Blue Flame

by K. M. Grant

  “Indeed,” said Hugh, narrowing his eyes.

  Aimery was encouraged. “Look. I think you should take her away directly after the party. There’s no need for her to be here when Girald returns from Avignonet with the death warrants. This Cathar stuff has been upsetting for her.”

  “Don’t you care about the pyre? You must know all of those destined to burn.”

  “What else can be done with people who persist in error?” Aimery said with a piety both knew was entirely insincere.

  They broke off when the door opened and Brees pushed his way in. Raimon curled himself into an even tighter ball. If the dog came to him, he was finished. But Brees had rolled in stinking fox droppings and Aimery quickly pushed him out again. Hugh watched. “That dog will be miserable in Paris,” he said. “I think I’ll find your sister a small greyhound. They would look very pretty together.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Aimery was uncomfortable. “Yolanda does love Brees.”

  Hugh was saved from answering by the appearance of Yolanda herself. She had come in to avoid being stared at by more prisoners being transported to the cellars: her old nursemaid, two elderly sisters who sold love potions, and six children, all caught making a circular rather than straight sign of the cross over their bread. Like an expert fisherman, Girald had reeled them in, a last batch before his departure.

  “Come, sit,” said Hugh smoothly, seeing at once that she was upset. He took her arm and sat her down on a heap of hay as if she were an irreplaceably precious object. She withdrew her arm and addressed only Aimery.

  “How can you say nothing when our friends are being rounded up like sheep?”

  “Hysteria makes you ugly, Yola.” Aimery spoke fast and with unattractive glibness. “The Cathars all believe they’re going straight to heaven anyway, so really, what does it matter how quickly they arrive there?”

  “You don’t like it any more than I do.” Yolanda cut straight through his nonsense. “Why can’t you and Father stop it?”

  “Do you want us to burn too?”

  “Uncle Girald would never do that.”

  “Oh, he would, Yolanda, he would.”

  “Perhaps it would be better to burn than to help him burn others.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Aimery, with feeling.

  Hugh thought it was time to change the subject. “I’m glad you’ve come here, Yolanda, I’ve got something I’d like to give you.”

  “No more presents, Sir Hugh.” Yolanda pulled Brees to her.

  “I wish you’d stop calling me sir,” Hugh said, steeling himself against the smell of Brees on his intended. “Don’t we know each other well enough for just Hugh?”

  She didn’t reply, so he turned to Galahad. “This old warrior gave you a good ride at the hunt,” he said. “Would you like to have him? And where he goes, Bors goes too. Two horses for you, as part of your birthday present.”

  “I can’t think of having presents,” she said. “I can’t think of anything.”

  “Don’t look on them as presents then. Let’s just say the horses are yours because I’ve no more use for them. Could you accept them then?”

  She shook her head.

  “You shouldn’t be so ungrateful,” Aimery told her. “You’d be the only girl in the whole Amouroix with two warhorses of your own, to do what you like with.”

  He was gratified to see that these words did have some effect. He had no idea what Yolanda was thinking, but Raimon did. Two warhorses would certainly be useful. He would have smiled but he dared not move a muscle. There was more conversation, more persuasion, and finally, from Yolanda, a reluctant acceptance before Aimery steered them all out of the barn and told Yolanda that she should dunk Brees in the water trough.

  Raimon uncurled himself at once, hesitated, then slipped on one of the des Arcis surcoats. Oat dust from the manger had speckled his hair, lightening its darkness, and he didn’t shake it off. He patted both horses, settled the surcoat, and then left the barn himself. He gave up any idea of going to Yolanda’s room and this time made his way down to the bottom of the chateau, to the wide gap that led the way to the cellars. He walked casually, keeping to the shadows where he could, and when he reached the entrance he walked straight down the jagged steps, looking neither right nor left, as if he were a des Arcis flunky sent with an important message. He stopped only when he got to the gate at the bottom, once rusted but now polished and firmly locked.

  Carved into the bare rock, with domed roofs and bars instead of wooden doors, the six individual cells, each measuring roughly fifteen feet across but going back much farther, were opposite him, set in an uneven line amid the rubble of the chateau’s foundations. Half a dozen guards were huddled, cooking over a smoky brazier in front of the middle cell, but otherwise the only light was from a series of tallow flambeaux and the only smell was of animal fear. In all their long life, the Castelneuf cellars had never had a sinister air about them but they were horribly sinister now, for though they looked no different than they had when they held sand or wine or wood, they were filled with the whispering echoes of hopeless prayers, with the worst sound of all, the unsuspecting gurgling of a baby’s laughter.

  Among those praying in the middle cell, Raimon saw Beatrice. At first he mistook her for her mother, for her buxom comeliness had leaked away like bran from a sack. He also saw Gui and Guerau wedged side by side, and then could have listed everyone else, for he knew them all. It was like seeing his childhood incarcerated. Then he saw Adela. She was sitting upright, her lips pressed as tightly as if somebody had sewn them together. She had a crazy look in her eye.

  Raimon held himself taut against the wall and tried to think. The way he had come down, though the quickest way out, was too exposed for such a large group of people to use in a hurry, even if the gate was open. The prisoners would have to go a different way, through the foundation’s myriad passages, which came out in several different places. The drawback there was that every passage led directly or indirectly into the chateau courtyard system and since each courtyard had its own gate and its own lock, anybody emerging from the cellars that way could be caught like a rat in a trap in several different places. Even if he could get all the keys, and all the guards were otherwise occupied, it would take too long to match key with lock. They would have to come this way. He would have to get the key and they would have to trust to luck and the distraction of the party entertainments.

  In the end, it was ridiculously easy to get the key. One of the guards let himself out of the gate, locked it behind him, and began to climb the steps, hooking the key loosely into his belt. Raimon pressed himself into the wall and kept his eyes fixed in front of him. In the dark, the man might pass him without comment, believing him just to be a curious squire. Raimon had no sophisticated plan, but he hardly needed one. The man came abreast, saw the surcoat, made a comment, nodded, and walked on. Raimon then waited for a moment before quite openly following him closely, unhooking the swinging key when the narrowness of the passage pushed them together, and then sliding it inside one of his boots. As they emerged into the light, he turned smartly left as the man turned right. And that was that.

  He wondered whether he should push his luck further and, unwise as he knew it was, the temptation to steal from right under Hugh’s nose proved too great. He walked quickly back to the barn. The door was wide open and the place filled with servants of both high and low degree preparing horses for exercise. He took a deep breath and strode in among them, walking confidently over to Bors and Galahad. Nobody looked at him carefully. The horses were fidgeting and pushing, anxious lest they should be left behind when all their fellows went out. Raimon picked up two bridles, but then, since the sight of a squire bareback on a destrier would have certainly excited comment, he took two saddles also and when he was ready, led the horses into the courtyard. Gritting his teeth against the hard leather and harder wood, he mounted Galahad, gathered up Bors’s leading rein, and took his place in a chattering group. His l
uck was going to hold. He was sure of it. Nobody challenged him as he clattered through the chateau gate, nor in the main street, nor at the bridge, where the whole party turned upriver. He rode with them for a while, then began to lag behind until a bend in the bank meant he was on his own. “Come on,” he said to Galahad, and both horses were too well trained to disobey, even if they did whinny as their friends vanished. Raimon urged them into a canter, and pushed them on until they were well away from the chateau and within the disguising shelter of the trees. He was almost laughing now. It was a beautiful day. He had the cellar key and two horses. Quite a haul to show Parsifal.

  Had it been raining, he would have paid more attention. As it was, when two people leaped at him from the thicket, he didn’t even catch a glimpse of their faces. One moment he was on top of the world, the next the world was crushing him, tying him up and pulling him, blindfolded, somewhere he did not want to go. He resisted with all his might but was easily overpowered, and when he was finally allowed to stop and the blindfold removed, he found himself face-to-face with his father, and behind his father, in a group of about ten others, stood the White Wolf.

  Such was his shock, that Raimon could think of nothing to say. All he noticed was that although everybody else was filthy, the perfectus’s hair and beard were still the color and texture of swans’ down. Sicart, on the other hand, dazed by this vision of his son, seemed to have lost half his bulk, and his mouth had developed a twitch.

  “They told me you were dead,” he said.

  “They were mistaken.” Raimon waited for his father to express some relief, but none came. They might have been distant cousins, or even acquaintances who met occasionally. It struck him that he had no idea what he thought of his father anymore. He wanted to hate him but he hardly seemed worth hating. It was shocking how much he had aged.

  “Adela,” Sicart said, and his voice, like his limbs, seemed to have lost all substance. “She’s in the cellars. She’s going to burn, Raimon. I don’t think I can survive that.” He glanced back at the White Wolf, half-fearful, half-apologetic, before turning back to his son. “Have you come from the chateau?” He clutched his arm. “Are they lighting the pyre today? Will it be today?” He was a pitiable figure.

  Raimon disengaged his arm. He could not bring himself to comfort his father, but he would reassure him as best he could. “No, no, of course not,” he said. “They’re not going to burn today.”

  The White Wolf interrupted, his voice still as pleasant as Raimon remembered.

  “I’m sorry for your unceremonious greeting,” he said, “but we’re short of information and we didn’t want you to gallop off. What can you tell us about the timing of the pyre, for I won’t desert God’s martyrs in their time of need.” His eyes were quite calm, even warm. He might have been asking for the hour a shop opened or a market stall would be ready for business.

  “Timing of the pyre? God’s martyrs?” Raimon felt the key in his boot. “Only a madman would call them anything but terrified people facing a hideous death.”

  “And I shall face it with them,” the White Wolf said almost gaily. “You may think me a madman for being prepared to die for what I believe, Raimon, but I assure you I’m not. I shall help them, and we shall all be in heaven together.”

  “If you want to die, that’s your business,” Raimon said, his lips curling with utter disgust. “But it’s the devil’s work to force others.”

  Sicart was beginning to crumble, and despite the White Wolf standing so close, he began to plead. “She can’t burn, Raimon, she can’t.”

  It was terrible to see his father cry. “Perhaps she won’t, Father.” He wouldn’t say anything about Yolanda’s party or the key but he wanted to give his father some kind of hope. “Perhaps the evidence won’t be good enough for the council to sign the warrants.” This was impossible, as Raimon well knew, but it was all he could think of to say.

  Sicart shook his head. “Any evidence will be good enough.”

  “Maybe something will happen and the inquisitor will never get to Avignonet.”

  “Avignonet. Avignonet.” Sicart repeated the name. “Is that where he’s going?”

  Raimon nodded. “That’s what I hear.”

  His father was on his knees. “Perfectus, it’s not so far to Avignonet. Could we not get there before him and destroy the evidence so that he would have nothing to show?” He did not disguise that he was begging.

  The White Wolf looked faintly contemptuous. “Do you not want your daughter to go to God, Sicart?”

  “Of course I do.” Sicart was no longer begging, he was breaking down. “Only not like that.” His voice was rising. “Was my wife not enough, Perfectus, was she not enough?”

  Raimon looked at his father, there on his knees, his back bent, his pride dissolved, and his whole body shaking with distress. With quiet deliberation, he spoke again.

  “You know that the Blue Flame’s been seen in Avignonet too, Father? Had you not even heard that? It’s why Girald has gone himself. He’s determined that the Blue Flame is his.”

  At once, just as Raimon hoped, intense anxiety permeated the White Wolf’s whole being. “The Blue Flame? Are you sure?”

  “I’m only saying what I’ve heard.”

  The White Wolf’s eyes flickered over to the horses.

  Raimon was careful to say nothing more.

  There was a pause. The perfectus moved toward Bors.

  “The Blue Flame,” he repeated. “You’re certain of that?” Raimon shrugged. It was enough. The White Wolf moved a little faster. “Come, Sicart,” he said, “perhaps you’re right. Maybe we should go to Avignonet. We can go together.” He took Bors’s rein and, not ungracefully, mounted. Raimon helped his father to mount Galahad. Sicart was jabbering. “Yes, yes, thank you, Perfectus. We’ll get to Avignonet and destroy the evidence and then Adela will be safe.” He kicked Galahad, who grunted.

  “Wait!” The perfectus looked at Raimon, who was still holding Galahad’s rein. “Avignonet, you say.”

  “Avignonet,” Raimon repeated, his face betraying nothing.

  Sicart was in an agony of impatience. “Come on, Perfectus.” But the White Wolf held his reins tight and dallied still further. “I’m not sure.” Was that a twist in the boy’s mouth? he wondered.

  Raimon looked the White Wolf directly in the eyes. It was cobalt meeting steel. “The Blue Flame is to be found at Avignonet,” he said loudly, making sure that everybody could hear, “just as salvation is to be found in your consolation.”

  “You see!” cried Sicart. “Why are we still waiting?”

  The White Wolf lingered for one more second, and then, when Raimon let go of Galahad he drove his heels into Bors and followed.

  When Raimon eventually returned to the cave, Parsifal had never seen him so exultant. He had seen Yolanda, stolen the key, and, best of all, sent the perfectus on a wild goose chase. It was a fair trade for the loss of two warhorses. Let the inquisitor and perfectus fight it out in Avignonet. By that time, the prisoners would be free.

  “Uncover the box,” he begged Parsifal, and when Parsifal obliged and the Flame flared brightly, Raimon became almost dizzy.

  It was Parsifal who noticed that the Flame’s center, instead of being blue, was as black as Raimon’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t want to spoil the boy’s elation, but long after Raimon was asleep, he was still sitting up, fingering the swords. The Flame was dancing, but not as Raimon, or any human being Parsifal had ever known, might dance. This dance had no joy about it, and it occurred to Parsifal that the Blue Flame was not dancing the dance of freedom, but of death.

  15

  The Party

  The disappearance of the horses caused a small stir. Yolanda at once guessed what had happened and Aimery frowned and fumed and grew very suspicious but could do little. Berengar made no comment. The squires, when questioned, told how somebody in a des Arcis surcoat had taken both horses. Perhaps, some suggested, the man had taken them
back to Paris. After a day or two, when neither Yolanda nor Hugh seemed anxious to pursue the matter, even Aimery had to let it drop, although he did not forget it, not for a minute. But the party was looming.

  For everyone at Castelneuf, this was the oddest time, for even the clatter of platters, flap of tablecloths, and the crashes and bangs from the kitchen, all growing louder as the day drew nearer, could not disperse the tension. No one could forget that deep in the chateau’s belly sat those who should have been guests. Nor could they forget that their hopes had been raised by the apparent appearance of the Blue Flame, only to be dashed again—and then worse than dashed. Since the Flame’s appearance, nothing but ill had happened.

  Three days before the party, more friends of Aimery’s arrived, clearly not from the Occitan. The servants and household knights were fearful of the French men at first, but since the guests did nothing but laugh and josh and tease the maidservants, it was hardly possible to believe they meant any harm. Aimery noted all this with some satisfaction. When the time came, I was to give in gracefully to King Louis and the king would be suitably grateful.

  Shortly after dawn on the day of the party itself, Yolanda was hunched into a ball in her chamber, Brees at her back, watching baskets of decorative blossoms and great fans of hackle feathers being carried into the hall. She alternated between high anxiety, terror even, at the thought of the evening and all that could go wrong, and the joy of reliving again and again her reunion with Raimon. Out of all the dances they had ever danced, she would never forget the one in the cave.

  The hardest bit of all, however, was pretending that she was going to enjoy herself. She had contemplated trying to send a message to Beatrice, to tell her what was to be attempted. It was very hard to think that her friend believed her to be callously celebrating. But although there were people in the chateau Yolanda could trust completely, she didn’t want to place them in danger. And she couldn’t go herself. Aimery’s friends and servants were everywhere.

  Suddenly feeling stifled, she leaned out into the clamor of the courtyard below. Through the gates over the last few days had rolled an untidy train of brightly colored carts, all sprouting a motley collection of singers and dancers. The count had been encouraged by Aimery to spare no expense and the list of entertainments to liven up the late afternoon and evening would have thrilled Yolanda in other circumstances. There was to be a dart-throwing contest, a mock battle with oranges from Valencia, acrobats, and, from Catalonia, an imaginator to tell fortunes. Yet these seemed as nothing when Gui and Guerau’s instruments still hung silent in the hall.