Citadel (75 page)
Raoul nodded. ‘Authié and Schiffner are supposed to tour the
lices
before dinner, which is scheduled for eight o’clock. Sandrine will need to be in place well before that.’
‘You’re not going through with it?’ Lucie asked. ‘Even if Authié does actually make an appearance?’
‘No,’ Sandrine answered, throwing a glance at Raoul. ‘No, in the circumstances, we decided it was too much of a risk. I’m just going to disable the device, so that nobody else gets injured, and get out.’ She paused. ‘There will be other opportunities with Authié.’
Lucie nodded, but didn’t ask anything more.
‘You won’t be able to come back here,’ Raoul said. ‘It’s likely—’
‘Possible,’ Sandrine interrupted.
‘Likely,’ Raoul reiterated, ‘Authié will come here as soon as he realises the mission’s been aborted. He has this address.’
Lucie blushed. And Sandrine realised that in the same way she still felt she should have done more to stop Max being taken, Lucie still felt guilty for talking to Leo Authié.
‘Oh, Lucie,’ she said in a rush, ‘it was such a long time ago. There’s nothing to make up for, not now.’
‘I know, kid,’ Lucie said. ‘But even so . . .’
‘It’s all forgotten.’
‘Forgotten, no.’ Lucie met her gaze. ‘Two years ago, you came with me to Le Vernet. Despite what I’d done, talking to Authié. It was stupid to go and I shouldn’t have let you take the risk. But I was an idiot and you came all the same.’ She caught her breath. ‘You did it for me. For Max, though you didn’t know him. And even before we knew Max wasn’t going to be coming back, you and Marianne took Liesl in too.’ She looked at Sandrine. ‘Do you see now, kid?’
For a moment, they just looked at one another.
‘Yes,’ Sandrine said. And for the first time since they had put the plan to Lucie, she thought it might be all right. She’d underestimated Lucie. Assumed she was walking into this without thinking, when in fact she knew precisely what she was doing. And why. ‘Yes, I see.’
‘Good,’ Lucie said briskly. ‘That’s settled then.’ She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, blew her nose, then nodded, to confirm the decision taken.
Sandrine glanced at Raoul and saw the relief in his face.
‘Happy now?’ she murmured, taking his hand.
He laughed. ‘Less unhappy.’
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think Authié will come here before tonight, but he might. You shouldn’t stay here.’
‘I agree.’
‘Where will you go? Can Robert Bonnet help?’
‘Home,’ he said quietly. He gave a long, weary sigh.
‘Do you mean the Quai Riquet?’ Sandrine said with surprise. She knew he felt bad about how infrequently he visited his mother, but he thought it kept her safer. ‘Has something happened? Has her neighbour been in touch with you?’
Raoul shook his head. ‘No. But when we leave tonight, we’re not likely to be back. Are we? Not now Authié’s here.’ He sighed. ‘I owe it to her to say goodbye.’
‘She didn’t know you last time, did she?’ Sandrine said quietly. ‘Are you sure it’s not better to leave her be?’
‘Other people have looked after her, when it should have been me,’ he said. ‘I’ve stayed away. For the right reasons, but I feel I owe it to her.’
‘Authié might have put the apartment under surveillance, have you considered that?’
‘I doubt it. I’ve barely been there in two years, anyone would say the same. There’s no reason for him to think I’d be there.’
Sandrine didn’t want him to go, though she accepted he had to spend the next twelve hours somewhere. But every time he went into the Bastide, she was terrified he’d be spotted and picked up. It hadn’t happened yet, but that didn’t mean anything. It only meant their luck had held.
‘I don’t think . . .’ she began, then stopped herself. ‘Be careful,’ she whispered.
‘Aren’t I always?’ He smiled. ‘Where shall we meet? You shouldn’t come back here either.’
‘No.’
Raoul rested his hand against her cheek. ‘What about
chez
Cazaintre?’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure the side gate’s open.’
Sandrine nodded. ‘All right.’
Lucie frowned. ‘Where’s that? Is it a bar? Would I have heard of it?’
Sandrine shook her head. ‘Cazaintre was the architect of the Jardin du Calvaire in the 1820s. It’s one of the places we use as a drop-off and collection point for
Libertat
.’
‘One of them?’
‘That’s right. “The Naiads” is the fountain in Place Carnot, “Monsieur Riquet’s bathing house” is the steps on the north side of the Canal du Midi and “Monsieur Courtejaire is asleep” means that the pick-up is Courtejaire’s grave in the cimetière Saint-Michael.’
Lucie smiled. ‘Smart.’
‘It’s worked so far,’ Sandrine said.
Raoul took her hand. ‘I’ll wait there until you come.’
She smiled, masking the way the nerves were already hammering in her chest.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be all right. You’ll see. This time tomorrow, we’ll be in Coustaussa.’
TARASCON
A
silver mist skimmed the tops of the trees on the slopes below the Pic de Vicdessos, as dawn began to give colour back to the world.
Audric Baillard had come alone, leaving the house before first light while Pujol was still sleeping off the effects of the previous evening’s wine. He thought Pujol would have tried to stop him or else insisted on accompanying him. Neither suited Baillard’s purposes. He knew these old Cathar routes like the back of his hand. Despite his weakened state, he was certain he could evade any Nazi patrols operating in the mountains. More, he didn’t want to put his old friend at risk.
He looked down at the milk-white scrap of cloth in his hand, Arinius’ map of where the Codex had been hidden some sixteen hundred years before. Safe, there, for all that time. For a moment, in the shimmering dawn, Baillard suddenly saw his younger self reflected back at him. A boy still, being entrusted with another map by his grandmother, a map leading him and those for whom he was responsible to the village of Los Seres.
‘La Vallée des Trois Loups,’ he said aloud. Eloise and Geneviève had told him the valley had such a name, though it appeared on no map. Even with his extensive knowledge of the myths and legends of the hills, he had never heard it called that.
He closed his eyes. As the timelessness of the ancient forests and mountains seeped into his tired bones, another memory. Himself as a young man – no older than Raoul Pelletier was now, no older than Viscount Trencavel when he gave his life to save the people of Carcassonne – travelling through these lands during another occupation. Remembering how the Inquisitors went from village to village, accusing and denouncing and condemning. Spies everywhere, neighbour denouncing neighbour, until no one knew who to trust. Corpses exhumed to be burned as heretics. The Cathars and freedom fighters of the Midi being pushed back and back into the mountains. The raid in Limoux just days ago, reminding him of another raid in the peaceful mountain town where friends of his had been seized. The inquisitional courts, mirrored now by the trials conducted by the Gestapo. And those few who survived the interrogation to be released, forced to wear a scrap of yellow cloth stitched to their garments.
A cross then, a star now.
Baillard shook his head. The time had come. While he was imprisoned in Rivesaltes, he had not been able to act. The decision had been taken from him. Now he could avoid it no longer. As he looked up at the ridges and crests ahead and compared them to Arinius’ map, he knew he was in the right place. Although the forest had been cut back over the centuries, the essential landscape remained unchanged.
Now, as then.
In his youth, Baillard had taken a vow to bear witness. To speak out so that the truth should not die. He had given his word. He had known great joy in his life, but also great sorrow. His destiny was to watch those he loved live and grow old. In time, to die. Generation unto generation.
He allowed his thoughts to fly north to Chartres. It was a city that had been part of his life for so long, even though he had never been there. Several times he had tried, several times he had failed. He had never seen the labyrinth in the nave of the great Gothic cathedral. He had never met the descendants of those he had fought so long ago and fought against still. But he knew the jackals were coming. Once more, from Chartres to Carcassonne. The names were different – Leo Authié and François Cecil-Baptiste de l’Oradore – but their intentions were the same. Coming, as Baillard’s enemies had done before, in search of the secrets of the Languedoc.
As he stood in solitude, the soft morning air on his face, Baillard knew he was not yet strong enough to begin the climb into the mountains. But he needed to be here, in the peace and silence, to make his decision. To listen to the voices and to hope they would guide him.
‘
Per lo Miègjorn
,’ he murmured.
In his head, he heard the battle cry. Trencavel’s brave
chevalier
s attempting to defend the Cité against the northern crusaders. The clash of steel and the sweet, hot smell of blood. In a matter of days, the Jewish quarter had been destroyed, the suburbs of Sant-Vincens and Sant-Miquel put to the flame, the women and men of Carcassonne expelled like refugees from their homes.
Then, as now.
There was no doubt in his mind. He would return, as soon as he had gathered his strength. He would gather to him those who would help him. Sandrine Vidal and Raoul Pelletier, Achille Pujol and Eloise and Guillaume Breillac. With their help, he would retrieve the Codex and bring it down from the mountain.
Most of all, Sandrine Vidal.
He did not know why he was certain that she was so important in this story, only that she was. Two years ago she had told him of the dreams she sometimes had at night. Of the sensation of slipping out of time, falling from one dimension into another through white space. Of the indistinct figures hunting her down – white and red and black and green – their faces hidden beneath hoods and shadow and flame. The glint of metal where should have been skin. Baillard did not know yet what the Codex contained, but he recognised echoes of the Book of Revelation in her nightmares and wondered at it.
Was she linked in some way to the Codex and its history? Was it chance, or was there a design behind the fact that Sandrine had come upon Antoine Déjean at the river that day and heard the words he spoke? Happenstance or destiny?
Baillard sighed. Once more, he was being called upon to drive the invaders from the green lands of the Languedoc. Once more, to fight to liberate the Midi. To protect the ancient secrets buried in the mountains. He turned to the west, where the labyrinth cave lay hidden within the folds of the Sabarthès mountains. Then returned his eyes to the images on the milk-white scrap of cloth.
Baillard feared the power of the Codex. He feared he would not be equal to the task and would fail to control the forces that might be unleashed. But he was resolved to act. He had no other choice, whatever the consequences might be.
‘Come forth the spirits of the air.’ He spoke the words that had lain in the dusty recesses of his mind through his long captivity. ‘Come forth the armies of the air.’
He paused. He listened. And, carried on the air, he heard the land begin to answer.
‘
Benlèu
,’ he whispered. Soon.
CARCASSONNE
R
aoul didn’t want to leave, but Sandrine sent him away as soon as the curfew was lifted. She and Lucie needed to get ready and he shouldn’t be out on the streets for any longer than absolutely necessary.
‘And you can’t stay here,’ she said.
Raoul put his arms around her waist and drew her to him. ‘Be careful,
ma belle
.’
She smiled. ‘You too.’
‘
Chez
Cazaintre.’
Sandrine nodded. ‘And don’t be late!’ She leant forward and kissed him.
Raoul left the rue du Palais by the garden gate, into the rue du Strasbourg, down to the riverbank and along. He took an even more circuitous route than usual, to make sure he wasn’t being followed. His eyes darted left and right, watching for patrols or Milice informers. Every journey he was obliged to make during daylight hours was undertaken with a knot in his chest, hands balled into fists, his heart bumping one beat into the next.
No one paid him any attention.
He went out of town towards the Aire de la Pépinière, then doubled back to approach the Quai Riquet from the route de Minervois. There was a blind corner underneath the railway bridge by the station. Coming at it from the eastern side of the Bastide, he could see the whole sweep of the road clearly.
There were no police, no military vehicles, no sounds. Nothing to see but the ripple of the Canal du Midi and no noise but the water lapping against the wooden hulls of the barges moored on the riverbank.
Raoul walked quickly along the narrow pavement in the light of the rising sun and into the building. Careful not to hurry, careful not to idle. The street door to the building where his mother lived stood open, as it always had done. The familiar smell in the hallway, polish and the chill of the floor tiles, caught at his heart. Taking him back to a time when he and Bruno had been rough-and-tumble brothers, eager every morning to be allowed out to play. Watching the barges transporting food and grain along the Canal du Midi, the coopers with barrels of beer and wine from Toulouse, the stevedores with their wide-brimmed hats and faces tanned dark by the sun. Sometimes a
sou
for holding a horse’s harness while the men went to the down-and-out bar to drink after the sun had gone down.
He took a deep breath, banishing the ghosts of the past, then mounted the stairs two by two to the first floor. It seemed strange to do it, but he didn’t want to scare his mother, so he knocked at the door. Nothing happened. He heard no footsteps, no sound from the wireless or voices talking. He hesitated, then fished the latch key out of his pocket. He put it into the lock and turned.
‘
Maman, c’est moi
,’ he said, stepping into the apartment.
