Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

“I warn you, hold your tongue!”

“Why? Are you afraid of what I might say?”

Alais could feel the tension between them. The knowledge. And immediately she understood.

No. Not that.

“It’s not you he wants, Alais. He seeks the book. That’s what brought him back to your chamber. Can you really be so blind?”

Alais took a step away from Guilhem. “Does she speak the truth?”

He swung round to face her, desperation flashing in his eyes.

“She’s lying. I swear, on my life, I care nothing for the book. I have told her nothing. How could I?”

“He searched the chamber while you slept. He cannot deny it.”

“I did not,” he shouted.

Alais looked at him. “But you knew there was such a book?”

The alarm that nickered in his eyes gave her the answer she feared.

“She tried to blackmail me to help her, but I refused.” His voice cracked, “I refused, Alais.”

“What hold did she have over you that she would make such a request?” she said softly, almost in a whisper.

Guilhem tried to reach for her, but she backed away from him.

Even now, I would that he denied it.

He dropped his hand. “Once, yes, I… Forgive me.”

“It’s a little late for remorse.”

Alais ignored Oriane. “Do you love her?”

Guilhem shook his head. “Can’t you see what she’s doing, Alais? She’s trying to turn you against me.”

Alais was dumbstruck that he could believe she would trust him ever again.

He held his hand out. “Please, Alais,” he pleaded. “I love you.”

“Enough of this,” said Oriane, stepping into her line of vision. “Where is the book?”

“I not have it.”

“Who does?” said Oriane in a threatening voice.

Alais held her ground. “Why do you want it? What is it that is of such importance?”

“Just tell me,” she snapped, “and this will all end here.”

“And if I will not?”

“It is so easy to sicken,” she said. “You nursed our father. Perhaps the illness is already within you.” She turned to Guilhem. “You understand what I’m saying, Guilhem? If you go against me.”

“I will not allow you to harm her!”

Oriane laughed. “You’re hardly in a position to threaten me, Guilhem.

I have enough evidence of your treachery to see you hanged.“

“Evidence of your own designing,” he shouted. “Viscount Trencavel will not believe you.”

“You underestimate me, Guilhem, if you think I have left grounds for doubt. Dare you risk it?” She turned back to Alais. “Tell me where you have hidden the book or I shall go to the Viscount.”

Alais swallowed hard. What had Guilhem done? She didn’t know what to think. Despite her anger, she couldn’t bring herself to denounce him.

“Francois,” she said. “Our father gave the book to Francois.”

A look of confusion flickered in Oriane’s eyes, then vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Very well. But, I warn you sister, if you are lying you will regret it.” She turned and walked to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To pay my respects to our father, where else? However, before that, I will see you safely to your chamber.”

Alais raised her head and met her sister’s gaze. That is quite unnecessary.“

“Oh, it’s entirely necessary. Should Francois not be able to help me, I would wish to be able to talk with you again.”

Guilhem tried to reach for her. “She’s lying. I have done nothing wrong.”

“What you have or have not done, Guilhem, is no longer any concern of mine,” Alais said. “You knew what you did when you lay with her. Now, just leave me be.”

With her head held high, Alais walked along the corridor and into her chamber, with Oriane and Guirande behind her.

“I will return presently. As soon as I have spoken to Francois.”

“As you wish.”

Oriane shut the door. Moments later, as Alais had feared, the key was turned in the lock. She could hear Guilhem remonstrating with Oriane.

She shut her ears to their voices. She tried to keep the poisonous, jealous images from her mind. Alais couldn’t stop thinking of Guilhem and Oriane entwined in one another’s arms, she couldn’t protect herself from the thought of Guilhem whispering to her sister the intimate words he had spoken to her, pearls she’d kept close to her heart.

Alais pressed her trembling hand to her chest. She could feel her heart thudding hard against her ribs, bewildered and betrayed. She swallowed hard.

Think not of yourself.

She opened her eyes and dropped her arms to her side, her hands clenched in fists of misery. She could not allow herself to be weak. If she did, then Oriane would have taken everything of worth from her. The time for regret, for recrimination, would come. Now, her promise to her father, keeping the book safe, mattered more than her breaking heart. However difficult, she had to put Guilhem from her mind. She had allowed herself to be imprisoned in her room because of something Oriane had said. The third book . Oriane had asked where she’d hidden the third book.

Alais ran to the cloak, still hanging over the back of her chair, and snatched it up and patted along the hem where the book had been.

It was no longer there.

Alais slumped down on the chair, desperation welling inside her. Orine had Simeon’s book. Soon, she would know she had lied about giving a book to Francois and return.

2›And what of Esclarmonde? 2›

Alais realised Guilhem was no longer shouting outside the door.

2›Is he with her? 2›

She didn’t know what to think. It didn’t matter anyway. He had betrayed her once. He would again. She had to lock her wounded feelings in her battered heart. She had to get out while she had the chance.

Alais tore open the lavender bag to retrieve the copy of the parchment in the Book of Numbers , then cast a final look around the chamber she’d thought to be her home forever.

She knew she would not be back.

Then, with her heart in her mouth, she went to the window and looked out over the roof. Her only chance was to get out before Oriane came back.

Oriane felt nothing. In the flickering candlelight she stood at the foot of the bier and looked down on her father’s body.

Commanding the attendants to withdraw, Oriane bent down as if to kiss father’s head. Her hand closed over his and she slipped the labyrinth ring from his thumb, hardly believing Alais had been so stupid as to leave it on his hand.

Oriane straightened up and slipped it into her pocket. She rearranged the sheet, genuflected before the altar and crossed herself and then left in search of Francois.

Alais put her foot on to the ledge and climbed out on to the sill, her head spinning at the thought of what she was about to attempt.

You will fall.

If she did, what did it matter now? Her father was dead. Guilhem was lost to her. In the end, her father’s judgement of her husband’s character had proved to be true.

2›What more is there to lose? 2›

Taking a deep breath, Alais carefully lowered herself over the sill until her right foot found the tiles. Then, muttering a prayer, she braced her arms and legs and let go. She dropped with a small thump. Her feet slipped from under her. Alais hurled herself forward as she skidded down the tiles, desperately trying to gain purchase. Cracks in the tiles, gaps in the wall, anything to stop her plummeting down.

It seemed like she was falling forever. Suddenly, there was a violent jerk and Alais came to an abrupt halt. The hem of her dress had snagged on a nail and was holding her fast. She lay quite still, not daring to move. She feel the tension in the cloth. It was of good quality, but it was stretched as tight as a drum and could tear at any moment.