Labyrinth (66 page)

Guilhem couldn’t bear to witness Sajhe’s grief any longer and went outside to wait. He had no right to intrude.

Some time later, Sajhe reappeared. His eyes were red, but his hands were steady and he walked purposefully towards Guilhem, who was standing at the highest point of the village, looking to the west.

“When does it grow light in the morning?” he said as Sajhe drew level.

The two men were a similar height, although the lines on Guilhem’s face and the flecks of grey in his hair betrayed he was fifteen years closer to the grave.

The sun rises late in the mountains at this time of year.“

Guilhem was silent for a moment. What do you want to do?“ he said, respecting Sajhe’s right to dictate things from here.

“We must stable the horses, then find somewhere for ourselves to sleep. I doubt they will be here before morning.

“You don’t want…” Guilhem started, looking towards the house.

“No,” he said quickly. “Not there. There’s a woman who will give us food and shelter for the night. Tomorrow, we should move further up the mountain and set up camp somewhere near the cave itself to wait for the.”

“You think Oriane will bypass the village?”

“She will guess where Alais has concealed the
Book of Words
. She’s had time enough to study the other two books over these past thirty years.”

Guilhem glanced sideways at him. “Is she right? Is it still there in the cave?”

Sajhe ignored him. “I don’t understand how Oriane persuaded Bertrande to go with her,” he said. “I told her not to leave without me. To wait until I came.”

Guilhem said nothing. There was nothing he could say to allay Sajhe’s fears. The younger man’s anger quickly burned itself out.

“Do you think Oriane has brought the other two books with her?” he said suddenly.

Guilhem shook his head. “I imagine the books are safe in her vaults somewhere in Evreux or Chartres. Why would she risk bringing them here?”

“Did you love her?”

The question took Guilhem by surprise. “I desired her,” he said slowly. “I was bewitched, flushed with my own importance, I…”

“Not Oriane,” Sajhe said abruptly, “Alais.”

Guilhem felt as if an iron band had fixed itself round his throat.

“Alais,” he whispered. For a moment, he stood locked in his memories, until the force of Sajhe’s intense gaze brought him back to the cold present.

“After…” he faltered. “After Carcassona fell, I saw her only once. For three months, she stayed with me. She had been taken by the Inquisitors, and—‘

“I know,” Sajhe“ shouted, then his voice seemed to collapse. ”I know of it.“

Mystified by Sajhe’s reaction, Guilhem kept his eyes straight ahead. To his own surprise, he realised he was smiling.

“Yes.” The word slipped from between his lips. “I loved her more than the world. I just did not understand how precious a thing love is, how fragile until I had crushed it in my hands.”

“It’s why you let her be. After Tolosa, and she returned here?”

Guilhem nodded. “After those weeks together, God knows it was hard to stay away. To see her, just once more… I had hoped, when this was all over, we might be… But, obviously, she found you. And now today…”

Guilhem’s voice cracked. Tears welled in his eyes, making them smart in the cold. Beside him, he felt Sajhe shift. For a moment, there was a different quality to the atmosphere between them.

“Forgive me. That I should break down before you.” He took a deep breath. “The bounty Oriane put on Alais’ head was substantial, tempting even for those who had no reason to wish her harm. I paid Oriane’s spies to pass false information. For nigh on thirty years it helped keep her safe.”

Guilhem stopped again, the image of the burning book against the blackened red cloak slipping, like an unwelcome guest, into his mind.

“I did not know her faith was so strong,” he said. “Or that her desire to keep the
Book of Words
from Oriane would drive her to such steps.”

He looked at Sajhe, trying to read the truth written in his eyes.

“I would that she had not chosen to die,” he said simply. “For you, as the man she chose, and me, as the fool who had her love and lost it.” He stumbled. “But most for the sake of your daughter. To know Alais—”

“Why are you helping us?” Sajhe interrupted. Why did you come?“

“To Montsegur?”

Sajhe shook his head, impatient. “Not Montsegur. Here. Now.”

“Revenge,” he said.

CHAPTER 79

Alais woke with a jolt, stiff and cold. A delicate purple light swept across the grey and green landscape at dawn. A gentle white mist tiptoed through the gulleys and crevices of the mountainside, silent and still.

She looked to Harif. He was sleeping peacefully, his fur-lined cloak drawn up to his ears. He’d found the day and night they had spent travelling hard.

The silence was heavy over the mountain. Despite the cold in her bones and her discomfort, Alais relished the solitude after the months of desperate overcrowding and confinement within Montsegur. Careful not to disturb Harif, she stood up and stretched, then reached into one of the saddlebags to break off a piece of bread. It was as hard as wood. She poured herself a cup of thick red mountain wine, which was almost too cold to taste. She dipped the bread to soften it, then ate quickly, before preparing food for the others.

She hardly dared think about Bertrande and Sajhe and where they might be at this moment. Still in the camp? Together or apart?

The call of a screech owl returning from his night’s hunting split the air. She smiled, soothed by the familiar sounds. Animals rustled in the undergrowth, sudden flurries of claws and teeth. In the woodlands of the valleys lower down, wolves howled their presence. It served to remind her that the world went on the same, its cycles changing with the seasons, without her.

She roused the two guides and told them food was ready, then led the horses to the stream and broke the ice with the hilt of her sword so they could drink.

Then, when the light strengthened, she went to wake Harif. She whispered to him in his own language and put her hand gently on his arm. He often woke in distress these days.

Harif opened his hooded brown eyes, faded now with age.

“Bertrande?”

“It’s Alais,” she said softly.

Harif blinked, confused to find himself on this grey mountainside. Alais imagined he had been dreaming of Jerusalem again, the curve and sweep of the mosques and the call to prayer of the Saracen faithful, his travels across the endless sea of the desert.

In the years they had spent in one another’s company, Harif had told her of the aromatic spices, the vivid colours and the peppery taste of the food, the terrible brilliance of the blood-red sun. He had told her stories of how he had used the long years of his life. He had talked of the Prophet and the ancient city of Avaris, his first home. He had told her stories about her father in his youth, and the
Noublesso
.

As she looked down at him, his olive skin grey with age, his once black hair white, her heart ached. He was too old for this struggle. He had seen too much, witnessed too much, for it to finish so harshly.

Harif had left his last journey too late. And Alais knew, although he had never said so, that only thoughts of Los Seres and Bertrande gave him the strength to keep going.

“Alais,” he said quietly, adjusting to his surroundings. “Yes.”

“It won’t be much longer,” she said, helping him to his feet. “We’re nearly home.”

Guilhem and Sajhe talked little as they sat huddled in the shelter of the mountain out of reach of the vicious claws of the wind.

Several times, Guilhem tried to initiate conversation, but Sajhe’s taciturn responses defeated him. In the end he gave up trying and withdrew into his own private world, as Sajhe had intended.

He was sick in conscience. He’d spent a lifetime first envying Guilhem, then hating him, and finally learning to forget about him. He had taken Guilhem’s place at Alais’ side, but never in her heart. She had remained constant to her first love. It had endured, despite absence and silence.

Sajhe knew of Guilhem’s courage, his fearless and long struggle to the Crusaders from the Pays d’Oc, but he did not want to find himself liking Guilhem, admiring him. Nor did he want to feel pity for him. He could see how he grieved for Alais. His face spoke of deep loss, Sajhe could not bring himself to speak. But he hated himself for not doing so.

They waited all day, taking it in turns to sleep. Close to dusk a sudden flurry of crows took flight lower down the slopes, flying up into the air like ash from a dying fire. They wheeled and hovered and cawed, beating the air with their wings.

“Someone’s coming,” said Sajhe, immediately alert.

He peered out from behind the boulder, which was perched on the narrow ledge above the entrance to the cave, as if placed there by some giant hand.

He could see nothing, no movement lower down. Cautiously, Sajhe came out of his hiding place. Everything ached, everything was stiff, a combination of the after-effects of the beating and inactivity. His hands were numb, the raw knuckles red and cracked. His face was a mass of bruises and ragged skin.

Sajhe lowered himself over the rocky ledge and dropped to the ground. He landed badly. Pain shot up from his injured ankle.

“Pass me my sword,” he said, holding up his arm.

Guilhem handed him the weapon, then came down and joined him as he stood looking out over the valley.

There was a burst of distant voices. Then, faintly in the fading light, Sajhe saw a thin wraith of smoke winding up through the sparse cover of the trees.

He looked to the horizon, where the purple land and the darkening sky met.

They’re on the southeastern path,“ he said, ”which means Oriane’s avoided the village altogether. From that direction, they won’t be able to come any further with the horses. The terrain is too rough. There are gulleys with sheer drops on both sides. They’ll have to continue on foot.“

The thought of Bertrande, so close by, was suddenly too much to bear.

“I’m going down.”

“No!” Guilhem said quickly, then more quietly. “No. The risk is too great. If they see you, you’ll put Bertrande’s life in danger. We know Oriane will come to the cave. Here, we have the element of surprise. We must wait for her to come to us.” He paused. “You must not blame yourself, friend. You could not have prevented this. You serve your daughter by holding fast to our plan.”

Sajhe shook Guilhem’s hand from his arm.

“You don’t have any idea what I’m feeling,” he said, his voice shaking with fury. “How dare you presume to know me?”

Guilhem put up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry.”

“She’s only a child.”

“How old is she?”

“Nine,” he replied abruptly.

Guilhem frowned. “So old enough to understand,” he said, thinking aloud. “So even if Oriane did
persuade
her, rather than force her, to leave the camp, it’s likely by now Bertrande will realise something’s wrong. Did she know Oriane was in the camp? Does she even know she has an aunt?”

Sajhe nodded. “She knows Oriane is no friend to Alais. She would not have gone with her.”

“Not if she knew who she was,” agreed Guilhem. “But if she didn’t?”

Sajhe thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Even then, I can’t believe she would go with a stranger. We were clear that she had to wait for us—”

He broke off, realising he had nearly given himself away, but Guilhem was following his own train of thought. Sajhe gave a sigh of relief.

“I think we will be able to deal with the soldiers after we have rescued Bertrande,” Guilhem said. “The more I think about it, the more likely I think it is that Oriane will leave her men in the camp and continue on alone with your daughter.”

Sajhe started to listen. “Go on.”

“Oriane has waited more than thirty years for this. Concealment is as natural to her as breathing. I don’t think she’ll risk anybody else knowing the precise location of the cave. She would not want to share the secret and since she believes no one, except her son, knows she is here, she will not be expecting any opposition.”

Guilhem paused. “Oriane is—” He broke off. “To gain possession of the Labyrinth Trilogy Oriane has lied, murdered, betrayed her father and her sister. She has damned herself for the books.”

“Murdered?”

“Her first husband, Jehan Congost, certainly, although it was not her hand that wielded the knife.”

“Francois,” murmured Sajhe“, too soft for Guilhem to hear. A shaft of memory, the screaming, the desperate thrashing of the horse’s hooves as man and beast were sucked down into the boggy marsh. ”

“And I’ve always believed she was responsible for the death of a woman very dear to Alais,” Guilhem continued. “Her name is lost to me this far after the event, but she was a wise woman who lived in the
Ciutat
. She taught Alais everything, about medicines, healing, how to use nature’s gift for good.” He paused. “Alais loved her.”

It was obstinacy that had stopped Sajhe from revealing his identity. It was obstinacy and jealousy that prevented him confiding anything of his life with Alais.

“Esclarmonde did not die,” he said, no longer able to dissemble. Guilhem went very still.

“What?” he said. “Does Alais know this?”

Sajhe nodded. “When she fled from the Chateau Comtal, it was to Esclarmonde - and her grandson - that Alais turned for help. She left—”

The sound of Oriane’s sharp voice, authoritative and cold, interrupted the conversation. The two men, mountain fighters both, dropped down to the ground. Without a sound, they drew their swords and took up their positions close to the entrance of the cave. Sajhe concealed himself behind a section of rock slightly below the entrance, Guilhem behind a ring of hawthorn bushes, their spiked branches sharp and menacing in the dusk.

The voices were getting nearer. They could hear the soldiers’ boots, armour and buckles, as they clambered over the flint and stone of the rocky path.

Sajhe felt as if he was taking every step with Bertrande. Every moment stretched an eternity. The sound of the footsteps, the echo of the voices, repeating over and over again yet never appearing to get any closer.