Citadel

by Kate Mosse

  ‘Well then,’ Sandrine said affectionately.

  ‘I’m frightened all the time, can’t you see it?’

  ‘Frightened, you?’

  ‘Terrified. Terrified we’ll be caught, terrified of the knock on the door in the middle of the night when the police come. Then what will happen to you? To Marieta? I can’t do it. Not any more.’

  Sandrine hesitated for a moment, then spoke. ‘I can look after myself now,’ she said in a steady voice. ‘I can make my own decisions – mistakes, no doubt. You’ve done enough.’ She paused. ‘I’ll go with Lucie, keep her from getting into trouble. I feel I owe her, you know. For not doing something when Max was arrested. I know you think I’m being silly, but it’s what I feel.’ She paused. ‘We’ll be back before you know it.’

  For a moment, Sandrine didn’t think Marianne had properly heard. She put her arm around her sister’s shoulder and drew her close.

  ‘You don’t have to look after everyone any more.’

  Marianne gave a hollow laugh. ‘It’s not as simple as that. I can’t just stop worrying, turn it off like a tap. I’ve had a lifetime of it.’

  Sandrine smiled. ‘I know that. But from now on, you’re no longer the big sister and me the baby. We’ll just be sisters. Equals.’

  ‘Just sisters.’ Marianne looked at Sandrine, then held out her hand. ‘All right, it’s a deal.’

  ‘Deal.’ Sandrine hesitated. ‘But you won’t give up? You’ll keep doing things, you and Suzanne?’

  Marianne sighed. ‘Of course. Someone’s got to.’

  The girls sat there a while longer, looking out over the landscape of their shared childhood, the house that had kept them safe for so long. Then, from inside, Suzanne’s laugh and Liesl’s lighter tones, Geneviève talking. Then the slap of cards on the tabletop, and Lucie’s triumphant cry.

  ‘There!’

  Marianne smiled. ‘She’s a funny mixture, Lucie. Tough as old boots in some ways, but so naïve in others. Head in the sand.’

  ‘Has she always been like that?’

  ‘Always. She was never the slightest bit interested in the world around her. Before Max came along, it was all films and magazines, Hollywood, the latest releases. Endless discussions of fashion and movie stars. And now a baby on the way.’ Marianne sighed.

  ‘Do you think it’s wrong?’ Sandrine asked, genuinely interested in what she thought. ‘Marieta does.’

  ‘Because they’re not married, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think they should have been more careful. But wrong, no.’

  ‘Lucie wanted to get married. It’s not their fault they aren’t.’

  ‘I know,’ Marianne said quietly. ‘But even if by some miracle Max is released, that won’t change. In the meantime, Lucie can’t go home. She’s got no money. How’s she going to live?’

  ‘She’ll have to stay here, won’t she?’

  Marianne nodded. ‘I can’t see an alternative. She can’t go back to Carcassonne, not now her father’s there.’ She was quiet for a moment, then she turned and looked at Sandrine. ‘You are determined to go to Le Vernet?’

  ‘Lucie is,’ she replied, ‘and I don’t see how we can let her go alone.’

  ‘Won’t it interfere with what you’ve agreed with Monsieur Baillard?’

  Sandrine hesitated. ‘No. I’m not supposed to do anything until going to Tarascon on Wednesday. I’d rather do something, instead of sitting around waiting and worrying about Raoul or whether the plan will work. Five days. Plenty of time to get to Le Vernet and back.’

  Marianne thought for a moment longer. ‘If she’s determined,’ she said, in her more usual, practical voice, ‘tell Lucie not to write explicitly about the baby in the letter. She has to find a way of telling Max without spelling it out, as it were. So the censor doesn’t realise.’

  ‘Would it matter so much if the censor knows?’

  ‘This baby will have Jewish blood, Sandrine. If no one knows he – or she – exists, then there’s a chance of the child being safe. Whatever happens to Max.’

  Sandrine turned cold. She felt stupid not to have realised for herself.

  ‘Of course, yes.’

  ‘And only go to the village,’ Marianne continued. ‘Find someone to take the letter up to the camp. I’ll telephone Carcassonne and see if the Red Cross has been allowed into Le Vernet recently.’

  ‘Lucie will be really grateful.’

  ‘She should be,’ Marianne said, with a flicker of her old impatience.

  She stood up and smoothed down her skirt. Sandrine stood up too.

  ‘Do you feel less wretched now?’

  Marianne thought for a moment. ‘Oddly, I do.’ She smiled. ‘Come on, let’s join the others.’

  Inside the kitchen, the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the gentle scent of a citronelle candle.

  On the table, the new bottle of red wine stood half empty. The white china ashtray was patterned with grey ash and white filters with smudges of red lipstick. The game of cards immediately stopped. Everyone looked round.

  ‘All right?’ asked Suzanne.

  Marianne nodded. ‘Yes. Fine now.’

  Suzanne held up the bottle. ‘A glass?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Sandrine?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  Lucie immediately went over to Sandrine, another cigarette between her red-painted nails.

  ‘Well?’ she said in a whisper.

  ‘It’s all right. We’ll go,’ Sandrine replied. ‘But to the village, not to the camp itself.’

  Lucie sighed with relief. ‘You talked her round, thank you.’

  ‘No,’ Sandrine said, feeling protective of her sister. ‘No, not at all. Marianne understands how you feel, Lucie. She’s just trying to keep us from getting into hot water.’

  ‘Well, however you did it, thanks, kid,’ she said, sounding like her old self. ‘I intend to go, one way or the other, but I’d rather have Marianne’s blessing.’

  Sandrine put her hand on Lucie’s shoulder. ‘We’ll try to find someone to deliver the letter for you. Whatever happens, there’s no chance of you seeing Max. You accept that?’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  From the expression on Lucie’s face, Sandrine could see she wasn’t listening.

  ‘Lucie, I’m serious.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Just so long as you do.’

  Sandrine caught her sister smiling at her, a mixture of amusement and affection on her face. Something else too, regret perhaps. Sandrine smiled too, then raised her glass to the room.

  ‘Since we’re all here for once,’ she began.

  ‘Wait!’ Liesl said, seizing her camera. ‘All right, I’m ready.’

  ‘To us,’ Sandrine gave the toast.

  Geneviève, Suzanne and Lucie all raised their glasses. Marianne tilted hers towards Sandrine.

  ‘To us all,’ Sandrine repeated, as the flash went off. ‘A notre santé!’

  Chapter 86

  TARASCON

  Baillard made good speed to Tarascon and went immediately to Pujol’s house, where he explained what he was intending to do with Sandrine and Raoul’s help.

  ‘Do you trust Pelletier?’ Pujol asked.

  Baillard had considered the question seriously. Raoul reminded him of men he had known in the past, one man in particular. The same combination of bravery and certainty, lack of judgement on occasion, coupled with loyalty and courage. That man had proved himself to be a true cavalier of the Midi. They had been rivals. In the final hours of his life they had become, if not friends, then certainly allies.

  ‘I do.’

  Pujol stared at him. ‘You don’t look too sure about that, Audric.’

  ‘An old man’s memories, nothing more.’

  Pujol grunted. ‘Boy’s got a murder charge hanging over him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he guilty?’

  ‘No.’

&
nbsp; ‘Framed?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  Pujol topped up his glass. ‘Where’s Pelletier now?’

  ‘Went with Geneviève Saint-Loup as far as Belcaire, then her sister Eloise was to meet him and take him to the site.’

  ‘Why didn’t you travel together?’

  ‘Safer alone. And people less likely to remark on the presence of a young man with a girl, è?’

  ‘Where have you chosen to hide it?’

  ‘On the Col de Pyrène. It is far enough away from the real site, but at the same time within the region where excavations have taken place. We cannot be sure how much information Antoine was forced to give them.’

  ‘No,’ Pujol said. ‘I suppose it’s worth going to all this trouble? You don’t think it’s a bit of a sideshow? Now you have the map, why not simply concentrate on retrieving the genuine Codex?’

  ‘Smoke and mirrors, Achille. We need to give them something to stop them looking. If they believe they have the text they seek, that will give us a free hand without fear of interruption. It’s also the only chance to persuade them to lose interest in Pelletier and Madomaisèla Sandrine.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Pujol said, then poured himself another glass of wine. ‘Where did Antoine find the map? Did Rahn send it to him?’

  Baillard shook his head. ‘If it had come from Rahn, Antoine would have acted sooner. There is a gap of some two years between Rahn’s death in March 1939 and Antoine being demobbed and beginning to search the mountains in earnest.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right.’

  Baillard sighed. ‘Have you had any luck with the names I gave you?’

  Pujol pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I asked around, but I’m afraid the news is all bad.’ He put his spectacles on. ‘César Sanchez was stabbed near the railway station in Carcassonne a day or two after the Bastille Day demonstration. It’s been dismissed as a blood feud between Spanish workers. No one claimed the body, no family so far as the police can tell, but my contact said a woman had been asking after him.’

  Baillard remembered something Sandrine had told him. ‘In all likelihood that will be Suzanne Peyre. She and Sandrine’s sister, Marianne, are active in Carcassonne. Sanchez was a friend of hers.’

  ‘Did Pelletier know?’

  ‘No, he saw César being arrested. Someone must have given an order for him to be released from custody.’

  ‘I checked. There was no arresting officer listed.’ Pujol went back to his notes. ‘Gaston and Robert Bonnet were both arrested and released, in the end, without charge.’ He peered at Baillard over the top of his glasses. ‘You know there are nearly seven thousand men held in Le Vernet now. Communists, partisans, gypsies. They will need enormous camps if it goes on like that. Jewish prisoners, apparently, are being moved to other camps in the East. Even so, soon there won’t be any room left at all in any of these places.’

  ‘No one is coming back, Achille,’ Baillard said quietly.

  Pujol stared at him. ‘What are you saying, Audric?’

  ‘Tuez-les tous . . .’

  ‘Kill them all,’ Pujol muttered. Infamous words said to have been spoken in Béziers at the beginning of a genocide against the Cathars of the Languedoc, more than seven hundred years ago. They, too, had been forced to wear scraps of yellow cloth pinned to their cloaks, their robes.

  ‘This is evil of a different order,’ Baillard said. ‘And why we must not fail.’

  Pujol was silent for a few moments. ‘Do you want me to come with you, Audric?’

  Baillard’s gentle face softened. ‘At the risk of offending you, Achille, I think we might make quicker progress alone.’

  Pujol laughed. ‘When do you expect Pelletier?’

  Baillard looked up at the dusk sky.

  ‘Dins d’abòrd,’ he said. Soon.

  BELCAIRE

  ‘There are no trout in the stream.’

  Raoul stood up, immediately alert, and gave the response. ‘My cousin says the fishing will improve when the melt waters begin.’

  A pretty, dark-haired woman appeared in the opening between two trees and walked towards him. She was carrying a panier containing wild flowers and wore a pale blue summer dress with a pattern of tiny white blossoms on it. He thought how well it would suit Sandrine’s colouring, then smiled that he was even thinking such things at such a moment.

  ‘Monsieur Pelletier?’

  ‘Raoul,’ he said, shaking her outstretched hand.

  ‘I’m Eloise. I’m sorry I’m late. I was held up.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘None. You?’

  ‘All quiet.’

  Eloise nodded. ‘That’s how we like it.’

  ‘I’m grateful for your help. How long will it take to get there?’

  ‘Two hours, give or take. Monsieur Baillard arrived in Tarascon this afternoon. He’s going to meet you at the cave.’

  ‘OK.’

  Raoul hauled his rucksack on to his shoulder. It was heavy now with tools borrowed from the outhouse in Coustaussa.

  Eloise led him west along a network of lowland mountain paths, cross-country from Belcaire towards Tarascon. They didn’t speak much. From time to time they heard a car and took cover, waiting until it had passed before continuing on through the dark land of the Ariège. Raoul wanted to ask her about Sandrine. He’d attempted to quiz Geneviève earlier, but her loyalty to her friend meant she deflected all his questions.

  ‘Sandrine said your families have known each other all your lives,’ he said, hoping to draw Eloise out.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘She said she and Geneviève were particular friends, whereas you and Marianne were more the same age.’

  ‘Yes. We’re very distant cousins, in fact, on our mother’s side.’

  ‘Really?’

  Raoul wanted to know what Sandrine had been like as a child, the sorts of things they’d done in the long summers in Coustaussa before the war. He wanted to know about Yves Rousset. When Sandrine had mentioned him, against all common sense he’d felt jealous.

  ‘Sandrine said that—’ he began.

  ‘Best we don’t talk, Monsieur Pelletier,’ Eloise said quietly but firmly, though Raoul thought he heard a flicker of amusement in her voice.

  ‡

  Codex XIV

  ‡

  GAUL

  PIC DE VICDESSOS

  AUGUST AD 342

  Arinius screamed.

  Scrambling to his feet, still holding his arms in front of him to keep the demons away. Striking the air with his hands in an attempt to drive out the images of skull and bone. Empty sockets and unfleshed limbs, the tendrils of skin trailing like weed.

  Blood and fire and glass.

  He fell to his knees, his head bowed and his eyes open, fighting to survive the horrors embracing him. A rushing of air, spirits, creatures, brushing against him, skimming his head and his legs, flying and sweeping, physically present but transparent also. Invisible.

  ‘Deliver us from evil . . .’

  His heart was thudding, as if trying to force its way through the carapace of bone. His skin was slippery with sweat and the sour smell of fear. Lips automatically mouthing prayers, holy words of God to cast out the darkness of his thoughts.

  ‘Libera nos a malo,’ he repeated. ‘Amen,’ he cried, making the sign of the cross. ‘Amen.’

  He was in the presence of something powerful, malevolent, though he did not know what.

  ‘Lord, save my soul.’

  He continued to pray without ceasing until his throat was dry and his mind was exhausted. Using words as weapons to drive out the evil threatening to swallow him whole. Every prayer or incantation he had ever been taught, the word of God to ward off the temptations of the Devil.

  Finally, just when his strength was extinguished and he could fight no more, Arinius felt the threat lift, like an animal slinking away to its lair. Gradually his pulse slowed. Gradually the sounds of the glade around him came back to his consciousne
ss, birds and the light call of an owl, rather than the screaming and the agony of the voices inside his head.

  Arinius sat back on his heels, felt the welcome support of the damp grass beneath his legs, the sweet texture of the earth under his hands. Then he laughed. A single shout. Like the great battles foretold in the books of Tobias and Enoch, the Armageddon promised by the Book of Revelation, Arinius knew he had been tested. Tested and not found wanting.

  Exhausted, but with a lightness of spirit he had not felt for some days, he stood up. Carefully, he opened the cedarwood box and lifted the papyrus out. He stared at the seven verses, each of which told a story he could not read.

  With the memory of the shadow of evil still upon him, he wondered. Had he been misguided? Was the Abbot right to order the destruction of such works? Did he know that the power contained with the Codex was simply too strong for men to bear? That these were words that would not save the world but destroy it?

  For the first time in many weeks, Arinius felt the need of the comfort of the Christian offices. He prayed for guidance, kneeling on the hard ground while he tried to decide what he should do. Listening for the word of God in the silence. A moment of gnosis, of illumination. All doubt banished.

  He made the sign of the cross, then stood up. There were two patches of damp on his knees, circles of dew. He was resolved. Comforted by his thoughts.

  It was not his decision to make. He was no more than a messenger, a courier. Such a judgement was not in his hands. The knowledge should not be destroyed.

  Arinius returned the Codex to the box, and the box to the bag. He had faith that others could withstand such an onslaught, as he himself had done. In the full and certain promise of the resurrection and the life to come.

  He coughed, but this time there was no blood. He took a deep breath, drawing the fresh dawn air into his lungs, then continued on his way. The sky turned from white to a pale blue. Couzanium was many miles behind him. The Pic de Vicdessos was within reach. A lodestar, guiding him to his final destination at the edge of his known world.