“I cannot answer for the Count of Foix.”
“He is your vassal and your ally,” Pedro threw back at him. Why do you allow this state of affairs to flourish?“
Alais felt the Viscount draw in his breath. “Sire, you answer your own question. We live side by side with those you call heretics. We grew up together, our closest kinsmen are among them. The parfaits lived good honest lives ministering to an ever-growing flock. I could no more expel them than I could prevent the daily rising of the sun!”
His words did not move Pedro. “Your only hope is to be reconciled with the Holy Mother Church. You are the equal of any of the northern barons the Abbot has with him and they will treat you as such if you seek to make amends. But if, for a moment, you give him cause to believe you too hold these heretical thoughts, in your heart if not by your actions, then he will crush you.” The King sighed. “Do you really believe you can withstand this, Trencavel? You are outnumbered a hundred to one.”
“We have plenty of food.”
“Food, yes, but not water. You have lost the river.”
Alais saw her father dart a glance at the Viscount, clearly fearing he would lose his temper.
“I do not wish to defy you or put myself beyond your good offices, but can you not see they come to fight for our land, not our souls? This war is not waged for the glory of God but for the greed of men. This is an army of occupation, Sire. If I have failed the Church – and so offended you, Sire – I ask your pardon. But I owe no allegiance to the Count of Nevers or the Abbot of Citeaux. They have no right, spiritual or temporal, over my lands. I will not betray my people to the French jackals for so base a cause.”
Alais felt a surge of pride. From the expression on her father’s face, she knew he felt it also. For the first time, something of Trencavel’s courage and spirit seemed to affect the King.
“These are noble words, Viscount, but they will not help you now. For the sake of your people, whom you love, let me at least tell the Abbot of Citeaux you will hear his terms.”
Trencavel walked away to the window and spoke under his breath.
“We do not have enough water to satisfy all those within the Ciutat?”
Her father shook his head. “We do not.”
Only his hands, white against the stone sill of the window, betrayed how much the words cost him to speak.
“Very well. I will hear what the Abbot has to say.”
For a while after Pedro had departed, Trencavel said nothing. He stayed where he was, watching the sun sink from the sky. Finally, when the candles were lit, he sat. Pelletier ordered food and drink to be brought from the kitchens.
Alais dared not move for fear she would be discovered. She had cramps in her arms and her legs. The walls seemed to be pressing in upon her, but there was nothing she could do.
Beneath the curtains, she could see her father’s feet as he paced up and down and heard the low murmurings of conversation from time to time.
It was late when Pedro II returned. From the expression on his face, Alais knew straight away the mission had failed. Her spirit sank. It was the last chance to get the Trilogy away from the Cite before the siege began in earnest.
“You have news?” said Trencavel, rising to greet him.
“None that I would give, Viscount,” Pedro replied. “It offends me even to deliver his insulting words.” He accepted a cup of wine and downed it in one. “The Abbot of Citeaux will allow you and twelve men of your choosing to leave the Chateau tonight, unmolested, bearing all you can carry.”
Alais saw the Viscount’s hands ball into fists. “And Carcassona?”
The Ciutat and everything, everyone else passes to the Host. After Besiers, the lords will be looking for recompense.“
For a moment after he’d spoken, there was silence.
Then, Trencavel finally gave vent to his temper and hurled his cup against the wall. “How dare he offer such an insult!” he roared. “How dare he insult our honour, our pride! I will not abandon a single one of my subjects to these French jackals.”
“Messire,” murmured Pelletier.
Trencavel stood, hands on his hips, breathing heavily, waiting until his rage had passed.
Then he turned again to the King. “Sire, I am grateful for your intercession and for the offices you have undertaken on our behalf. However, if you will not – or cannot – fight with us, then we must part company. You should withdraw.”
Pedro nodded, knowing there was nothing more to be said. “May God be with you, Trencavel,” he said unhappily.
Trencavel met his gaze. “I believe he is,” he said defiantly.
As Pelletier accompanied the King from the hall, Alais took her chance to slip away.
The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Virgin passed quietly, with little progress made on either side. Trencavel continued to shower down arrows and missiles on the Crusaders, while the mindless thud, thud of the catapult sent rock and stone thundering into the walls. Men fell on both sides, but little ground was gained or lost.
The plains resembled a charnel house. Bodies rotted where they lay, in the heat and feasted on by a plague of black flies. Kites and hawks, circling over the battlefield, picked the bones clean.
On Friday the seventh of August, the Crusaders launched an attack on the southern suburb of Sant-Miquel. For a while, they succeeded in the ditch below the walls, but were repelled by a shower of arrows and stones. After several hours of stalemate, the French withdrew under the continued onslaught, to the jeers and triumph of the Carcassonnais.
At dawn the following day, as the world shimmered silver in the early morning light and a delicate mist floated gently across the slopes where more than a thousand Crusaders stood facing Sant-Miquel, the attack began again.
Helmets and shields, swords and pikes, eyes, glinted in the pale sun. Each man wore a cross pinned to his breast, white against the colours of Nevers, Burgundy, Chartres and Champagne.
Viscount Trencavel had positioned himself on the walls of Sant-Miquel, shoulder to shoulder with his men, ready to repel the attack.
The archers and dardasiers held themselves ready, bows set. Below, the foot soldiers were armed with axes, swords and pikes. Behind them, safe within the Cite until they were required, were the chevaliers.
In the distance, the French drums began to beat. They banged the hard earth with their pikes, a steady, heavy sound that echoed over the waiting land.
And so it begins.
Alais stood on the wall at her father’s side, her attention split between looking for her husband, and watching the Crusaders stream down the hill.
When the Host was within range, Viscount Trencavel raised his arm and gave the order. A storm of arrows immediately darkened the sky.
On both sides, men fell. The first scaling ladder was already on the walls. A bolt from a crossbow whizzed through the air and connected with rough, heavy wood and brought it down. The ladder tilted, then overbalanced. It fell slowly at first, then picked up speed, hurling the men to the ground in a splinter of blood, bone and wood.
The Crusaders succeeded in getting a gata, a siege engine, up to the walls of the suburb. Sheltered beneath the cover, drenched with water, the sappers began to pull rocks out of the walls and dig a cavity to weaken the fortifications.
Trencavel shouted at the archers to destroy the structure. Another storm of missiles and flaming arrows hurtled through the air on the wooden structure. The sky fizzed with pitch and black smoke until finally it caught alight, sending men, their clothes burning, fleeing from the burning cage, only to be cut down by the arrows.