Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

Fortune had restored Simeon and the second book more quickly than Pelletier had believed possible. Now, if Alais’ suspicions were right, it seemed the third book might also be close at hand.

Pelletier’s hand drifted to his chest, where Simeon’s book lay next to his heart.

Alais was woken by a loud clatter as the shutter banged against the wall.

She sat up with a jolt, her heart thumping. In her dream, she had been back in the woods outside Coursan, hands bound, struggling to escape from the coarse hood.

She picked up one of the pillows, still warm with sleep, and held it to her chest. Guilhem’s scent still hung about the bed, even though it had been more than a week since last he had laid his head beside hers.

There was another bang as the shutter smashed against the wall. The storm was whistling around the towers and skimming the surface of the roof. The last thing she remembered was asking Rixende to bring her something to eat.

Rixende knocked at the door and came timidly into the room.

“Forgive me, Dame. I did not want to wake you, but he insisted I should.”

“Guilhem?” she said quickly.

Rixende shook her head. “Your father. He bids you join him at the eastern gatehouse.”

“Now? But it must be after twelve?”

The midnight has not yet struck, Dame.“

“Why has he sent you rather than Francois?”

“I don’t know, Dame.”

Leaving Rixende to keep watch in her chamber, Alais threw her cloak over her shoulders, and hurried downstairs. Thunder was still rumbling ¦ the mountains as she rushed across the courtyard to join him.

“Where are we going?” she shouted over the wind, as they hurried through the East Gate.

To Sant-Nasari,“ he said. To where the Book of Words is hidden.”

Oriane lay stretched out, like a cat, on her bed, listening to the wind. Guirande had done a good job, both at restoring the room to order and describing the damage her husband had done. What had set him in such a rage, Oriane did not know. Nor did she care.

All men – courtiers, scribes, chevaliers , priests – were the same under the skin. Their resolve snapped like twigs in winter for all their talk of honour. The first betrayal was the hardest. After that, it never ceased to amaze her how quickly secrets spewed from their faithless lips, how their actions denied all they claimed to hold dear.

She had learned more than she expected. The irony was, Guilhem didn’t even understand the significance of what he had told her tonight.

She had suspected Alais had followed their father to Beziers. Now she knew she was right. She knew, too, something of what had passed between them on the night of his departure.

The sole reason Oriane had concerned herself with Alais’ recuperation was in the hope of tricking her sister into betraying their father’s confidence, but it had not worked. The only thing of note was Alais’ distress at the loss of a wooden board from her chamber. She’d talked about it in her sleep as she tossed and turned. So far, despite her best efforts, all attempts to retrieve the board had failed.

Oriane stretched her arms above her head. Even in her wildest dreams, she had never imagined her father possessed something of such power and such influence that men would pay a king’s ransom to obtain it. All she had to do was be patient.

After what Guilhem had told her tonight, she realised the board was of less significance than she’d thought. If only they’d had more time, she would have coaxed from him the name of the man her father had met in Beziers. If he knew it.

Oriane sat up. Francois would know. She clapped her hands.

“Take this to Francois,” she said to Guirande. “Let no one see you.”

Night had fallen over the Crusader camp.

Guy d’Evreux wiped his greasy hands on the cloth a nervous servant was holding out to him. He drained his cup and glanced towards the Abbot of Citeaux at the head of the table to see if he was ready to rise.

He was not.

Smug and self-satisfied in his white robes, the Abbot had positioned himself between the Duke of Burgundy and the Count of Nevers. The constant jockeying for position that went on between the two and their followers had started before the Host had even left Lyon.

From the glazed look on their faces, it was clear that Arnald-Amalric was once more castigating them. Heresy, the fires of hell, the dangers of the vernacular, all subjects about which he was capable of lambasting an audience for hours.

Evreux had no respect for either of them. He thought their ambitions pathetic – a few gold coins, wine and whores, a little fighting, then home in glory having served their forty days. Only de Montfort, seated a little further down the table, seemed to be listening. His eyes burned with an unpleasant zeal matched only by the Abbot’s own fanaticism.

Evreux knew de Montfort by reputation only, even though they were near neighbours. Evreux had inherited land to the north of Chartres with good hunting. A combination of strategic marriage and repressive taxation had ensured the family’s wealth had grown steadily over the past fifty years. He had no brothers to challenge his title and no significant debts.

De Montfort’s lands were outside Paris, less than two days’ ride from Evreux’s estate. It was known de Montfort had taken the Cross at the personal request of the Duke of Burgundy, but his ambition was common knowledge, as were his piety and courage. He was a veteran of the eastern campaigns in Syria and Palestine, one of the few Crusaders who’d refused to take part in the siege of the Christian city of Zara during the Fourth Crusade to the Holy Land.

Although now in his forties, de Montfort was still as strong as an ox.

Moody, introspective, he inspired extravagant loyalty in his men, but was distrusted by many of the barons who thought him devious and ambitious beyond his status. Evreux despised him, as he despised all those who proclaimed their actions as the work of God.

Evreux had taken the Cross for a single reason. As soon as he had accomplished his purpose, he would return to Chartres with the books he had been hunting half his lifetime. He had no intention of dying on the altar of other men’s beliefs.

What is it?“ he growled to the servant who’d appeared at his shoulder.

“There’s a messenger come for you, my lord.”

Evreux glanced up. Where is he?“ he said sharply.

Waiting just outside the camp. He would not give his name.“

“From Carcassonne?”

“He would not say, my lord.”

Bowing briefly to the top table, Evreux excused himself and slipped away, his pale face flushed. He walked quickly between the tents and animals to the glade on the eastern boundary of the camp.

At first, he could pick out only indistinct shapes in the dark between the trees. As he got closer, he recognised the man as a servant of an informer in Beziers.

Well?“ he said, disappointment hardening his voice.

The messenger dropped to his knees. We found their bodies in woods outside Coursan.“

His grey eyes narrowed. “Coursan? They were supposed to be tailing Trencavel and his men. What business had they in Coursan?”

“I cannot say, my lord,” he stammered.

At his glance, two more of his men appeared from behind the trees, their hands resting lightly on the hilts of their swords.

What was found at the site?“

“Nothing, my lord. Surcoats, weapons, horses, even the arrows that killed them were… were not there. The bodies had been stripped. Everything was taken.”

“So their identity is known?”

The servant took a step back. “The talk within the castellum is all of Amiel de Coursan’s bravery, not so much of who the men were. There was a girl, the daughter of Viscount Trencavel’s steward. Alais.”