Grandmother Blanche is asleep downstairs.
She’s sitting in the big, carved chair that she brought from Laurac, her head thrown back and her mouth wide open. She’d look dead if it wasn’t for the snoring.
She has a snore like an armoured corpse being dragged across dry cobblestones.
‘Babylonne? Is that you?’
Curse it. Those are Aunt Navarre’s feet, up there at the top of the ladder. She’s coming down from the loft— and I’ll never make it to my bed in time.
I’ll have to slip the egg into Gran’s bed. There. Like that.
Not a moment too soon.
‘Babylonne! Where have you been?’ Aunt Navarre is in a foul mood. (As usual.) Her back must be bothering her again. ‘You’re late!’ she spits. ‘What have you been doing? Idling? Gawking?’
‘No—’
‘Don’t lie to me!’
‘I’m not.’ Quick, Babylonne. Think. Think. ‘I’m late because a friar was preaching near the Croix Baragnon, and the crowd was so great that it blocked the street, and I had to go around.’
‘Around? Around what? It wouldn’t have taken you that long to come through Rouaix Square.’
‘No, no, I went further than that. I took the Street of Joutx-Aiques, and went past La Daurade. I had to, because the friar was talking in such a loud voice that I thought I might hear some pestiferous lies of the Roman Church if I went through Rouaix Square.’
‘Hmmph.’ She’s suspicious, but she can’t catch me out. So she raises her voice above Gran’s snores, and asks about the money.
‘Here. It’s here.’ When I pull the money out of the purse at my waist, she snatches it from me.
‘There wasn’t any trouble?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘And he gave you no more wool?’
‘He says he’ll have some on Friday. He says he’ll pay the same price if we can have it spun by this time next week.’
Aunt Navarre sniffs. She goes to the big metal-bound chest in the corner, and opens it with the key that she always carries on her belt. She’s so jealous of that key. So jealous of that chest. If you even sit on it, she’ll lay into you with an iron pot.
I suppose it’s her last link with the old life. The only thing that she saved from the Ancestral Home at Laurac, apart from Gran’s chair. Personally, I was glad to turn my back on Laurac. I didn’t want to spend my life mouldering away in that little cow-stall of a town. I’m glad we had to leave—even though the French did force us out. I can’t believe I survived seven long years in Laurac.
Toulouse is my spiritual home. I might not have been born here, but I belong here. Toulouse has twenty thousand people in it. Twenty thousand people! It’s busy and it’s bright and it’s also very brave. It won’t bend its knee to the French King. Not now. Not ever. Toulouse will never belong to France.
‘Where is everyone?’ This place seems so empty. ‘Where’s Sybille?’
‘Sybille and Berthe have gone to fetch water,’ Navarre replies. ‘Dulcie’s upstairs. And it’s almost time to eat, so you’d better start soaking your grandmother’s bread.’
‘What are we having?’
‘What do you think?’ A sharp retort, like a trap springing shut. ‘It’s a fast day, remember?’
Ugh. Fast days. How I hate them. But it could be worse. It could be Dulcie’s turn to cook. Dulcie’s idea of cooking is to assault the nearest turnip with a big stick and a jug of boiling water. I suppose, since she spends so much time mortifying her own flesh, she believes that we should all be mortifying ours as well.
I’m beginning to wonder if she really did leave her husband. If you ask me, it’s more likely that her husband left her—because he couldn’t bear to eat another glutinous lump of mysterious grey stuff.
Oops! And here she is in person. Dulcie Faure. Climbing down from the loft with a smug expression on her long ferret’s face. Sure enough, she’s moving stiffly. Like someone who’s just given herself a brisk beating with a willow switch.
I’d punch her in the nose, except that she’d probably enjoy it. She’d raise her pop-eyes to Heaven and offer up her suffering to the Lord. I always thought that Aunt Navarre was pious, but since Dulcie arrived I’ve been forced to reconsider. I don’t think even Navarre ever slept with her head on a river rock.
‘Wake up, Mother.’ Navarre gently prods Gran’s chest. ‘It’s time to eat.’
‘I’ll join you at the table,’ Dulcie announces, as if she’s bestowing on us all a gift without price, ‘though I won’t eat. Not today.’
‘You must eat something,’ Navarre frowns. ‘If you don’t, you’ll make yourself ill.’
‘It is in Christ’s hands,’ Dulcie simpers. I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking about the endura. If you’re a really pious Good Christian, and you starve yourself to death, you won’t return to this vale of tears in another form. You’ll be whisked straight up to Heaven.
I’ve always wondered if Dulcie might starve herself to death one day. Why not, after all? She has a head start on the rest of us, because she obviously doesn’t like food. You can tell by her cooking.
‘There you are at last!’ Navarre isn’t speaking to Dulcie. She’s speaking to Sybille and Berthe, who just stumbled through the front door. ‘What took you so long?’
Berthe is crying. She’s always crying. (You tend to cry a lot, when you’re eight years old.) Her face is wet and so are her skirts. Sybille’s looking pretty damp, too. They seem to have brought most of the water back on their clothes.
Sure enough, their bucket’s half empty.
‘What happened to all the water?’ Navarre snaps, and the words tumble from Sybille’s rosebud mouth.
‘A man came near!’ she stammers. ‘He—he jostled us! He pinched my bottom!’ (What? I don’t believe it. How could you pinch Sybille’s bottom? She doesn’t have any bottom. You don’t, when you’re twelve.) ‘He asked me to come and share his cheese,’ Sybille continues. ‘When— when I said no—when I said that eating cheese would be wrong—’
‘He called us heretics!’ Berthe wails. ‘He threw a stone at us!’
Sighs and grunts. Navarre purses her lips and shakes her head. Dulcie says, ‘God forgive the wicked.’
Gran farts.
‘This would never have happened in Laurac or Castelnaudary,’ Navarre growls. (Here we go again. In Laurac the people had proper respect for us ...) ‘In Laurac the people had proper respect for us. They were all believers—they revered Good Christians like us. There are too many Roman priests in Toulouse. Too many followers of the Devil. This place is a sink of corruption.’
‘Why did you say that eating cheese is wrong?’ You brainless bean-pole! I can’t believe that even Sybille could be so stupid. ‘You shouldn’t go around saying that. Not in public.’
Sybille scowls at me. Even when she’s scowling, she takes care not to screw up her pretty face too much. Just in case she gets wrinkles.
‘Why shouldn’t I say it?’ she demands. ‘Eating cheese is wrong. Because it’s a product of fornication.’
God give me patience. But Dulcie beams at Sybille in that patronising way she has.
‘You are right, Sybille,’ says Dulcie. ‘You are a good witness to the true faith.’
‘You can be a good witness to the true faith without being stupid!’ (I mean, where have you people been for the last year?) ‘Toulouse isn’t like Laurac. There are Dominican friars living down the road. We have to be more careful.’
‘I am not stupid!’ Sybille’s face has gone red. ‘What else should I have said? That cheese is my favourite food?’
‘Well, yes.’ That would have been a good start. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it would have been a lie,’ Dulcie points out. ‘And we don’t tell lies. You should know that by now, Babylonne.’
‘Well, fine.’ I have to steady Gran’s arm as she shuffles over to the table, or she’ll fall—corns over crown— and end up with her nose spread across her face like a rotten pear. ‘Then what about saying, “I don’t want to share a cheese with someone who smells worse than his cheese does”? That would have been the truth, wouldn’t it?’
‘Why should I say any such thing?’ Sybille is looking to Dulcie for support. ‘I’m not ashamed of being a Good Christian. Maybe you are, Babylonne! Maybe you would have gone with him because he had a cheese!’
Maybe I would, at that. But I’m not going to tell her so. ‘Listen.’ (Peabrain.) ‘The point I’m making is that we shouldn’t go looking for trouble. Lady Navarre is right. There are too many worshippers of Rome in this city. As long as we keep our heads down, they won’t pay us any mind, but you know what can happen. We all know what can happen. It happened to my mother, remember?’
Dulcie opens her mouth. Before she can comment, however, Arnaude bustles through the front door. She’s squat and broad and purple-faced, like a turnip with legs.
‘You’re late,’ says Navarre. ‘How’s Lombarda?’
‘Not good,’ Arnaude replies. ‘Very ill.’
Ah! So that’s where Arnaude has been—comforting Lombarda de Rouaix. Now that we’re in exile again, and living on the charity of Alamain de Rouaix, we have to be extra nice to his poor, sick wife. If we’re not, he might throw our little convent out of this miserable house. And stick someone in it who can actually pay him rent.
Arnaude fusses around, putting things away. ‘They’ve summoned two of the Good Men, in case she dies . . .’
All at once, Gran thumps the table-top. She wants to eat. Now.
‘We can discuss the Good Men later,’ Navarre declares, and fixes me with an eye like a spear-head.
Oh. Right. Is it my turn again?
‘Uh—um—’ Where’s the bread? There it is. I nearly drop it as I present it to Navarre with a bow. ‘Tell me if this is acceptable to you.’
‘May God inform you if it is acceptable to Him,’ Navarre intones.
‘Bless us.’ Another bow.
‘May the Lord bless you,’ Navarre replies, without really meaning it. (If God ever blessed me, Navarre would give Him what for.)
‘Bless and have mercy upon us. The meal is ready. You may go to the table when it is acceptable to God and to yourself.’
‘May God reward you well,’ Navarre chants, and turns to the others. They’re all standing in their places, by now—except for Gran, who’s sitting, because Grandmother Blanche stands for no one. ‘Bless and have mercy upon us, my sisters.’
‘May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit indulge us and have mercy on all our sins,’ everyone replies (except Gran, who’s peering around for her bowl of mushy bread).
‘Let us adore the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,’ Navarre goes on, absent-mindedly reaching for the jug of water.
‘He is worthy and just.’
‘Let us adore the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
‘He is worthy and just. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name ...’
And so on, and so on. Yawn. Just another fourteen paternosters to go. You could drop dead of starvation with the bread sitting right in front of you. Gran’s beginning to drool. Arnaude’s desperate to tell us about the Good Men; you can tell by the way she keeps rocking from foot to foot, like someone who’s bladder’s about to burst. Dulcie’s clasping her hands together, her pale face raised to the ceiling, her eyes firmly closed.
Navarre’s serving out the portions. She always does. And I always end up with the smallest piece of bread.
‘. . . and-lead-us-not-into-temptation-but-deliver-us-from-evil-amen,’ she babbles. ‘Let us adore the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
‘He is worthy and just.’
‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be always with us all.’
‘Amen.’
‘Bless us, have mercy upon us. Be seated, my sisters. Babylonne, you can feed the Lady Blanche, today.’
Sybille smirks. Everyone’s had to wait and wait and now I won’t be able to eat until Gran’s finished her meal. No wonder Sybille’s looking pleased.
I wish her mother would die. Then maybe her father might change his mind about dumping her here with us, and summon her back to his castle to look after him, and we wouldn’t have to put up with her forked tongue any more.
‘So tell us about the Good Men,’ Navarre says to Arnaude, munching on a mouthful of dry bread. ‘When did they arrive?’
‘This morning,’ answers Arnaude. ‘They stopped at Laurac on their way up from Montsegur, but Bernard Oth threw them out.’
‘Ah!’ Dulcie presses a pale hand to her breast. ‘How could Lord Bernard imperil his immortal soul like that?’
What a stupid question. Why else would you imperil your immortal soul, unless it’s to save your mortal skin? Cousin Bernard is a coward. No more and no less. He was afraid of the French King’s army when it came down into Languedoc last year, so he made his submission. And now he’s persecuting the Good Christians because that’s what the King of France wants him to do.
Why else would he have told his own grandmother to get out of Laurac?
‘If I were my sister,’ says Aunt Navarre, ‘I would be ashamed of having a son like Bernard.’
Suddenly Gran stirs. The hairs on her chin tremble, her toothless mouth opens, and bits of soggy bread spray across the table-top.
‘Bernard is his father all over again,’ she croaks. ‘Guillaume was a Roman, so Bernard is a Roman at heart.’
‘That’s true.’ Navarre wouldn’t disagree with her mother if Gran said that the King of France was a giant toenail. ‘Not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but Guillaume probably came back to earth as a dung-worm in a cesspit.’
There she goes again. Navarre never has a good word to say about anyone. Personally, I always admired my Uncle Guillaume. He might have believed all those Roman lies, but he never betrayed the Count of Toulouse. Not like his son Bernard.
Uncle Guillaume set his face against the French and fought them until the day he died.
‘I blame Bernard’s wife,’ Navarre continues. ‘She’s a Roman. She’s poisoned his mind.’
‘I thought you said that they loathed each other?’ (Have I missed something here?) ‘Last week you said that they weren’t speaking to each other. How can she have poisoned his mind, if they haven’t been speaking to each other?’
Aunt Navarre frowns and colours. She hates to be caught out. Berthe goggles, and Dulcie pretends not to hear.
Gran coughs.
‘Bastards should always keep their mouths shut at the table,’ she creaks.
Dead silence. I’m not going to blush. I am not going to blush. I’m going to quietly, calmly, and very, very gently push this battered metal spoon right down the old bitch’s throat, if she talks to me like that again!
No, I’m not. I’m going to swallow the insult, as usual. What else can I do?
Sybille is smiling. Arnaude has her head down. Navarre says, ‘Yes, hold your tongue, Babylonne, you let it wag too much. Now what other news from the Good Men, Arnaude? Tell us more.’
Everyone leans forward (except Gran). Arnaude raises her head. She seems embarrassed to be the subject of such intense scrutiny.
‘They had a hard time crossing from Montsegur, because Lord Humbert de Beaujeu is laying waste to the lands south of here,’ she replies. ‘He’s pulling up vines and burning houses . . . they had to hide in a cave near Pamiers for three days. No one would take them in, for fear of Lord Humbert.’
‘Who is Lord Humbert?’ asks Sybille, puckering her seamless brow.
‘You know.’ Arnaude speaks patiently. ‘Remember we talked about this? Lord Humbert is a vassal of the King of France. He was left here with five hundred knights to make trouble after the King went back to France last year. He’s been pestering all our lords who are still faithful to the Count of Toulouse.’
‘Did the Good Men have no protectors on their journey?’ Dulcie inquires, as Gran slowly rises. She doesn’t want any more bread. After dishing out all those vigorous insults, she needs another nap.
At last I can eat my own dinner.
‘Two knights were with them for part of the way, in case they ran into the French, but left them near Castelnaudary,’ says Arnaude, and Dulcie clicks her tongue.
‘They should not have left the Good Men.’ Dulcie’s tone is very solemn. ‘God will punish them for that.’
And suddenly there’s a squawk. A squawk from behind us.
Oh no.
Catastrophe.
Grandmother Blanche has sat on my egg.