Labyrinth (5 page)

Gradually, as she followed her familiar path, her nerves melted away. The river Aude was wide and shallow, with several tributaries leading off it, like veins on the back of a hand. A dawn mist shimmered translucent above the surface of the water. During the winter, the river flowed fast and furiously, swollen by the icy streams from the mountains. But it had been a dry summer so the water was low and still. The salt mills barely moved in the current. Secured to the banks by thick ropes, they formed a wooden spine up the center of the river.

It was too early for the flies and mosquitoes that would hover like black clouds over the pools as the heat intensified, so Alais took the shortcut over the mud flats. The path was marked by little heaps of white stones to help people from slipping into the treacherous sludge. She followed it carefully until she arrived at the edge of the woods that lay immediately below the western section of the Cite walls.

Her destination was a small, secluded glade, where the best plants grew in the partially shaded shallows. As soon as she reached the shelter of the trees, Alais slowed her pace and began to enjoy herself. She pushed aside the tendrils of ivy that overhung her path and breathed in the rich, earthy smell of leaf and moss.

Although there was no sign of human activity, the wood was alive with color and sound. The air was filled with the shriek and twitter of starlings, wrens and linnets. Twigs and leaves crackled and snapped beneath her feet. Rabbits scampered through the undergrowth, their white tails bobbing as they dived for cover among the clusters of yellow, purple and blue summer flowers. High in the spreading branches of the pines, red-coated squirrels cracked the cones’ shells apart, sending thin, aromatic needles showering down on the ground below.

Alais was shot by the time she arrived at the glade, a small island of land with an open space that led down to the river. With relief, she put down her
panier,
rubbing the inside of her elbow where the handle had cut into her skin. She removed her heavy cloak and hung it over a low-hanging branch of a white willow, before wiping her face and neck with a handkerchief. She put the wine in the hollow of a tree to keep it cool.

The sheer walls of the Chateau Comtal loomed high above her. The distinctive tall, thin outline of the Tour Pinte was silhouetted against the pale sky. Alai’s wondered if her father was awake, already sitting with the viscount in his private chambers. Her eyes drifted to the left of the watch-tower, seeking out her own window. Was Guilhem still sleeping? Or had he woken to find her gone?

It always amazed her, when she looked up through the green canopy of leaves, that the Cite was so close. Two different worlds thrown into sharp relief. There, in the streets and the corridors of the Chateau Comtal, all was noise and activity. There was no peace. Down here, in the realm of the creatures of the woods and marshlands, a deep and timeless silence reigned.

It was here that she felt at home.

Alai’s eased off her leather slippers. The grass was deliciously cool between her toes, still wet with early morning dew, and tickled the soles of her feet. In the pleasure of the moment, all thoughts of the Cite and the household were driven from her mind.

She carried her tools down to the water’s edge. A clump of angelica was growing in the shallows at the river’s edge. Their strong fluted stems looked like a line of toy soldiers standing to attention in the muddy ground. Their bright green leaves—some bigger than her hand—threw a faint shadow over the water.

Nothing was better than angelica for purifying the blood and protecting against infection. Her friend and mentor, Esclarmonde, had drummed it into her how essential it was to gather ingredients for poultices, medicines and remedies wherever and whenever she found them. Even if the Cite was free from infection today, she would say, who could say what tomorrow would bring. Disease or illness could take hold at any time. Like everything Esclarmonde told her, it was good advice.

Rolling up her sleeves, Alai’s slipped the sheath round until the knife was lying flat against her back and wouldn’t be in the way. She twisted her hair into a plait to stop it falling over her face as she worked, then tucked the skirts of her dress into her girdle before stepping into the river. The sudden cold on her ankles brought her skin out in goosebumps and made her draw breath.

Alais dipped the strips of cloth into the water and laid them out in a row along the bank, then she started to dig at the roots with her trowel. It wasn’t long before the first plant came free from the riverbed with a slurp. Dragging it up on to the bank, she used her small ax to cut it into different sections. She wrapped the roots in the cloth and laid them flat at the bottom of the
panier,
then wrapped the small, yellow-green flowers, with their distinctive peppery aroma, in a separate cloth in her leather pouch. She discarded the leaves and the rest of the stems before going back into the water and starting the process again. Pretty soon, her hands were stained green and her arms smeared with mud.

Once she had harvested all the angelica, Alais looked around to see if there was anything else she could make use of. A little farther upstream she spotted comfrey, with its strange, telltale leaves that grew down into the stem itself, and its lopsided clusters of bell-shaped pink and purple flowers. Comfrey, or knitbone as most called it, was good for reducing bruising and helping skin and bone to mend. Postponing her breakfast for just a while longer, Alais took her tools and got back to work, only stopping when
the panier
was full and she had used up every strip of cloth.

Carrying her basket back up the bank, she sat down under the trees and stretched her legs in front of her. Her back, shoulders and fingers were stiff, but she felt pleased with what shed achieved. She leaned over and took Jacques’ jar of wine from the hollow. The stopper came loose with a gentle pop. Alais shivered a little as the cool liquid trickled over her tongue and down her throat. Then she unwrapped the fresh bread and tore a large chunk out of it. It tasted of a strange combination of wheat, salt, river water and weed, but she was ravenous. It was as good a meal as she had ever eaten.

The sky was now a pale blue, the color of forget-me-nots. Alais knew she must have been gone for some time. But as she watched the golden sunlight dancing on the surface of the water and felt the breath of the wind on her skin, she was reluctant to return to the busy, noisy streets of Carcassonne and the crowded spaces of the household. Telling herself a few moments more couldn’t hurt, Alais lay back on the grass and closed her eyes.

The sound of a bird screeching overhead woke her.

Alais sat up with a start. As she looked up through the quilt of dappled leaves, she couldn’t remember where she was. Then everything flooded back.

She scrambled to her feet in a panic. The sun was now high in a sky empty of clouds. She’d been gone too long. By now, she was sure to have been missed.

Rushing to pack her things away as quickly as possible, Alais gave her muddy tools a cursory wash in the river and sprinkled water over the strips of linen to keep the cuttings moist. She was about to turn away when her eye was caught by something tangled in the reeds. It looked like a tree stump or a log. Alais shielded her eyes from the sun, wondering how she had missed it before.

It was moving too fluidly, too languidly in the current to be something as solid as bark or wood. Alais edged closer.

Now, she could see it was a piece of heavy, dark material, puffed up by the water. After a moment’s hesitation, her curiosity got the better of her and she ventured back into the water, this time wading beyond the shallows into the deeper water that flowed fast and dark in the center of the river. The farther she went, the colder it got. Alais struggled to keep her balance. She dug her toes deep into the squelching mud as the water splashed up against her thin, white thighs and skirts.

Just past the halfway mark, she stopped, her heart pounding and her palms suddenly greasy with fear now she could see more clearly.

“
Payre Sant
.” Holy Father. The words leaped unbidden to her lips.

The body of a man was floating face-down in the water, his cloak billowing out around him. Alais swallowed hard. He was wearing a high-collared coat of brown velvet, trimmed with black silk ribbon and edged with gold thread. She could see the glint of a gold chain or bracelet under the water. The man’s head was bare, so she could see his hair was curly and black, tinged with flecks of gray. He seemed to be wearing something around his neck, a crimson braid of some sort, a ribbon.

She took a step closer. Her first thought was that he must have lost his footing in the dark, slipped into the river and drowned. She was about to reach out when something about the way his head was lolling in the water stayed her hand. She took a deep breath, transfixed by the bloated corpse. She’d seen a drowned man once before. Swollen and distorted, the sailor’s blotched skin had been tinged with blue and purple, like a fading bruise. This was different, wrong.

This man looked as if the life had already left him before he went into the water. His lifeless hands were stretched in front of him, as if he was trying to swim. The left arm drifted toward her, carried by the current. Something bright, something colorful just beneath the surface, caught her eye. There was a lesion, irregular and uneven, like a birthmark, red against the bloated white flesh around where his thumb should have been. She looked at his neck.

Alais felt her knees buckle.

Everything started to move in slow motion, lurching and undulating like the surface of a rough sea. The uneven crimson line she had taken for a collar or a ribbon was a savage, deep cut. It ran from behind the man’s left ear under his chin, almost severing his head from his body. Tendrils of serrated skin, washed green under the water, trailed out around the gash. Tiny silverfish and leeches, black and swollen, were feasting all along the wound.

For a moment, Alais thought her heart had stopped beating. Then shock and fear hit her in equal measure. She spun round and started to run back through the water, sliding, slipping in the mud, instinct telling her to put as much distance as possible between her and the body. Already she was soaking from the waist down. Her dress, swollen and heavy with water, tangled itself around her legs, nearly pulling her under.

The river seemed twice as wide as before, but she kept going, making it to the safety of the bank before nausea overwhelmed her and she was violently sick. Wine, undigested bread, river water.

Half-crawling, half-dragging herself on all fours, she managed to pull herself higher up, before collapsing on the ground in the shadows of the trees. Her head was spinning, her mouth was dry and sour, but she had to get away. Alai’s tried to stand, but her legs felt hollow and wouldn’t hold her. Trying not to cry, she wiped her mouth with the back of her shaking hand, then tried to stand again, using the trunk of a tree to support her.

This time, she stayed on her feet. Pulling her cloak from the branch with desperate fingers, Alai’s managed to push her filthy feet into her slippers. Then, abandoning everything else, she started to run back through the woods, as if the Devil himself was at her heels.

The heat hit Alai’s the moment she emerged from the trees into the open marshland. The sun pinched at her cheeks and neck, taunting her. The heat had brought out the biting insects and mosquitoes in swarms above the stagnant pools which flanked the path, as Alai’s stumbled forward, on through the inhospitable landscape.

Her exhausted legs screamed in protest and her breath burned ragged in her throat and chest, but she kept running, running. All she was conscious of was the need to get as far away from the body as possible and to tell her father.

Rather than going back the way shed come, which might be locked, Alai’s instinctively headed for Sant-Vicens and the Porte de Rodez, which connected the suburb to Carcassonne.

The streets were busy and Alai’s had to push her way through. The hum and buzz of the world coming to life got louder and louder, more intrusive, the closer she came to the entrance into the Cite. Alais tried to stop her ears and think only of getting to the gate. Praying her weak legs would not give way, Alai’s pushed her way to the front.

A woman tapped her shoulder.

“Your head, Dame,” she said quietly. Her voice was kind, but it seemed to be coming from a long way away.

Realizing that her hair was hanging loose and disheveled, Alais quickly threw her cloak over her shoulders and pulled up her hood, with hands that trembled as much from exhaustion as shock. She edged forward, wrapping the material across the front of her dress, hoping to conceal the stains of mud, vomit and green river weed.

Everybody was jostling, barging, shouting. Alais thought she was going to faint. She put out her hand and steadied herself against the wall. The guards on duty at the Porte de Rodez were nodding most local people through without question, but stopping vagabonds and beggars, gypsies, Saracens and Jews, demanding to know their business in Carcassonne, and searching their belongings more roughly than necessary until small jugs of ale or coins changed hands and they moved on to the next victim.

They let Alais through with barely a glance.

The narrow streets of the Cite were now flooded with hawkers, merchants, livestock, soldiers, farriers,
jongleurs,
wives of the consuls and their servants and preachers. Alais kept her head bowed as if she was walking into a biting north wind, not wishing to be recognized.

At last, she saw the familiar outline of the Tour du Major, followed by the Tour des Casernes, then the double towers of the Eastern Gate as the Chateau Comtal came into full view.

Relief caught in her throat. Fierce tears welled up in her eyes. Furious at her weakness, Alais bit down on her lip hard, drawing blood. She was ashamed to be so distressed and determined not to humiliate herself farther by crying where her lack of courage might be witnessed.

All she wanted was her father.