He turned away “You’ll be needing a new pair of shoes,” he said.
WOLF IS BARKING inside Scarry’s head. “How did they escape? where did she go?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Stop it, my love, you’re hurting me.”
It’s the worms; they twist and squirm through holes in his brain so that he can’t think for pain.
“You promised.”
“Cathars must have rescued her.”
“Find her. Destroy her. I am you and you are me, forever. Homo homini lupus.”
“I shall, I shall. wíll you give me peace, when I do?”
“Oh, yes, then we shall both have peace.”
But the worms keep up their squígglíng, for all that Scarry can do in trying to take his head off and let them out.
DENIZ MADE HER SHOES. The burden his mule carried was a cornucopia from which the little Turk produced a huge needle, oiled thread, canvas, and a piece of leather.
While he was at work, the ex-prisoners did their best to become clean.
With the men standing dutifully outside the cave entrance, eyes averted, the two women stripped and used the lake as a washtub for themselves and their clothes. Adelia tried to persuade Boggart to immerse herself completely, as she was doing, but the girl stayed on the edge with Ward, laving herself and pleading her pregnancy. “Be a shock to the baby, missus.”
Perhaps she was right; the water was very cold, but, to Adelia, its bite was almost baptismal, taking away stain not only from her body but, in part, from her soul.
Whatever it was, she emerged tingling with a new determination. I’m alive and, God dammit, I’ll stay alive. I’m goíng to get back to Allie.
The mule’s pack did not include soap, so laundering was less successful; even scrubbed and dried in the sun, the ex-prisoners’ clothes were poor excuses for garments. The O’Donnell’s sash, which he gave to Adelia to make a sling for her arm, looked positively resplendent against the rest of her once she was dressed.
He also produced an old cloak and hood so that Mansur’s ruin of a headdress—which the Arab insisted on still wearing—would be covered.
“So much the better for those who see us,” he said, when they were all inspected. “Tagrag pilgrims trying to find their way to Compostela and not so much as a cross in their pockets to keep the devil from dancing, as my old granny used to say.”
He wouldn’t let them stay in the cave longer than two days. “For if I’m aware of this one, maybe so are our pursuers.”
How was he aware of this one? Ulf, who’d spent a lot of time deep in conversation with O’Donnell and to whom Adelia posed the question, grinned and said: “He’s in the smuggling business, missus, ain’t you got that yet? There’s more goes into these caves than escaped prisoners.”
A man of diverse activities, then—fleet owner, transporter of crusaders, smuggler, killer, savior ... He bewildered Adelia. Despite what she owed him, she still found herself uncomfortable in his company. The others didn’t; to them he was an angel only lacking the wings.
Mansur, who knew her too well, said softly: “He had to quiet those guards, ’Delia. There was no other way than by a knife.”
“I know,” she said. “I just wish ...”
She was leaving too many dead behind her.
Ulf inquired of the Irishman the details of what had taken place at Figères and, after listening, came storming over to where Adelia was resting.
“Did you hear that? Hear that? They denied us. Bloody Judas Iscariots, the lot of ’em. Sent a message to Aveyron saying we was none of theirs. None of theirs.” He was almost dancing with rage. “Now will you believe me? There’s someone doing dirty work somewhere.”
“They should have made sure, I suppose, but it’s understandable. They assumed Mansur and Boggart and I were on our way back to England. They couldn’t have expected ...”
“Understandable? They near as a button got us all burned—and it was deliberate.”
“No,” she said firmly, “whatever it was, it wasn’t deliberate.”
The boy’s shoulders sagged. He gave a despairing glance in the direction of the others and left her alone.
On the second night they set off again, going by moonlight. Adelia would have preferred them to be able to rest up longer—for Boggart’s sake, if not her own—but O’Donnell insisted that Aveyron’s men might be searching every cave in the area.
“Our good bishop’ll not be lightly robbed of his human torches. He’s mounting a crusade all his own—setting an example to the Pope.”
“Where are we going?”
“A long way A village I know, not too far from the coast.”
Though they weren’t being dragged this time, and could take turns riding, the going was as heavy as it had been when tied to their captors’ ropes. The moonlight deceived them into taking false steps and the mountains became steeper.
Until she got used to them, Adelia found Deniz’s shoes difficult to walk in. Whilst the miracles of invention—a shaped sole of leather to which sailcloth was stitched and then tied up round the ankle so that her feet looked like two perambulating plum puddings—were serving her well, they were less than supple.
By day, they stayed under the cover of trees somewhere near a stream. Mansur, Ulf, and Rankin took turns keeping watch, while the Irishman, Deniz, and the hounds went hunting, and the women gathered wood and searched for late herbs with which to flavor a game stew. After this, they slept the sun down from the sky before starting afresh.
Eventually, the O’Donnell decided they were beyond Aveyron’s reach and could start traveling by day. “Time I ventured into civilization and got us more horses.”
“Civilization.” Adelia savored the word. “I can get us some new clothes.” And then remembered she had no money; her purse had been in Ermengarde’s cottage, along with her medical pack.
“I’m going alone,” he said. “Quicker. As for clothes, I’ll see what I can do, though I doubt the country market I’ve in mind will provide much in the way of fashion.”
“Thank you,” she said tersely She’d never been dependent on a man, even on Rowley, and she hating that she was dependent on this one who had done so much for her already.
He rode off the next morning, taking the other mount with him, and didn’t come back until evening, riding a shaggy black pony with six others like it on a leading rein behind him. “Mérens stock,” he said of them, “nothing stronger for mountain going.” He’d also bought sacks of oats for horse feed, two shapeless, heavy woolen smocks for Adelia and Boggart—“all I could find”—and some equally thick cloaks, as shaggy as the ponies, for all of them. “We’ll be needing these. It’s going to be cold.”
It was. During the day they were kept warm by their cloaks and the steam rising from their laboring ponies, but by evening it was near to freezing. At least they were at liberty now to build roaring fires at night, for there was nobody to see them.
Adelia had not believed that there could be such a vast stretch of uninhabited country. Occasionally, in the distance, they spotted a shepherd and heard the tiny wail of a flute as he piped to his flock, but that was all.
The landscape became dramatic, plunging into deserted, isolated valleys before rearing toward the sky in chaotic formations of crags that grew out of the close-fitting grass that covered them like the top of a man’s bald head emerging from a fringe of hair. There were tarns, still little lakes trapped in a mountain scoop that reflected clouds and sky and circling eagles.
There was no stopping, except to let the ponies graze, and no roads, though it seemed as if they followed some track that now and then revealed itself in worn, close-set stones, and Adelia wondered if some ancient people had built themselves a way that led to the coast.
They became hardened, surprisingly fit, even Ward. Rankin especially was a man reborn, whistling and singing songs from the Highlands of which this country reminded him. “It suits me well,” he’d say. “Ay, it suits me well. A drap of usqu
ebaugh and I’d call the king my uncle.”
“Some rotgut they drink in Scotland, so he says,” Ulf explained to Adelia. “Made from peat water, Gawd help us.”
Adelia’s worry was for Boggart who, when it was time to rest the ponies by dismounting and leading them, had developed the slight waddle of a woman in late pregnancy
The Irishman noticed it. “When’s the baby due?” he asked when the two of them were walking together alongside Ulf.
“I don’t know, she doesn’t know, either. Could be this month, could be next.” Adelia realized she’d lost track of time. “What’s the date?”
He pushed back his cap and ran his fingers through his hair, calculating. “Must be Saint Cecilia’s Day as near as dammit.”
Nearly the end of November. And going south, farther and farther away from Allie. She panicked: “Why can’t we use a decent, fast road? Why do we have to stick to these bloody mountains?”
He shrugged. “For one thing, your ladyship, there’s only one road round here and that leads to Toulouse, which, I may tell you, we’re bypassing because if Princess Joanna’s procession has left Figères, which it will have by now, that’s where it will be passing through and I’ve no wish to bump into it. For another, where we’re going is ín the mountains, and the track we’re on is as quick a way to get to it as any.”
“What does it matter if we bump into the others? Why can’t we rejoin the procession?”
“Acause,” Ulf intervened, patiently, “you got an enemy in the undergrowth and until he’s flushed out we ain’t taking no more risks, are we, Admiral?”
“He’s right, lady,” O’Donnell said. “There’s been too many nasty coincidences, so Master Ulf’s been telling me, and a good run is better than a bad stand, as my old granny used to say. In the name of God, what are you doing, woman ... ?”
Adelia had fallen over again. “Lying down with my face in the grass,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”
She saw a flash of his white teeth as he extended a hand to help her up, but suddenly she’d had enough. She was lost in this limbo on top of the world; they were all lost; they would wander it forever, die in it.
Hammering her fists on the ground, she gave way to a temper tantrum. “I don’t know where we are. I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t want to be here. I hate this bloody country it’s cruel and I hate it. I hate everything. I want my daughter, oh God, what am I doing in this place? I want to go home.”
It was Mansur who lifted her up and led her away He sat her on a rock, knelt down, wiping her face with his sleeve, and chastising her.
“You are rude to him. None of us want to be here, yet we are in the merciful hand of Allah who sent this man to us. Without him, we would have followed Ermengarde to the fire.”
She leaned forward so that she could bury her face in the rough, strong-smelling wool of his cloak. “I want to go home, Mansur.”
“I know.” He let her cry herself out, patting and soothing her like she patted and soothed Ward when he was frightened.
At last she raised her head. Over the Arab’s shoulder, she could see Rankin staring at the sky as if it was of absorbing interest. Deniz had taken feeding bags from the mule’s pack so that the ponies could have some oats. The O’Donnell was watching him, chewing on a piece of grass.
Boggart and Ulf were staring after her in alarm, and she thought how good they were; apart from Ulf’s lament for Excalibur, there’d been no whining from either of them. They made her ashamed.
Still sniveling she said: “I’m sorry.”
He patted her again. “If you break, we all break.”
Wearily, she kissed him and stood up. “I’m not broken, just a bit creased.”
She walked over to the O’Donnell. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”
He took the piece of grass out of his mouth. “I’ll get you home,” he said quietly “but first I fulfill my obligation to Henry and his daughter, for that’s my duty.”
“I understand.”
“Now here’s the plan. I lodge the five of you in this village I know whilst Deniz and I go on to Saint Gilles. My ships are there, but my captains’ll not sail without I tell them to.”
She nodded.
He went on: “If Joanna’s arrived, I launch her and her party off to Palermo. If she’s not there yet, I give my captains their sailing orders for when she does come. Either way, I’ll be back for you. How’ll that be?”
The sky was all at once brighter; somewhere a chaffinch was trilling as it did in England; the world had righted itself.
She smiled at him. “I am ashamed,” she said.
“No need.” Abruptly, he got up and went to help Deniz with the ponies.
“Ain’t he a marvel, missus?” Boggart whispered.
“Yes,” Adelia said, and meant it. Suddenly she grinned. “But if he mentions his old granny again I’m going to kill him.”
Eleven
THE CASTLE OF CARONNE gave the impression that a dragon had landed on a jagged mountaintop, had fancied its effect against the limitless sky, furled its wings, and turned to stone. Then, as if the dragon could afford it protection, a village had snuggled itself into the forest just below, forming a horseshoe of houses edged with fields so steep that the sheep and goats grazing on them appeared lopsided. At the very bottom was a little church.
Away in the long way distance but still visible were the Pyrenees, the snow-topped range of mountains over which lay Spain.
“That’s where we’re going?” Adelia asked the O’Donnell. “That castle?”
“That’s where we’re going. You’ll be safe there. Even Cathars are safe there.”
She nodded. A stronghold. But it had become embedded in her that Cathars were safe nowhere, and this prominence was visible for miles. She saw the all-encompassing eye of the Cathar-hating Church swiveling toward it, marking it, watching its victims as they crawled up to it—and wrinkling in a foreboding wink.
Perhaps it was strongly defended.
It didn’t help that they arrived at dawn, reminding the five ex-prisoners of their entry into Aveyron; the village’s cocks crowing, shutters opening, people calling to one another to come out and see.
But this time the calls turned to welcome. “Don Patricio. Look, it’s Don Patricio.” Children, shouting the name, ran ahead as the Irishman, waving to his admirers, led his little cavalcade up the main street, and up again over chasm-crossing bridges, through mossy, crumbling archways until they reached half-open doors and the dim interior of the castle’s hall.
“It’s Don Patricio. Don Patricio.”
In response to the children’s noise, a woman whose bare breasts were concealed only by her long and beautiful dark hair came out of an upper room to lean over a balcony and smile at the Irishman. “Is it you, Patrick? Where’s my silk?”
“Not this trip, my lady Where’s your husband?”
From the language both were using—an individualistic and just understandable version of Occitan—Adelia realized that they were amongst Catalans, who populated both sides of the Pyrenees as well as the mountains themselves. These were a people who regarded themselves as a separate nation from the French, Spanish, or Plantagenet kingdoms—disliking the French most of all.
“Dead last Michaelmas, alas,” the woman said.
Widowhood didn’t seem to be overburdening her with grief—a young man was emerging from the room behind her, hastily buttoning himself into a priest’s cassock.
O’Donnell called: “Come down, then, Fabrisse. I have some refugees for you.”
While she went back to fetch some covering, the priest sidled quickly down the stairs, his hand flicking embarrassed blessings toward the newcomers before he disappeared through the entrance.
The woman came down in a more leisurely fashion, making the most of it, her superb legs showing through the gap of the cloak she’d wrapped herself in.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Countess of Ca
ronne,” said O’Donnell.
“The Dowager Countess,” she corrected. “And any friends of Don Patricio’s are welcome here. You’ll forgive the count himself not making an appearance. At the moment he’s asleep in his cradle.”
She had a lovely, dangerous face; high cheekbones; dark, slanted, amused eyes that studied each of her ragged guests while the introductions were made, raising her eyebrows at the unprepossessing dog they had brought with them, taking in Boggart’s pregnancy with approval, dwelling particularly on Adelia.
“You have luggage?” she asked and was told they had not. “Then we must see what we can do in the way of clothes—they will have to be of hemp, unfortunately, this man”—she bared little white teeth at the Irishman in a snarl—“having neglected to bring what I ordered. But breakfast first.” She let out a screech. “Thomassia.”
There was an answering screech from somewhere to the left. “What?”
“Breakfast for seven, two of them to be taken up to the solar . . .” Her eyelashes fluttered at the O’Donnell. “. . . where you can tell me all about it.”
They’re lovers, Adelia thought, and felt a curious sense of relief, though she wasn’t sure why Adding the title of “philanderer” to the man’s many facets placed him for her; putting him in a category that was recognizable, an adventurer with, quite probably, a woman in every port—this sort of woman; lovely, careless with her favors.
I can be easy with him now.
Breakfast was generous; goat’s cheese, goat’s milk, ham, sausage, smoked trout, fresh bread fetched from the village with a strong olive oil to dip it into, herb-flavored wine, some preserved figs that had been picked from a tree that rambled around and into the kitchen’s window slit, all of it served by Thomassia, a stubby young woman, whose nonstop instructions in a Catalan patois made her sound bad-tempered but which, from the way in which she kept nudging her guests’ arms toward their wooden plates, seemed to be urges to keep them eating. Ward, a type of dog she’d not seen before-who had?—made her laugh and was thrown scraps until he could eat no more.