lying collapsed on the ground, her arms stretched wide. A green hood, a green dress stained red by the blood pooling beneath her.
‘Alis!’ she cried, running to her sister. ‘Alis!’
Minou rolled her onto her side, trying to find the source of the bleeding. There was a deep gash on Alis’s temple, but the worst of the blood was flowing from a bullet wound in her back.
Using her kerchief as a tourniquet, Minou tried to stop the flow. Fresh blood instantly stained the white linen cloth red. She unpinned Alis’s hood, folding the material to make a pillow beneath her sister’s head, then ran to the edge of the keep and looked down into the main courtyard below. She needed help urgently, but where was everyone?
In the furthest corner by the gatehouse, she saw an old man with a cart of hay moving slowly across the courtyard.
‘Help me!’ she shouted. ‘Bring help!’ She waved her arms, but she couldn’t tell if he had heard her or seen her. Minou ran back to Alis, knowing she couldn’t leave her for fear her condition would deteriorate. She pressed harder, desperately trying to stem the flow from the wound in her back as best she could.
The white kerchief continued to turn red.
‘Il n’y a personne?’ she shouted again, twisting her head towards the pass door. ‘Will somebody help me?’
* * *
As Piet approached the castle, he practised what he was going to say to Minou. Words of apology and of love, he for her and she for him.
But when he came within hailing distance, and saw Minou’s mare tethered outside the side gate in the wall, his words vanished. Why would she have left her horse here rather than take it to the stables? Then he saw the corpses of the butchered animals on the ground and his heart started to drum.
Piet leapt down from his stallion, secured the horse beside Minou’s bay mare, and ran through the gate into the castle as if the Devil himself was at his back.
* * *
Time dragged its heels, marked only by the uneven pattern of Alis’s ragged breathing. Her pallor was worsening. Minou tapped her cheek, trying to rouse her, but her sister’s eyes remained closed. The moment she took her hand away blood pumped out. If she left her, Alis would die. No doubt of it.
‘Help is coming,’ she said, pressing her green cloak against the wound. ‘It won’t be long.’
At last, Minou heard footsteps on the stairs and suddenly Piet was in the doorway, with two servants behind him.
‘Minou!’ he cried.
She saw how, in an instant, Piet took in the sight of her cloak soaked with blood, then Alis lying lifeless on the ground.
He rushed towards her. ‘What happened, are you hurt?’
‘No, not me.’
Minou heard him catch his breath. ‘I feared…’ he whispered, crouching beside her. ‘When I saw you, I thought—’
‘Alis has been shot,’ she said. ‘I heard the sound some while ago.’
Piet recoiled. ‘What! Did you see anyone as you came through the woods?’
Minou shook her head. ‘No, but he left behind a sack of ripe carrion.’
‘I saw that.’
‘Someone has been keeping watch, I think.’
‘How bad is it?’
Minou half lifted the kerchief and another gush of blood spurted out. ‘The ball is still in there. We should get it out. It’s the best chance of preventing an infection from taking hold.’
Piet nodded. ‘Hold her hand.’
Taking his hunting knife from his belt, he wiped the tip on Minou’s cloak, then pressed the sharp point into the wound. Alis stirred, but did not wake.
‘I almost have it,’ h
e said, twisting the blade as gently as he could. This time the shot came out in a slick of fresh blood. Minou instantly plugged the deeper wound with the sodden kerchief.
Piet sat back on his haunches, his face grey with relief. ‘I thought it was you, Minou,’ he said again. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
Minou placed her bloody hand across his. ‘I know.’
For a heartbeat, she held his eyes. Then she summoned the servants.
‘Mademoiselle Joubert is badly injured. Have hot water, cloths and vinegar taken to my bedchamber. Honey too. It’s good for purifying the blood. It might stop a fever from taking hold. And you – Marcel – ride down to the village and tell the physician we are in urgent need of his services. Make haste.’
The servants bowed, then ran.
‘I fear moving her will agitate the bleeding, but we have no choice. If you carry her, Piet, I’ll keep my hand pressed against the wound.’
He nodded. ‘On my count. One, two and three.’
Between them, they managed to lift her from the ground. Alis didn’t even murmur. She lay lifeless in Piet’s arms.
‘Hurry,’ Minou said desperately, feeling another slick of blood between her fingers.
Together, they staggered towards the door and clumsily down the stairs, a red trail on the stone steps betraying their route.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘Why does the physician not come?’ Bernard asked again.
With each moment that passed, Alis’s breathing became shallower, more laboured. The colour was draining fast from her cheeks. Bernard squeezed his younger daughter’s hand while Minou continued to apply fresh bandages to the wound. Press and replace, press and replace. Eventually, the flow of blood lessened.
‘She grows colder,’ Bernard murmured.
‘Help is on its way. Piet will bring the doctor.’ Minou had lost count of how many times she had said the words. ‘They won’t be long now.’
All the same, it was not for some time until, finally, she heard Piet’s voice in the hallway below their bedchamber. The step of boots upon the stair, the scent of the world outside, then a stooped grey man was ushered into the chamber.
‘This is Monsieur Gabignaud,’ said Piet. Minou and Bernard both jolted at the familiar name, unheard for so many years. ‘He has been away in the wars these past years.’
She rose to meet him. ‘Monsieur, you are well met.’
‘At your service, my lady. Monsieur Joubert.’
Bernard inclined his head. ‘Monsieur Gabignaud. Your aunt did us a great service once, my late wife and I.’
‘She would have been honoured to be remembered.’
The physician’s skin was pock-marked and he was clutching a wooden box of instruments tightly in his hands, as if he feared to be robbed, but Minou saw his eyes were keen with intelligence.
‘Your patient is here, monsieur,’ she said swiftly. ‘Did my husband explain what had happened?’
‘Only that Mademoiselle Joubert had been shot.’
‘We ourselves know no more than that. We took out the ball and purified the wound with vinegar.’
‘It is what I would have done, my lady.’
‘I will go to Salvadora and let her know how things are,’ Piet said quietly. ‘Will you be all right?’
Minou lightly touched his fingers. ‘Yes, but come back when you can.’
With her hand upon her father’s shoulder – to comfort him or to comfort herself, she wasn’t sure – Minou watched Gabignaud make a preliminary examination. Her fear that he might be a butcher-surgeon who had learnt his trade on the battlefield vanished as he gently studied the wound, a single jagged hole at the base of Alis’s spine where the bullet had penetrated the flesh. From his questions, she discerned he was also a compassionate man.
‘Will my daughter live, Gabignaud?’ Bernard said, his voice loud in the silence of the chamber.
‘I will do everything I can, monsieur. There is no sign of fever – though it is early – and no discharge either. You were right to take the shot out, Madame Joubert.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘But this gash on her head…’
‘We think she did that when she fell,’ Minou replied. ‘Is it serious?’
Gabignaud raised his hands. ‘It is harder to treat what we cannot see than what we can,’ he said cautiously, ‘but I am hopeful.’
As he cleaned the wounds and applied fresh strips of cloth, Minou acted as her father’s eyes. In a low, steady voice, she described every action the physician was taking to save his child.
* * *
For the rest of that long afternoon, Gabignaud laboured to save Alis’s life.
Minou cindered hawthorn and rosemary and wild thyme in the fireplace to purify the air. Servants went to and fro, bringing copper pans of hot water up from the kitchens. Bernard sat white and silent, his old face lined with grief and fear for his youngest child. The maids tore fresh strips of cotton and laid them on the nightstand, while others carried away the old, bloodied bandages to be burnt in the yard.
In the solar, Salvadora sewed the same patch of cloth over and again, pricking her fingers and leaving marks of blood on the yellow fabric. She prayed and, from time to time, drank a little wine to ease her fears. The nurse occupied the children with card games and stories. Piet came and went, leaving Minou each time with the gentle touch of his hand or an affectionate kiss upon her cheek.
The sun sank lower in the sky, yet still Alis did not stir.
‘You should go and rest,’ Minou said to her father, seeing how his head was drooping onto his chest.
Bernard sighed. ‘Ah, Filha. I have spent so very many nights like this – sitting by your bedside, or by Aimeric’s or Alis’s, waiting for a fever to break or a nausea to pass. Though I serve no purpose now, I like to think she knows I am here.’
‘Of course, she does,’ Minou said fiercely. ‘And yours will be the first face she sees when she wakes.’
‘God willing, yes.’
‘Might I at least bring you something to drink or eat?’
‘You are a good daughter, but do not concern yourself with me. I will do well enough here.’
Minou’s heart broke at the desperation in his voice. She leant forward and placed a kiss on his forehead, then returned to her own vigil at her sister’s side.
‘Please wake up’, Minou whispered in Alis’s ear. ‘Please.’
* * *
As the evening shadows began to fall, casting long ribbons of golden light across the floor of the chamber, Minou spied a thick trail of blood oozing down the side of the bed.
‘Monsieur Gabignaud…’ she said quietly, but Bernard heard her all the same.
‘What is it?’
Gabignaud lifted back the cover and Minou caught her breath. The top sheet was clean, but the undersheet glistened with fresh blood the colour of rubies.
‘Pass me a bowl, if you will.’
‘What is happening?’ Bernard said. ‘Tell me.’
‘I think Mademoiselle Joubert’s body is attempting to cleanse itself,’ the physician replied in a taut voice, examining the wound.
‘Is that not a good sign?’ Minou asked.
‘It may be,’ Gabignaud replied carefully. ‘But if it is God’s will to take her to Him, then…’
The sound of Bernard’s stick striking the ground made Minou jump.
‘No! This is not God’s will, it cannot be!’
For a moment the words seemed to hang in the air between them.
‘Father, Monsieur Gabignaud is doing all he can. You know that.’
Bernard waved her away. ‘This is not God’s doing. If a man did this, a man might repair this. Gabignaud, I beg you. Save my child.’
Minou took her father’s hand.
‘Save my daughter, Gabignaud,’ he whispered, as the fight went out of him.
‘Come and sit over here,’ Minou said, steering him towards a chair at the open window. The air will do you good.’
‘I am not leaving the chamber.’
‘Of course not. But let us give the good doctor room enough to make his ministrations.’
‘Is she in pain, do you think?’ Minou asked when she returned to Gabignaud’s side.
‘I cannot be certain, my lady, but I think not.’
‘And why does she still not wake?’
He shook his head. ‘It may be that, by remaining in this half-state, Mademoiselle Joubert is protecting herself. Her breathing has eased, her pulse is steady. There is a little fever, but that might even be a good sign. A sign her body is resisting. See how she catches at the bedclothes with her hands? There is life in her for the fight.’
* * *
As Saturday slipped over into Sunday morning, Alis’s fever broke.
Minou was dozing at her sister’s bedside, as Gabignaud was checking his patient’s pulse for any indication of a change in her humours, when Alis opened her eyes.
‘Minou?’ she murmured into the darkened room.
At first, Minou didn’t hear.
‘Minou,’ Alis said again, a little louder. ‘Where am I?’
‘Doctor! She’s awake!’
‘What happened? Why am I here?’
‘Alis, you’re awake!’
Gabignaud smiled. ‘Mademoiselle Joubert, how goes it with you?’
Alis stared at him. ‘Who are you?’
Minou’s voice broke with relief. ‘This is Monsieur Gabignaud, Alis. He saved your life.’
She felt Alis squeeze her fingers, then she closed her eyes again. ‘It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Monsieur Gabignaud.’
Minou took a moment to compose herself before going over to where Bernard was asleep in his chair.
‘Father,’ she said, putting her hand softly on his shoulder. ‘Alis has woken. It’s too soon to know, but for now that’s all that matters. She’s awake.’
There was a stillness, a silence. Minou felt a fist tighten around her heart.
‘Father?’ she whispered, putting her hand on his shoulder. Bernard didn’t stir. Minou put her hand to his cheek, and realised it was cold.