Citadel (89 page)
He slithered through, head first, then lowered himself carefully down to the tiled floor. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out the metal filing cabinets in the corner of the room and the huge leather-bound diary in pride of place on the station master’s desk.
He struck a match and turned the pages, looking for today’s date. There was nothing recorded. He frowned, then turned the pages back, looking for something that might tell him where the train had been, at least, if not where it was going.
After a few minutes, he found it. A list of names, Max Blum among them, and an hour-by-hour record of how the prisoners from Le Vernet were to be transported up the eastern border. Through Provence to Bourgogne, then into Lorraine and on to Bavaria in southern Germany. Heading for Dachau.
Raoul leant forward and traced the route with his finger. This was all he needed. If they moved quickly, they could position themselves to block the line and stop the train moving forward. If the rumours were true and the Allies were launching a second attack from the sea, then all they had to do was delay the train.
He put the spent match in his pocket, imagining Sandrine’s face when he told her – and her pleasure at being able to explain to Lucie and to Liesl what had happened. He moved a chair beneath the window and had put his hands on the sill, ready to pull himself up, when without warning the door was flung open. Raoul went for his gun as the electric light was switched on.
‘
Halten Sie
.’
His heart hammering in his chest, he turned slowly around. Four against one, Gestapo. He put his hands above his head.
‘Come down.’
Raoul had no choice but to do as he was told.
‘Name?’ one of the Germans barked.
Raoul didn’t answer.
‘Your name?’ he said again, shouting this time.
Raoul met his gaze.
The Nazi stared at him, then so quickly that Raoul didn’t even see it coming, he raised his rifle and swung it into the side of Raoul’s head.
TARASCON
A
udric Baillard sat at the table with the Codex before him. The shutters were open and the light of the moon came in through the window and lit the beautiful letters of the ancient Coptic script. He let his thin white hand hover over the papyrus, his skin mottled with age, then withdrew it again.
The story of its long journey was finally clear in his mind. Arinius had smuggled the Codex from the community in Lyon to the mountains. Baillard suspected it was not the only version of the text. There were rumours about excavations in Egypt close to the Jabal al-Tarif cliffs, not far from the settlement of Nag Hammadi. He thought of his old friend Harif, dead many years now. It was Harif who’d taught him to understand the ancient languages of Egypt – Coptic and Demotic, hieroglyphs – and had told him of the network of some hundred and fifty caves on the west bank of the Nile two days’ ride north of Luxor, used as graves. A hiding place too? A secret library entombed in the rocks?
Baillard wished he knew what had happened to Arinius himself. Had he lived to make old bones? Had he remained close by, keeping watch over the Codex? Had it lain here undisturbed for hundreds of years until called upon by Dame Carcas to drive the invaders from the walls of La Cité?
He knew that the border regions in the fourth century had been violent, lawless places. Whole tribes decimated and villages put to the sword. But had Arinius’ settlement survived? Part of it, at least? Eloise and Geneviève Saint-Loup – Sandrine and Marianne Vidal too – were descended from those early Tarasconnais Christian families. The iridescent glass bottle containing the map that had been passed down from hand to hand to hand was proof of that. And even though Baillard now knew that the map had been bought by Otto Rahn from Monsieur Saint-Loup – when he’d been forced to sell the family possessions – Rahn, in turn, had sent it to Antoine Déjean in 1939, thereby returning the map to the land from whence it had come.
Baillard closed his ears to the noise of the world and lifted his eyes to the mountains, picturing in his mind’s eye the dark path he would take up to the Pic de Vicdessos. He believed that the power of the words would be strongest spoken there, where they had lain safe for so long.
There was a tap on the door. He stood up. Leaving the cedarwood box on the table, he placed the Codex in one pocket and his revolver in the other, then stepped out to join Guillaume Breillac.
‘Any word from Eloise?’ Baillard asked. He knew the young man was worried about his wife.
‘Not yet, sénher,’ Guillaume replied.
‘It is only a matter of time, I am sure.’
Guillaume didn’t answer.
‡
‡
GAUL
TARASCO
AUGUST AD 344
T
he invading army attacked at dawn. From the cover of the trees, they began to beat their swords against their shields. They shouted strange and foreign battle cries. The ground started to shudder beneath their stamping feet as grey smoke twisted up into the blue sky and across the face of the rising August sun.
‘There are so many,
peyre
,’ said one of the youngest men nervously.
‘They are making noise to make you think they are more numerous than they really are,’ Arinius replied, although he didn’t know if it was true. ‘They want to scare us.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ the boy said immediately.
‘Nor should you be,’ said Lupa. ‘Not when God is on our side.’
The boy nodded and tightened his grip around the club in his right hand, though Arinius saw his left steal into Lupa’s. She smiled down at the child and he saw how her courage and calm strengthened him.
‘Why don’t they advance?’ she said.
‘They hope to weaken our spirit by delaying.’
‘Can you see anything?’
‘Not yet.’
The shouting and the beating of the shields continued. Arinius looked along the line, seeing the boy’s fear reflected in the faces, young and old, of the men of Tarasco. But his wife’s expression was steadfast. She saw him smiling.
‘What was it that you hid within the mountains?’ she said quietly. ‘So important that it all but cost you your life?’
Arinius stared at her. In the two years he had loved her, she had never asked what had brought him to Tarasco. She had never asked what he had been doing in the Vallée des Trois Loups. Never asked why he wore the green bottle like a talisman round his neck, nor what he had placed inside it.
‘Did you think I did not know?’ she said gently. ‘Why else do you think there are stories of the mountains being haunted except to keep those with sharp eyes and quick fingers away from the box?’
‘You have seen it?’
Lupa had the grace to blush. ‘At the very beginning, before I knew you. I was curious.’
Arinius looked at her fierce, intelligent face, then he smiled.
‘It contains a precious text, a codex, stolen away from the library in Lugdunum. It is considered a heresy by the Abbot, but I believe future generations will see it differently.’
‘You have not read it yourself?’
‘It is a language I do not understand,’ he said, ‘though there are some phrases I have heard spoken.’
‘What do they promise?’
‘That when the words are spoken aloud, in a place that is sacred – and by one prepared to give his life so that others might live – death is conquered. That the quick and the dead will stand side by side. An army of spirits.’
Lupa frowned. ‘Must he who speaks the words die? Or only be prepared to give his life for others?’
Arinius shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
Lupa thought for a moment longer. ‘And only the good may see this?’
Arinius paused. ‘We each see what we deserve to see. So you, my brave, courageous Lupa, would see spirits, angels. Men with dark hearts will be brought face to face with the worst of their fears.’
‘I think God is with us all the same, Arinius.’
‘As do I.’
‘Will you teach me the words you know?’
Arinius looked at her. ‘Why?’
‘I would like to know them,’ she said simply.
He looked at her a moment longer, then whispered softly the few phrases he had heard spoken by his brother monk. Lupa listened, her face lit up with the beauty of what she was hearing. When he had finished, she put her hand upon his arm and smiled.
For an instant they stood together, forgetting everything but one another for a moment.
Then a roar went up from the woods below and, suddenly, the invaders broke out from the cover of the trees. At his side, he heard Lupa catch her breath. They were outnumbered seven to one, perhaps more.
‘May God protect us,’ he said.
Arinius drew his sword and let out an answering shout of his own. At his side, he felt Lupa steel herself. She drew her knife from her belt, looked at him one last time. Then, together, they ran forward into the fray.
‡
CARCASSONNE
AUGUST 1944
‘
F
orgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’
It was Friday the eighteenth of August and the cathédrale Saint-Michel was empty so early in the morning. Except for him and the priest, there was no one. Authié had insisted upon it. He did not wish there to be any possibility of someone overhearing his confession.
He had chosen to kneel rather than sit. He could feel the chill of the stone seeping through the knees of his trousers, comfortingly austere. His hands were loose by his sides and he felt a deep peace and power in the rightness of his cause. He believed it was how the crusaders of old might have felt. Holy warriors pursuing a just and holy war.
In a matter of days, it would be over. Sandrine Vidal had made a fool of him twice. She had defeated him twice: the first time through her lies, the second time through her silence. He knew the Gestapo officers, even Laval, admired how she had withstood the interrogation and still not talked. Few men lasted so long.
Authié did not admire her. Like the Inquisitors of old who felt no pity for those who chose to defy the teachings of the Church, he knew there was no honour in disobedience. By her actions, Vidal defied scripture and allowed heresy to flourish. The fact that she might not possess the Codex was no longer of relevance to him. She had collaborated with the enemies of the Church, had helped them. That was enough.
She might have escaped, but she would not stay at liberty for long.
‘I have dissembled and lied for the purpose of bringing the enemies of the Church into plain view,’ he said. ‘I have consorted with those who deny God. I have neglected my spiritual salvation.’ He paused. ‘I am sorry for these and all the sins of my past life.’
As Authié catalogued his sins of commission and of omission, he felt the wordless horror of the priest from behind the grille. Could smell the man’s fear, rank on his skin and his breath.
‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ the priest said, stumbling over the words of absolution.
‘Amen.’
Authié made the sign of the cross, then stood up.
He took his gun from his belt and fired through the mesh. The world turned red, blood staining the metal and the curtains and the worn, old wood. Authié came out, genuflected to the high altar, then walked back down the nave.
The secrets of the confessional. Everyone talked in the end.
Sylvère Laval looked up and then down rue Voltaire, into the cross streets and over the garden in front of the cathedral. For Authié’s security, he had put a police block on the road at both ends; even so it was possible a car might come out of nowhere. But, after the latest raids, which had finally caught the leadership of the Resistance in Carcassonne, the streets had been quieter.
Laval glanced at the west door, wondering how much more time his commanding officer was going to waste. He couldn’t complain. Authié’s obsession had served Laval well and he had become rich on the back of Authié’s links with the Church in Chartres. But now things were coming to an end. Laval intended to tell Authié what he had discovered about Citadel, but keep from him the fact that he had found Audric Baillard. Although Baillard had not been seen since the late summer of 1942, one of their informers in Tarascon had reported that a retired police inspector had an old man staying with him. Since it was common knowledge Pujol and Baillard had been friends, Laval had put two and two together.
The Allies had landed in Provence. The Germans were preparing to withdraw from the Midi. If Laval was to go with them, he had to get the Codex in the next twenty-four hours.
Laval heard footsteps on the pavement and turned, the list in his hand. As Authié got closer, Laval saw he had blood on his face.
‘We’ve found Vidal, sir,’ he said.
Authié stopped dead. ‘Where is she?’
‘Coustaussa,’ Laval replied. ‘Seven or eight of them, all women. It’s all here. The
réseau
“Citadel”.’
Authié snatched the paper and ran his eyes down the names. ‘Vidal, Peyre, Ménard . . .’ He broke off. ‘Who’s Liesl Vidal? Have we come across her?’
‘It seems she’s been living in Coustaussa with the housekeeper, Marieta Barthès. They put it about she’s a cousin from Paris, but I think she might be Blum’s sister.’
‘The Jew Ménard visited in Le Vernet?’
‘Yes. He had a sister who vanished, about the right sort of age.’
Authié looked back at the list. ‘Who’s this Eloise Breillac?’
‘She’s the sister of Geneviève Saint-Loup, who’s also part of the network. Breillac was arrested in the Hôtel Moderne et Pigeon in Limoux.’
Authié was nodding. ‘This is good work, Laval. Where did you get this information?’
‘It seems Liesl Vidal – Blum – has taken up with a local boy, Yves Rousset. Another chap felt edged out, wanted to get back at them. Talked to one of his friends in the Milice in Couiza. The links between them started to show up on various lists. Rousset’s with the Couiza Maquis. It all fell into place from there.’
‘Is Pelletier with them?’
‘Not so far as I’ve been able to find out, sir.’
‘What about Baillard? Have you managed to track him down.’
