Paradise Red (2 page)

When Aimery reaches the top of the scaffolding, he takes hold of the sling, while Raimon, more sure footed, clambers over the rough-cast stone to the squared niche in which the beam must settle. Another man does the same on Sicart's side. He and Raimon nod to each other. On the ground, the oxen are brought to a halt, and men bind ropes into iron rings to prevent the sling from slipping. More shouted instructions. “Keep the knots tight!” “Just slip the loose end through once more!” “Watch your back!”

Despite the care everybody is taking, the beam begins to swing as the wind strengthens. Raimon can feel sharp gusts icing his bare skin. He should have put his shirt on. “It's straight now!” he shouts down, his teeth beginning to chatter. Then, “Have you got it?” across the chasm to his father.

“Yes. Got it.”

“Keep it still.”

Sicart grunts, his arms aching. Damn the wind. Still, it is good to be doing something with his son. It stops him from thinking of his daughter, Adela, too devout a Cathar heretic for his liking, sitting below in silent mourning for the White Wolf, who, during the Castelneuf conflagration, snatched the Blue Flame but left Adela behind. She has not said a word since then.

Raimon is momentarily straddled over the niche. Once properly wedged, the beam will be a king among beams, set to last for a thousand years. At this moment, however, it hovers,
ungainly as a heavy emperor being hoisted onto his throne. Everybody must keep hold. Just a touch from such a weight could send a man tumbling to his death.

“Are we all ready?”

“Push it over a bit.”

“Keep a good grip.”

“More to the right—”

“Too much, too much—”

It doesn't matter to whom the voices belong. They are the voices of a shared endeavor. Except that just before the order goes to loosen the ropes and ease the oxen forward, Raimon has to bend almost double to sweep away a small piece of rubble. The beam must sit absolutely square and tight. As he stretches his fingers, there is a random gust. The beam shifts.

Aimery is immediately aware. His grip tightens then loosens, as if his hold has inadvertently slipped. The beam swings. The warning is swallowed. An accident could be so useful.

It is Sicart who suddenly shouts, “For God's sake, Aimery. Duck, son!” The beam misses Raimon by less than a hair's breadth. Only then does Aimery find his tongue, adding his voice to the general relief. He apologizes and recatches the webbing. However, his apology is too effusive, his expression too innocent, and when his eyes meet Raimon's, it is like granite meeting steel.

“Are you all right?” Sicart is leaning out, regardless of the danger to himself.

Raimon dusts himself off and raises an arm. “I'm fine,” he calls back.

“Ready to try again?” Aimery almost trills. He seizes
the beam and turns those granite eyes again to Raimon. “I'll take better care next time.”

Raimon's lips tighten. Aimery is a fool to have given his secret thoughts away. Though he could so easily have died, Raimon is not sorry to have learned that his enemy is still his enemy.

They all rearrange themselves. There is more shouting, more swinging, some grinding and grunting, a chorus of creaking ropes and a great rasping as the beam scrapes its way down amid gritty puffs of powdered stone. When at last it is still, there is cheering. This is a good omen! Even the normally morose Sicart is grinning, helping more men to swarm up the scaffolding ribs to tap the beam for luck. The master forester carves his initials underneath those of the master mason. Aimery holds out his hand to Raimon. “Beam in safe and sound,” he says. “Sorry about the slip.”

Raimon cannot ignore the hand without causing comment. The contact is momentary.

Two hours later, all five beams are in place. Tomorrow it will be the turn of the smaller joists. By the end of the week, if the weather holds, the rafters will be laid, and the great hall will be closed against the elements. Everybody looks forward to that.

Yet they are unlucky. Before all the workers have reached the ground, a few flakes of snow drift through the dust. There is disappointed muttering. It is late March and spring could be on its way, but the winter is being very persistent.

Raimon pulls on his shirt, and Cador buckles Unbent to his back. The feel of the sword is very good. In Aimery's full vision, Raimon draws it out and tosses it from hand to hand, enjoying the dirty look Aimery cannot disguise. Aimery does
not think Raimon should have a sword. Born a weaver, stay a weaver, that's Aimery's motto. Raimon presses the little flame that decorates Unbent's pommel hard into his palm and suddenly holds the sword above his head with both hands. Cador squeaks and leaps away. “Catch!” shouts Raimon. He whirls the sword, then tosses it. With more good luck than skill, Cador catches it by the hilt. “Victory!” the boy yells, staggering a little under the weight, his whole face creasing with pleasure. Now he swaps Unbent for the rough sword Raimon carries all the time. Even after this tiny outing, he'll polish Unbent again.

Aimery, who has never seen his own squire's face crease like that, scowls as he wraps himself in a knee-length fox fur, one of the few things saved from the French fire-raisers' looting. Laila is staring at him, and at once he is again aware of her pink heels and smooth hips. He coughs. “I don't know why you're still here. I mean, why aren't you with Yolanda at Carcassonne? You're supposed to be her servant. How is she managing without you? And by the way”—he gestures at her hair—“that's a terrible shade of orange.”

Laila, whose corkscrew curls change color almost every day, takes her time, tossing her head to dislodge the snowflakes, and then blinks to draw attention to her eyebrows, each painted a different shade of turquoise and plucked into a perfect arc. “If I'm still here, it's your fault.”

“Absolute nonsense. You're not a prisoner in shackles.”

“There's more to prison than shackles. I've no horse.”

“Take Bors or Galahad.”

“They're Raimon's.”

“So what?”

She sniffs.

Aimery exhales a long wintry blast. “What you really mean is that you don't want just any horse. Bors and Galahad are too old and scarred for a
lady
”—he makes a derisive gesture—“like you.”

Laila glares at him in the especially vicious way she has when somebody hits on a truth, and the glare has Aimery's blood flowing hot. This girl! He doesn't know whether to slap her or kiss her.

The sky chooses this moment to open, and suddenly the snow is not floating but tumbling in huge wet flowers. Men are running for shelter, and Aimery, hitching his jerkin over his head, sees out of the corner of his eye a homing pigeon struggling to reach the loft he has had newly restored. He forgets Laila, just for a second.

“Sir Aimery!”

His squire, Alain, is making his way gingerly, trying not to slip. “We have visitors. Around sixty, I'd say, coming up through the town.”

“Inquisitors?”

“No. They carry no cross before them.”

“Are they armed?” Aimery and Raimon both feel for their swords.

“Yes, but their weapons are all sheathed. As far as I can tell, they're just seeking shelter. I think this is the start of a blizzard, and it looks to be a big one.”

“Close the gates,” Aimery commands. “We've no room for them.”

“The barns are ready,” Raimon contradicts, “the stables too, and the temporary roof on the small hall makes it perfectly usable.”

Aimery taps his sword against his knee. “And what will they eat?”

Raimon stands his ground. “The huntsman's brought in meat, and although we're short of grain, we have eggs and cheese. For God's sake, Aimery.”

Aimery tries to control his temper. He cannot afford to belittle and ignore Raimon, since his bravery during the fire and tireless work on the rebuilding means that those remaining at Castelneuf, from knights to beggars, have developed what, to Aimery, is a misguided sense of respect for him. He considers. Perhaps these people will prove useful, and anyway, turning them away now would not be popular. The French king sets a great deal of store by hospitality. If he were to hear, it would be a black mark. Aimery bats the snow with the flat of his blade. “Oh, let them in, then,” he says, making an effort not to sound grumpy, “and be sure to tell them that even at this time of trial, the Count of Amouroix has not forgotten how to welcome strangers.”

Alain bows and vanishes amid the flurries before he has taken five steps.

Aimery turns his back on Raimon and heads for the loft. At least the birds know who is master. These speedy messengers will, he is sure, be vital for his future for what he sends with them nobody knows except himself. The ladder steps are greasy, and he can feel the wind on the back of his legs. Inside the loft is no warmer. The birds feel the chill too and are plumping up their feathers. Aimery's appearance has their necks jerking, but few of them express any alarm. They are used to him. He peers around then catches the latest arrival, blowing on his fingers before trying to unbind the little leather capsule in which the
message is rolled. He swears as the pigeon flaps and pecks. Finding the binding too tough, eventually he just tugs the capsule off, pulls out a tiny scroll, and reads it. It bears the royal crest. His ill temper subsides at once. Good good. Nothing is over. Indeed, there is still everything to gain. He stuffs the slip of parchment in beside his dagger.

The bird hops away toward a nesting box, her head bobbing back and forth. In his rough hurry, Aimery has injured her leg. He catches her again. “Well, my friend,” he says, holding her up in front of his face, and in her round eye, black as Raimon's, suddenly sees his reflection distorted into something squashed and bloated. He grunts, and with a vicious twist born of his irritation with Raimon and uncomfortable desire for Laila, wrings the bird's neck. Her wings spread and beat just once before her head lolls and her eyes cloud. There is no reflection now. Aimery cradles her for a moment, glancing uneasily about. He should not have done that. She was a royal bird, after all. But when the other birds show no interest he relaxes, catches another, and pets it. He reads his parchment again and then, before he descends, quite casually pitches the small corpse into the unforgiving arms of the gathering storm.

Some people speak of the dead of winter. I know nothing of that. I know only winter's sparkle, the crisp lace of frosted fern and the thick curves of drips frozen into polished beaks. In winter I am a fairy-tale country, soft and crackling underfoot, pearly ice adding a brittle, glistering luster to the more workaday silver of my mountains. Today, a weak spring sun spits hazy diamonds and the late-falling snow transforms Castelneuf from a blackened heap into a shimmering stage set.

The visitors, naturally, are blind to the glamour as they struggle through the gate to the courtyard. Winter to the traveler means only hardship and potentially deadly delay. As the snow collects under their horses' hooves, some of the women are weeping with exhaustion while the men stare balefully at the sky and occasionally raise a fist.

Alain has exaggerated. In all, there are nearer two dozen than sixty visitors. Nevertheless, they come with a good deal of paraphernalia, mostly household rather than war. The majority are men, although there are at least half a dozen wives and daughters, and four of the wives have very small babies tightly
bound against the cold. They crowd into the small hall, shaking the snow from cloaks and boots and banging their feet to restore circulation.

One of the women, just a girl really, sits down and gratefully accepts the bowl of soup set on the table before her. As she bows her head to give thanks to God, she makes a neat circular movement with her right hand. At once, her father, a large man whose red nose and melon-skin cheeks hump out of a speckled and bristling beard, stretches across as if to shield her. It is too late. Adela, who has been sitting motionless by the wall farthest from the fire, shovels herself up. “You are of our faith?” she asks, her dulled eyes kindling.

The girl picks up her spoon and her smile splits a face almost unnaturally unlined and untroubled. With her white throat and hair the color of corn, she looks like a doll made out of wool and wax and polished rams horn that Adela once had. Adela doesn't remember the doll, but I do.

Adela does not wait for an answer. “I, too, am a Cathar,” she says. “My name is Adela Belot and I've taken the consolation from the perfectus known as the White Wolf. Many people here did the same. Not that you'd know it.” She casts her eyes contemptuously about the room. “They abandoned our religion when it got too hard.”

The girl swiftly spoons up her soup. “The Cathar religion hard?” she says, and her voice is musical, a sweet voice for a sweet face. “It doesn't seem so very hard to believe in justice and truth.” She licks her lips with relish. “Perhaps your White Wolf was a little overzealous. Some perfecti are, even though they mean well. Oh! Thank you!” She gratefully accepts more soup. “Our perfectus at home is a nice man, quite gentle. I
sometimes think of him as Christ's brother, although I'd never tell him that because he'd be very embarrassed.” She twinkles and reaches for bread.

Adela is leaning forward. “Did your perfectus also tell you that only true Cathars can be true Occitanians? And did he tell you too that the Cathars now have the Blue Flame?”

The girl scrapes her bowl again, then leans back with a contented sigh. “That's better. I hadn't realized quite how hungry I was. It's hard to think about anything when your stomach's rumbling.”

Adela is annoyed. How can this girl be interested only in her stomach? “Don't you care more about the Blue Flame than your stomach?”

“Of course.” The girl wipes her mouth. “We're on our way to Montségur precisely because that's where the Flame is. Our perfectus is there already, and all the other Occitanian knights that we know. I haven't taken the consolation, as you have, but I think I am as dedicated to the cause.”