She looked at her old clothes, lying on the floor where she had dropped them. They looked odd to her now, the colors like nothing else in this tace; she understood why people had called them outlandish. She would have called them outlandish herself.
She should burn them, she knew, in accordance with company protocol. But she was anxious to find people, and to join the defenders on the walls. And she was feeling hungry again; someone here would probably give her food in exchange for work.
She stuffed her clothes under the ones in the chest. Then she went through the house, looking for more things she could take with her. All the food had turned rotten, though, and whoever lived here had taken everything of value.
SHE MADE HER WAY to the city walls and began to walk alongside them. If the history books were right a group of women and children were defending the city by hurling boulders from a catapult.
Men and women hurried past her, carrying ropes and buckets and pieces of machinery. Someone called her over to some ladders against the wall, and someone else asked if she could help carry some heavy lumber, but each time she shook her head and told them she was wanted farther down.
Everyone moved purposefully, calmly, as if they had been practicing their defense of the city for years. Some of them were even singing, something she had read about but had never truly believed.
A little after noon she smelled some cooked meat, and glancing around she saw some women carrying food to a group of defenders. She went toward them, trying to look as though she had been on this part of the wall all morning.
The defenders climbed down the ladders and took their bowls from the women, then leaned against the wall or sat in its shadow to eat. A woman gave Ann a bowl and she drank it down greedily. It was more watery broth, nearly identical to the food in the crusaders’ tent.
When they finished the defenders headed back up the ladders. “Come on,” one of them said, looking back at her.
She glanced around her. Was this the group she’d been looking for? No—there seemed to be many more men than women here.
They were all staring at her now, though, and she had no choice but to follow them up the ladders. Defenders stood on temporary wooden battlements at the top, looking out through the crenellations in the wall. They reached into buckets placed at their feet and hurled rocks through the openings at the crusaders’ camp.
A man handed her a bucket filled with rocks and pointed at the camp. “Over there,” he said. “That big tent. That’s the one to aim for.”
He began to sing, and soon all the defenders had taken up the tune. It wasn’t a song of war but of love, another troubadour’s composition. “If I could find her all alone,/ While she is sleeping, or pretending to,/ I’d go to her, and steal the sweetest kiss,/ A kiss that makes my worthless life anew.”
She picked up one of the rocks and threw it as hard as she could. It landed just short of the tent, and some of the defenders cheered. She took another rock, and then, after listening to the song for a while, joined in with the voices around her.
A line of archers formed up beneath the wall and drew their bowstrings. “Down, get down!” someone near her shouted. She ducked quickly.
A rain of arrows pattered through the openings in the wall. Some of them were tipped with flame, and fire burst out on the ground. Women hurried to pour out buckets filled with water, and when the all buckets were emptied they rushed off to fill them, going back and forth until the fire was out.
For a few hours after that her muscles would clench when she looked through the crenellations, and she would only relax when she saw that there were no archers below her. Then as the day wore on she felt less and less afraid, and finally the archers came to seem like a nuisance, of a piece with the hunger and dirt and bad food. The man next to her sent a bowman to his knees with a rock, and all the defenders stopped to cheer.
All afternoon she looked for a chance to slip away, but the defenders around her kept her busy. When she had thrown all her rocks someone brought her another bucket, and then another, and another. Finally she saw the sun going down past the crusaders’ camp, and she realized she had lost another day.
It didn’t matter, she thought; she still had time. She ate dinner with the defenders, then bedded down with them for the night.
She couldn’t sleep, though. She had arrived safely, had reached her destination both in time and in space, and yet she felt as if she had forgotten something, had left something unfinished or unguarded. Could the company restore the data she had wiped from the computer she had worked on, or from the time machine? She didn’t think so, but there was a lot she didn’t know about their technology.
On the other hand, if they were going to come after her they would have probably done it already. Or would they? What if they waited until the very end, just before she killed Montfort and changed history? Or did the fact that they hadn’t come mean that she hadn’t managed to accomplish her goal?
She tossed and turned, her mind circling the same questions over and over. Finally she opened her eyes in near darkness and realized that she would not get to sleep again that night.
She stood and made her way along the wall, passing groups of men and women huddled together. Sometimes she saw lovers sleeping together, one curved against the other, and she felt a familiar loneliness. An army of lovers, she thought, then told herself firmly not to romanticize them.
A few lights glimmered on the walls, people keeping watch on the crusaders’ camp. Then others began to stir, to stretch and yawn and climb up the ladders. She glanced quickly at the defenders as she passed, trying to look as if she had somewhere important to be.
A man rose and stood with his profile to her. Peire Raimon. No, it couldn’t be. But she remembered now that he had given his name as Peire Raimon de Tolosa—of Toulouse.
He turned toward her. It was him, though a good deal older. Something sparked in his eyes, the beginning of recognition, maybe. She hurried on, and when she had put enough space between them she began to run.
She had been an idiot once again. She’d been worried about the company finding her and had ignored a far closer danger. Of course there were people in this tace who would remember her, and who would be startled, maybe horrified, to find her the same age as when she’d left, nine years ago.
And for it to be Peire Raimon, the man who had felt so much hatred for them, just made it that much worse. And this time the viscount wouldn’t be around to protect her.
She turned a corner—and there, to her great relief, was the group she’d been looking for. Women and older children stood on the platforms, and younger children shouted and played beneath them, dancing around an ancient white-haired woman. At first Ann thought she was deformed somehow, her face sunk inward, and then she realized that the woman must have lost all her teeth.
Where was the catapult, though? Maybe they hadn’t brought it yet, maybe it would turn up later.
She called up to one of the women on the platform. “Hey— do you need help?”
“Always!” the woman said, smiling down at her. “Come on up!”
She climbed to the wooden parapet. Her right arm felt sore from her work the day before, but the ache faded after she had thrown a few rocks.
A group of crusaders came close to the walls and she hurled a rock toward one of them. It knocked a knob off his shield, and the women cheered.
“Aim for their legs, if they’re wearing armor,” the woman next to her said. “They have great heavy plates on their chests, but only leggings below.”
“Nothing there to protect, probably,” another woman said, and the others snickered.
A crusader in mail brought his horse in close to the wall. “Like this,” the first woman said, flinging a rock at him. It hit him in the thigh; Ann saw him clutch his leg and open his mouth in pain, though she could not hear him over the noise of the battlefield.
“One for Toulouse!” the woman called down to him in a taunting voice. “One for Richilde!”
“Who’s Richilde?” Ann asked.
“My sister. She died in the siege of Carcassonne.”
Wait a minute, Ann thought. Richilde—could she be the woman who would have killed Montfort? And was it because she had died in Carcassonne that Montfort had survived here, and had gone on to plunder and burn the southland, to kill its people?
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ann said. Sorry not least because Richilde hadn’t survived to make history.
Richilde’s sister seemed to have guessed how little Ann knew about defense, and she kept close to her all afternoon. “Duck to the side of the carnels, not below them,” she said.
“Carnels?” Ann asked.
“These things,” the woman said, pointing to one of the openings in the wall in front of them.
Oh, crenellation, Ann thought. She liked “carnel,” though, another word possibly related to Kore.
She had picked up a rock and thrown it before she realized that the woman’s use of the word might have been deliberate, that it could be a password. She struggled to come up with a reply, and finally said, “I hope they bring us a meal soon—it’ll put heart into us.”
The woman turned to her, puzzled. So much for that idea, Ann thought. Sometimes a word is just a word.
The day passed with much the same rhythm as the last one—throwing rocks, resting until someone brought more, pausing for food in the afternoon, in the evening. Archers loosing arrows, fires breaking out, being quenched. And the songs, sung out when the defenders slackened, or when the shadow of a passing cloud made them all pause.
Toward evening the crusaders wheeled a wooden tower close to the wall. “Shoot them, shoot them quickly,” someone said urgently, and several women brought out bows, lit the arrows with fire, and took aim at the tower. Why? Ann wondered, but she said nothing; everyone else seemed to know what it was.
A few arrows thumped against the walls. Fires caught and ran along the wood for a moment, but the wind blew them out. Then men within the tower wrested off the wooden covering, revealing a catapult.
The arm of the catapult flung high into the air, and she ducked down below the wall. A great boulder crashed to the ground a few feet behind her.
Someone screamed. A woman cried out, a wail of grief. Ann looked back and saw a child pinned under the rock from the waist down. All the women nearby pushed against the rock to dislodge it, but with each thrust the child only screamed louder.
“Help!” one of the women shouted. “Someone help us!”
Ann climbed down the ladder. Defenders hurried over to them and clustered around the child. “Never mind that—you can’t help him,” one of them said. “Everyone with bows, get up the ladders—we have to stop them.”
Ann had been looking at the boy as he said this. To the end of her life, she thought, she would remember his expression—somehow horrified and sad and resigned all at once. They really did have a different concept of death here, she thought. They knew that they could die at any moment, and they were ready for it, or as ready as they could be.
“It is you!” someone said behind her.
She turned. Peire Raimon stood there, among the people who had come over to help. She pushed through the crowd and ran.
“Stop her!” he called out. “Stop that woman!”
She sped quickly along the street by the wall. Evening had come; men and women crowded in front of her, climbing down the ladders, carrying food, stopping to eat. She dodged among them, looking for a place to hide. She heard feet behind her, more than one person.
“She’s a spy,” Peire Raimon said loudly. “The crusaders sent her.”
Clever of him, she thought. He had no idea what she was, so he picked the worst crime he could think of, the one most likely to rouse everyone against her.
Why should they listen to him, though? She could make her own accusations, just as bad. Anyway, she was tired of running. She stopped and faced him.
“I’m not a spy,” she said, as scornfully as she could manage. “He’s the spy, and a thief as well. He stole something from us, when we were guests of the viscount of Trencavel.”
The people chasing her had stopped. Several of them glanced from her to Peire Raimon and back again, looking confused.
“She’s a spy, I tell you,” he said. “Listen to her—does she sound like someone from around here?”
“I’m from the Rhineland.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“I’m a troubadour. I got separated—”
“Are you? Sing something for us.”
Her voice was nowhere near good enough; they would know her for an imposter as soon as she opened her mouth.
“Why should I?” she said. “Why should anyone believe anything you have to say? You stole from us.”
“Really? What was it I stole?”
That was clever as well; she certainly couldn’t say “a computer.” She was beginning to realize how badly she had underestimated him. “A necklace.”
“And that’s a lie,” he said. “The viscountess gave me that necklace, as you well know.”
He looked around him, his expression confident. A few people were nodding, probably more inclined to believe him than some foreigner. “I don’t know any such thing,” she said. “And you can’t prove it.”
“Of course I can. We’ll ask Lady Agnes.”
Agnes? She had thought Agnes was dead. “Is the viscountess—is she here?”
“She is indeed. Montfort spared her. How is it you don’t know that?”
The crowd was muttering now. “If she’s a spy …” someone said behind her. “… put her to death,” someone else said.
“And where did you go when Carcassonne fell?” Peire Raimon went on. “No one saw you, or your friends—we thought you’d died. But here you are, healthy as a priest. Montfort must have rewarded you well for your work.”
A man with a sword at his belt stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm. “All right, let’s go,” he said.
“What?” she said. “Where?”
“Where? Do you want holy ground, a priest to shrive you before you die? We don’t have that luxury, I’m afraid.” He glanced around him, looking for a good spot to lay her head. “Right here, I think.”
She struggled to pull away but he held on tightly. “Wait,” someone said behind her.
They turned. Then everyone was dropping to their knees, their heads bowed, as a man came up to them. His hair was dark gray, the color of ashes, and his face was deeply lined.
Ann bowed as well, though she had no idea who he was. “What’s happening here?” he asked.
“Lord Raimond,” the man with the sword said. “We captured a spy, my lord.”
Raimond VI, the true count of Toulouse. No wonder he looked so tired, so careworn. “I’m not, my lord,” Ann said. “I swear it.”
“She’s not from here, my lord,” Peire Raimon said.
“What does that matter?” the count said. “Many people come here from somewhere else—that doesn’t make them spies. Is she from the north?”
“No, my lord,” Ann said. “From the Rhineland.”
“Well, then,” Raimond said. “Why do you say she’s a spy?”
“She’s—she hasn’t aged,” Peire Raimon said. “Not in ten years. No, nine—she was at the siege of Carcassonne. And she looked as young as that, twenty years old, and she hasn’t changed a day.”
She was twenty-five, but no doubt she seemed younger to these people, with their hard lives. The crowd was muttering again, looking to her and backing away. “I have a young face, my lord,” she said. “That’s not an offense, I hope.”
“And why should that make her a spy?” Raimond said. He sounded exasperated.
“It makes her strange, uncanny,” Peire Raimon said. “I saw her in Carcassonne nine years ago, among the viscount’s court, and she looked exactly the same. How does she explain that? Ask her, my lord.”
“She already explained it,” the count said. “She has a
young face.”
“It’s more than that. Find Lady Agnes and ask—”
“Move!” someone shouted from the walls. “Move away, my lord, please! The bowmen are lining up below us.”
“All right,” the count said. “Both of you are coming with me. We’ll solve this mystery somewhere else.”
With a few gestures the count ordered some of his men to take charge of Ann and Peire Raimon, and he led them into the city.
She looked around her as they went. She had expected Toulouse to look something like Carcassonne, but now she saw that the war had devastated it. They passed more empty houses, and men and women with missing arms or bandages tied around their eyes, and small children wandering aimlessly. Stones had been torn from the streets and buildings to be used as weapons. The siege had lasted nine months, and already the people looked hungry, and somehow lost.
The count’s castle rose up in front of them. The men dragged them inside, and Raimond led them through a series of small dim rooms. Finally they came to a narrow corridor.
“In here, both of them,” Raimond said, indicating one of the rooms. “And I want that bar kept across the door at all times, unless someone’s in there with them.”
The men pushed them inside. “And bring them some food,” the count said.
He and his men left. The door closed, turning the room so dark Ann could not see the opposite wall. She heard a heavy bar slide across the door. “I hope you’re happy,” she said to Peire Raimon. “Your stupidity got us both arrested.”
“You’re the one who’s arrested,” Peire Raimon said, his voice coming out of the darkness. “He’ll let me go, but you’ll be here forever.”
She felt her way to the wall and sat against it. A while later some of the count’s servants came into the room, bringing candles and trays of food.
Peire Raimon was visible now, but what she saw made her wish for the darkness back. He was staring at her, taking in every detail of her face, clearly marveling at how little she had changed.
“Stop looking at me,” she said.
Peire Raimon laughed. “I’ll do as I please.”
“I’ll tell the count.”
Weighing Shadows Page 28
