“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.
CHAPTER 60
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.
Alais glanced up at the nail. Even if she could reach up that high, it would take both hands to untangle the material, which had wrapped itself several times round the metal spike. She couldn’t risk letting go. The only option was to abandon the cloak and try to crawl back up the roof, which joined the outer wall of the Chateau Comtal on the western side. She should be able to squeeze through the wooden slats of the hourds. The gaps in the defences were narrow, but she was slight. It was worth trying.
Careful to make no sudden movements, Alais reached up and shredded material until it began to tear. She pulled, first one side, then the until she ripped a square from the skirt. Leaving a pocket of material behind, she was free once more.
Alais brought up one knee and pushed, then the other. She could feel of sweat forming at her temples and between her breasts, where she’d stowed the parchments. Her skin was sore from rubbing against the rough tiles.
Bit by bit, she pulled herself up until the ambans were in reach.
Alais put her hands out and grasped the wooden struts, which felt reassuringly solid between her fingers. Then she drew her knees up so that she was almost crouching on the roof, wedged into the corner between the battlements and the wall. The gap was smaller than she’d hoped, no deeper than the stretch of a man’s hand and perhaps three times as wide. Alais extended her right leg, twisted her left leg under to anchor herself firmly, then pulled herself up through the gap. The purse with the copies of the labyrinth parchments was awkward and kept tangling between her legs, but she kept going.
Ignoring her aching limbs, she quickly stood up and picked her way along the barricade. Although she knew the guards would not betray her to Oriane, the sooner she got out of the Chateau Comtal and to Sant-Nasari, the better.
Peering down to make sure there was no one at the bottom, Alais quickly shinned down the ladders to the ground. Her legs buckled under her as she jumped the last few rungs and she cracked down on her back, knocking every last gasp of air out of her.
She glanced towards the chapel. There was no sign of Oriane or Francois. Keeping close to the walls, Alais passed through the stables, pausing at Tatou’s stall. She was desperate to drink, to give her suffering mare water, but what little there was went only to the warhorses.
The streets were filled with refugees. Alais covered her mouth with her sleeve to keep out the stench of suffering and sickness that hung like a fog over the streets. Wounded men and women, the dispossessed cradling children in their arms, stared blankly up at her with hopeless eyes as she passed.