Vidal took a step forward. ‘Are you saying they’ve killed him?’
Bonal nodded.
‘How could they be so careless?’ He banged his fist on the wooden frame of the prie-dieu. ‘Where’s the body now?’
‘They await your orders.’ Bonal paused. ‘If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion, Monsignor?’
Vidal waved his hand. ‘Speak.’
‘Since it was fear that stopped his heart, we could return the corpse to the man’s workshop in the quartier Daurade and let it be discovered there. No one will know the Inquisition had any role in the matter.’
Vidal considered, then nodded. ‘A sound idea, Bonal. And set a watch on the premises to see who comes calling. There is a daughter who lives with him, I believe.’
‘There is.’
‘Don’t let her see you.’
Vidal fished a denier from inside his robes. Bonal was a rough man and occasionally over-stepped the mark, as he had with the landlady at the boarding house in Carcassonne. But he was cunning, entirely without conscience and knew how to hold his tongue.
‘This also came for you, Monsignor.’
Vidal took the letter, slid his finger beneath the crease and cracked the wax.
‘When was this delivered?’
‘An urchin brought it to the chapter house earlier today.’
Vidal read the note, then his fist curled around the paper, crushing the words into a ball. His fingers began to drum on the wooden back of the chair, faster and faster.
‘Find the boy,’ he said. ‘I would know how he came by this.’
Piet leant back against the sill. ‘If you wish to be in faubourg Saint-Michel when the cortège moves off, you should leave. Time is passing.’
McCone stood up. ‘I pray there will be no trouble.’
‘You think there might?’
‘There have been threats. The dead woman’s family – staunch Catholics – have issued several ultimatums. First, when they knew she was dying, they sent a priest to the house to administer extreme unction. He was refused entry. When she died, they attempted to persuade the husband to hand her body over so she could have, as they put it, a Christian burial!’
‘I heard something of this. Did they not petition Parliament on the matter?’
‘Yes. Their petition was rejected. The judges – Catholic to a man, of course – expressed their sympathy, but admitted they had no power to prevent a husband burying his wife in the manner he saw fit, provided it complied with the laws of the city.’
‘And he has made certain of that?’
‘He has,’ McCone said. ‘He has magistrates and attorneys of his acquaintance to call upon for advice.’
‘Well, then, I cannot see what more they can do. Besides, the widower is a man of influence and wealth. I do not think that the family would risk offending him further, especially since the Court already ruled against them.’
‘I hope you’re right. The worst of it is that she would dislike all the fuss. She was devout and humble in her ways, a true gentlewoman.’ McCone took up his hat. ‘Are you coming?’
Since he had not known the lady in question or her husband, Piet felt under no personal obligation. He had to check the weekly accounts books at the almshouse, then he intended to seek out the tailor he had paid to copy the Shroud in his workshop.
‘I will join you at the temple later, after the funeral,’ he said.
‘Very well. I will look out for you there.’ McCone walked to the door. ‘But Piet, if you do venture out, you might want to do something about . . .’ He tapped his head. ‘With hair that colour, you could be a cousin of our Queen Bess.’
Piet looked down at his hands, and saw his fingers were dusty with charcoal. His natural red was showing through, in his beard also. He laughed.
‘Do we not live in strange times, McCone, when a man cannot walk in the world looking as God made him?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LA CITÉ
‘When will Minou come home?’ Alis said, for the tenth time that day, before being overtaken by another bout of coughing.
‘Hush, child.’ Madame Noubel was holding a dish of hot water with thyme beneath the little girl’s chin. She was worried. Alis’s skin had taken on the pallor of chalk and dark shadows smudged beneath her eyes.
‘I miss her. And Papa.’
‘As do I.’
‘Will she be back by Ascension Day?’
‘Minou will come home as soon as she can.’
‘But she promised I could sit vigil with her in the cathedral. That I could stay up all night long, now I am old enough.’
‘If she is not back by then, I will take you.’
‘I want Minou to take me,’ Alis whispered, folding back into herself.
‘April will soon be over, then it will be May. The time will go faster than you think. Imagine all the things you’ll have to tell Minou when she does come home. And your father, too. Won’t they find you quite grown up, taller by this far at least?’ She marked the air with her hand and was rewarded with a smile. ‘I warrant we should expect another letter soon. Telling us all about her elegant life in Toulouse.’
‘Will she take me back with her?’
‘We’ll see.’ Madame Noubel smiled. ‘Does she not love you most of her sisters?’
‘I am her only sister.’ Alis gave her usual answer, but Madame Noubel could hear her heart wasn’t in it.
The little girl’s eyes started to close. The tabby kitten, brought from the Bastide as a companion for Alis, jumped up onto the chair. For once, Madame Noubel did not shoo it away.
Alis had barely slept last evening, the repeated bouts of coughing serious enough for Madame Noubel to consider sending word to Minou. She did not want to worry her without due cause and knew Aimeric had need of Minou’s presence in Toulouse as much as Alis felt the lack of it in Carcassonne. All the same, she would not forgive herself if the child—
She pushed the thought aside. Alis wasn’t going to die. It was her melancholy, the absence of her family, that ailed her. Every day the weather grew milder. With the spring, Alis would improve.
Madame Noubel looked around the kitchen: at Bernard’s empty chair; at Aimeric’s catapult and Minou’s book, all tidied away; and wondered if it might be better to take Alis to her own house after all. Here, she felt the absence of her family keenly. Perhaps in the Bastide she would be less downcast.
Rixende came into the kitchen, untying her apron. ‘Is there anything more you would like me to do before I go, Madame? Anything for the little one?’
Madame Noubel shook her head. ‘She will be better now the coughing has stopped,’ she said. ‘She misses her sister.’
‘Mademoiselle Minou is like a mother to her,’ Rixende said, hanging her apron on the back of the door. ‘Is there any word of when the master might return?’
‘It is no bus—’ Madame Noubel snapped, then pulled herself up. ‘If Monsieur Joubert has not returned by the tenth of the month, Rixende, I will settle what you are owed. Do not worry on that account.’
Rixende sighed. ‘Thank you, Madame. I would not ask, but my family relies on me and—’
‘What you are owed, you will have.’
Madame Noubel sat as the sunlight filled the yard at the back of the house and decided she would hold off writing to Minou, at least until she had received word from Bernard. He had been gone a fortnight. Had he even yet arrived in Puivert? His poor health and perhaps inclement weather in the mountains would make it slow going. She wondered if there was anyone left in the village who would remember them.
Alis had fallen asleep. Madame Noubel stroked her hair, relieved the colour was coming back to her cheeks, and softly sang the old lullaby to the troubled child.
‘Bona nuèit, bona nuèit . . .
Braves amics, pica mièja-nuèit
Cal finir velhada.’
PUIVERT
‘Hie, hie.’
Bernard Joubert clicked his tongue and his
old dun mare, Canigou, lumbered over the ditch and on. Bernard’s clothes and saddlebags were filthy and the white socks above his horse’s hooves were hidden beneath layers of mud. The painful sores on his legs – a consequence of his imprisonment in January – were being rubbed raw again by the motion of the saddle as the ground rose and fell.
They had left Chalabre at first light, on the last leg of his pilgrimage. For once, the weather was with them. At the many crossroads, informal shrines had sprung up. Posies of pink harebells and blue forget-me-nots lay wrapped in bright ribbon; everywhere he could see crosses of twisted straw for Palm Sunday, scribbled prayers in the old language. The ancient woodlands were a meld of green and silver and, all around, the sound of birdsong.
Since leaving Carcassonne, man and beast had journeyed some fifteen leagues, keeping the snow-topped peaks of the Pyrenees ahead of them in the distance as they rode south. They had battled rain and sleet, flooded fords on the Aude and the Blau, and endured the fierce Tramontana wind. Often they found the roads near impassable in places and, elsewhere, cracked and furrowed by the winter wheels of carts and ox drays. Near Limoux, Canigou had gone lame and Bernard had lost a week waiting for her fetlock to heal.
There was also a watchful atmosphere wherever he stopped for the night. Narrowed eyes, suspicious glances. Strangers were not welcome. It had been a hard and long winter, one of the worst in living memory. Food was scarce and tempers short. Bernard had several times seen envious eyes watching as he drew a coin from his purse.
But, there was something more. The smell of fear. Rumours of the massacre of the Huguenots in Vassy had reached even these isolated villages of the Haute Vallée. The threat of being denounced terrified everyone; a man could be strung up for uttering the wrong prayer, kneeling at the wrong altar. Best to keep one’s opinions to oneself and hope the trouble would pass them by.
The last time Bernard had travelled this way, nearly twenty years ago, the land had been frozen under a blanket of December snow. He had ridden his young mare hard then, terror keeping him and their precious cargo travelling through the dark, wintry night.
Joubert pulled Canigou to a halt, surprised to find his eyes pooling with tears for his beloved, lost wife. If only she had not been taken from him. Florence had always known what to do for the best.
‘Pas a pas,’ he murmured in Occitan to the old mare, pressing his aching legs into Canigou’s soft belly. ‘Not much longer now, girl.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
TOULOUSE
Minou looked down from the balcony onto a sea of hats and white starched ruffs.
She recognised the old gentleman who owned the bookshop in rue des Pénitents Gris – his long, trimmed grey beard hung low below his corpulent chin and jabbed at his doublet as he spoke – but mostly it was a female crowd. All lavishly overdressed in pinks and red, yellow and cerise, stiff-backed collars, embroidered bodices and velvet-trimmed hoods, like gaudy flowers in a garden bed. Some wore ornate books of hours tied to their belts, or showy rosaries of agate, coral or silver. Minou’s hand went to her own waist, where she had fastened her mother’s simple chaplet, and felt the better for being more plainly attired.
She scanned the faces in case Madame Montfort had had a change of heart, but there was no sign of Aimeric. Part of her was relieved. He disliked Toulouse and the petty, often arbitrary, restrictions placed upon him. He was frequently chastised for some transgression or another, last evening’s misdemeanour being just one in a long line of troubles.
‘There is so much at stake, Aimeric,’ she had counselled as they sat in the courtyard a few days earlier. ‘Our situation is precarious. I beg you, try to make yourself agreeable.’
‘I do try,’ he said, poking the ground with a stick. ‘It would have been better if you were the boy. Everyone likes you well, except for Madame Montfort, and she hates everyone, save for Uncle’s steward. She likes him. They are always in a huddle together.’
Minou was momentarily diverted. ‘Are they?’
‘Always. I saw them leaving the house together after dark, but two nights ago. Martineau was carrying a big, heavy bag. When he came back, it was empty.’
‘Aimeric, really. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Where would they be going together, and at that time of night?’
‘I’m only saying what I saw.’ He shrugged. ‘I hate it here. I miss Father. I miss teasing Marie. I even miss Alis, though she is annoying.’ He sighed. ‘I want to go home.’
Minou’s heart ached for him – he was a boy who belonged out of doors, in the fields or the open spaces on the river bank, not cooped up in a town, but there was nothing to be done. For the sake of all of their futures, he had to make the best of things in Toulouse.
All the same, she vowed to confront Madame Montfort when they returned from the procession and insist that she treat Aimeric with a lighter hand.
Finally, Minou caught sight of her aunt, standing close to the wide gates that gave onto rue du Taur. She held a large open fan of feathers, though the temperature hardly merited it, and had chosen a high-backed collar, a little too tall for her neck, and crimson balloon sleeves slashed with blue to match her skirts. Her book of hours and rosary, too heavy for her belt, dragged her silhouette out of shape.
Minou felt a rush of affection. Plucked from friends and family in the modest Saint-Michel quarter, thrust into the higher echelons of Toulouse society, her aunt’s open manner and informal nature set her at odds with most of the bourgeois wives. They looked down on her, and Minou could see how keenly she felt it.
Minou hurried down the stairs and slipped through the sea of people to join her. ‘Good morrow, Aunt. You have quite a crowd.’
‘Niece,’ she said warmly. ‘Oh, they are not all attending our little procession. My husband and his colleagues have an important meeting, but he was eager to walk a little of the way with me. He knows how dear I hold this feast day of St Salvador. And what a beautiful day, we are so blessed.’
‘You look quite the equal of the morning, Aunt. What a fine dress, I have never seen so beautiful a colour. And thank you, too, for the generous loan of this gown. It was kind of you.’
‘Well, I must own, it was my sister-in-law’s idea, but it does look well on you. I would that I had your figure, but alas I have always been of less than average height.’
As the bells of Saint-Taur chimed the quarter hour, her aunt glanced anxiously to the door. ‘No doubt Monsieur Boussay will be here presently. Two gentlemen from the Parliament came at first light. Inconsiderate, I call it, but they are colleagues of my husband and if he chooses to admit them at so ungodly an hour, then I would not go against his wishes. He works so very hard. So much rests upon his shoulders.’
‘I know he is much relied upon.’
‘Indeed so, Minou, you are so right. One of his visitors is Monsieur Delpech, a leading man of business – the wealthiest in Toulouse, some say. He is expected to be elected capitoul any day now and, though I should not say, my husband hopes some advancement might come from it. And the young priest from the cathedral. What is his name? Would that my memory was better. Such a promising man, he benefits greatly from my husband’s patronage. No more than seven-and-twenty, but Monsieur Boussay has high hopes of him. Perhaps even a future Bishop of Toulouse, though his father was much disgraced during that conspiracy when—’ She broke off. ‘Valentin, that was it. An odd name for a priest, though I suppose they must all be named for one saint or another . . . don’t you think? What was I saying?’
‘That his father had been disgraced,’ Minou said.
‘Indeed, more than disgraced. Executed, though I can’t remember why. Ah well, it is all in the past now . . .’
Her eyes slipped away to the door once more as her voice faded.
‘I am sure my uncle will be here at any moment.’ Minou smiled. ‘The stitching on your cloak is so fine. Quite unlike anything I have seen before. Was it made in Toulouse?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Madame B
oussay immediately launched into a long and complicated tale of how the pattern had been copied from a garment said to be much in favour with Princess Marguerite herself, the King’s sister. ‘So, then I said how much I would like . . .’
Though Minou appeared to be listening, her thoughts were free. On the highest balcony, a pair of collared doves called to one another, then took flight. As she watched them spinning up into the patch of blue sky, Minou felt a moment of acute sympathy with Aimeric, remembering the liberty of her daily walks to and from the Bastide, remembering what it was to live unobserved.
‘It is very fortunate to have someone so close at hand. Her father’s workshop is in the quartier Daurade and, though they are Huguenots, she is more skilled with a needle than any Catholic seamstress I’ve found.’
‘Quite,’ Minou murmured.
As her aunt’s words continued to ebb and flow, Minou hoped Aimeric would find something to occupy him in his chamber. Madame Montfort was sure to have locked him in and, since the household keys were kept always at her waist, Minou feared her brother was in for a long afternoon. Her thoughts slipped to her sister in Carcassonne. She hoped her father was giving Alis the liquorice root to soothe her throat and had remembered to cut back the dead wood from the rambling wild rose above the door to let the new growth flourish.
Her aunt’s voice drew Minou back.
‘Though there are many skilled seamstresses and tailors in this part of the city, too. Indeed, that is one of the reasons my husband chose to build our house here. He always puts me first.’ Her aunt lowered her voice. ‘Mind you, he might have thought twice had we known a Protestant maison de charité would be set up on our doorstep in rue du Périgord. It’s a scandal. Such people milling about the streets, filthy, begging. They should all be sent back to where they came from.’
‘Maybe they have nowhere else to go,’ Minou murmured, wondering if her aunt actually thought this or if she was simply repeating things her husband had said.