The Burning Chambers
Page 47
Minou sits down on the parapet, opens her journal on a new page and begins to write.
‘Château de Puivert. Saturday, the third day of May, in the year of Grace of Our Lord fifteen hundred and seventy-two.’
In the west, the sun sinks below the hills. The sky turns from blue to pink to white, promising that tomorrow will be another perfect day.
Note on Language
The langue d’Oc, from which the region of Languedoc takes its name, was the medieval language of the Midi from Provence to Aquitaine in the Middle Ages and beyond. It is closely related to Provençal, Catalan and Basque. The langue d’oïl – the forerunner of modern-day French – was spoken in north and central France.
In the past twenty-five years, there has been something of a linguistic revolution in the Midi. Occitan is now seen on all major signs, there is still a bilingual French/Occitan school in the heart of the medieval city of Carcassonne and Occitan is promoted and advertised on television. However, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Occitan was considered both provincial and a sign of a lack of education. To distinguish between the incomers and the local inhabitants, I have used both Occitan and French. Certain words, therefore, appear in both forms – for example mademoiselle/madomaisèla and monsieur/sénher.
This independence of language – along with independence of spirit that can, in part, be traced back to the invasion of the south by the Catholic north 1209–44 – is one reason certain historians offer for the fact that Huguenot communities were more prevalent in the south, and why they held out against repression for so much longer. As with the soi-disant Cathar Heresy, for many Huguenots – those who followed the Reformed Religion – there was a simple desire to strip back religion and return to the words of the Bible, as opposed to the interpretation of the Bible by bishops and priests, and to reject Latin as the language of worship. Otherwise, Cathar belief and Protestant doctrine have little in common in terms of doctrine and theology. On the other hand, it is fair to suggest that the freedom of spirit and thought that led to Catharism taking so strong a hold in Languedoc in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, before being all but wiped out in the fourteenth century, was reflected in Huguenot communities during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The translations of the Bible into French by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples in 1530 in Antwerp and Pierre Olivétan’s revised version in 1535 were important landmarks, as were the translations by the poet Marot of the Psalms into French in the 1530s and 1540s.
Extracts of poetry and sayings are taken from Proverbes et Dictons de la Langue d’Oc, collected by Abbé Pierre Trinquier, and from 33 Chants Populaires du Languedoc.
Acknowledgments
All novelists know how family, friends and neighbours make all the difference between daily life keeping going in the middle of researching and writing a book, and collapsing altogether. I’m incredibly lucky to have people around me who’ve given emotional, enthusiastic, practical and professional support, in particular:
my brilliant publisher at Mantle (and oldest publishing friend) Maria Rejt, and the entire Macmillan London gang, especially Anthony Forbes Watson, Josie Humber, Kate Green, Sarah Arratoon, Lara Borlenghi, Jeremy Trevathan, Sara Lloyd, Kate Tolley, James Annal, Stuart Dwyer, Brid Enright, Charlotte Williams, Jonathan Atkins, Stacey Hamilton, Leanne Williams, Anna Bond and Wilf Dickie, Praveen Naidoo and Katie Crawford in Australia, Terry Morris, Gillian Spain and Veronica Napier in South Africa, and Lori Richardson, Graham Fidler and Dan Wagstaff in Canada; my fabulous agent, the one and only Mark Lucas, and all at LAW, ILA and Inkwell Management, especially Alice Saunders, Niamh O’Grady; Nicki Kennedy, Sam Edenborough, Jenny Robson, Katherine West, Simon Smith, Alice Natali and George Lucas; my wonderful foreign publishers, in particular Maaike le Noble and Frederika van Traa at Meulenhoff-Boekerij; all those at the Franschhoek Book Festival in South Africa and the wonderful Huguenot Museum, where the glimmers of the story first took root;
to friends in Chichester, Carcassonne, Toulouse and Amsterdam who’ve supported, made tea and brought good cheer (and sometimes wine!) from the outside world during the long writing of this novel, in particular: Jon Evans, Clare Parsons, Tony Langham, Jill Green, Anthony Horowitz, Saira Keevil, Peter Clayton, Rachel Holmes, Lydia Conway, Paul Arnott, Caro Newling, Stefan van Raay, Linda and Roger Heald, friends at CFT, the Women’s Prize and the NT, Mark Piggott KBE, Patron of the Arts, Dale Rooks, Harriet Hastings, Syl Saller, Marzena Baran, Pierre Sanchez and Chantal Bilautou.
Huge thanks to my family, in-laws, cousins, nieces and nephews including my mother-in-law Rosie Turner, cousin Phillipa (Fifi!) Towlson and sister-in-law Kerry Mulbregt, brother-in-law Mark Huxley, my lovely sister Caroline Grainge, especially my brother-in-law Benjamin Graham for his superb photographs, nephew Rick Matthews and my wonderful sister Beth Huxley, for her endless and generous support of all kinds (not limited to dog-walking and balloon-buying!); to our parents, Richard and Barbara Mosse, much loved and much missed.
Finally, as always, I could do none of this without my beloved husband Greg Mosse, my first love and first reader, and our brilliant, amazing (grown-up!) children Martha Mosse and Felix Mosse. Were it not for you three, there’d be little point to any of it. I’m so proud of you all.
KATE MOSSE
Toulouse, Carcassonne & Chichester
December 2017
BOOK TWO
The City of Tears
COMING SPRING 2020
PROLOGUE
FRANSCHHOEK
28th February, 1862
The woman is lying beneath a white sheet in a white room, dreaming of colour.
Hier Rust. Here lies.
She is no longer in the graveyard. Is she?
The woman is caught between sleeping and waking, surfacing from a place of shadows and blurred outlines to a world of harsh light. She lifts her hand to her head and, though she feels the split skin on her temple, finds there is no blood. Her shoulder aches. She imagines it purple with bruises where his fingers pressed and pinched. Pictures now how the tan leather journal fell from her unwilling hand down onto the red Cape soil. That is the last thing she remembers. That, and the words she carries with her.
This is the day of my death.
The woman’s eyes open. The room is swimming. It is indistinct and unknown, but it is a typical room in a Cape Dutch homestead. White walls, plain but for a piece of embroidery with verses from the Bible on the wall. Bare-board floors, a chest of drawers and nightstand made of stinkwood. On her journey from Cape Town, through Stellenbosch and Drakenstein and Paarl, she has lodged in many such houses. Settlers’ houses, some grand and some small, but each with a nostalgia for Amsterdam and the life left behind.
The woman sits up and swings her legs off the bed. Her head spins and she waits a moment for the sickness to pass. She feels the wooden floor through her stockinged feet. Her white shirt and her riding skirt are stained with red dust down one side, but someone has removed her boots and placed them at the foot of the bed. Her leather hat is hanging from a hook on the back of the wooden door. On the chest of drawers stands a brass tray with an earthenware jug of wine – strong local wine the colour of cherries – and a piece of white bread and strips of dried beef beneath a cloth.
She does not understand. Is she prisoner or guest?
Unsteady on her feet, the woman moves to the door and finds it locked. Then she hears the whistling of a chattering of starlings outside. She laces her boots, walks to the window. A small square frame with thin metal bars on the inside. To keep her in or to keep others out?
She reaches through the bars and pushes open the glass. The sky at dusk in the Cape is the same as it is in Languedoc. White, with a wash of pink as the sun sets behind the mountains. The woman can see the chapel at the top of the town. Another small white building in the Cape Dutch style, with a thatched roof and peak-arched windows either side of the arched wooden door. Ever since the new church opened its doors to its Protestant con
gregation a few years ago, it has served as the school. The sight of it gives her hope, for at least she is still within the boundaries of the town. If he meant to kill her, surely he would have taken her up into the mountains and done it there?
Away from prying eyes.
She can make out the fruit orchards, too, growing Cape damsel and damask plums, sweet saffron pears and apples hanging from the trees; in these weeks she has learnt to identify each variety and the farmers who grow them: the Hugo family and the Haumanns, the de Villiers and descendants of the du Toits.
Now she can hear the rise and fall of girls’ voices playing a skipping game. A mixture of Dutch and English, no French, the legacy of years of struggle for control of this stolen land. The Cape is once again a British colony, the main road renamed Victoria Street in honour of the English Queen. Further away, the plangent singing of the men coming home from the fields. Another language, one she does not recognise.
Her feeling of relief is fleeting. Quickly, it gives way to grief at the loss of the journal, the map, the precious Will and Testament which has been in her family for hundreds of years. Though the journal is gone from her possession, she knows every word of it off by heart. She knows every crease and drip of ink of the map, the terms and provisions of the Will. As she waits and waits, and the light fades from the sky, she thinks she hears the voices of her ancestors calling to her across the centuries.
‘Château de Puivert. Saturday, the third day of May, in the year of Grace of Our Lord fifteen hundred and seventy-two.’
Then, her sorrow at the loss of the documents turns into fear. If he has not killed her yet, it can only be because there is something more he wants from her. She regrets her caution now. Remembers reaching to scrape the lichen from the stone. She shivers at the memory of the cold muzzle of the gun and his pitiless voice. His shadow, the smell of sweat and clinker, a glimpse of white in his black hair.
She had drawn her knife, but had only grazed his hand. It was not enough.
The light is fading from the sky and the air is still, though filled with the whining and the buzzing of insects. The children are taken inside and, in every house, pinpricks of light appear as candles are lit. Though she is tired, the woman keeps vigil at the window. She picks at the bread and drinks a little of the smooth Cape wine, before pouring the remainder out of the window. She cannot afford to dull her senses. It pools on the hard, dry ground.
She waits.
The church bell in its solitary white tower chimes the hour. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock. Outside, darkness has fallen. The mountains have faded into shadow. On Victoria Street and the criss-cross of smaller roads and alleyways, the candles are extinguished one by one. Franschhoek is a town that goes early to bed and rises with the sun.
The woman sits on the end of the bed.
It is not until past eleven o’clock, when she is fighting sleep and the throbbing in her head has started again, that she hears a sound from inside the house. Instantly, she is on her feet.
Footsteps on the floorboards beyond the door, but quiet. Walking slowly, as if trying not to be heard. She has had hours to decide what to do, but it is instinct that takes over now. A sense of self-preservation, of not walking meekly towards whatever might happen next.
She slips behind the door, holding the empty wine vessel in her hand. Listens to the rattle of a key being pushed into the lock, then the clunk of the catch as it gives and the door is slowly opening inwards. In the dark, she cannot see properly, but she glimpses the flash of white hair and smells the leather of his jacket, so the instant he is within reach, she launches the earthenware jug at what she thinks is the height of his head.
She misjudges. She aims too high and though the man staggers, he does not fall. She throws herself towards the open door, intending to try to get past, but he is faster. He grabs her wrist and pushes her backwards into the room, clamping a hand over her mouth.
‘Be quiet, you little fool! You’ll get us both killed.’
Immediately, she is still. It is a different voice. And in the moonlight filtering through the window, she can see the back of his hand. No sign of where her knife grazed her assailant’s skin. And, seeming to trust her, the man releases her and takes a step away.
‘Monsieur, forgive me,’ she says. ‘I thought you were him.’
He also speaks in French. ‘No harm done.’
Now, in the silver shadows, she can see his face. He is taller than her attacker in the graveyard and his black hair is shorter, though split through by the same twist of white.
‘You do look like him.’
‘Yes.’
She waits for him to say more, but he does not.
‘Why am I here?’ she asks.
He holds up his hand. ‘We have to go. We have little time.’
The woman shakes her head. ‘Not until you tell me who you are.’
‘We –’ He hesitates. ‘I saw what happened in the graveyard. I’ve waited until now. He is my brother.’
She crosses her arms, not knowing whether she should trust this man or not.
‘Your brother.’
‘We do not see eye to eye.’
Again, she expects him to say more, but he glances at the door and is restless to be gone.
‘Whose house is this?’ she asks.
‘It belongs to our mother. She is bedridden, she doesn’t know you are here. None of this is her fault.’ He briefly touches her hand. ‘Please, come with me. I will answer all your questions once we are safely out of Franschhoek.’
‘Where is your brother now?’
‘Drinking, but he will be back at any moment. We must go. I have horses waiting at the eastern boundary of the town.’
She unfolds her arms. ‘And if I don’t come with you?’
The man looks directly at her and she sees the determination, the concern too, in his eyes.
‘He will kill you.’
The calm statement convinces her better than any entreaty or fierce persuasion. The woman pretends to consider, but she knows she has little choice. Better to take her chance with this stranger than to remain here, passive and waiting for what the dawn might bring. She takes her hat from the back of the door.
‘Will you tell me your name?’ she whispers, as she follows him along the dark corridor and towards a door at the rear of the house.
He puts his finger to his lips.
‘Will you at least tell me where we are going?’ she says.
He hesitates, then answers. ‘To the old stone bridge across the ford. The others are waiting there.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Jan Joubertsgat,’ he says. ‘Where Jan Joubert died.’ He turns. ‘Isn’t that why you are here?’
The woman catches her breath, feeling suddenly exposed. ‘You know who I am?’
The man’s face creases into a smile. ‘Of course,’ he says, unhooking the latch and pushing open the door. ‘Everyone knows who you are.’
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Languedoc Trilogy
Labyrinth
Sepulchre
Citadel
Other Fiction & Stories
The Winter Ghosts
The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales
The Taxidermist’s Daughter
Non-Fiction
Becoming a Mother
The House: Behind the Scenes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Chichester Festival Theatre at Fifty
Plays
Syrinx
Dodger
The Queen of Jerusalem
(adaptation with Greg Mosse)
The Taxidermist’s Daughter
(adaptation with Greg Mosse)
First published 2018 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2018 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN
978-1-5098-0686-7
Copyright © Mosse Associates Ltd 2018
Cover images © Shutterstock. Author photograph © Ruth Crafer
The right of Kate Mosse to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Part-title pages and endpaper photography © Benjamin Graham: here Rue du Trésau, La Cité, Carcassonne; here Notre-Dame La Dalbade Church, Toulouse; here The Keep, Château de Puivert; Map artwork by Neil Gower
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