The Burning Chambers

by Kate Mosse

  On the street in front of the barricade, the cobblestones ran red. Blackened scorch marks defaced the brick walls of the burnt-out houses. The air was heavy with the smell of blood and flesh, powder shot and fire.

  A bay stallion lay on the ground beside its dead rider, its black eyes wild with pain and distress. It struggled to get to its feet, but its belly was ripped open, like the seam on a piece of cloth. Each time it moved the wound widened. The animal’s desperate bellowing grew louder as its flesh unfolded pink against the bloodied brown of its coat.

  ‘Cover me,’ Prouvaire said. ‘It’s not right to let it suffer.’

  Piet watched him jump down from the barricades with a thin blade in his hand. He crouched and made his way to the wounded animal. He ran his hand along the animal’s neck, whispering until the horse became still. Then, gently and with care, he delivered a sharp upward thrust and slipped the knife straight into its heart. The horse shuddered, as if shaking water from its coat, then lay still.

  ‘I grew up on a farm,’ Prouvaire said, when he climbed back to safety. ‘I couldn’t leave it in such pain.’ He wiped his hands, then his eyes. ‘Will they be back?’

  ‘The cavalry? I doubt it,’ Piet said. ‘The street is too narrow for them to be effective and their losses were worse than ours. But infantry, yes. They will want to re-establish access to the Basilica.’

  ‘So, we wait?’

  ‘We wait,’ he said.

  Prouvaire waved his arm. ‘When I was down there, I heard the almshouse in rue du Périgord had burnt down, but with no casualties. That’s something, is it not?’

  Piet glanced at him, wondering if he was aware he had a particular interest in the place. ‘It was evacuated on Tuesday evening,’ he said. ‘It’s a known Huguenot refuge, so would have been a target.’

  Prouvaire nodded. ‘Do you think, there are any other civilians left in the district?’

  ‘Those that escaped the fire, I think, took shelter at a house further along the street. Hard by the church, I couldn’t see which one.’

  For a moment, rue du Taur was silent. Then, like a rumble of dry thunder in the mountains, a bombardment began again somewhere else in the city.

  When Minou had finished dressing the wounds of the new arrivals and had allocated everyone somewhere to rest, she went back to her lookout at the top of the house.

  She could see the Huguenots shoring up the barricade, preparing for the next attack. From the ruined houses, they carried tables and chests that had survived the fire, rolling out more barrels and filling them with earth. She wondered how much longer they would be able to hold out.

  The final attack came at eight o’clock in the evening.

  The harsh voice of a trumpet, then the standard-bearer of Raymond de Pavia and a battalion of foot soldiers marched into rue du Taur and took position in front of the barricade.

  ‘They have a cannon,’ Prouvaire muttered, seeing the cart wheeled into place. ‘There’s a hundred or more of them.’

  ‘Take them one at a time,’ Piet said, reloading his musket.

  This time, their opponents’ tactic seemed to be to try to pull down the barricade. Grappling hooks were hurled up to the top of the wooden walls, quicker than they could be cut down, scaling ladders too.

  ‘Take cover!’ Piet shouted, as the cannon fired into the heart of their defences, blasting a hole the width of a man, and the first of Raymond de Pavia’s soldiers swarmed through.

  Piet threw his gun to one side – there would be no time to load and reload – and drew his sword.

  ‘Courage, mes amis.’

  At his side, Prouvaire also raised his sword. ‘Ready.’

  Piet nodded. ‘Per lo Miègjorn,’ he roared, the battle cry of Raymond-Roger Trencavel at the siege of Carcassonne. ‘For the Midi.’

  With a shout, they charged forward into the street, cutting their way through the forces coming towards them. Lances and swords, the cannon recoiling back on its cart with a heavy thud. Beside Piet, a student was shot in the chest, his thin body thrown up into the air from the barricade, knocking Prouvaire off balance. He lost his concentration, only for a moment, but long enough for an attacker to stab at him with a lance. Piet watched Prouvaire try to raise his sword in defence, but he had no strength in his arm. He took a second blow, this time in his side, and went down.

  Piet ran to him, put his hands under Prouvaire’s shoulders, and dragged him out of the line of fire. Rue du Périgord was blocked and there was no way through to his own lodgings. His only choice was to try the house further up rue du Taur where the civilians had fled, not far from where Minou’s aunt and uncle resided.

  ‘Leave me,’ Prouvaire was saying. ‘There’s more to be done.’

  ‘I’ll see you safe first.’

  As they stumbled out of hiding, one of de Pavia’s soldiers launched himself on them from behind. Prouvaire was now barely conscious, a dead weight in his arms, but Piet managed to land a blow on his assailant, cutting his hand. The soldier shouted and jumped back out of reach as Piet prepared to strike again.

  Using the whole of his weight, Piet heaved against the wooden legs of the burnt-out siege engine, pushing against it with his shoulder once, twice, a third time. The structure teetered on its wheels, then went over, trapping their attacker on the far side.

  He did not look back. Picking Prouvaire up in his arms, he staggered along the street – he prayed to safety.

  There was a hammering on the gates. Minou spun round. More civilians seeking refuge, or soldiers?

  ‘They’re going to break in,’ the old bookseller babbled. ‘They’ll kill us all.’

  ‘Monsieur, hush,’ Minou said, with more confidence than she felt. ‘We are a household of women, old men and infants. Even if it is the soldiers, I do not believe they will slaughter civilians in cold blood.’

  ‘But if they are looters come to take—’

  ‘Go back to the chapel and blockade the door,’ she said. ‘And, forgive me, Monsieur, but please control your tongue. You will spread panic. For the sake of the children, try to remain calm.’

  This was the moment of reckoning. She would either succeed in pleading their case and they would be spared, or she would not.

  It was in God’s hands now.

  Minou felt a stillness go through her. A pure, untrammelled, fear. Yet her heart was beating a steady rhythm and her palms were dry. She pictured Aimeric and Alis squabbling in the kitchen in rue du Trésau and Madame Noubel sweeping her steps, Charles talking to the clouds and all their other friends and neighbours who had filled her life. Then she thought of all those sheltering here and in the maison de charité, put from their homes by the hatred of others.

  She thought of Piet.

  Piet was staggering under the weight. Blood was gushing from the wound in Prouvaire’s side, red turning to black. Piet’s breeches were soaked.

  Confused, he looked up at the gates with the Boussay crest carved into the wood. Piet would have sworn this was where the fleeing civilians had been taken in, but would such a man as Boussay give sanctuary to Huguenots?

  Had he mistaken the house?

  Piet looked down. He saw a child’s bonnet, lying caught in the doorjamb, and remembered the woman fleeing from the barricades with her child in her arms. A white bonnet spotted with ash and blood. This had to be the place.

  He kicked at the gate with his boot. ‘I need help. Someone. For mercy’s sake, let us in.’

  Standing in the courtyard, Minou heard the harsh sounds of the battle even more clearly. The clash of swords, the fear in men’s voices, the screaming.

  Then, in the silence between, the sound of knocking and a voice.

  ‘Is somebody there? I have a man injured. He needs help.’

  Minou could barely make out the words over the renewed cacophony of battle outside.

  ‘Please, I beg you. Let us in.’

  Minou put her eye to the spy hole and saw a soldier, his face covered by his visor, holding a fair-headed
man in his arms. There was a gash in his shoulder, in which a fragment of lance was embedded, and the entire left side of his body was drenched with blood.

  ‘Please. Whoever you are, will you let us in?’

  Students from the barricade, Minou realised; the injured boy was the one who had put the horse out of its misery. She no longer hesitated, but quickly removed the bar, unlocked the gate.

  ‘My thanks,’ the soldier muttered as he stumbled in. ‘He’s hurt badly.’

  He laid his wounded comrade carefully on the ground, before sitting back on his haunches and removing his helmet.

  Minou’s eyes widened. ‘Piet.’

  His head shot up, her shock now mirrored in his face. ‘Jij weer. It’s you, Minou. But how?’

  She grasped his hand. ‘Our carriage was stopped at the bridge. To make sure Aimeric and my aunt got away, I ran back into the city.’

  ‘I cannot believe you are here,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. There was no one at the almshouse.’

  A moment of stillness and calm in the chaos, then Minou smiled. For despite everything, Piet was here in front of her. Battle worn and bloodied, but here.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  As the hours passed, the air in the Boussay chapel grew stale. More had come seeking sanctuary and Minou could not find it in herself to turn anyone away.

  The bells rang out for midnight, then for one o’clock, two. Minou carried on working, administering what tonics and medicines remained, dressing wounds with whatever came to hand, until her eyes ached and her hands were caked hard with blood. Though Piet was at her side, for the most part they laboured in silence.

  Prouvaire’s injuries were serious. He had been struck several times. His left shoulder was broken and a pike had pierced his flank, shattering several of his ribs. Minou feared he had lost too much blood and the risk of infection was high, but she kept trying.

  ‘How goes it with you, Monsieur?’ she asked, as the first fingers of light started to pierce the darkness of the night.

  He tried to answer, but words were abandoning him. Minou lifted the cloth that covered his fighting arm, then let it drop again. She had bandaged his crushed shoulder, but blood was ebbing steadily through the muslin, turning the dressing red.

  ‘This will help,’ she said, dropping a pearl of valerian between his lips to ease the pain.

  For the next few hours, Prouvaire drifted in and out of consciousness. Minou kept returning to him, monitoring the plash of his breathing in his chest. But each time, there was a little less colour in his face.

  QUARTIER SAINT-CYPRIEN

  From the far bank of the river Garonne, Vidal watched Toulouse burn.

  ‘It was Parliament that ordered Place Saint-Georges to be set alight, Monsignor,’ Bonal said. ‘They felt our losses were too heavy in that district. Better that it was destroyed than taken by the enemy.’

  Vidal gave a thin smile. ‘But then the wind changed direction, so Catholic property was also destroyed. Yes, I see.’

  He pressed his fingers together, not dissatisfied by the turn of events. The greater the chaos, the better for his ambitions in the longer term. All he had to do was be patient.

  ‘And the bishop has been asking for you,’ Bonal added.

  Vidal opened the casement. From the safety of their quarters in the fortified suburb of Saint-Cyprien, the skyline of Toulouse burning on the far side of the river had turned the dark of the night to fiery day.

  ‘Has he indeed. Then it is regrettable that, in these dangerous conditions, his summons did not find me. Since there is nothing more to be done here – and I would not wish for the bishop to think I was ignoring his commands – we will leave Toulouse tonight.’

  ‘For Carcassonne, Monsignor?’

  ‘No. After their carriage was stopped at the bridge, the Joubert girl fled back into the city. She might survive, she might not. Either way, there is no need for us to go to Carcassonne at this point.’

  ‘What if she does have the Shroud?’

  Vidal closed the window. Even though it was late and the air cooler, the stench of the dead and dying lying untended within the city walls could be clearly smelt on their side of the Garonne.

  ‘God will keep the Shroud safe from harm, if He wishes it. The matter is in His hands. It is not what I wanted, but the counterfeit is fine enough to deceive most, and those who know it to be a copy are either dead or cannot speak out.’

  ‘Like Reydon.’

  Vidal nodded. ‘Who might, by now, also be dead.’

  An image of Blanche, the last time he had seen her, came into Vidal’s mind. He smiled. Her absence had strengthened his resolve. He would resist carnal temptation, but was it not right, after all she had done for him – and would surely do in the future – that he should tend to her spiritual needs? That he should offer comfort and guidance in the safety of the château?

  ‘Prepare the horses. We leave for Puivert.’

  By five o’clock in the morning, most of the refugees were sleeping. Minou and Piet stole out into the courtyard and sat side by side, their backs against the rail of the loggia. From the quartier Daurade, the sounds of the bombardment continued and the fires in Place Saint-Georges were still burning, but the streets around the Basilica had fallen quiet.

  ‘There is some news I should have given you earlier,’ Piet said, ‘but in my concern for Prouvaire, I forgot it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s your uncle,’ he said. ‘He was one of those taken hostage in the Hôtel de Ville at the beginning of the battle. Captain Saux agreed to release the women and children who were being held, but not the men. Your uncle tried to leave with them. When he was discovered, he attempted to steal the guard’s sword. I’m afraid he was killed, Minou.’

  Minou sat with her hands in her lap. ‘I am glad of it,’ she said eventually, ‘though it is unchristian of me to say so. My aunt suffered greatly at his hands. I will not pretend to mourn his passing.’

  In the hours since his arrival with Prouvaire, Minou and Piet had spoken only of the needs of the present moment. Now, knowing they were on stolen time, they began to talk of everything that had happened since their parting in the church in rue Saint-Taur on the eve of the battle: he told her of how Vidal had been waiting in his lodgings and McCone’s treachery; she told him how she had been forced to give the Shroud into Aimeric’s safekeeping at the bridge, about the letters withheld from her by Madame Montfort. Finally, about Alis held hostage in the mountains.

  ‘The idea of subjecting an innocent child to such unkindness, I cannot comprehend it. Alis is so young, so fragile. Her lungs are weak. The thought of her alone, without the medicines she needs . . .’ Minou broke off and struggled to compose herself. ‘But I will find her and take her home. My father’s second letter informed me he had gone there, too. God willing, Aimeric will arrive safely in Puivert and they will find one another.’

  Piet’s head snapped up. ‘Puivert?’

  She turned to look at him. ‘You know it?’

  ‘I know of it.’

  ‘The ransom letter was signed in the name of Blanche de Bruyère.’

  Piet was frowning. ‘Vidal served as a priest-confessor to a noble family in the Haute Vallée. I wonder if it might be the same woman. It is widely believed that Vidal – Valentin – intends to be the next Bishop of Toulouse. They say he has a powerful and wealthy benefactress supporting his suit.’

  Minou thought for a moment. ‘But how does that have anything to do with Alis? With me? Even if it is the same woman, are these things connected?’

  ‘The only way to find out is to go there.’

  ‘You intend to come with me?’

  He smiled. ‘Since you have given the Shroud into Aimeric’s keeping, and since he is headed for Puivert, what choice do I have?’ His face grew serious. ‘Besides, you cannot think I would allow you to make such a journey alone?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Allow?’

/>   ‘Want, wish, desire, allow, what does it matter? I’m coming.’

  Minou felt a lightness come over her. For a moment, she forgot her newly acquired responsibilities and her aching back. She no longer heard the constant noise of suffering and bombardment and shot. Instead, she was riding across the plains of the Lauragais, the peaks and crests of Canigou and Soularac in the distance.

  Too soon, the image faded and Minou was back in the courtyard of her aunt’s house, the smell of death and ash and a city in ruins. She took Piet’s hand, and he put his arm around her shoulder and drew her towards him.

  ‘Close your eyes,’ he said. ‘Put everything and everyone from your mind. All this misery and slaughter, the good you are doing here, your love for your family. For a moment, think only of yourself. Imagine you were free to go anywhere or do anything. Now, tell me Minou, what do you see?’

  For a moment, she was silent.

  ‘A library,’ she said quietly. ‘Myself at a desk. If I had the liberty to choose, without the restrictions placed upon me by my sex, I would study. Yes. Here at the university in Toulouse, or Montpellier. I would keep my candle burning all night, without a care to the cost. I would read and read, with no care to the strain upon my eyes. I would learn to debate and to think, to . . . well, such things will never happen.’

  Piet cupped her face in his hands. ‘Isn’t this what we are fighting for? The right to want change or to be allowed to do things in a different way, our way.’

  ‘This is a war of faith.’

  ‘A war of faith is always about more than faith,’ he said. ‘And why shouldn’t women study? In our temple, women are encouraged to read, to speak out. The best minds, without prejudice.’

  Minou laughed. ‘If this is what Huguenots preach, no wonder many are drawn to your ranks.’

  Piet flushed. ‘It might be that I make freer with my own opinions than reflecting common Protestant thinking, yet I still believe history will prove me right.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ She leant forward and kissed him, knowing that whatever did happen in the hours ahead she would not want to exchange a single moment of this night.