Weighing Shadows

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Of course they do. You know, no one else has ever asked me so many questions. This isn’t a democracy.”

  Walker had said same thing, very nearly, including the dismissive mention of democracy. Maybe they lived under a different political system. Maybe, if all your resources were nearly gone, if you had to conserve everything, you had to have someone at the top to give orders, to decide how portion out the little that still remained. It sounded unpleasant, like a dictatorship. She would have liked to have asked them about it, but she knew they would never answer her.

  THE BANQUETS WERE CANCELED, and all of Trencavel’s energy went into preparing for war. Soldiers drilled in the courtyards, and blacksmiths worked in shifts hammering swords and daggers and axes, their fires smoking day and night.

  The four of them barely saw the viscount, who had to dash from one emergency to another: storing the food for a siege, finding places for everyone who needed shelter, meeting with his knights and vassals. Still, rumors reached them that he had become a Cathar, that he had been shaken by the appearance of the angel. That he had become, not just a Cathar, but a Perfect like his cousin.

  Charles wanted to stay a while longer, to make sure of Trencavel’s conversion. Since they were no longer giving concerts he asked the viscount if his assistants could work in the kitchen, and Trencavel was pleased to have the extra help.

  Charles wanted them to pick up gossip, to be in a position to listen to servants and nobles alike, but the work was hard and exhausting and they all hated it. Ann, who was the only one of them who had experience in food service, sometimes felt as if her life had cycled back in time, that no matter what she did to get out of poverty she would end up carrying platters of food and trying to smile at the people she served.

  As she got used to the work, though, she began to like the anonymity it gave her. No one ever looked at her twice, not the lords and ladies or the servants in the kitchen. And she did overhear gossip, though not the sort Charles was looking for. Two people she had never heard of were courting, and another woman had gotten pregnant and wanted to terminate it. A Cathar holy man or woman would have helped her—they wanted to bring as few people as possible into this evil world—but the pregnant woman knew of no Cathars besides the viscount’s cousin, and of course she couldn’t approach someone so much higher in status.

  A cleaning woman told the servants how she had surprised Peire Raimon and the viscountess in bed. Ann felt vindicated by the story and wanted to tell Charles, but she was so harried by work she forgot, and when she finally remembered it seemed unimportant compared to everything else.

  Some of the lords and ladies did talk about how the viscount had changed, how he was eating very little and losing weight, how he had stopped joking with them and was spending more time by himself. It could have been evidence of a conversion, Charles said, but it could also just mean that Trencavel was taking his responsibilities more seriously.

  They began to hear things about the outer world as well. Count Raimond VI of Toulouse, Trencavel’s feudal lord, had gone penitent to the pope, received a scourging, and joined the crusade. He was trying to save his people, but he would also not mind if his vassal the viscount were to die in the war to come. The two of them had clashed several times over the years.

  Then the pope’s army attacked one of Trencavel’s feudal holdings, Béziers, a town forty-five miles from Carcassonne. The soldiers’ orders were to slaughter all the Cathars, to show no mercy. Someone asked the pope’s legate, Arnaud Amaury, how they could tell the Cathars from the Christians, and he was supposed to have replied, “Kill them all, God will know his own.” In the end every man, woman, and child in the town had died, over twenty thousand people.

  It was a deliberate act of terror, and in the historical record it had prompted Viscount Trencavel to go to the crusaders’ camp and try to negotiate. But in this timeline, when the crusaders reached Carcassonne on August first and ringed the city in a siege, he showed no inclination to compromise but continued to plan for war.

  “Well, I think that’s it,” Charles said the next day. “He’s decided to stay here and fight instead of surrendering. We’ve done what we were supposed to—it’s time to go home.”

  Why didn’t the company want Trencavel to surrender? Wouldn’t the crusaders slaughter everyone here, the way they had at Béziers, if he stayed and fought? Or maybe the viscount would win the battle, would defeat the crusaders, and Langue-doc would survive a while longer, independent of the north.

  She said nothing, though. She would have to wait, ask her questions when she got back.

  Charles opened his sack and looked for his computer. Then he hunted through it, then turned it over and dumped everything out on the floor. A lute fell with a muted clang, then a snarl of strings, wrapped around the ring the viscount had given him.

  “I—” Charles said. He sounded panicked. “The computer’s gone.”

  “Where was it?” Franny asked.

  “Here, in this pocket. Someone’s taken it.”

  “Who do you think—”

  “Who else? Peire Raimon, of course. Let’s go.”

  They followed him next door to Peire Raimon’s room. He didn’t bother knocking but threw the door open, so hard that it slammed against the wall.

  Peire Raimon was sitting on a bed, playing his lute. “What—”

  Charles went to him and lifted him up by his throat. “Where is it?”

  Peire Raimon tried to speak. Charles loosened his grip slightly. “Where is what?” Peire Raimon said.

  “You know what. What you stole from my room. A—a kind of cloth.”

  “Let me go. I didn’t take anything.”

  “No? What would happen if we searched your room?”

  “Go ahead—I don’t have anything of yours.”

  “Where are your assistants?”

  “Out.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Peire Raimon said quickly. “Drinking, I think.”

  “All right,” Charles said to Ann and Franny and Jerry. “You heard him—he doesn’t mind if we search his room. Let’s go.”

  They spread out. Charles threw the bed over, then stripped off the blankets and shook them out. Ann opened a leather bag and dumped out the contents, stale and sour clothing that hadn’t been washed in months.

  Peire Raimon shouted something. Ann raised her head to see that Franny had found a small bag. Peire Raimon took a step toward her, and Charles knocked him to the ground. “Open it, Franny.”

  It didn’t seem big enough to hold the computer. Franny pulled the drawstring open and lifted out a golden necklace strung with what looked like emeralds. “The lady gave me that,” Peire Raimon said, sounding defiant.

  “Good for you,” Charles said. He headed into the next room, and a moment later they heard things crashing to the floor.

  It didn’t take long to search the two rooms. Charles came back after the three of them had finished and asked, “Did you find anything?”

  They shook their heads. He turned to Peire Raimon. “Where did you put it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the other man said. He had gotten up from the floor; blood trickled from the side of his mouth. He summoned up courage from somewhere. “And if I did have something of yours I wouldn’t hide it—I’d burn it. You’re a devilish, unnatural—”

  Charles took two strides toward him. He cringed back. “You—you burned it?” Charles said.

  “N—no. No, I said I would have burned it. I wouldn’t keep anything you’ve touched. There’s something uncanny about you—everyone says so.”

  “If I find out you’ve destroyed something of mine I’ll come back and kill you. Do you understand?”

  Peire Raimon nodded, all his boldness gone. “All right,” Charles said. He turned to the three of them. “Let’s go.”

  They followed him out. What would happen if they didn’t find the computer? Ann wondered. Would they have to stay here? She felt claus
trophobia enfold her, a terror of being trapped in this tace forever. At least in Alexandria, her concussion had kept her from realizing the true horror of her situation—and in Knossos she had had other things to worry about.

  “Walker said once—she said you have backups,” she said. “If someone finds the key.”

  “The computer’s the backup,” Charles said, his words clipped with impatience. “No one’s ever had both of them go missing before.”

  Walker had said “backups,” plural. But then Ann had never known her to be precise with her language.

  “What do we do now?” Franny asked.

  “We look for the computer, of course,” Charles said. “And the key. You keep your eyes and ears open, and I’ll ask the viscount if I can search the castle.”

  DAYS PASSED, AND THEY heard nothing about the lost computer or key. It was high summer, and the crusaders’ army tightened their hold on the city; Carcassonne, a mountain fortress with no convenient river nearby, was already perilously close to running short of water. Sometimes Ann heard, or thought she heard, the heavy thud of stones hitting the city walls.

  Trencavel had agreed to let Charles look through the castle and had given him one of his guards to help, but none of his searches turned up anything. For once Ann was glad of the drudgery in the kitchen; it kept her from worrying about her possible futures. And the others didn’t seem to want to think about it either; they discussed it only once, after a long hard day in the kitchens. “Do you think Peire Raimon really burned the computer, like he said?” Franny asked.

  “Of course not,” Charles said. “He said he would have burned it, not that he did.”

  Ann didn’t think that was proof of anything, but as long as they were talking she had another question to ask him. “We have no idea what’s going to happen from this point on, right? I mean, in the history books Trencavel goes to negotiate with the crusaders, and they spare the city, mostly.”

  “They killed the Cathars,” Charles said. “And they drove everyone else out, without their clothes or possessions.”

  He’d missed the point completely. “Yeah, but they let them back in,” she said impatiently. “What I mean is, in this timeline he doesn’t negotiate with them, so anything could happen. They could kill us all, make an example of us the way they did in Béziers.”

  “Don’t worry—we’ll find the computer before then,” Charles said.

  “What about the company?” Franny asked. “Won’t they realize something’s wrong and start looking for us?”

  Ann hadn’t even thought of that. But the company could only find them using the cameras, and they could only view the cameras after they’d retrieved them from the past. And didn’t she and the others need to be outside for the cameras to pick them up? She decided not to say anything, though; it was probably good for them to stay optimistic.

  “Of course,” Charles said. “That’s a possibility too.”

  The next day Trencavel invited them to dinner. Charles was happy for the invitation; he would be able to make sure the viscount had become a Cathar. Ann didn’t see what difference it would make, though. If he hadn’t converted, there was probably nothing they could do about it now.

  “We won’t be having a grand meal, I’m afraid,” the viscount said, when they’d seated themselves in the smaller banquet hall. His clothes were simpler than before, but still not the plain black that his cousin had worn. He’d been carrying a book when he came in, his finger stuck between the pages, and now it lay on the table next to him. “We have to save most of our food for the siege ahead.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Charles said. “But—well, forgive me if my question is too bold, but I’ve heard another reason for your simpler feasts. There are rumors that you’ve become a Cathar.”

  “By heaven, I’m surprised you haven’t become one yourself,” Trencavel said. “Anyone would, after seeing that angel, hearing what he had to say.” He pulled down his collar, and Ann saw that someone had embroidered a design in black thread there. Cathars had taken to wearing black near their skin, hiding their identity in case the crusaders invaded.

  “That’s one of the reasons I’ve invited you here, to get your opinion,” Trencavel went on. “You saw it too, am I right? It was an angel, telling me to change my life.”

  “I’m certain it was, my lord.”

  “But then—why haven’t you converted?”

  “I will, after all this is over.”

  Trencavel looked satisfied. “Anyway, I want you to know that I’m not being stingy with my fare because I’m a Cathar now. People can eat whatever they like—I don’t mind. No, the stinginess is because I have to prepare for war.”

  “I understand, my lord.”

  “It’s strange, you know, this whole religious thing. People still expect me to guzzle like a pig, and rut like a stallion. They don’t know how to treat me. Well, except for my cousin. She’s delighted, as you can imagine.”

  A serving girl brought out a pitcher of water for the viscount, and another pitcher of wine for everyone else. Ann recognized the girl from the kitchen and smiled at her, and she nodded back.

  “Except that she tells me that a Cathar cannot kill another soul,” Trencavel said. Who? Ann thought. Right, he was still talking about his cousin. “She has no idea what it’s like to rule here, even a few towns. I can’t just sit back and let the crusaders overrun Carcassonne, especially after what they did to Béziers. I have to think about my people. If that makes me less than perfect, then so be it.”

  The kitchen girl poured his water. “And my wife,” Trencavel went on. “She’s still going off to Peire Raimon a couple of nights a week. And she thinks I disapprove, when truthfully I don’t care at all. It gives her something to do, at least.”

  “You don’t care?” Ann asked. “Really?”

  He looked across the table at her. “That’s right—I forgot,” he said. “Outsiders don’t understand how we do things here—they’re always either confused or horrified. Our marriages are made for us by our parents, to join us to other powerful families. And we do our duty, we produce heirs and make sure that the line goes on. But if we weren’t allowed to take our pleasure, to choose our own lovers, we’d turn mad, or violent.” He paused, seeming to realize that what he’d said was at odds with his new beliefs. “Well, until we grow up, anyway. Until we realize that this world doesn’t matter.”

  He seemed so open that Ann decided to risk another question. “So your wife really did give Peire Raimon that necklace.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she did. An extravagant present, but then she does seem to like him.”

  The viscount studied her gravely, giving her his whole attention. No one had ever looked at her like that, not even the professors at the company. Was it because women had status here, because their opinions mattered? Or did he treat every woman the same out of habit, flattering them automatically because he might want to bed them someday? Her face felt hot and she turned away, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

  “Well, maybe she’ll convert too, sooner or later,” Trencavel said. “Though she didn’t see the angel, she can’t really understand.” He picked up the book near his plate. “My cousin gave me this—she thinks it might help.”

  The cover was just a thick leather binding, with no title or other information. The first page, though, had a long title in illustrated calligraphy, something to do with Genesis.

  He turned the page and began to read, a long confusing passage about the creation of the world. At the beginning there was light, or maybe Light, and its emanation Wisdom, who was female, and then some more Lights, or maybe Aeons, and then finally Wisdom created an emanation without the support of the others, called Ialdabaoth. Ialdabaoth turned out to be the creator of this world, but because he was imperfect, without Wisdom, the world was also imperfect, lacking.

  Ann lost the thread after that, and began to think about other things. Meret had tracked a version of Genesis in Alexandria, she remembered. The books saved from the
library had been scattered throughout the world, to Byzantium, Baghdad, Spain. Had one of them made its way here, and caused a heresy to catch fire? But why would the company want to support the Cathars, to strengthen their beliefs?

  AUGUST THE FIFTEENTH CAME, the day Trencavel had gone to the crusaders’ camp. In this timeline, though, he stayed in the castle and continued to plan for war. Although they were heavily outnumbered by the crusaders, and everyone had heard about the atrocity at Béziers, he still seemed confident, rallying his soldiers, listening to their boasts and worries, making them laugh.

  The cooks and kitchen boys and girls were more pessimistic, though, whispering about a new terror, a brilliant northern commander named Simon de Montfort. They barely talked to each other, speaking mostly to give orders, working with their heads down.

  “We’ll be safe here,” Ann heard one young man tell another. “The angel will guard us, after all.”

  Angel? She put down the knife she was using to chop onions. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “We have an angel’s relic,” he said, his face placid. “It’ll keep us safe from the northerners.”

  “What kind of relic? Where?”

  “My friend Guilhem has it. He saw an angel appear near the forest, and after it disappeared he found a—a thing it had left behind. A ball made of metal, with more balls inside it. A map of the heavens, with circles nested within circles, and the outermost the most perfect.”

  She was surprised at the man’s eloquence, and wondered if he could be a Cathar. She would have never thought of the key as an image of the heavens.

  “Where’s Guilhem now?”

  “I don’t know. He lives on the street with the church of St. Michael, heading away from the market square. It’s the shoemaker’s shop—he’s a cobbler. But he could be in the castle with everyone else.”

  She left the kitchen and ran down the corridor, then hurried through a series of public rooms. She’d found the key—they might still get away, leave this tace behind them forever. Where was Charles?