“How I’ve missed you,” said Guilhem, kissing her neck, her throat, her hands. Alai’s winced.
“Mon cor, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
Guilhem lifted her cloak and saw the angry purple bruising across her shoulder. “Nothing, by Sant-Foy. How in the name of-”
“I fell,” she said. “My shoulder took the worst of it. It is worse than it looks. Please, do not concern yourself.”
Now Guilhem looked uncertain, caught between concern and doubt. “Is this how you fill your hours when I am away?” he said, suspicion forming in his eyes. He took a step back. “Why are you here, Alai’s?”
She faltered. “To bring a message to my father.”
The moment the words were out of her mouth, Alai’s realized she had said the wrong thing. Her intense pleasure immediately turned to anxiety. His brow darkened.
“What message?”
Her mind went blank. What might her father have said? What possible excuse could she give?
“I-”
“What message, Alai’s?”
She caught her breath. More than anything, she wanted there to be lightness between them, but she had given her word to her father.
“Messire, forgive me, but I cannot say. It was a matter for his ears alone.”
“Cannot or will not?”
“Cannot, Guilhem,” she said with regret. “I would that it were otherwise.”
“Did he send for you?” he said furiously. “Did he send for you without asking my permission?”
“No, no one sent for me,” she cried. “I came of my own accord.”
“But yet you will not tell me why.”
“I beseech you, Guilhem. Do not ask me to break my word to my father. Please. Try to understand.”
He grabbed hold of her arms and shook her. “You will not tell me? No?” He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “And to think I believed I had first claim on you. What a fool to think so!”
Alais tried to stop him leaving, but he was already striding away from her through the crowds. “Guilhem! Wait.”
“What’s the matter?”
She spun round to see that her father had come up behind her.
“My husband is offended by my unwillingness to confide in him.”
“Did you tell him I forbid you to speak of it?”
“I tried, but he was not minded to listen.”
Pelletier scowled. “He has no right to ask you to break your word.”
Alais held her ground, feeling anger well up inside her.
“With respect, Paire, he has every right. He is my husband. He deserves my obedience and my loyalty.”
“You are not being disloyal,” Pelletier said impatiently. “His anger will pass. This is not the time nor the place.”
“He feels things deeply. Insults go deep with him.”
“As do we all,” he replied. “Each of us feels deeply. However, the rest of us do not let our emotions govern our common sense. Come, Alais. Put it from your mind. Guilhem is here to serve his seigneur not fret over his wife. As soon as we are back in Carcassona, I’m sure all will be quickly resolved between you.” He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Let it lie. Now, fetch Tatou. You must get ready to leave.”
Slowly, she turned and followed him to the stables. “You will speak with Oriane about her part in this. I feel sure she knows something of what happened to me.”
Pelletier waved his hand. “I’m sure you misjudge your sister. For too long there has been discord between you, which I have allowed to run unchecked, believing it would pass.”
“Forgive me, Paire, but I do not think you see her true character.”
Pelletier ignored her comment. “You are inclined to judge Oriane too harshly, Alais. I am certain she undertook your care for the best of motives. Did you even ask her?” Alais flushed. “Exactly. I see from your face you did not.” He paused again. “She is your sister, Alais. You owe her better.”
The unfairness of the rebuke ignited the anger simmering inside her chest.
“It is not I-”
“If I have the chance, I will talk to Oriane,” he said firmly, making it clear the subject was closed.
Alais flushed, but held her tongue. She had always known she was her father’s favorite and therefore she understood that it was his lack of affection for Oriane that pricked at his conscience and made him blind to her faults. Of her, he had higher expectations.
Frustrated, Alais fell into step beside him. “Will you try to seek out those who took the merel?” Have you-“
“Enough, Alais. No more can be accomplished until we return to Carcassona. Now, may God grant us speed and good fortune to carry us swiftly home.” Pelletier stopped and looked around. “And pray that Besiers has the strength to hold them here.”
CHAPTER 30
Carcassonne
TUESDAY, 5 JULY 2005
Alice felt her spirits lift as she drove away from Toulouse.
The motorway ran dead straight through a green and brown fertile landscape of crops. Now and then she saw fields of sunflowers, their faces tilted from the late afternoon sun. For much of the journey, the high-speed railway ran alongside the road. After the mountains and undulating valleys of the Ariege, which had been her introduction to this part of France, it appeared a more tamed landscape.
There were clusters of small villages on the hilltops. Isolated houses with windows shuttered and a clocher-mur, the bells silhouetted against the pink dusk sky. She read the names of the towns as she passed-Avignonet, Castelnaudary, Saint-Papoul, Bram, Mirepoix-rolling the words over her tongue like wine. In her mind’s eye, each promised the secret of cobbled streets and history buried in pale stone walls.
Alice crossed into the departement of the Aude. A brown heritage sign read: Vous etes en Pays Cathare. She smiled. Cathar country. She was quickly learning that the region defined itself as much by its past as its present. Not just Foix, but also Toulouse, Beziers and Carcassonne itself, all the great cities of the southwest living still in the shadow of events that had taken place nearly eight hundred years ago. Books, souvenirs, postcards, videos, an entire tourist industry had grown up on the back of it. Like the evening shadows lengthening in the west, the signs seemed to be drawing her toward Carcassonne.
By nine o’clock, Alice was through the peage and following the signs for the city center. She felt nervous and excited, strangely apprehensive, as she picked her way through gray industrial suburbs and retail parks. She was close now, she could feel it.
The traffic lights turned green and Alice surged forward, carried along by the flow of traffic, driving over roundabouts and bridges, then suddenly in countryside again. Coarse scrub along the rocade, wild grasses and twisted trees blown horizontal by the wind.
Alice cleared the brow of the hill and there it was.
The medieval Cite dominated the landscape. It was so much more imposing than Alice had imagined, more substantial and complete. From this distance, with the purple mountains thrown into sharp relief behind in the distance, it looked like a magical kingdom floating in the sky.
She fell in love immediately.
Alice pulled over and got out of the car. There were two sets of ramparts, an inner and an outer ring. She could pick out the cathedral and the castle. One rectangular, symmetrical tower, very thin, very tall, stood higher than everything else.
The Cite was set on top of a grassy hill. The slopes swept down to streets filled with red-roofed houses. On the flat land at the bottom there were fields of vines, fig and olive trees, wigwams of heavy ripe tomatoes in rows.