Kate Mosse - Labyrinth

It was the number Biau had given her.

“Leave it with me,” she said, barely aware of what she was saying. “I’ll keep in touch.”

Alice knew she should call Noubel. Tell him about her non-burglary and her encounter with Biau, but she hesitated. She wasn’t sure she could trust Noubel. He’d done nothing to stop Authie.

She reached into her rucksack and pulled out her roadmap of France. The idea’s crazy. It’s an eight-hour drive at least . Something was niggling at the back of her mind. She went back to the notes she’d made in the library.

In the mountain of words about Chartres Cathedral, there had been a passing reference to the Holy Grail. There, too, was a labyrinth. Alice found the paragraph she was looking for. She read it through twice, to sure she hadn’t misunderstood, then she jerked the chair out from the desk and sat down with the book by Audric Baillard and poened it at the page marked.

“Others believed it to have been the final resting place of the Graal. It has been suggested that the Cathars were the guardians of the Cup of Christ…‘

The Cathar treasure was smuggled away from Montsegur. To the Pic de Soularac? Alice turned to the map at the front of the book. Montsegur to the Sabarthes Mountains was not far. What if the treasure was hidden there?

What connects Chartres and Carcassonne?

In the distance, she heard the first growls of thunder. The room was now bathed in a strange orange light from the streetlamps outside bouncing off the underside of the night clouds. A wind had blown up, rattling the shutters and sending bits of rubbish scuttling across the car parks.

As Alice drew the curtains the first heavy drops of rain started to fall, exploding like spots of black ink on the windowsill. She wanted to leave now. But it was late and she didn’t want to risk driving through the storm.

She locked the windows and doors, set her alarm, then climbed fully clothed into bed to wait for the morning.

At first, everything was the same. Familiar, peaceful. She was floating in the white weightless world, transparent and silent. Then, like the trap door clattering open beneath the gallows, there was a sudden lurch and she fell down through the open sky towards the wooded mountainside rushing up to meet her.

She knew where she was. At Montsegur, in early summer.

Alice started to run as soon as her feet hit the ground, stumbling along a steep, rough forest track between two columns of high trees. The trees were dense and tall and towered above her. She grabbed at the branches to slow herself, but her hands went straight through and clumps of tiny leaves came away in her fingers, like hair on a brush, staining the tips green.

The path sloped away beneath her feet. Alice was aware of the crunch of stone and rock, which had replaced the soft earth, moss and twigs on the track higher up the mountain. Still, there was no sound. No birds singing, no voices calling, nothing but her own ragged breathing.

The path twisted and coiled back on itself, sending her scuttling this way and that, until she rounded the corner and saw the silent wall of fire blocking the path ahead. She put her hands up to shield her face from the billowing, puffing, red and orange and yellow flames that whipped and swirled in the air, like reeds under the surface of a river.

Now the dream was changing. This time, rather than the multitude of faces taking shape in the flames, there was only one, a young woman with a gentle yet forceful expression, reaching out and taking the book from Alice’s hand.

She was singing, in a voice of spun silver.

“Bona nueit, bona nueit.”

This time, no chill fingers grabbed her ankles or shackled her to the earth. The fire no longer claimed her. Now she was spiralling through the air like a wisp of smoke, the woman’s thin, strong arms embracing her, holding her tight. She was safe.

“Braves amics, pica mieja-nueit.”

Alice smiled as together they soared higher and higher towards the light, leaving the world far beneath.

Carcassona

JULHET I2O9

Alais rose early, awoken by the sounds of sawing and banging in the courtyard below. She looked out of the window at the wooden galleries and brattices being constructed over the walls of the Chateau Comtal.

The impressive wooden skeleton was taking shape quickly. Like a covered walkway in the sky, it provided the perfect vantage point from which the archers could rain down a hail of arrows on the enemy in the unlikely event that the walls of the Cite itself were breached.

She dressed quickly and ran down to the courtyard. In the smithy the fires were roaring. Hammers and anvils rang out as weapons were sharpened and shaped; sappers yelled to one another in short, sharp bursts as the axles, ropes and counterweights of the peireras, the ballistas, were prepared.

Standing outside the stable, Alais saw Guilhem. Her heart turned over. Notice me . He did not turn and he did not look up. Alais raised her hand to call out, but then cowardice overcame her and she let her arm drop back to her side. She would not humiliate herself by begging for his affection when he was unwilling to give it.

The scenes of industry within the Chateau Comtal were reproduced in the Cite. Stone from the Corbieres was being piled high in the central square, ready for the ballistas and the catapults. There was an acrid stench of urine from the tannery where animal hides were being prepared to protect the galleries from fire. A steady procession of carts was coming in through the Porte Narbonnaise bringing food to support the Cite: salted meat from La Piege and the Lauragais, wine from the Carcasses, barley and wheat from the plains, beans and lentils from the market gardens of Sant-Miquel and SantVicens.

There was a sense of pride and purpose behind the activity. Only the clouds of noxious black smoke over the river and marshes to the north where Viscount Trencavel had ordered the mills to be burned and the crops destroyed – served as a reminder of how imminent and real was the threat.

Alais waited for Sajhe at the agreed meeting place. Her mind was full of questions she wished to ask Esclarmonde, that swooped in and out of her head, first one, then another, like birds at a river. By the time Sajhe arrived, she was tongue-tied with anticipation.

She followed him through unnamed streets into the suburb of SantMiquel, until they arrived at a low doorway set hard by the outer walls.

The sound of men digging trenches to prevent the enemy getting close enough to mine the walls was very loud. Sajhe had to shout to make himself heard.

“ Menina is waiting inside,” he said, his face suddenly solemn.

“Are you not coming in?”

“She told me to bring you, then go back to the Chateau to find Intendant Pelletier.”

“Seek him in the Cour d’Honneur,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, his grin back in place. “See you later.”

Alais pushed open the door and called out, looking forward to seeing Esclarmonde, then checked her step. In the shadows, she could see a second figure sitting on a chair in the corner of the room.

“Come in, come in,” said Esclarmonde, the smile showing in her voice.

“I believe you already know Simeon.”

Alais was astonished. “Simeon? Already?” she cried with delight, rushing to him and taking his hands. “What news? When did you arrive in Carcassona? Where are you lodging?”

Simeon gave a deep, rich laugh. “So many questions! Such haste to know everything and so quickly! Bertrand said that, as a child, you never stopped asking questions!”

Alais acknowledged the truth of this with a smile. She slid along the bench at the table and accepted the cup of wine Esclarmonde offered, listening as Simeon continued to talk to Esclarmonde. Already there seemed to be a bond, an ease between them.